{thirty three months old}

I thought I'd give a Gracie update....

Some of her favorite things: 

Color: pink...pink pink pink!

Games: hide and seek, the animal game

t.v. show: Bubble Guppies, Elmo (still waiting for this phase to be over), Little Einsteins

Book: Princess books

She loves to make her own burrito for lunch.

She loves playing with Lucy and can't wait for her to wake up from her naps.

She loves to dance and sing all around the house. She is always asking me to show her a "ballet dance".

Still my outdoors woman. She would be out there even if it were 15 below. 

She can do summersaults and loves to do them even at inconvenient times.

She is much more obedient these days. She used to be quite the rebel, but it seems like the obedience switch has flipped...it's nice.

She is so so full of personality, it's hilarious. She makes us laugh constantly with the things she says. She says wonderful prayers for all sorts of things and has some killer one-liners! I thought I'd document some of her quotable quotes:

• She was telling me all the things she loves outside (ladybugs, the trampoline, birdies), then said, "But I don't like spiders or snakes or germs!" Such a girl. A few days earlier, when it was kind of rainy outside, she ran out to the garden and said, "Mom! Look at that mud! It's SO cute!"
• Jared and Grace were playing with some little wooden animals. Jared asks, "what's giraffe's name?" Grace says, "Sally". He asks about the hippo, who was Emma, then he asked,"what is the lion's name?" to which Grace replied, "Pumice!" So Pumice he was for the rest of the night! :) No idea where she learned about pumice.
• The other night we left Gracie's favorite shoes ("Sparkly Shoes") at Grandma Jones' house. We were ready to leave and couldn't find them anywhere so we thought we'd get them later. Grace was devastated...crying, "Mama...I need my sparkly shoes! Where'd they go? My sparkly shoes are LOST!" I tried to comfort her by saying, "Well Gracie, they are lost, we couldn't find them. Maybe if you say a prayer, Grandma Jones will be able to find them." Gracie thought about it for a second, and then shouted as loudly as possible from the backseat of our car, "GRANDMA! SAY A PRAYER AND FIND MY SHOES!"
• I made some homemade chocolate peanut butter cups and had them sitting on the counter. I gave Gracie one to eat and told her she could have another later. She ate it, then this was our conversation: 

Gracie: "Mom, I need to take one to my baby sister, she loves chocolate." 

Me: "nooooo.....Lucy can't have chocolate yet." 

Gracie: "Ok, then I'll just have one more..."  

me: "Not right now." 

Gracie: "Oh man.....I just love chocolate. Chocolate is my friend mom!" 

I know just how she feels. Then she snuck another one when I wasn't looking :)

• One morning Jared asked Grace what she wanted to do that day. She answered,"I want to give Jesus a hug and make Santa cookies!" She aims high. 
• I heard Gracie making noise in her room when she should have been taking a nap. I went in, put her back in her bed and said, "now fall asleep Grace!" She said, "Mom, I don't want to fall asleep, I want to fall awake!"
• Gracie runs into the room....

"MOM! I WANT TO GO TO THE ICE CREAM STORE!!!!" as loud as possible. 

I ask her, "Are you yelling at me?" (she goes to time out when she yells at Mom.) 

She replied, "No Mom, I'm screaming at you." 

Ohhh....well in that case. :)

• We went through a drive-thru at Arby's. Jared finished our order with a "value fry" when Gracie yells from the back seat as loud as she can, "And THREE pizzas too!!" 
• The other day I went to work for the first time in a long time. Gracie was asking me all kinds of questions about it, and I told her that Mom cleans teeth at work. Today on a toothpaste commercial there was a woman in scrubs. Gracie said, "Hey! That's Mommy at work!" I asked, "Do you remember what Mommy does at work?" She said, "you clean everybody's ears!"
• Lately she asks lots of questions...like "What's that? Who's that? What's their name?" etc. etc....and she always follows it up by saying, "I LOVE _____" (whatever it was she asked about). The other night after Scotty won American Idol Gracie asked, "Mom, what's his name?" I told her Scotty, and she said, "Mommy, I LOVE Scotty!!" :) 

Pretty sure our life would be pretty boring without this little lady. She is such a fun little person to be around and I'm so lucky to be her Mom!