What a day!

Perhaps it's just because I'm overly emotional and hormonal with the late stages of this pregnancy or maybe it's just that I'm so tired. But it seems that I'm quite easily annoyed today.
I woke up at 3 a.m. and couldn't get back to sleep. I finally dozed off around 6 a.m. only for our entire family to be woken up at 6:15 a.m. by a high school kid who was convinced that his car stereo needed to shake the windows of every house on the block. (Why is a high schooler up that early!?!?)
An elderly man yelled at me in the checkout line at Target this afternoon because he said that I had more than 12 items to be in the express lane. Too bad the cashier told me to come to her line to expedite things. And then he huffed and puffed when I started to write a check. (and for the record...I had 14 items.)
And tonight at the grocery store a lady plowed her way through an aisle at Fareway and rammed her cart into an end cap of canned goods spilling corn and green beans everywhere. Then of course like any good shopper would, she walked away so that she could plow through the next aisle. With no workers around, very pregnant me was left to try to squat to pick up what I could so that at least I could make it through with my cart and so that no one else would trip.
Needless to say I stopped at Dairy Queen on my way to pick up Grace and gifted my annoyed self with a mint Oreo blizzard.
Now that we're at home, Grace helped me to unload and put away groceries and right now she is at the piano singing me a song - the words of which include "mommy, daddy, cheese and cow." Quite the song huh!

Chef Grace

Grace loves to cook at her kitchen. She practices stirring food and loves to put things in her microwave. This morning she was cooking away. When I asked her what she was making for me, she said "eggs, beer." We rarely have beer in the house, but Paul had one with bbq yesterday for lunch. I guess Grace pays more attention to things than we originally thought!!

Farm girl

Grace has always been a daddy's girl. She loves many of the same things that daddy does - baseball included. (She even says "Go Twins") But now she is starting to show an interest in farm things - just like daddy. Every morning on the way to day care we drive past a pasture with 100+ cows in it. Grace knows when it is coming up and excitedly tells me "Mommy cows - MOOO" Grandpa Linn even taught her how to make a loud cow noise with her hand up to her mouth. She has to do this daily - on the way to day care and on the way home. This morning however the farmer moved his cows into a pasture further back and they weren't there to moo at. Needless to say this sparked a meltdown. Thankfully there were a few farmers out in their tractors so we played "spot the tractor" and she told me all three times she saw farmers in the field. What a farm girl!

Here are a couple of pictures from last week. Paul got Grace's kitchen out and so now she practices cooking for all of us.

Jesus Christ Superstar

I wish that all of you could have been flies on our wall tonight.
Grace was in our bedroom with me as I was putting clothes away tonight. I had the tv on Americal Idol. (It was Broadway/Andrew Lloyd Weber week and I wanted to see who would slaughter "Memory" - which is a song that no one should ever sing! and of course someone did! Blech!) So Grace is playing on our bed as I'm putting clothes away. One of the singers, Carly, starts into a rocked up version of "Jesus Christ Superstar." Grace stopped playing on the bed and started getting her groove on. She danced through the whole song and when it was over she stopped, clapped her hands and yelled "YEAH!" So I guess if Grace were voting for American Idol tonight, she'd vote for Carly.

Flip-Flop

Had the typical OB doctor's visit today only to find out that I have walking pneumonia (no surprise - I figured as much) but also that Emilia has flipped backwards. Two weeks ago at our last visit she was head down as she should be. Well evidently she is more comfortable being butt down because that's where she is right now. I have two weeks to get her back in the head down position (35 weeks.) After that the doctor will manually try to turn her. (36 weeks. Ouch!) If that doesn't work then the doctor won't even try to start me at 37 weeks as she normally does with moms. I'll be doomed with a c-section. Sections are fine, except for the fact that Paul will be gone June 20th-July 9th and after a c-section you aren't allowed to drive because of the pain meds or lift anything, etc. and that would make those three weeks with the girls terribly miserable.

So here goes. For the next two weeks I'll be sitting on top of my exercise ball and on all fours rocking back and forth hoping to get this kid to turn head down.

Wish me luck!

Play that funky music

Grace loves to play the piano. She has watched Daddy put books on the piano and play from them so now every time she plays the piano she has to put books up there too. At least today it was a music book. Yesterday she was reading "Where's Elmo."

Table Daddy

Our kitchen and dining room are out of commission for the time being as we remodel and replace the walls and cabinets. It's a big undertaking - especially considering that the original plaster is underneath and we found no insulation whatsoever behind it. But Paul is doing a great job and hopefully we'll have a working kitchen in the next week or so.
But being that the kitchen and dining room are unusable, eating meals together has been a challenge. On Saturday, Paul picked up donuts for everyone from Kum & Go. I cut Grace's donut up and told her that she could sit and eat it on the couch while watching cartoons. She told me no and walked over to the tv trays that we have in the entryway. She looked at Paul and said "table please daddy." Paul set her up a tv tray at the end of the couch and she has been happy as a clam ever since. (Oh and she insisted on having the Boppy pillow wrapped around her while she's at her table. I may have to steal it away from her when the new baby comes!!)

Boppys aren't just for babies

Remodeling the kitchen

We officially put our house on the market on Saturday and are putting an offer in on our "dream home" Wednesday evening. Hooray! Wish us luck!
But we knew even before the realtor came through Saturday that we were going to have to rehang the kitchen cabinets. After years of use and an ice dam last year they were beginning to sag. The realtor agreed. So Paul ripped into the cabinets late Saturday evening pulling all of the wall cabinets off to reveal 100+ year old plaster that had no insulation whatsoever.
Grace was asleep through all of the destruction so when she woke up Sunday morning and followed me into the kitchen for a sippy cup of apple juice she was shocked. She covered her mouth with her hands and gasped. "UH OH DADDY" she said. Then she took off throughout the downstairs looking for Paul and the entire time saying "UH OH DADDY!"
It's times like that when I really wish I could understand everything that she was thinking.
Paul and I still chuckle about it.

Itsy Bitsy Spider

We are all finally feeling better and are starting to get over nasty colds. Hopefully the warm weather they are calling for this week will help to get rid of all the cold/flu bug germs.
We haven't posted pictures in awhile so we will have plenty to post this week.
Grace's favorite song to sing right now is the Itsy Bitsy Spider. We sing it every time we sit on the potty to practice potty training. Right now she likes to do the movements and have mommy and daddy sing the song.


out came the sun and dried up all the rain

And the itsy bitsy spider went up the spout again!

Busy weekend

What a crazy and busy weekend we had! So busy in fact that we haven't even had the camera out to take cute Grace pictures - which is rare!

Grace came home from day care last week with a cold. Grace is feeling much better now, but unfortunately she passed it along to both mom and dad. Paul and I feel miserable and are trying to buck up and chase after Grace and get my "nesting" list done all while not feeling good too. Yuck!

We did manage to get a lot of things checked off of the "nesting list" this weekend though. We got the hospital bags and the car seat packed, the new baby clothes unpacked, laundered and put away, the hardwood floors scrubbed and cleaned, and toys packed away as we also got out Grace's kitchen for her to play with. Needless to say - sick or not - we got a lot accomplished and are now exhausted.

Grace loves her new kitchen though! We received it awhile back from friends Jon and Elaine. It was their daughter Jill's. Grace just adores this kitchen and it has kept her busy for hours on end this weekend which has also allowed us to veg out on the couch. Grace has been cooking up a storm. One of these days I will post pictures of Grace being the new Iron Chef.

We have our next doctor's appointment Tuesday afternoon. I am interested to see what the doctor has to say. The baby dropped this weekend which according to the books I have is early, but who knows it may be a second pregnancy thing. We'll be at 31 weeks on Tuesday which is still early for her to come, but at least now we have our bags packed for the hospital and we will just see what the doc says.

All better!

As Grace told me this morning she is "all better." I think she just had a cold paired with incoming teeth. Her fever broke late last night thank goodness and she actually ate a little bit for supper last night. But she wasn't a very happy camper for much of the day yesterday. She laid on the couch with her Elmo pillow and blanket and begged to watch the "apple movie" (aka. Enchanted) and Annie. She was feeling better by lunch time - well enough to line her dolls up on the couch and feed them too.

Grace is starting to put words together to form short sentences now. Her favorite sayings right now are "oh baby" and "oh goodness." It's adorable!

Home sick

Grace is home sick today. She woke up at about 3:30 a.m. with a fever of 102 and it hasn't gone down with Tylenol. So Grace and I are home today. Thank goodness my new boss was ok and actually said to stay home with her. Great guy! Hopefully more Tylenol, liquids and rest and she'll be feeling better tomorrow otherwise Paul will have to take Friday off.

We promised pictures earlier this week and haven't delivered. So here are a few pictures of Grace trying out her brass chops last week. She likes to play Paul's trumpet mouthpiece.




and a video of Grace's first vocal lesson with her Daddy.