VBS is Over!!!

Last week was a LONG week. We had VBS Monday through Friday from 5:30 to 8:45. Normally I work Monday and Tuesday, but last week I filled in at a retail pharmacy on Thursday, Friday, and half a day Saturday. As soon as I got home I changed clothes, got Gracen ready and went to Bible School then came home and went to bed. Whew, that takes quite a tole. Gigi came to the rescue. My Mom came Wednesday night and kept Gracen for me Thursday thru Saturday. That was SO nice! I hate leaving Gracen, but it was much easier to leave her with my mom. I know they both had a great time.

Bible school is always so tiring but 10x as rewarding. I helped teach the preschool class with 4 & 5 year olds for the 3rd year. Our theme this year was "Outrigger Island". My friend Sarah is in charge every year of VBS and does an AWESOME job! Every room is filled with "beachy" decorations, the activities and songs are fun, and she pulls it off every year without a hitch.
Some of my favorite memories of VBS this year were of course things the kids said. We had 4 little boys in our class that no one can deny are being raised in the south. They have the most precious southern accents. One little boy told us about needing to go to Wal-mart to get his "school replies". Another little girl quoted her memory verse, "God bees good to everyone." I know her mother would be so proud. They were all so well behaved. There's just something so precious about 4 & 5 year olds singing and doing motions to: "The Word is perfect truth. The Word is what I cling to. Unbreakable, unshakeable Word of God. I love the Word of God." I was nearly in tears every time we sang this song. Emma's mom told me that when her 11 month old little brother stood up, Tobi said, "Look, he's standing." Emma said, "God helped him do that." And later in the day she told her, "Mama, did you know God is real?" Stories like that really show me that what I'm doing is so important. Sometimes it seems like small kids don't really soak in what you're telling them or paying attention at all, but those stories really remind me how important it is to tell our kids about Jesus from the beginning.

Here's Gracen's VBS classmates: Mason, Gracen, Ella Claire, and Kali. Mason will be a year ahead of the girls in school, but the girls are all withing 12 weeks of each other.

All week the girls and the boys were in competition to see who could raise the most money for the Louisiana Baptist Children's Home and a needy family here in town. If the boys won, they got to bury Sarah in the sand, but if the girls won, they got to bury Danny, the music director, in the sand. And, of course, the girls won. The kids raised about $670 dollars throughout the week. Each teacher chose the best behaved child to get to do the digging, and surprise, surprise, all girls. My nieces Sadie and Lillie Kate were chosen to help dig (boast, boast). Danny was a great sport, and the kids had fun. It was another great year of Bible School!

Gracen at 9-1/2 months

I haven't been very good about giving updates about Gracen, so here's a few fun facts.

She "needs" to see or have whatever I'm doing: computer, magazine, phone, remote, etc. This is one of her favorite "toys". The toy companies trick us into believing that kids really want toys, but in reality all they want are boxes, remotes, keys, phones, computers, empty coke bottles, or anything else we adults might have.
She recently discovered the fun game of unrolling the toilet paper. We were in the kitchen, and all of a sudden she took off for the laundry room. When I got in there, this is what I saw.
Gracen has a Gigi that can make some beautiful clothes. My mom made this dress for Gracen. Isn't it gorgeous! Yes, I know how lucky I am!
She just started "talking" on the phone.

She's into the "Oops-I-dropped-my-cup-again-can-you-get-it-for-me-again" stage. She thinks it's so funny to stand on her head and look at me through her legs. Her personality is really blooming, and it's so much fun to experience!
She can climb on just about anything. If I leave the laptop case beside the couch, she's on the couch. She climbed onto the backseat of Jeffrey's mom's suburban yesterday. She climbed on an ice chest to get onto our chair in the laundry room. She's a little monkey.
She's been eaten up by mosquitos lately. I never see them on her, but she always ends up with bites the next day. She's going to be just like Jeffrey. He gets hugs whelps any time something bites or stings him. I read today that if you put a dryer sheet in you pocket they'll leave you alone, so I'm going to start sticking them in her bloomers.
- If everyone else in the room is laughing, she's going to laugh, too.

- Her top right tooth is coming in.

- She sleeps until 8 or 10 in the morning, depending on when she went to bed.

- She loves her cousins. They spent the weekend with us, and she would hardly go to bed because she was afraid she might miss something.

- She says "Hi" and "Bye-Bye" but that's about it. She talks to us all the time just not in English, yet.

- She walks along the couch, cabinets, or anything.

- She can walk while holding one of my hands.

- She puts her feet up on everything: high chairs, tables, etc.

- She runs her tongue over her teeth when she sees us eating something.

- She will eat anything I give her: ice cream, cookies, bread, french fries, (and some good stuff) mashed potates, squash, refried beans, butter beans, corn.

- She will not help hold herself when you're holding her. She wants both arms in front of your body, so she can see what's coming. Even when I put her arm behind my shoulder, she pulls it right back in front.

- She speed crawls everywhere she goes.

- She stands up all the time but won't take any more steps.

- She dances when she hears music. I'll try to get some videos up. It's precious. Girl's got some moves!

- She smiles all the time and lights up our day!

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Gulf Shores

***Warning: This is a long post containing some of my favorite pictures. I just couldn't narrow it down any more.***

Sunday:
Well, we left the house Sunday morning on our way to Gulf Shores via Pass Christian, MS in search for a kitchen table. Several friends of mine have gotten a table at this place, so we thought we'd give it a try. Gracen really HATED her infant carrier, so we decided to buy her a convertible car seat in Jackson. Gracen and I went to Monroe on Thursday with family, and Gracen screamed for about 45 minutes going and 1 hour coming home. She was beyond tired, but just wouldn't go to sleep. Ahh, good times! That side note was just a little insight as to why I was determined to find her another carseat before riding in the car with that sweet little screamer for 6-1/2 hours. We found her one at Babies "R" Us, and she likes it soo much better. Granted, she would rather crawl around in the backseat while going down the road, but she doesn't fight us when we strap her in or fight sleep nearly as hard.

We finally did make it to Pass Christian with the help of the new car seat and DVD player. (Thanks "Math Circus"!) We got to drive down the Gulf in MS when we were looking for Charbonnet Antiques. All the houses along the Gulf were so pretty, but it was also really sad because we saw several sets of steps that used to lead up to the front door of someone's house that I'm assuming was blown away by Katrina. I can tell that they've rebuilt several houses and business, but several lots are still empty. We passed by several shrimping boats. Bubba Gump look out!
We found a Mexican restaurant that was pretty good and a Hampton Inn. I really thought we were never going to get Gracen to sleep. She's used to being layed in her bed in her room and going to sleep. So it was a bit difficult to lay her down with us in the room. I rocked (wrestled) her in my arms for the longest time. But as soon as I started singing to her "you are my sunshine", her personal favorite, she put her head on my shoulder and was asleep in about a minute. Who knew I was that good of a singer? Well, it worked, and that's all I cared about at the moment.

Monday:

Jeffrey ran to Wal-mart while Gracen and I ate the continental breakfast. She is REALLY into big people food. She wants everything we eat. She cracks me up. She runs her tongue over her teeth whenever we're eating something she wants, too. I have been so proud of her. She ate eggs, blueberry muffin, strawberry yogurt, biscuits and gravy, and apple juice. She hasn't turned anything down, yet. She even ate squash at my parents house. Anyways, we found the table store but didn't find a table. They had a lot of pretty furnature, but not as many tables as we'd hoped. So the table search continues. We drove on to Gulf Shores and got out on the beach. I didn't think we were ever going to get all our stuff down to the beach, but we finally did, got the tent set up and got to the water. This is the view from our condo. We stayed across the street from the beach this year at the Gulf Shores Surf and Raquet Club to save money and also because we booked so late there weren't many options. This place was $800 less expensive than another place I found, and it was very nice. I was a little worried that I might regret staying across the street, but the road really wasn't very busy. We might have to wait for 1 car to pass before we crossed, so Jeffrey and I were very pleased.Gracen got to wait in the tub while Jeffrey and I got the tent and her pool set up.Gracen's first time in the Gulf.Gracen liked it pretty well. She must've worn herself out because she slept for about an hour in the car while we waited to eat supper at the "Original Oyster House". The food was great! It is our favorite place to eat in Gulf Shores. Last year we waited about 2 hours. This year we only had to wait 1-1/2 hours, but it didn't seem that long because we went to the grocery store while we waited. I ate Mahi Down on the Bayou: blackened Mahi Mahi with fried crawfish tails in tasso sauce, yum. Jeffrey got blackened red snapper with the same sause. Gracen ate the inside of my french fries as quickly as I gave them to her.

Tuesday:

We enjoyed the beach first thing in the morning until Gracen got ready for her nap. Jeffrey stayed with her inside while I got to lay around the pool. It was so nice to have that time to myself. We hit the pool when she woke up. Then hit the outlet mall for a little while after she woke up. Ate shrimp at the Shrimp Basket, our 2nd favorite place to eat, and called it a day.

Gracen dumped her diapers out of this plastic bag and had a great time with it. She crawled around for about 20 minutes with this bag in her hand, waving it every once in a while. Her Daddy was about to get her in this picture.A little friendly game of tug-of war.

Wednesday:

I snuck a picture of this guy out by the pool. Ouch!Gracen loved the kiddie pool because she could walk along the edge and play with the concrete. The concrete had a pattern in it, and I think Gracen could've played with it all day.

Wonder where she gets her blue eyes?We decided not to go out for supper, so Jeffrey grilled hot dogs and sausages. It was really nice being able to stay in my bathing suit all day without rushing to eat.
I just had to take one of her naked booty on the beach, but I just had to put her panties under her.

Thursday:

For some reason Gracen woke up at 6am, so I put her in bed with us, hoping she would go back to sleep. Yah right. After tring to gouge my eyes out and pull her daddy's lips off (and no, he didn't wake up), I decided she wasn't going back to sleep anytime soon and fixed her bottle. Her eyes were rolling back in her head while she drank it, but she was determined to stay awake. She finally fell asleep with her head against my legs and her back against my somach at about 7. We all three slept until 9. I loved getting to cuddle with her for that long even if she was upside down.

Here comes Daddy, again!

I tried to take a picture of her sweet little wrist tan-line, but it didn't show up very well.

We had a blast at the beach. It was very relaxing and lot of fun. Gracen and I really enjoyed getting to spend so much time with Jeffrey. He's been working so hard lately, and we haven't been able to see him much. I could tell Gracen really loved having him around. There were several times that she cried and crawled after him when he walked away. I think she just likes it best when we're all together. So do I!

First Steps

Gracen took her first step today, two actually. My dad put her on the ground facing me and let go. She stood up and took 2 steps toward me. We both looked at each other in amazement, both wondering if we really saw what we thought we did. I don't think Gracen has a clue what she did. I have some videos of her standing from a sitting position and walking behind her push toy, but I'm having trouble loading them. I'll get them loaded whenever Blogger decides to stop being difficult. Ok, I got the video of Gracen standing loaded on youtube, but I don't know how to get that on my blog. Any suggestions?

Happy 4th to everybody. Hope everyone had a great holiday weekend. I started this blog on the 4th but got busy packing for the BEACH!!! I have some more pictures to post, but they'll have to wait until we get back.

I can't really say why I haven't posted anything lately except I just haven't made the time. So without further ado, here's some pics to show you what we've been up to since the last post.

Gracen got Jeffrey a grill for Father's Day. He's been wanting a new grill since last summer, so he was very excited. We hid it in Jeffrey's workout room because it is currently under construction.

Gracen put the passy in her mouth sideways, too cute.Grandpa, what is that? A vacuum? I think I might've seen one of those before. Gracen and I went to Searcy a couple weekends ago and she got to help Gigi with her garden. My mom used some "gin trash" from our farm on one half and the dirt from her yard on the other. It's not even funny how much better the half with our dirt did.Gracen with our Uncle Troy on his Harley.