Early December 2011

Many times when I would go to wake Gracie up in the morning, this is how I would find her.  Asleep with her pillow pet and blanket on her changing table.  Funny girl, I have no idea how long she had been up there and it happened several times.  Glad she never rolled off and we had a broken arm to deal with.

 Gracie had a special visitor this Holiday season.  One of Santa's special elves came to our house to watch Gracie everyday. 

She was so excited to meet him and decided to name him Dean.  Dean would go back to Santa every night and tell him if Gracie had been naughty or nice and then the next day he would appear in a new place.  It was so much fun to find him and see what he was doing.  Gracie was so good to never touch him or he would loose his magic.  We can't wait for Dean to come back to our house next year!

One night I realized I hadn't worn my wedding ring for several days and quickly panicked when I didn't find it on my dresser where it usually is.  I vaguely remembered taking it off in the bathroom a few days earlier but thought for sure I wouldn't have left it there.  The longer I thought about it and the more I looked I was almost certain that is probably where I did leave it....the problem...Gracie had been playing in the sink the day before I discovered it was missing!  Yikes!  I was sorta freaking out!  I took apart the pipes beneath the sink, I searched the garbage can, scowered the floor and even went through the junk in the vacuum cleaner!  No such luck.  Gracie was asleep otherwise I would have asked her.  The next day when she did wake up I asked her about it.  Keep in mind it had been 2 days since she had played in the sink and 3 since I had seen it last!  She told me she "dropped it and it went down".  I was sick.  I got on my knees and asked for help to calm me.  I immediately got up and thought to go look one more time.  I took the pipes apart again and still nothing.  Then I pulled out the plug from the sing and nope, not there either.  As I was putting the plug back in, I grabbed the metal part that you pull up on to plug the sink and I heard a ting.  I looked over the faucet and there it was!!!  My ring!  Gracie did drop and it did go down, only it landed perfectly around that metal thing.  It was a miracle.  I started crying!  Then I thanked Heavenly Father for this tender mercy.  After I found it, I took these pictures.  I wanted to remember how close I was to giving up when prayer changed everything.

Gracie had this obsession with getting into the kitchen cabinets and using whatever item she found to make baby beds for her dolls and stuffed animals.  Every time I walked into the kitchen I would find these little communities all over the floor.  It was cute at first then got very old.  I could never find anything and then would go look at the little village and realized it was there.  :)

 One day while I was in the shower, Gracie was busy getting inked with a Sharpie.  She came into the bathroom after she was done and told me she had colored herself. Lovely. I was proud of myself and didn't immediately freak out, I thought of my friend Tammy and thought of the first thing she would ask me, 'did you take a picture?' So...that is just what I did. 

This one makes me laugh, she just looks guilty!!

 Needless to say, it was everywhere!  Thankfully NOT on her face, but pretty much everywhere else.  I am talking in her bellybutton and down her little bum crack! ???  Nice!  It did come off after about 13 baths and about 6 days but I think I can still see ink in her little bellybutton weeks later!

FHE with friend.  We went to our friends' house, Karen and Dave Gallup, and had pizza and built gingerbread houses.  The Wallos and the Lents were there too and we had so much fun!  Gracie loves Eli, Carter, Landon and Brynn and Jimi and I loved hanging out with adults! 

 We had a slight advantage with the construction of our house.  I bought a kit at Costco and it was fully assembled, all there was to do was decorate.  It was awesome!  Our friends weren't so lucky.  They had to either assemble their kits themselves or build from scratch.  I learned hot glue is helpful and a gingerbread house lacking a pitched roof is easily mistaken for a military bunker no matter how much candy is put on it.  :) 

Jarman Cottage

Wallo Bunker

 Lents Hot Glue Wonderland

Karen, how did I not get a picture of yours?  It was cute!  Thanks for a fun night!

White elephant party with our playgroup church friends.

Eli.  Gracie loves him and told me that she is going to marry him someday.  That was after she said she wanted to marry her dad, her grandpa or her cousins.  I had to explain dad and grandpa were already married and we don't live in Alabama and we don't marry our cousins.