Jill is GRADUATED and Mothers Day!

Grace showing us what different emotions looked like.. I think this was her CRAZY face :)

The HENDRY bunch :)

Sweetest face I know!

You'll have to excuse my looks, we partied a little hard last night.. HEY your little sister only graduates ONCE :)

Grace and her Cha-Cha

She loves her DeeDee :)

This is Grace and My Mamaw, Her Great-Grandmother :) 

My beautiful sister!!

 Sweet little beauty, all glittered and bling-ed!

So after graduation Jill and 2 of her friends had a HUGE party for all of their family. There were about 120 people who celebrated with us. We had a blast!

These are from friday night. We were setting up the pavilion and having a GREAT time, and of course Grace looked like a doll :)

Ok sooo we were supposed to be setting up from the party BUT we were distracted by the WOBBLE :)

33 months old :)

Wow... I was driving to school this morning and was thinking about what I want to do for Grace's third birthday. Three. 3. 2 +1. Where did the time go? Three years old is not a baby.  I am so proud of my smart sweet girl she is becoming such a respectful, well spoken young lady.

Things I don't want to forget that are so special right now:
- The way she says "yesterday" yah-tra-day
- The way she says "back yard" ba-card
- The way she thinks the electric toothbrush is hilarious
- The way she laughs at her own drawings
- how much she she loves cheese :)
- how she thinks that every time we have cake, it is cause to sing happy birthday
- how she is convinced, every week, at some point, it is HER birthday
- how she mixes the lyrics of different songs together :)
- She can count to 20 (skipping 12 and 16 ha )

- She can spell her name, write a G C and O, and draw happy faces.
- She weighed 26.5 lbs at a doctors appointment last week, and said "he's gonna see elmo in my ear"
- That she has watched the 1990's kids songs video about 100 times this month and asks for a hat and a cane every time they sing  "you've got personality"

- and most of all how much she enjoys to share her things you if you ask, and how much she doesn't if you don't - HA

I'm finking it might funder...

Just wanted to blog this so I don't forget it. Grace has a hard time with the "th" sound. Right now she replaces it with a "F" sound instead. It really is the cutest thing I've heard. When a sentence has more than one "f" sound you can't help but laugh. I love when she says "I fink..." and we had a storm this week and she told me "wow that was some loud funder" so cute.

Some other favorite "th" words that she says I think you can figure them out :)

"fursday"
"firteen"
"firsty" this is my favorite ... "I fink I'm firsty mom.."

my baby can read!.. well kinda!

I've been working with Grace on letters and site words for it feels like forever... BUT this week we had a little break-though.

She can identify these letters: A a, B, C, D d, G g, O, and S  there are some times where she recognizes "E" and "R" but not always.

I am MOST excited about the site words!! OMG she can READ these words every time! :
mom
dog
ball
No
at
baby

She is doing really well, tonight she was "reading" a book and RAN in and said "MOM look!! AT AT AT... she pointed to the word "cat" on the page. Proud moment for mom. Then later we were reading a book with the word "tall" and she said " that says AT not TALL mom.... see right there!!" and she pointed to the (ta)ll of the word.  A little backward but it's definitely a move in the right direction, and she is REALLY excited about it too. She tells me "I've gotta go get my drawing thing (magna doodle) so you can write me some letters".

So much fun!

Easter Block Party!

We are so lucky to have the best neighbors ever! Our neighbors 2 houses to our left are the Marquez's.. Grace and their little girl Jayleigh are typical bffs! They love each other most of the time :) We are lucky to have met them this year! 3 houses to the right of us, is my bestest ever friend Sara and her husband Brian (Mike's Bff -ha) and their very responsible and self proclaimed baby sitter, Madison :) She is the little girl's hero! We spend the weekends sharing each others from driveways, listening to music, eating, and drinkin', while the kiddo's play. So we decided to have a big Easter party for our families and friends across the 3 houses. We had crawfish, lots of other yummy snacks, and a MASSIVE egg hunt for the kids. My good friend from work, Pam, and her family came over (they live a mile a way), My sister Jill and Dakota came over, and Jill's friend Devin (who's little girl Madi is super cute and another one of the girls friends, but missed out of the egg hunt :( ..) came over also. They had so much fun, and so did the kids.. ha!!

one yard of eggs!

Paige and Grace are hunting!

Grace's first taste of FUNDIP! ha.. This was probably the most candy she has EVER eaten..

My sweet girl!

All the kids from left to right

Paige, Grace, Jayston, Jayleigh, Madison, and Jaxson

This was friday. we took a few shots in the bluebonnets :)

Little Pig, Little Pig!

This weekend we took Grace to the Livestock show at the Expo center :). She loves all kinds of 

"an-i-uhls". We signed her up for the "Pee Wee Pig Showmanship" little event! She had so much fun (with the help of one of my sweet cheerleaders). She was a little nervous at first but REALLY excited. She started crying when she was done when she figured out her "turn" was over. She couldn't understand why it wasn't her turn again. :) She is soo very proud of her little trophy, she couldn't wait to put it next to her piggy bank. She also learned the REAL noise that a pig makes, and would love to tell you. So. Stinking. Cute.

 Getting ready to go in!

Grace and Taylor getting instructions :) 

 Grace and Taylor with her trophy! So proud!

READY! 

"Look at my TROPHY GUYS!" 

 Telling Daddy all about it!

Getting ready to go in!

Cooking Marathon day two... gonna go for three!

WHEW! That was rough.. I was a little ambitious thinking that I could get everything done today, I am going to finish up tomorrow. I did a few more things than I had anticipated and still have a few more to go.

DONE:

Soups:

Homestyle Chicken Noodle

Broccoli Cheese

Chicken:

Balsamic ck. with cherry tomatoes

BBQ "bone in" Chicken Breasts

Salsa Verde Chicken

Pork:

Smothered "Ranch" Porkchops

BBQ Pulled Pork

Beef:

Lime Marinated Skirt Steak

Shrimp:

Chili Lime Shrimp

Lemon Garlic Shrimp

Sides:

Twice Baked Potatoes

Spicy Black Beans

TOMORROW:

Grace's MaSQUASH-a-roni and Cheese

15 breakfast fruit/yogurt smoothies to be frozen :).. I am excited about these!

BTW my kitchen looked like something out of a horror movie, my OCD husband would have lost his mind. My sister came over and uttered a multitude of "four letter words" when getting a good look at my mess. HA it was fun. I cranked up my country music and just got cookin'!

My first COOKING MARATHON!!

It's going to begin tomorrow around 10am! My first cooking marathon!

I have been really struggling lately with finding the time and the effort to prepare a healthy meal for my family nightly... I know, shame on me. So, in my efforts to do better I have decided to spend 2 days preparing meals to be frozen for the next month! YAY!

Here is my menu:

Bar-b-que Pulled Pork (crockpot)- made it today

Broccoli Cheese Soup

Homestyle Chicken Noodle Soup

Ranch Porkchops (crockpot)

Verde Chicken (for tacos)

Citrus Skirt Steak (for fajitas)

Fettucini with Marinara

Twice Baked Potatoes

Black Beans (crock pot) - made it today

Smothered Porkchops (crockpot)

Bar-b-que Baked Chicken

Most of these will make enough for 2 family meals! I'm soooo excited to do this! This year has been rough on us, nutritionally speaking. I feed Grace as soon as we get home around (5:30) I swear that girl has low blood sugar, she is one cranky lady without an early dinner. Mike eats something high protien/carb when he walks in the door so he can work out, and I don't usually eat until Grace is in bed, and that looks like cereal or Tostito's and some salsa. Though the low calories have contributed to a nice weight loss, I have ZERO energy and have a stomach pain that is probably an ulcer from living off of diet soda and hot sauce (ha). This is going to help me put a hot meal on the table at an early time, and lets Mike get dinner going when I am working late :). Hooray for pinterest for the idea!

Growth Spurt!

WOOO HOOO!! I am very excited about this post! In the last 2 months my child has discovered something new...... FOOD! haha! It only took 2 1/2 years but Grace is eating willingly! She is still really picky, but she is trying food more openly, and she is finishing her favorites. I think she is weighing right around 26-27 lbs which is HUGE growth for her. She is also MUCH MUCH taller (well at least I think so). Her pants are getting shorter :) Her cheeks look chubbier and I told her tonight that she looked like she had some "thunder thighs"! HAHA. Checked the little percentile calculator thingy... still puts us less than 20% BUT she's not in the 5%. :) Maybe she has a chance at not being a shorty like her momma!

Fun Friday!

This is us being crazy at Casa Rod downtown for first friday! Grace was a nut, but what else is new? Gotta love my family!