Scrappy Christmas

This is how we get in the mood for Christmas at our house despite being sick for 3 weeks with colds, flu, pneumonia, coughing, and fevers.


We also have watched any and every cartoonish movie that has santa in it because Grace constantly says "watch" and "santa". We also make forts with chairs and blankets as you can see above. Anything to keep sane during these frigid times.

What we haven't been doing is visiting, partying, cooking or much of anything really. Sorry for missing all the fun, but you should be happy we stayed away.

Scary Santa

Gracie, Mommy, Daddy, Grandma Alison and Grandpa Reed all went to the Christmas Tree Jubilee!

Gracie did not like Santa, she was a bit scared. But she sure loved the Candy Cane.

Haloween 2009

Little Gracie was a naughty kitty cat for Halloween this year! She didn't really understand trick-or-treating but she sure loved the candy.

She loved her pumpkin!

October

We went to St. George to see the marathon this year since Garrett has started utahrunning.com. It was exciting to see people crossing the finish line even though I didn't know anyone running. There was so much emotion that we were both crying.

Gracie's getting big and as crazy as ever. She loves to play with the dogs and make a mess all day, but I guess she's learning in the process. She's getting some molars so she's been waking up every night, so that's not so great.

Here are some pictures to enjoy from October.

Gracie put on makeup. This is after.
This first one is before
she saw herself in the
mirror.

Marathon finish line. St. George temple.

New boots for winter. So cute!

Summer's End

Now that summer's over I thought I'd share some of the things we did.

Grace is getting an attitude

Definition - at·ti·tude: A position of the body or manner of carrying oneself: stood in a graceful attitude.

Gracie is now 14 months old and as cute as ever. She has this attitude that is just like her Mom.

Here are some words that Grace says on a daily basis:

Mama
Dada
crappy - For Scrappy our dog
Poo-Poo
Pee-Pee
Diaper
Cracker
Bubble

Grace has brought so much joy to us that it is hard to explain, even with her attitude she is the best!

What Success Takes

On June 2nd, Garrett's first book titled "What Success Takes" launched to the public. We're so proud of his accomplishment of writing this book. Please check it out at www.whatsuccesstakes.com to receive a free audio CD edition of the book, and other special bonuses available, or you may purchase the print version at www.whatsuccesstakes.com/store.

Lake Powell

The day of Gracie's birthday we left her with Aunt Carli and we were off with the Barber's to Lake Powell. The first few days were stormy, so we spent quite a bit of time inside the "new" houseboat which is awesome compared to the old one that burned. Finally we have more than 1 toilet in the boat, however it's just as stinky as the old 1 was and we did have problems with the tank overflowing. Thank goodness we had a port-a-potty on the ski boat and we so close the the dump station. In this new houseboat there are also a couple of beds in the "basement", one "upstairs", and one in the back "master suite". On the top desk is lots of space and a slide too. There were 21 people on this trip including Nathan, who's birth Mom is Kelli. It was such a fun place and now we're in that let-down period after you go on vacation. We miss you Lake Powell!
However we were so excited to come back to see our baby. She's quite onery now and I'm wondering if it's because we left her for so long, but she is teething now too. Who knows?!

Grace is ONE!

May 21 was Gracie's first birthday and we had a little celebration for her. Thanks for all the fun presents. Grace is now has 4 teeth, walks well, is 30 inches tall (78th percentile) and weighs only 18.3 pounds (8th percentile). So we're trying to fatten her up although it's proving quite hard. When we try to give her fattening stuff like pasta with cream sauce or mac and cheese, but she hates them and spits them out. We have found that she does like peanut butter and ice cream. Her favorite food is still peas. She'll just pick them out of whatever you've put them in.

Walking with pigtails

Gracie has been up to a whole lot of trouble lately. She's been walking/running for a few weeks now and seems to always find trouble. She loves to suck on dogfood, carry clean clothes, dirty clothes, wet clothes, toys, brushes (anything really) around with her and put them right in the middle of the floor so you can see the pile she's created. Today was her first day with 2 pigtails in and she looked so cute, but I knew I had to take a picture right away because they wouldn't last long, and the didn't. She is also getting at least one of her top 2 teeth in this week too, so she's not always as cheerful as she usually is.

First Steps

For the past few days Gracie has been taking a step or two on her own. She won't let you guide her with your hand, if you do, she'll sit right down.
The other baby in the house now, Scrappy, has also been able to take a few steps with his back legs, although he is very wobbly. Unfortunately he is still incontinent of urine and stool, so I've been trying to keep dog diapers or potty pads wrapped on him, but if he starts to walk at all they just don't stay on. He is doing better though. The first few days he just dragged his back legs around (how can you keep a determined dog from moving around without putting him in a cage all day?).

Lil' Scrappy

On Thursday we noticed Scrappy (the wiener dog) was whining a lot. We thought he'd eaten something nasty like a diaper because you never know with him, so we took the dogs on a walk and he was able to poop, but was a little slow in walking/running. After we were home for a little while we noticed he couldn't walk very well and started shaking really bad. Then that night Garrett and I both woke up in the night because Grace woke up and we couldn't find Scrappy. He went downstairs to poop again and wasn't able to get back up the stairs and couldn't use his back legs. In the morning Garrett took him to the vet and he got a steroid injection and some tramadol and said he's probably got a compressed spinal nerve and placed him on crate rest for about 6 weeks. The vet says many times after the 6 weeks most dogs regain 80-90% of their previous function. Poor little boy!

Easter Saturday!/?

The Easter bunny came a few hours early for Gracie's first time just to make sure she didn't miss out on the fun. She found plastic eggs, a new Dr. Seuss book, and a cell phone. Silly us, she loved the phone for a few minutes then saw ours and was back to normal grabbing, pushing, and biting on ours. Of course! Why would you want a fake plastic phone on which you can't even take a real picture when you can use your parent's.
On Friday Grace went to the doctor and she's got an ear infection. She LOVES her antibiotics and we don't even have to push it in with the syringe, she just sucks it down.

Phoenix

Our second trip during March was our "traditional" Spring Training trip. We watched the Cubs play the Giants, then watched the Texas Rangers play the Oakland A's. The weather was great, almost too hot, 90 degrees one day.We drove down and spent the first night in Flagstaff, then made our way to Phoenix which is an 11 hour trip total. The second night was spent in Scottsdale which is such an upscale, artsy town where we always have to visit. The next two nights were supposed to be spent at The Legacy Golf Resort where we had to attend a presentation where they try to sell us on a ridiculous vacation club package, however we found out they had overbooked and had no room for us. We felt duped at first, but when we saw the place (The Arizona Grand Resort) where they sent us, it was more than twice as nice as the Legacy, so it worked out great! We also visited Fountain Hills, and had the yummiest white peach gelato in the whole world.
Thanks to the Munns and Jenkins for watching baby Grace.

San Francisco

Garrett and I have enjoyed some time away together this past month. We first went to San Francisco for a conference where Garrett and his "Building Social Equity" website were featured. I just went along for fun and spent A LOT of time alone walking around downtown San Francisco. Some things we/I did include:
-went to Alcatraz and toured the infamous cellhouse and island
-ate seafood at Fisherman's Wharf
-sampled chocolate at Ghiradelli Square
-climbed the steepest street EVER (at least that's how it felt to my shaking/burning calf muscles)
-walked down "the crookedest street in the world" and also very steep
-shopped/browsed/haggled at every store in Chinatown and bought some cute PJ's for Grace
-was part of a minority as like 80% of the people were Asian, not just in Chinatown, but the whole city is full of them
-rode the BART train, trolley cars, but left the cable cars for the other people because they cost $5 each ride and you needed cash a lot, which I didn't have on me

There was so much more to do there that we didn't have time for, so I hope to make it back sometime.

Goodness Gracious!

To our horror, Grace has discovered the joy of pulling herself up to stand on anything that's somewhat vertical, and cruising around the house now. She also loves to shake her booty any time a song comes on. Here she is dancing and showing off her skills.

Our Little Girl is Growing Up

These first 8 months have gone by so fast and have been the best 8 months of our lives. Gracie has brought so much joy and happiness. Watch this video Lindsey put together below and see Gracie growing up:

Cute girl

Here are some recent photo's of the girl. She's so close to crawling forward, she can go backward pretty well. She also loves all kinds of stuffed animals and loves to suck on them. This past week the 2 bottom teeth decided to pop up, but I wasn't able to capture them in any pictures. She's not very cooperative during photo sessions.

Gracie Loves to Bathe!

We finally remodeled our bathroom and put in a nice big tub for baby Gracie. Here is a fun video of Gracie in the new tub.