It's FINALLY OUT!

Gracee's loose tooth was hanging by a thread and last Friday we finally got it out! Ruffin put some floss around it and it came right out and it didn't even hurt according to Gracee. I was glad to see it come out so there was room for the new tooth.We put her tooth in a little container under her pillow. The next morning I was in my room when I heard the container open and little feet run very quickly to find me to show me the dollar the tooth fairy left. She was so excited! We went to the park that day and she lost her dollar... She was so upset, she had it in her pocket to show Grandma and it slipped out when she was playing. She finally was consoled when someone suggested she put the empty container under her pillow and we would let the tooth fairy know she had lost her dollar. It turns out the tooth fairy is pretty understanding and even left the two quarters Gracee put in the container to pay for coming again.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Gracee!!!

Gracee had her Golden Birthday turning four on the fourth! We started out the morning with a fun breakfast. Gracee and Emme were both excited for the heart shaped paper plates to eat their pancakes on.Gracee requested a heart shaped pancake (she was thrilled to have one the size of her plate!)
After breakfast Gracee opened a few little presents... Gracee really wanted a party with her friends but we were going to be out of town so I didn't plan anything. When we were going to be home and I told her we would go to lunch and play on the toys she was excited but said "and who is coming?" When I told her mommy, daddy and Emme would all be there she said "but mom who else?" So at the last minute I called a few people and Gracee was so excited that Kolby and Max were able to make it! After they ate some food and played on the toys we had some cake and icecream. A BIG thanks to Amanda for coming on such short notice, it really made her day brighter!
Later that night we had dinner and cake. I envisioned her cake being so cute... The first problem came when the icing was too hard and the lettering looked cRaZy:) After I got it written on Gracee of course wanted to help and how could I not let her?! So I decided to let her cake be her own piece of art work!
In the end I think it turned out VERY cute!
Blowing out the candles and making a wish!!
Sharing with Emme. They love licking the bottoms of the candles!
After we ate some cake Gracee had a few more presents to open. Without any prompting from Ruffin or I Gracee handed Emme a present and said "here, sister you can open this one." Emme was very excited to open it and when she had it opened she handed it to Gracee and said "look, look sister, your present."
Gracee was SO excited for her Dora Coloring book. She had her presents opened and she said "All my presents are perfect, thanks mom, thanks dad!"
Her favorite present BY FAR was the spinning toothbrush! We brushed her teeth that night and she put it on the stand and she pointed to it and said "mom, just wait til Aunt Ollie gets here, I am going to show her my spinning brush." (Olivia has an Oral B and Gracee thinks it is pretty cool!)

A few things about Gracee (answers in pink are her in her own words): Favorite color: Pink & Purple Favorite thing to do: going to the park & going to the library Favorite song: Twinkle little star Favorite thing to eat: noodles Favorite time of day: going to a place where my friends are & going to get icecream with Grandma Favorite book: Cinderella Favorite movie: Cinderella Favorite thing to play with: My dolls What are dolls names: Hmmm... all of them named Fancy Nancy Favorite Cartoon: Pig & Frog (word world on PBS) Favorite game to play: Memory Game Favorite song to sing in Primary: umm, a Temple song Favorite breakfast cereal: Cheerios (she then goes to the cupboard and gets the honey nut cheerios) see mom these, they are So yummy! Favorite kind of ice cream: Bubble gum ice cream Favorite Book of Mormon story: Oh... when he goes... and he gets the plates and anything about Jesus Favorite thing about Daddy: When he holds me and when he takes me to the store and EVeRYthing Favorite thing about Mommy: I love mommy when she has a baby in her tummy and I kiss her! Favorite thing about Emme: when she gives me kisses and big big loves and when she be happy.
Things Gracee is loving right now: Polly pockets, Barbies, dolls & pushing them in strollers, playing with Emme, dancing anywhere and everywhere she goes, playing games on the computers at the library, coloring, doing her "schoolwork" (her preschool workbooks), skirts, dresses, and more skirts (She HATES to wear pants!)

I made Gracee an alphabet book (featuring herself) because she LOVES anything to do with the ABC'S right now. a starts out on the day she was born and z ends with a picture of her a few months ago, so here is a quick view of how much she has grown in the past four years...

I will never forget the day Gracee was born, I can't believe that it was four years ago! She is such a special part of our family! We love her SO SO SO very much! She is a sweet daughter and a very good big sister!

Keeping Gracee Busy!

Since it has been so cold lately we haven't even wanted to play out in the snow. As long as Gracee has Emme to play with things are great. However when I try to take Emme into her bed Gracee will grab onto her legs and say "no, no, you can't take her to bed! who will I play with?" I then have to whisper to Gracee that we are going to do something really fun to get her mind off Emme taking a nap... So everyday during Emme's nap we do her "schoolwork" (a workbook that goes over her abc's) and then we do a craft or something fun.
One day Gracee made some muffins and she really did it all by herself. (I did get the milk out, turn on the oven, and get them out but other than that she did everything and she was pretty excited about it!

On one occasion I hadn't preplanned anything fun for Gracee to do while Emme was napping and this is what I came up with on the spot and surprisingly it is one of her favorites so far.
Gracee's pictures are on the left. The top one is a sailboat in the water (if you look close enough and use your imagination you can see it in the far left corner). Her bottom picture is a smiley face. I asked her why she didn't make her face smile but she assured me that it was smiling and pointed to all the up turned noodles and said, "see, they all up and smiling." Also on her face is hair along the top, eyes, a nose and ears. The other pictures I made because making macaroni pictures it NOT fun to do all by yourself!

1.04.09 First day of Primary

Gracee was so excited for her first day of Primary. I am pretty sure she didn't know that becoming a Sunbeam meant no toys and no snacks but she was excited anyway. When we got to the Primary room we spotted her teacher and Gracee went running right over to her and took a seat. (Two of Gracee's nursery leaders moved up to be her teachers so that made the transition go really well.)
During the break between classes I saw Gracee in the hall and expected her to come running over to me... I think she may have thought about it for a half of a second because her little arms started to unfold. That same moment however she fixed her gaze straight down the hall, tightened her folded arms and kept leading her class toward the Primary room. I nearly cried because she was being so reverent and trying to act all grown up...
I took these pictures after church and she did not want her face in the picture and was being silly so this is what I got of her coloring... She is in a phase where everything is multi-colored.
When we talked about what she learned on the car ride home she told us that her lesson was on Jesus and she sang lots of songs. Her favorite song that they sang was "I see the Temple."

*On a side note Emme continues to love nursery and her leader who has been in for the last several months said it was as if she grew up within a week. It seems without Gracee in the class Emme is a little more outgoing and has more to say, I am sure it also helps that I am no longer one of the leaders.

12.15.08 Parents Day

Emme and I got to go inside Gracee's dance class on Parents day. Emme absolutely loved it and sat on her chair and watched with big eyes the whole 45 minutes. Gracee loved that we were there too and kept smiling and waving at us. (Gracee is in the green elf hat.)
All of the kids were thrilled with the special visitor... Santa watched them dance, danced with them and gave them a treat out of his bag.Gracee and Miss Rebecca her dance teacher.

{HOME}

We are finally back home (for a couple of weeks anyway), and are glad to be OUT OF THE CAR! When we got home from St. George a couple of weeks ago we found out that Ruffin's cousin moved up his wedding a couple of months so we went to Provo to that... It was great, I always love to go to sealings and think about my wedding day:)! While we went to the wedding Olivia kept our girls overnight and they had a blast with their Aunt (they had mixed emotions about coming with me when it was time to go.)
We came home for a couple of days literally and then got back in the car to go to St. George. Ruffin's brother Verle is going on a mission to Orlando, Florida and their sister Kami is going to Brazil. So this past Sunday they both talked in Church and it was really good. They both are really excited to go, Kami leaves November 5th and Verle leaves December 10th. They both will be great missionaries!
And of course a few pictures;)
I took this picture while driving, don't worry I didn't even swerve and there wasn't a car in sight. Emme fell asleep while eating something, it is always so funny to watch her try so hard to keep eating while fading fast asleep:)
We stayed in Provo on our way to St. George. While there we love to stop and see Grandpa Juan and Grandma Alma. Grandma Alma is always so sweet to offer us something to eat and is so hospitable. Grandpa Juan is quite sick but has not lost his sense of humor, he had me laughing quite a few times... We love them both!
Emme was exhausted by the time we took this picture, this was the best we could get!
This picture illustrates how much fun Gracee and Emme have a Grandma Judd's House! It doesn't hurt that they have 6 Aunts there that dote on them, swing on the swings with them, and jump on the tramp with them. Needless to say they don't want much to do with me while there and they have tons of fun!
We celebrated Rebecca's birthday on Friday the 24th. We love you Becca!
One of the Judd's friends brought over a bag of pomegranates that he grew in his backyard. I ate two all by myself and shared a few... I love pomegranates! I can hardly imagine being able to pick them from my backyard, wouldn't that be nice!
Gracee, Emme and Eliza. My girls love their little cousin Eliza, Emme was pleased to get a hug!
Marci, I am sure that it was Eliza's idea to sit in the flowers;)
Emme was grateful to Uncle Sean who helped her get in this really small space. It was fun until Austin tried to close it really tight, which just didn't quite work.
Verle and Kami soon to be missionaries.
Some of the family that came to hear them speak. Lots of family came from AZ and it was fun to see all of them!
Having fun with family ALWAYS goes by TOO quickly and the weekend was over before we knew it. On the way home we stopped at Grandma Alma's again and she let the girls pick some pumpkins.
This picture is so funny because the real reason behind Gracee's disgruntled face was not because of the fact she couldn't get the pumpkin off the vine but because a kitten was quickly approaching... I admit I DO NOT like cats but I haven't tried to persuade my girls either way.
They do love Sammy the dog that is always at Grandma Alma's door step and were so excited that Grandma had stuff they could feed him.
We are glad to be home but love and miss our family already!

Utah

We went to Utah for a week and I am finally getting around to writing about it... Our first stop was to see Olivia, we went to dinner with her and to the biggest ice cream social in the world:) (Cold Stone was giving out free ice cream).
Next we stopped by Marci's, Gracee and Emme were both excited to see Eliza! We then stayed the night at Grandma Alma's, we left there at 5 in the morning to get down to St. George. We thought if we left that early the girls would fall asleep for sure... No such luck, Gracee woke up on the way to the car and said "where are we going, what are we doing?" When we told her we were going to Grandma's house she got so excited and could not go back to sleep, Emme also got too excited and was wired the whole three hours!
I didn't take very many pictures in St. George but we had a lot of fun! Gracee and Emme loved spending every minute with Maelee and Tina when they were home from school and Gracee and Austin did pretty good playing together. While we there we went swimming, to a volleyball game (which both Grace and Emme had a blast yelling "GO Becca"), and just hung out at Grandma's house while Ruffin helped his brother finish his house.
One day I had Austin, Gracee and Emme at Wal-mart and we had fun trying on Halloween masks. These masks were my favorite!
Traveling home from St. George we stopped in Mapleton for the funeral of Ruffin's Aunt Ginny. We saw more family and I am still telling Gracee she will be Ok and isn't going to die. I didn't want to take her to see the body but all the little cousins her age were going over there so she insisted. I answered 101 questions during the funeral, she asked things like where are they taking her?, why did she die?, why doesn't her body go to Heaven? do I have to die someday? and after each question she would say, I not want to die, I too little... I am greatful for the gospel, I can't imagine how I would answer these questions without it. We reminded her of the resurrection and it seemed to comfort her a little... As for now we try not to talk about death, so she doesn't get worked up...
Our final stop before home was in Layton to watch Conference with my Aunt Farris and Uncle Doug... Olivia met us there and it was great! I certainly love Conference weekend and it is even better when we get to spend it with family!