Elf on MORE than a shelf...

Orange's first night at our house, She brought a despicable me DVD

Grace was MORE than excited!

Day 2, Orange and her best friend "Tangled" went for a girls night out cruise :)

Sleepy Orange day 3, Grace must have kept her busy with all of her behavior

Day 4, Elf goes fishing... Only problem... Grace did not have a "fishing" reference and thought Orange was trying to "drink up" the fish. She said "that is so silly"

Day 5 Elf leaves a new cup for Grace in the fridge :)

Day 6..... Well we had a ROUGH day.. lots of whining and fussing. She even spit her toothpaste rinse water across the bathroom, and told mommy that "I'm not your KID anymore". Therefore, Orange did not leave her post. Grace was pretty devastated that our Elf didn't do anything fun or tell santa that she was good. BUT Day 7 she did much better, and Orange showed up riding our reindeer on the bathroom shelf, Silly Elf.

Day 8, Orange and Santa send Grace new slippers after she was a big girl and stood for a picture with Santa at mommy's school.

Day 9, Elf hides in the tree. It took Grace hours to notice her :)

Elf TP's the Bathroom and goes potty :) Day 10 

Elf feels under dressed and makes a tutu... Grace said "SHE MADE ME A BOW!!" Day 11

Day 12, This was one of Grace's Favorites

This has been so much fun, and Grace JUMPS out of bed to see what Orange was up to during the night :) What a fun tradition. 

Elf on a shelf day one!

This is Orange! Grace doesn't know if she loves her or hates her yet...but having ”Orange” around is already helping with her recent trend of punky behavior. When she would start to whine today, ask I had to do was point to this little lady and she sucked it up. When she used her manners with out reminder she said ”I think my elf saw me be good” or ” my elf is watching me”. Hopefully tommorow she will be sold when she gets to dig up a new DVD from under the marshmallows, Orange is a funny lady!

I can't help myself.. :)

This is by far the cutest spiderman I have ever seen :)

The adventures of SPIDERMAN-GIRL

 So, Sassy decided out of ALLL of the princesses, fairies, pink, and purple glittered costumes, that she just HAD to be Spiderman. Not, SpiderGIRL... SPIDERMAN. I glitz-ed it up a bit and I think she looked ADORABLE. She had so much fun this year :) Every time she left a house she yelled, MOM lets go get some MORE CANDY!!

 The little Crew minus Jace, he was a little tuckered out :)

We also had to paint our pumpkin like spiderman :)

The spiderman costume is not really "potty friendly" for school, so we improved this morning for the halloween party, She loved that she got to wear her jammies and tutu to school :)

Lots of candy! Lots of friends! Lots of FUN!

Grace Renee Mess.. oh Guess

Whew.. motherhood, mixed with more than full time teaching, throw in a little graduate work, and good lord I am tired. I am going to try and slow my mind down a little since my body is working so hard. I need to take time and enjoy the little things, and the funny things, and my family, to find the GREAT in every day, and be the mother I need to be :) 

Grace was ROUGH on us this weekend, so high energy, bouncing off the walls, never stopped talking... you get it. I found myself on edge very quickly... I have got to slow down and remember she is just 3, and doesn't understand "mommy's busy".

I wanted to take some time to celebrate her little achievements this week.

1. She can do a cartwheel and land on her feet.

She has been working on this since we started cheer and she is SOO proud of herself. She walked into school on Friday and first thing she did was cartwheel for her teacher :)

 2. She is recognizing letters everywhere and we are working on copying letters and words

- She tried her hardest to write "Daddy" on Daddy's birthday card :)

and love... :)

3. She is HILARIOUS... and so beautiful

and by far the reason we want to work so hard :)

Gracie Boo!

Just a little update on Grace...

- She is 3 years and almost 2 months

- She has been going to cheer/tumble classes on thursday nights and she is doing pretty good. She is learning handstands, cartwheels, back bends, and back handsprings during the first 45 minutes. The last 15 they work on cheerleading where she is doing excellent with her arm motions, jumps and FOLLOWING INSTRUCTIONS :). She has MASTERED her front and side splits, her forward roll and her straddle jump :) she looks so stinking cute out there. She struggles with criticism from the coach and melts down a little, and she freaks out if she can't see me in the window.

- She is talking a mile a minute... There is no end to the craziness that comes out of her mouth.

- She loves to sing and dance, she mashes up many children's songs together and puts words in if she doesn't the right ones, so funny.

- She loves to watch the Disney Channel, she calls it "my tv" ... we are constantly hearing "mom, I wanna watch MY TV" she likes the big girl shows like "Jessie" and "Austin and Ally". Mom and Dad are about Disney'ed out.

-We have had some bed time set backs. She has been really fearful of the dark so we leave a lamp on in her room at night... not a night light, a lamp. It drives me crazy, but she is sleeping through the night and that is what is important.

- She is doing so so well with letter recognition, tonight she was able to tell me the name of these letters
A B C D E G H I J M O Q R S T V X Z and 1 2 3 4 5

- she can count all the way to 20 with zero mistakes and can get to 23 before she gets stuck at 24 then says 29 :) ha!

- She is very interested in time. "what time is it?, is it wake up time?" we tell her to watch the analog clock and she tell us when it is on the hour, for example.... bed time is 8:00 and when it starts to get dark, she starts watching the clock, when the big hand is pointing straight up, she'll say "uhh it's time for bed.." :) makes me smile.

- Oh she is sassy. We are working on our manners and social skills, especially the polite response. The thank you and yes ma'am are a constant reminder.

- She is eating fruit much much more. She is gobbling down apples, oranges, strawberries and bananas.

-She got her first haircut 2 weeks ago, and LOVED it. Her hair looks so much better, her ends were looking stringy. They didn't take any off the length, just trimmed the uneven. We saved her little curls :)

- She has been dressing herself every morning. From her shirt to her socks and shoes (mommy still picks the outfit). We are loving her little independence.

- She had pneumonia for it felt like FOREVER, right when school started. I think it was at least a month of that!  Thank goodness that is over.

- She is getting taller for sure :) We got to buy 3t pants finally for the length (thank goodness for the adjustable waist), though her little butt wore 18month shorts all summer long HA.  She is whopping  27 -28 lbs!

We are so so tired from work and school, I wanted to make sure I blogged so this sweet age doesn't slip away from us.

3 year stats!!

I can not believe my baby is 3!! We had our well check today, she did great and didn't have to have any shots :)! Here are our stats!

37 inches tall!! 48-50th percentile ( I can't remember what she said)
27 lbs!!! I mean... a few ounces shy of 28lbs!... 20th percentile, which is 5% better than last year!

She's growing!  No concerns other than her EXTREME pickiness and getting enough protein. Her asthma is really under control too!

Happy Birthday GAMMY!

We celebrated Gammy's birthday this week and got some cute pictures :)

Grace LOVES her Gammy and PawPaw, We are really luck that she gets to spend so much time with them :) She asks we multiple times a week if Gammy is getting her :) Happy Birthday to our GAMMY :)

First time for everything!!

This is the first week I have EVER had an intense work out everyday!!!! Sunday I went to Zumba, then did a circuit around the neighborhood. Monday Zumba! Tuesday Double Zumba!!!! Wednesday Zumba! Thursday neighborhood circuit! Friday 5:30am boot camp! Woo hoo! I had originally set a goal of burning 400 calories a week, this week I have burned 1800! I am pretty darned proud of myself, so I am tooting my horn! Bikini bod here I come! Hahaha.... Eventually

Summer, so far, so good!

For fathers day we took Grace to San Antonio for a long weekend of riverwalk, shopping, seaworld, and family! It was lots of fun and we got great picures and memories. Last week Mike took vacation and we were so lazy.. It was fabulous. We were the family of couch potatoes. We did do a day trip to ikea and Galveston on Tuesday. We will go back to Galveston soon, Grace had so much fun and she found a huge shell (not kidding it really is big for Galveston). I found lots of neat stuff at ikea for my classroom too, + a big bookshelf! Healthy summer goals are still on track, we've eaten a little bad here and there, but nothing outrageous. And the girls and I are still making it to Zumba 3+ times a week, we are addicted. I really love being sore, it feels good to know that I'm finally working hard at toning up. Sara and I started doing a little circuit workout around the neighborhood at nights and it's a booty kicker! I could barely walk today. Not seeing a lot of weight come off (I'm down three pounds) but I'm definitely seeing results in my legs butt and tummy, I can't tell if my arms look better or if they are just more tanned!! Ha. I'm going to try to do a couple 2 a days this week to step it up!! Goal by next time this year: Bikini worthy!!!! Stretch marks and all! My family just booked a big Maui trip for this time next year. Oh boy! We got Grace signed up for a kinder cheer class in town and she loves it! It is so funny watching her with the bigger girls, she looks like a shrimp!!! But she followed great instructions to the best of her ability, listened great, and only stole 2 stickers.... Ha. She said "I growed up cuz I get to go to cheerleadering". My sweet boo! She turns 3 August 4th, we've got a small party planned for the evening of her birthday, just cousins and neighborhood kiddos. Momma is going all out with the decor, very pinterest! We will be celebrating in style with a pink lemonade theme. I might have gone a little over board. Oh well, why not spoil her. She'll only turn 3 once.;) Mike will leave Sunday to head back to Austin, again. He'll be gone the whole week. When he gets back, I'll leave the following Sunday and be gone until Wednesday for our leadership conference in San Antonio. So Grace should have an interesting couple of weeks.:)