4 months old, Christmas Dress & Milestones

Look what Santa brought me!

Gracie turned 4 months last Sunday and I thought I ought to record some milestones and other happenings. She is spitting raspberries and if you do it she will do it back. She laughs out loud often now and without much effort and she loves laughing at the boys. She rolled over from tummy to back the day before her 4 month birthday and she's scooting all around now as you can see in the picture of her under the Christmas tree.

Scott layed her on the floor next to him while he layed on the couch and fell asleep. Well, when I went to check on her I couldn't find her until I looked under the tree. She had scooted all the way around and was facing the other direction and had scooted all the way across the floor until she was all the way under the tree.

Can I just say how much fun it was to buy a Christmas dress this year for my little Gracie. So fun that I did it twice and she ended up with two. Isn't she beautiful? This is her in one of them.

Then I keep seeing all these little girls in tutus everywhere so I decided a few weeks ago that I ought to be able to make one of those so I found a youtube tutorial and made her a little Christmas tutu. I wanted to take her pictures in front of the tree with her tutu and Santa hat on while she sat on a mirror. I took some and Dave took some. Here's a few of my favorite pictures so far.

Family Photo Shoot

So I'm a little behind on the Christmas pictures. I'd almost decided not to do them this year until I found out Dave Palmer was starting to take photos and doing a great job. He readily agreed to do a shoot for us and it was great. We got so many good ones that it was really hard to choose favorites. So beware, the next 20 or so photos are my favorites. That's as narrowed down as I could get with 80 photos to choose from. Gracie started getting tired and fussy towards the end so we didn't get many of her by herself. But we made up for it and she had her own photo shoot this morning. Those photos will be coming soon. Thanks again, Dave! We love them!

Family Home Evening

I have to confess that before we adopted Joey and Jake we were very hit and miss with FHE. It was always just the three of us anyway so we didn't always make time on Mondays. But since we've adopted the boys we've made more of an effort and are having so much fun with FHE now. We've been going strong for a year now and it's fun to have enough family members to rotate jobs and the kids love being in charge of their things.

This was an activity Jackson was in charge of. I had made some playdough that morning so Jackson wanted to use it for our activity. After our lesson I wrote words on pieces of paper and we all took turns drawing a word and then making that word while the others guessed. Jake was so proud of himself but had a very hard time not saying his word out loud each time. He finally got it about the third round because my hand was over his mouth to remind him. :o)


Can you see Joey's & Dad's car? The kids had a hard time guessing this one.

Jake with his sun

Jackson with his camera and of course I'm never in any of the pictures but this is my couch I made.

Gracie's First Hospital Trip

Right after the pictures below were taken Gracie had a very rough time of it. She's had a cold for about 3 weeks but that night Scott gave her a bath and I think it aggravated her ears. She starting crying at 10:00 and didn't stop until after midnight. If you know my baby you know we can go days without ever hearing her cry so to hear her screaming bloody murder for so long was agonizing. We felt so helpless.

We thought it was just a tummy ache at first but after an hour we started to wonder if it was her ears. Papa came over at 11:00 and helped Scott give her a blessing and right afterwards I touched her ear and she screamed. I called the doctor and asked if I could give her tylenol but he said no, she's too young and I need to take her in.

So I packed up and off Gracie and I went to the ER. It was actually a very easy trip. I think we were the only ones there and they took us right back and attended to us very quickly. We were home in an hour with guess what, tylenol and also some eardrops and a prescription for antibiotics if we felt we needed them. They said she was right on the fence between mild and moderate ear infection. With mild they like to treat the pain and let them fight it themselves. Moderate to Severe they usually do antibiotics.

We've opted not to fill the prescription because she's seemed to do much better since our stay. She's still running a bit of a fever but very low grade and it's not affecting her moods or anything. She's back to her happy self and I think she's so glad to feel better. I know mom and dad are glad and I'm just happy to be getting sleep again. Thanks to Penny for rescueing me and having the boys over for a sleepover so I could get some sleep. She's always there for me in a pinch. Love you Aunt Penny! Jake's ready to come again but I'll try to hold him off for awhile.

Because I had to!

So I was just snapping pictures today of my adorable fat baby and had to post them. So here's just cause!

Thanksgiving Pictures

We spent a nice Thanksgiving at my parents house this year. Well, I was very busy this year preparing the meal and holding Gracie while I ate so I had Jackson take pictures for me. This is what I got: