Learning New Tricks

Gracie is wanting to learn how to do things she has seen on TV. For instance, she desperately wants to know how to do a cartwheel after seeing "Barbie and The Three Musketeers". We had to settle for somersaults and standing on her head for now.

Birthday Party Invitation

One thing that comes with being in school now is that Gracie is getting invited to birthday parties for her classmates. Today was the first party. It was for a boy named Jason, and she was convinced that her best friend Maddie would be at the party. Well, we arrived to find out that Gracie was the only girl in attendance, except for one of Jason's girl cousins. She still had a really good time. I didn't get any good pictures because my camera battery died. Somehow I timed it right to get this one photo before it completely died.

Shopping With Ella

One of our local grocery stores has miniature carts so kids can "shop" with the parents. Ella usually just wants to ride in the carts with the car on the front, but today she wanted to push her own cart. They have carts Gracie's size too, so next time I take both of them with me, we will probably have 3 carts. I hope I don't ever fill up all 3!

Ella looked so grown up pushing her cart. I couldn't keep taking pictures, but she had a good time putting items in her cart and kept rearranging them to her satisfaction. It was a slow shopping trip, but we weren't in a hurry, so that was fine.

Our Little Daisy

Today Gracie had her first Girl Scout meeting. She was a little nervous on the way there, but we pulled in and immediately saw two of her friends from preschool and she got SO excited. Then we went inside and found 2 more girls she knew, so she felt immediately at ease. They learned the Girl Scout pledge, made friendship bracelets, wrote a letter to a friend, played jump rope and had snacks. All in all, a good afternoon. Gracie had to speak out loud a few times and did so without being too shy, so I was proud. I'm a helper so I stayed throughout the meeting and found it pretty cute to see Gracie interact with other kids her age. Ella is a Daisy-in-training since she was trying to do the Girl Scout Pledge with the big girls. She was standing nearby with 4 fingers up instead of 3, but it was close!

Happy Birthday to ...Me!

Today was my 33rd birthday. Brent had a school commitment tonight, but my brother was in Columbia so my parents, the girls and myself headed to Columbia for dinner. We went to the Cracker Barrel. Ella picked up right where she left off with Uncle Dana, even though she hasn't seen him since July.

That's a mouth stuffed full with a hush puppy. Don't worry, I removed it after I took the picture! :-)

Advice to Ella

As we were driving today, Ella became fussy and got very vocal about it. Gracie and Ella started sharing crackers to pass the time. At some point Ella quit sharing and started hogging the crackers. I had to intervene to remind her to share with Gracie. Ella began "talking back" to me and pulled the crackers farther away from Gracie. I scolded her again and then I heard Gracie lower her voice and tell Ella something. "Ella, don't fight with Mommy. Mommy's tough. You shouldn't fight with Mommy OR Daddy. Mommy's tough, but Daddy's tougher. He spanks more than Mommy does and you won't like it." I came home and shared this revelation with Brent and we both laughed and agreed it was blog-worthy. Brent might like me to mention to you that he doesn't think he has spanked Gracie more than 3 or 4 times since we moved to Macon 2 years ago. I think they were effective for it to have left such a lasting impression on Gracie.

Chapter Books

Gracie is officially a huge fan of chapter books. She wanted to get one again this week at the library, so she picked a Junie B. book that they have at school. It seems like it wasn't very long ago that she loved board books, but obviously it has been a while. The saddest part of all is that she doesn't even call them "scrapter books" anymore. She says it right, and it's devastating!

After School Fun

After we picked up Gracie from school, I let the girls use paints on the driveway. What a mess, but they had fun.

Yes, this is a picture of Ella painting herself instead of the driveway. It's what I expected.

Mama bought Ella this awesome toy from the Discovery Toys booth at the fair. Ella and Gracie are both having a lot of fun with it. Gracie likes to run every bouncy ball she owns down it, and that's a lot of bouncy balls!

This is actually the drawer that Gracie stores her balls in, so it was empty at the moment and Ella thought she'd climb in. She used to climb in empty diaper boxes, so maybe that's where she got the idea. It was a very tight fit.

Ooh, this isn't too comfy!

Another case of "monkey see, monkey do!"

Ain't

We were reading books the other night before bed when Gracie heard "God Bless The U.S.A." playing on the television in the background. She stopped reading to tell me "Mommy, you can say ain't if you are singing that song. It's okay. You know, there ain't no doubt I love this land. But we wouldn't say, 'I ain't going to the factory today.'" I got cracked up at the whole conversation, but mostly about her choice of places we wouldn't go. I don't know what made her think of a factory. Wouldn't you think school, church, the ice cream store, library etc. would have been a more appropriate choice for a 5 year old? You just never know with kids, do you?!

P.C. Fair 2009 - Day Two

Saturday brought another beautiful day to be at the fair. I think all of us who endured the fair last year deserved the gorgeous weather we had this year. Last year everything was a muddy, rainy, mucky mess. Gracie and Kalyn were ready to hit the rides as soon as they started running them today.

Pics from the top of the ferris wheel.

An intense "cute face" from Ella. Sometimes she goes a little overboard.

Ella enjoyed the merry-go-round. It was one of the few things she could do.

It was no shock to us that Ella enjoyed waving at people while she rode the merry-go-round.

Kalyn finally got really brave and wanted to ride the little roller coaster with Gracie before we had to come back to Macon. I was so proud of her!

The first time around Kalyn looked terrified, but then we could see her relax and enjoy the ride. Of course, she got of and said, "I want to do that again."

So they did!

More crazy pics from the top of the ferris wheel. Kalyn thought it was very scary at night.

This was our last ride of the fair. We can't wait to go back next year.

Putnam County Fair 2009

The PC Fair had a lot to offer again this year. I do not recall ever seeing a 400+ pound pumpkin before, so I was pretty impressed. Ella was too since the only pumpkin she has seen recently is growing in our neighbor's garden and probably weighs 5 pounds.

Our nephews, Lucas and Mason, were lounging during the tractor pull.

I was proud to look over at Gracie during the Star Spangled Banner and find Kalyn and her being so respectful.

After a long drive to Unionville and then all the noise at the tractor pull, Ella was needing to snuggle and get acclimated to her new, loud environment.

Aunt June and Ella watched part of the tractor pull together.

Ella wouldn't give up a smile at all during the first few hours of the fair. She did warm up, eventually and had a great time.

Mama and Ella hanging out on the golf cart.

Kalyn and Gracie had a blast hanging out at the tractor pull, getting as dirty as possible. At one point they were sitting in the gravel driveway just digging in the gravel with their bare hands. They were both a mess, but had a good time!

We cruised the livestock buildings while we waited for Brent's turn to pull. Ella was pretty impressed by the goats and sheep. She was not a big fan of the monstrous cows or pigs.

Gracie got brave enough to pet some of the animals after she saw other people doing it.

The highlight for Ella was visiting the tent with the ducks, rabbits and turkeys. She wanted out of the stroller and just kept walking around pointing at cages with different varieties of animals.

Looking at the rabbits in their cages. I was just waiting for her to reach out to touch the pellets underneath. Ick!

Gracie wanted her picture taken with any animal she thought was pretty or had won several ribbons!

"Mommy, this is my favorite little rooster. Please take my picture."

We finally returned to the tractor pull in time to see Jaden pull for the first time. He did a great job!

Ella found Aunt June's lap again, but still wouldn't nap. It was good snuggle time, though.

Brent pulled one of his dad's tractors in the 7,500 lb farm class. It brought tears to my eyes because I knew his dad would have been proud!

Raymond loved to see that black smoke billowing out of his tractor. Brent got it going for him!

The kids got pretty excited when the rides finally opened. Gracie loved the roller coaster crocodile. On Friday she had to ride alone because Kalyn was scared of it.

Ella thought she would like to ride the roller coaster, but I'm pretty sure she would have changed her mind mid-ride. She was good about waving every time Gracie rounded the track.

This was Ella's attempt to sneak up to the roller coaster and see if the crazy carnival worker would let her ride.

Gracie and I rode the Tilt-A-Whirl together. It went pretty fast after a while and Gracie wasn't liking it, so I yelled for the guy to stop the ride since we were the only ones on it.

This was a pretty fun ride and a good workout by the time you had to climb the stairs to the top of the slide. This was one of the few things Ella got to do. She loved it, even though she had to be on my lap. At the bottom she hopped up and started signing "more, more."

This was a colossal waste of money, but all 3 girls liked picking up the ducks and winning a prize. Day 1 was tiring, but very fun. Brent and I spent our evening at the football game since PC was playing Clark County. It was great to see friends at the game and catch up on life's happenings.