Trick or Treat!

This is the first year that G and R really were excited for Halloween and kinda understood the concept.  They loved it!  We had such a fun day - we went to Trick or Treat Street at the Children's Museum, met Coleton for lunch, took long naps, and went trick or treating.  Gracie and Ryker were such troopers!  They walked for well over an hour, well, mostly ran.  Gracie even began picking out which houses we would go to next.  They're already plotting for next Halloween . . .

Friends!

We have any number of kiddos at our house during the week. Sometimes we have one friend over to play and sometimes we have 4! Oh yeah, that's cuz I do childcare. But we still have fun! Here's a few shots. Unfortunately, it's so crazy most of the time that I don't have time to think of picking up the camera.

"Itsy Bitsy Spider" Dance

Gracie had so much fun at this birthday party!  She learned a dance to a fun version of the "Itsy Bitsy Spider."  We came home and practiced all day and then recorded.  Of course.

Gracie's First Day of Preschool

With much anticipation and excitement, Gracie attended her first day of preschool!  We had talked about it a lot and Gracie was so excited!  I was a little nervous for how I would handle it, however.  The day was a little crazy with two toddler boys, an infant, and Gracie to get ready.  I'm really glad now that she goes to the afternoon session, so I had a few hours to prepare.  Luckily, Coleton also came home so that he could be with us for the first day of drop off.  She looked so pretty in her little white dress and so grown up with her backpack.  I think she was a little nervous because she didn't talk much, but as she sat in the back of the Expedition she had a little grin on her face.  

Gracie walked in her classroom very confidently.  She was looking around her classroom and seemed very at ease.  Coleton and I hugged and kissed her goodbye.  No tears.  I knew then that she was ready for this.  I was so proud of her.  As we got in the car Ryker cried.  He wanted to stay at peeschool with his sister.

When we got home, Coleton went back to work, Caleb was asleep, and Ryker and Lincoln had some lunch.  It just seemed like such a calm afternoon.  I missed my little G, though.  She's always close by and talking to me about something.  Her presence in a room is usually pretty strong.  :)  She's definitely a part of who I now am.  A little piece of my heart stays at preschool with my little Gracie girl.

She gave me a shy smile when I picked her up on her first day.  Her teachers said she did great and were already calling her Gracie girl.  Her daily sheet was check-marked that her mood was happy, helpful, talkative, and playful.  She didn't want to talk about her day too much so I'm very glad they'll be sending home the daily report sheets.  

Gracie's such a spirited little girl.  I love her so much and I hope she knows that every single day.

My little boy

Ryker has grown up so much this summer.  Sadly, he is more like a toddler or little boy than my baby boy.  It's so fun to watch him grow up, but it makes me really sad sometimes.  At his one-year check-up for the surgery on his head, he was amazing me with his maturity.  I don't get to spend much one-on-one time with him and on this day I just really realized how much he's growing up.  As we were sitting there waiting for the neurosurgeon and plastic surgeon to see us, he was having a conversation with me about things around the room.  He is talking so well.  As I sit and talk to him I can see the wheels turning in his head as he is forming a thought and working into words.  Ryker really wants to communicate what he is thinking.

(By the way, this was the most useless appointment I've ever been to.  We will not be going back next year, even though they said they would like to see us again in a year.  They just stood there and looked at us.  Then they asked me what I thought.  Well, I think his head looks really good, but I'm not a doctor who has performed this surgery many times.  I guess I was hoping for a little bit more of a medical examination of Ryker's head.  Another tidbit of information that I found out is that Colorado is the state with the highest incidence of prefusion of the skull.  Weird.  Ok, enough of my tangent.)

Ryker is having a great time being a wild, play in the dirt little boy.  He has a couple of friends around his age and, of course, his sister to play with so he is very busy.  He misses his sister when she goes to preschool.  He cried on the first day when we dropped her off.  Ryker is very attached to his lovey and his roro(pacifier).  He might still have his roro in college because I'm really not tough enough to take it away.  We read the same books over and over before bedtime and he falls asleep holding one of his truck books.

I feel so blessed to have such a sweet-spirited little boy.  He is a gift, a very special gift.

So many Gracie stories . . .

Some recent quotes from a little girl who's getting way too smart for her mommy and daddy's future sanity.

Gracie:  "Mommy, I love you so much.  I love you so much you shouldn't put me in timeout.  Come here so I can hug you."

Gracie:  "Mommy, I have an owie in my mouth."

M:  "Let me see."  Checking the roof of her mouth.  "Remember you ate fruit loops for breakfast?  Well, sometimes fruit loops give us owies in the top of our mouth.  If it hurts too much, we won't eat them anymore."

Gracie:  Crying.  "Why did this have to happen to me?!?"

Gracie:  "Since I'm so pretty I don't need to wash my hands."

Gracie:  After sitting cross-legged in her carseat, "Mommy, I have sprinkles in my toes and I don't like it.  I always get sprinkles in my toes."

Gracie:  After having a discussion with Mommy and Daddy about why biting is a very bad thing.  "Mom, I'm over it.  I'm just over it."

Gracie:  Ryker fell down and got hurt.  "Karma, Ryker."  I tell her that when her or Ryker get hurt immediately after they hurt someone else or say something sassy it's karma.  Apparently she's been picking up on that.

Gracie:  "Mommy, that house has a big key on it.  I want a big key on our house."  Referring to Key Bank.

It's been a while since I've updated, but if you need to know what's going on with our family, you can just listen to Gracie talking on her pretend phones. She has had conversations about "the tire that blew out on our exedition on I-25" and she's called looking "for a third row seat for our exedition." She is so quick to pick up on anything that is going on around her, especially emotions. Luckily the tire issue was quickly resolved, thanks to Coleton. And because I'm babysitting three kids on and off right now, we are in desperate need of a third row seat.

Because of Gracie's keen observations, I decided it would be best for her not to be in the room for my annual gyn. appt. I begged the nurse to take Gracie, Ryker, and Erika out of the room and, luckily, she was very sweet and helped me. (It truly is a miracle if you had seen how naughty they had behaved in the waiting room.) Can you imagine the stories and imitating Gracie would be doing?!? Even if she had stood at my head (which I considered for only a brief moment) she would have had lots and lots of questions.

Our summer is just flying by! We're having so much fun playing at parks and going swimming. Ryker is really getting so comfortable in the water. He jumps in and goes underwater with absolutely no fear! He also lays back to float on his back with complete trust. Gracie is another story. She is fearful and we are working on getting her more comfortable in the water. She used to be more like Ryker, but, obviously we haven't kept her in the water enough lately. So that's something Coleton and I really want to work on. We're looking for a recreation center that we would enjoy taking the kids swimming in and with a good workout room for this winter.

Gracie is about to start a big adventure in a couple weeks - preschool! She's super excited and I hope she really enjoys it. She'll only be going two afternoons/week, which I think will be perfect for now. We've gone to a nature center where they teach toddlers and then take them on a trail outside to observe and apply the lesson they've just learned. Gracie was such an obedient, observant student. She sat up so straight and just listened in complete awe. She raised her hand and volunteered. If only her entire school career could be this easy . . . Ryker followed her lead and actually listened quite well also. He sat as still as a 2-year-old can right next to his sister.

Two words that are used a lot in Gracie's vocabulary are well . . . and actually . . . She is quite dramatic and loves to tell stories. Ryker's vocabulary is really expanding and he is putting 3 and 4-word sentences together. Mostly, he yells what he wants to say. We're working on that.