family night

Well - for family night we went over to my mom and dads and for the activity we decorated houses- and in the spirit of unity we had a contest between ben, chelsea and tanner- they had to just use graham crackers and then me, alex, mom, and then later shae and dad, - gracie just sat and ate whatever candy she could get her hands on - anyhow we had the creater kit and it was a gingerbread train kit - but it was a lot of fun I couldn't belive how creative chels and tanner and ben where - they made a hunting lodge - if you can't tell - it was in alaska -because that is where tanner is going on his mission - anyhow it is so good i still can't belive it they had a little fish pond with fish and everything - i love it - i think they should have won because they just did it from scratch - sort of - :)

Here alex is trying to get gracie to open her mouth so he can throw candy into it - she never got it - hahah This is what my team produced - not quite as cool - however - alex did try to make it interesting - if you look carefully our train has hit one of the animals we were carrying and it has become a bloody mess - that was alexs doing just so you know- and also i think shae egged him on :) hahah

Below is a better picture of our poor animal cracker - split in half and bleeding

Afterwards we decorated moms tree This was what gracie had done while the rest of us were trying to make the tree look beautiful :) See if you can count how many ended up in that little area - there were at least six alone on the one branch - hahaha - good work gracie

flossing again

A while ago i posted that gracie really likes to floss - well she still does :) - we were in a hurry to get ready for something and so gracie had gotten a bath and she loves to sit in the sink and get her hair blow dried to warm her up and so i did it - even though we needed to get going and so we brushed our teeth and i started to get her down - well she threw the biggest fit and i couldn't figure it out - well apparently she wanted to floss - and i realize that that is a good habbit and i should keep her in it- but like i said we were running late so i said that we could do it later - anyhow as you can see from the picture below - that did not go over well - and so after laughing at how funny i thought the whole situation was turning out to be - i got the camera out and snapped a before and after picture - apparently she is serious about her flossing hahahah

christmas lights

well its official gracie loves christmas lights - everywhere we go it is 'lights this and lights that' it makes me laugh and now she has figured out how to plug our christmas tree lights in by herself and so she is always playing with the outlets - which i asked ben if that was a bad thing to let your child do because i know they sell those outlet cover things as child safety - anyhow but he said it wasn't too bad all she would get was a little shock or something and then hopefully stop playing with them -so i let her- which once again i haven't decided is a bad parent thing or not -anyhow but she was so happy about the lights that when we were putting the outside lights up she stole one of my strands and it is now hanging in her room -thanks to daddys help - anyhow it is cute though because she won't go to sleep without her christmas lights on and so then i have to go and sneak in and unplug them when we go to bed so that they aren't on all night -but it is cute watching her get excited about christmas and the baby Jesus - that is all she talks about - anyhow she makes me laugh and it is fun to enjoy christmas through the eyes of a child
Can you tell she was being stubborn and refused to smile for me -silly girl :)

Arizona

Well Arizona was a ton of fun -if i kind of ignore and forget how bad my rear end hurt after driving down and back - It was a lot of fun playing with the whole family - minus ben who of course i love dearly and still missed greatly :)- anyhow hear is bits and pieces - i will leave out the part where alex nearly killed me by taking me down and how in order to be rescued mel and chelsea and finally mitch had to jump in - hahahBut thursday morning after helping grandma get a few things ready chelsea and alex started working on a project that when i asked if i could help was told to go away - anyhow so i did - i went on a walk with the rest of the family and when we came back home we were handed these invitations:It was a bowling tournament on the wii - which apparently alex had brought up - anyhow it was a ton of fun the first round was me grandma and grandpa and mom -and to my suprise me and grandma made it to the second round - well dad and mitch and alex and chelsea played next and surprise surprise alex and chelsea won-obviously they had been practicing since they knew there was going to be tournament - anyhow so then it was the four of us to play for the winner -except that gracie was throwing a fit so mel stepped in for me -anyhow - chelsea was winning big time because she kept getting strikes - but grandma came in from behind and rolled strikes in round 8 and 9 and then 10 in ten -four strikes in a row -so grandma came out triumphant -yah -anyhow it was great fun :)Just look at chelsea and grandmas faces closely and you can tell who did not do as well as they would have liked and lost :( hahahah

Then there was thanksgiving dinner -which was so yummy and enjoyable - because me being the kind of selfish mom that i am i let gracie nap right through dinner so that i could enjoy it and then woke her up after i was done - i know sad - but i got to sit through dinner and enjoy it so it was worth it in the end - anyhow here is gracie eating her thanksgiving dinner all by herself - but enjoying it none the less

After dinner gracie was playing and her new favorite thing right now is to do hair -well my hair is not as fun to do because it wasn't as long as chelseas -anyhow chels was so patient she sat there for at least a half an hour as gracie combed her hair and would try to pull it into a pony tail - it was so cute and funny The other fun thing about this week was watching gracie and addy play together - it was so cute -in fact it became not so cute -when gracie screamed her brains out for a half an hour because addy left to go home - still i love this second picture it just looks like a mom feeding a baby bird - but really it was gracie getting the biggest kick out of getting addy to smileMy other FAVORITE thing about going to arizona besides seeing grandma and grandpa is going to sedona and going hiking :) although it was so sad because i was looking so forward to going but gracie -who was definetly sleep deprived - went into major temper tantrum mode- it was so sad and funny at the same time because when we got out of the car she wanted me and only me to carry her-well i informed the child that she was old enough to walk herself and so she through herself at me and screamed and screamed and screamed -well everybody but mom and dad started up the hike -anyhow it was almost embarressing because here we are in beautiful and serene nature and then gracie screaming like a banshee for about 20 minutres all the while trying to rock climb up my legs -anyhow after 20 minutes i finally gave up and so we walked half dragged gracie back to the car and put her in the carseat where she proceeded to scream her brains out again for the next 15 minutes finally she calmed down enough and she wanted out of the car badly enough that walking didn't seem like such a bad idea after all - anyhow it was quite the parently experience ahahah-but after she had calmed down we tried to catch up with everyone and gracie hiked for about a mile all by herself -well grandpa helped keep her happy - but it was a lot of fun in the end

As you can see gracie had to bring her purse with her - and she was so funny she would walk for a little bit and then have to stop and open it up and look and make sure all of her stuff was still inside and then she would zip it back and keep going -anyhow she did this over and over again it was so funny Gracie also really liked playing with uncle alex towards then end they were running and jumping down to the bottom of the hill and gracie would have to mimic everything alex tried - it was a lot of fun