and the winner is...

OK first of all... we just THOUGHT we had hit the terrible two's.. O----M----G. Lord help us, this child is fiesty! Getting distracted....

SOO the reason for my post, super stupid, super simple, but an accomplishment none-the-less.

MY CHILD..... ready?..... ATE.... an ....... ORANGE.

A REAL ONE.. not in syrup or popscicle form.

phhheeeww... a step in the right direction.

18 months old :)

Grace had her 18 month check up today, she hits 19 months march 4th. We had a few concerns with this visit but other wise our little monkey is doing so great developmentally! She is talking in 3 word sentences, repeating just about everything we ask her too, starting to sing songs, and even telling stories. She is so cute walking around saying "Here yago Momma" , "Hi my Daddy" "Come on, Willie" ... what's even sweeter is that she trys so so so hard to say some things and they come out all kinds of jaberwackied! Our favorite is the simple "STOP" Grace yells " POTS!" and as hard as she trys she can not say Elmo (who is her favorite) she says "LALO" And when she is talking about her "toys" she says " play TEES" "TEEs please" She just started doing "pretty eyes" last week.. which is the all too darling batting her eyelashes, such a stinker.

She weighed just over 21 lbs today and was 31.5 inches tall. She's been on the same growth line ever since she was born... 55th percintile for height and less than 10th percentile for weight, no worries as long as she stays on her little line :) They gave us a neat piece of information today.. that little girls, at 18 months, are half as tall as they will be fully matured! So they predicted Grace at 5'3-5'4 tall!!! I'M EXCITED, because as you know I am 4'11 HAHA... So taller is taller is taller. Boys can't be predicted until they are 2ish.

We are dealing with some asthma issues right now, we are blessed that it is nothing more serious than that :) Nothing a couple of steriod rounds and albuteral treatments can't fix :)

We are FIGHTING this child to eat.... I pray for her appetite every day. She lost almost a pound in the last 2 weeks , but she had the flu.. so that can be attributed to that. We cant get her to eat willingly anything but cheese, yogurt, snack crackers and puffs, and those baby "superfood" pouches (which are like capri-suns but fruit/veggie/grain/omega-3 mix). I might lose mind soon. She wont eat any raw fruits or veggies except the occasional banana. She will only eat chicken with ketchup or lunch meat turkey, and we have to give her those by themselves or she'll eat the other whatever it is we gave her first. My goal is to get her eating raw foods by the end of the summer.. those of you who really know me, know that if I don't get my way it only makes me work that much harder to get it! Fight the good fight, ya know?

Its TAKS crunch time with my 8th grade math kiddos.. So I pray that I have the strength and motivation to motivate my kids to have strength and motivation!

I have a good friend at school who just gave us a TON of such great hand-me-downs for Grace, and we have had so much fun playing dress up!

Our little jibber jabber

Grace is starting to have conversations... About nothing, with nobody. Worried? Nahh.

This chick is a hoot, she cracks us up! These are some of the things we are hearing coming our of this wild child?

Looking for willie "willie...are you?!", talking on the phone"dee dee, hello, bye" all the time "hi my daddy" "hereyago momma" "outside.... Coooooooollld" and if she's hungry she said all of her words "eat snack food please" haha

Her favorite thing to do now is listen for my "talk to you later cue" when I'm on the phone and she yells "byeeeee"

The flu and a little snow

Grace came down with the flu monday... so we spent this week indoors recovering. Jill picked her up early monday, I stayed home Tuesday, Grandma Wednesday, Daddy Thurdsay and FRIDAY SNOWDAY!! She is much better today and full of energy! She is desperate to get out of the house, I'm sure we'll find something for her to do in this cold weather.

Jesus loves me.....

A lot has changed in the land of Grace lately, verbally anyways :) I just want to share that Grace has started singing... And her new fave songs to sing are "this little light of mine","ring around the rosie","old macdonald", "the b.i.b.l.e", and her favorite "jesus loves me" which sounds a little like "me me me me,yes me me yes" haha what a funny little face :)

Over 150 words, most of them with attitude...

Oh my.. Its been a while since my last post, mostly because Grace keeps us so busy, and secondly because I got a fancy smart phone and don't have to be on the computer for internet. But anyways, this child of mine is becoming a little stinker! Precious..... But a stinker none the less. Oh we have entered the land of tantrums, extreme energy, screaming, and believe it or not, talk back attitude! We sat down and thought about her words this week, over 150 (we quit counting... But most of them lately are ugly! "no, mine, help" and we are constantly intercepting tattling! She wants to whine about everything... Where did my sweet little baby go? We can't help but laugh at her wild personality.who knows where she gets it from, haha

Christmas Morning :)

Our little artist!!

Grace is having sooo much fun with crayons lately, i'd thought you might want to see her in action! The funniest thing about this new skill is that she talks jibberish the entire time she colors.... it's quite comical!!

What a mess!

My child is a MESS! :) Once again, I can not believe how quickly she is turning into a young lady. She has done some of the silliest things lately!

Her newest developments include:

-Asking to put on her shoes and go outside " shoes, shoes outside"

- As soon as we get home she runs to the Christmas tree and will not move until we turn the

"Rismus lights" on

- telling us specifically what she wants to eat " balala" (banana), "cheese", "snack" (something gerber), "cookie", and most often we hear "che-chup" which means she would like something she gets to dunk in Ketchup. She will stand infront of the fridge until we get up, the entire time repeating her food word of choice.

- When someone comes out of the restroom or flushes the potty.. she claps and says "YAY"

- If she sits on the potty, she asks for candy the whole time..... uh oh.

- She watches Elmo's world so often she sings the theme song "la -la-la la"

- She askes to give "Wih- Wee", aka Willie, her food.

- Mike taught her Feliz Navidad. He sings "Feliz navidad" and she sings "cha-cha-cha" after him

- New favorite song is "head and shoulders, knees and toes" and she gets SO excited for the "eyes and ears and mouth and nose" part that she yells "EYES" after every other word you sing :)

-and the last 2 nights she has asked to be put "Night Night". Taking herself into her bedroom and giggling when we put her down.

What a crazy kid! My little Love.

The Story of the #2....

It was a crisp winter evening at 2722 Silver Oak Drive. The Guess family had just settled in for a comfortable night of pajama's, leftovers, and corny Christmas movies. All of the sudden the littlest member of the family yelled "poo-poo!". Her mother jumped up quickly to check the tiny girl's diaper, as the yelling of such a phrase usually meant that there was some cleaning to be done. But much to her surprise the diaper was dry... "hmmm" the Mother said, "Do you need to poo-poo?" Little Grace ran into her bedroom as if to have her diaper changed. Just then her mother had the most amazing thought! She asked her daughter, "Do you need to poo-poo?" The child answered "YES" in the most sweet tone of voice. The mother placed the child on the potty and ALAS, the littlest member of the family did just what she was asked to do! "HOORAY" shouted the family, and they celebrated with high fives, fist bumps, and Reese's Pieces candy.

FYI.... She has pooped two more times in the potty since this! Once this morning and another time at Cane's for lunch! We were in the booth and she said poo-poo... no poo-poo to be found so we went to the restroom and she went like a champ! Then when we got home she tee-tee'd in the potty!! WOW!!