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