Grace and her hair and best buddy

This is Grace and her best buddy from her 1st grade class. She came over to play one afternoon and they were wild! I'm glad she has a good friend. Her friend actually had a sleepover the Wednesday before Christmas. Grace was very excited and counted down the days until the sleepover. She wasn't nervous at all!

These are pictures of Grace's hair one morning before school. She fixed it herself. She came down with it done up like this. She said the other girls in her class fix their own hair and can do clips and ponytails themselves. She's such a big girl. It makes me a little sad. Not because she's not a baby, but sad because I don't want her to be a tween/teenager. I love this age in Grace. She's sweet, funny, innocent, still wants to play like a little kid but is old enough to obey and be a really good kid. I'm trying to enjoy this time as much as possible and appreciate these sweet days with her this age. The teenage years will come way too soon!

Isn't that the sweetest, purest, most precious little face? I think so!

More Thanksgiving Pictures

I finally got all of Joni's pictures from Thanksgiving. I'm putting all of them on here because I want them to be in my "family yearbook" for 2009. There are a lot of them...

Keeping Elye Kate

While Joni went on her trip with Reesi to Chicago, we kept Elye for the weekend. She's really an easy baby. I took her and Lyla to run a couple of errands on Friday. While we were out I told Joni and Elye is easier to handle than Lyla! I remember when my girls were babies I would think, "it will be easier to take them places when they get older". Well, not so much! Anyway, we enjoyed having Elye with us. Eric even had all 3 girls for the majority of the day on Saturday all by himself while I did grocery shopping and Christmas shopping. It didn't phase him a bit. I didn't think it would.

Grace's tooth

Grace's top front tooth on the right REALLY needs to come out! It's been loose for a while but not it's REALLY loose. She won't pull it and she won't let anyone else pull it. Last year, when she was in kindergarten, she let Nurse Ruthie at the school pull one of her bottom teeth. I was very excited to hear that Nurse Ruthie pulled everyone's teeth. I thought this was great because kids will let someone else do things to them that they won't let their parents do. But this year Grace came home at the beginning of the year and said they made an announcement at school that Nurse Ruthie will no longer be pulling teeth. She will only be helping sick kids. So, we're left to battle this strong willed child. I would just let it fall out on its own but it's obviously irritating her gums now. It's bled 3 times in the last 4 days. Her gums above the tooth are red and puffy. I'm a little concerned that it may get infected. These pictures are of Eric trying to get Grace to let him pull her tooth. She just will not do it. So, we have to let her up and hope it falls out on it own soon.

My Hair

I have a constant battle with my hair. I'm never completely satisfied to the point that I keep the same hairstyle forever. I've always done this. I let it grow and then cut it off all at once. I don't know why. I just get tired of it being the same way. This time I really was getting tired of it being long and on my neck. I got tired of the long hairs that fall on the bathroom floor when I fix my hair. I got tired of wearing it in a ponytail all of the time because I think I look awful in a ponytail. I tried to grow it out for Eric. He likes my hair long. I guess because that is how it was when we started dating so, so, SO long ago. I think I've come to a point in my life where I can't pretend I can look the way I did when I was 18 years old. My hair is not the only part of my body that looks different!!! Eric isn't pleased but I had to do it though. He'll get used to it eventually. The last time I had this hairstyle, I had highlights and no bangs as well. I thought it would be interesting to look at the pictures all in a row. I like it dark and with bangs personally. I'm sure I'll change it again some day.

This was in January of 2007.
This was in March of 2007.This is now...

Crazy Grace

This picture is of Grace when we took the braids out of her hair from Thanksgiving. They lasted a week. They were pretty hard to get out and boy was it crinkled. Grace has a front tooth that is trying to fall out but she won't pull it herself and she won't let us pull it. It's actually bled a few times over the last few days. If you click on this picture and look at it large, you can see her gums above the tooth are very irritated and red. I just hope she gets it out before it gets infected or something. It's her top front tooth on her right.

This is just a picture of Grae being CRAZY. She was wild tonight!

Our Christmas Tree

The girls were excited about putting up the Christmas tree this year. I learned from my mistakes of last year though. Last year, we tried to do it all with them and it didn't work very well. By the time we got the boxes out of the attic, put the tree up, spread out each limb, wrapped the lights, took the broken lights off, and wrapped the lights again the girls were completely over the idea of decorating the Christmas tree. This year, I had Eric get the boxes down on Monday so I could get things ready while Grace was at school. When she came home the tree was up and lit and waiting for ornaments. After dinner, the girls put the ornaments on and it was much better. They enjoy looking at each ornament and asking where it came from, who made it, whose picture is on it, etc. Last year I began a tradition of giving them their own ornament each year to start their own collection that they can take with them when they grow up. They each saved that ornament until the last to put on the tree. The last picture is of Lyla after preschool one day this week. They painted all of the kids' noses red like Rudolph.

Thanksgiving 2009

During our time at home for Thanksgiving we spent a lot of time just hanging out with family. Eric went hunting a couple of time and Joni and I went early morning shopping on Black Friday, but other than that, we just hung out. Here are my pictures. I still need to get Joni's pictures. The first picture is of Laura, Eric's youngest sister, playing Guitar Hero at Danielle's birthday party. This is Danielle, Eric's neice, with Grace and Lyla at her 16th birthday party.

These are pictures of hanging out at Mimi and Papoo's house. This is Grace and Harlee.

Mexican Train dominos...

Kristy braiding Grace's hair.

Kollan's army men

Kollan

Mom's apple pie. We ate the first round of pies the day before our official family Thanksgiving meal. Mom had to make more that night.

Kristy braiding Kaityln's hair

Unfortunately, this is the only picture I took of Grandma and Grandpa! Napping!

Harlee introduced Grace and Lyla to the Nintendo DS.

The girls playing Littlest Pet Shop. They all got along so well. They played nonstop.

Kendall spoiling Sunshine, Grandma's dog.