Gracelyn takes her first two steps!!!! The BEST Welcome Home Present!!!!!

We don't have much to write at this time... we are FINALLY home after traveling a grand total of 14 hours!!!! Waiting for 5 hours this morning for our flight was a KILLER!!! and if it were not for those stinkin' time changes I am sure it would have felt shorter but NO it DEFINITELY seemed lonnnngggg. We actually raced each other to the baggage claim. (David kept trying to shove me into the wall) once we arrived at our destination GIGI OF COURSE!!! we took turns passing her back and forth. At first she was a little confused two crazy people running at her cheering.. but then she started to (hyperventaliate as I call it) squishing her nose and snorting and squinting... kicking her legs like crazy and dancing dancing dancing!!! The three of us just hugged FOREVER!!! Never wanting to let go, and not wanting the loving to stop! 

Though we fell asleep in the car ride home around 7pm she woke up immediately. She KNEW she was NOT going to sleep... oh no she was going to stay up and play with Mommy and Daddy! She has so much to tell us and show us... and one particular skill surprised us both! 

SHE TOOK HER FIRST TWO STEPS!! 

She has been standing on her own for a while and she just runs circled around furniture but she wanted to be with her Daddy so badly that she was going to WALK to him!!! We cheered... clappped... jumped... squealed... you know what ALL NORMAL parents do ;) Then I called my mother and begged her to tell me the truth about Gigi's walking... no she had not had ANY attempts at walking... she saved it for her parents!!

WE ARE WALKING ON AIR RIGHT NOW!!!  She is so much bigger and looks more like a little girl... she is growing up and in about two months she will be 1 :) We are LOVING everything she is doing and it all feels like the first time... when you tell her to say hi or bye bye she waves and when she is asked to clap she brings her hands together!!! AHHHH where did the baby go that we left a week ago!!

I promise to upload some of the BAJILLION pictures we took... but for tonight we are hoping for some SLEEP!!!

LOVE YOU ALL!!!

12 hours and counting!

BON VOYAGE!

We are leaving at five in the morning for our Trip! We will get to stay one night in Fort lauderdale walk around the town, go out to dinner and then Thursday we board the ship and depart for Island Paradise! Sadly we will not have internet or access for uploading pictures so stay tuned and when we return next week you KNOW I will post oh so many!!

This will be our home for the next week :)

See you in a week :)
The Mr.
The Mrs.
and the Little Miss


P.s. BIG thanks to our sweet and wonderful families for watching Gigi while we are gone... we know she won't even miss us with all the loving and spoiling she will be getting!!

Family time, swimming and squirming!

We try to get her and her cousin together every week... just so they can learn to play with other and so Evy and I can talk as well... they love playing together :) She does so much now and if she is not climbing the stairs she is cruising the furniture. She stands pretty well on her own now... and hopefully is content.... mama is not ready for a walker :)





She LOVED the pool ring we bought her! She had absolutely no fear of being along in her raft... though don't worry Mommy wasn't very far ;)

Gigi meets Baby Parker!

We were so blessed to be able to go see one of my best friends Jessica, her hubby and BABY PARKER again today! Thankfully this time I was able to bring Gigi so she was able to meet her new buddy Parker!! She was so tender towards him and kept reaching out her hand to touch him! Not only did I get to hold the handsome little man, but I got to change his diaper!! My first experience of messy poopy with little boys ;) Thanks to Luke who kept handing me wipe after wipe after wipe :)



While I held Parker, Gigi spent some time snuggling with Auntie Jess in her bed... though she was mostly interested in her MANY hospital bracelets :)



Gigi hung out with Uncle Luke for a little bit and LOVED playing with Parker's balloons :)


My beautiful BEstest with her baby boy!!
Parker snuggling with his mama!


Of course it reminded me of my picture with Gigi :)

Baby Parker is here!

One of my best friends Jess delivered her little baby boy today at 5 a.m. He was 8 lbs and 2 oz and super cute! I was so blessed to be able to hold Parker Lukas Fischer!!! Jess is doing amazing and loving being a mom. Luke, Jess' hubby is such a trooper... changing poopy diapers and being there for his wife... they are such a cute and loving family!!

I am going back to the hospital again tomorrow so I will have more pictures but for now here are two that Auntie Erin took!!


I am just so proud of Jessica and SO in love with little Parker!!!!! I am so thankful that Jessica and Luke moved back here, and even more blessed that I was able to be with her during this new and exciting time!!

Gigi was 2 weeks old when Auntie Jess got to meet her :)

Alyssa's "Golden" themed Shower

Since Alyssa's new last name is going to be GOLDEN her friends got together and threw her a beautiful GOLDEN themed shower.
We had yummy desserts, tasty food, and delish drinks!

We all scrapbooked advice cards for Alyssa and her friends placed them in a "Bridal Shower" album.


We played bridal bingo and watched her open such lovely gifts!! This girl is so blessed!!! Along with the invite we were asked to wear GOLD. I DON't own ONE GoLD thing!!!!!! So I went out and bought these big gold diamond hoop earrings... which I later gave to Alyssa but they were fun while I did wear them ;)
Here are some fun pictures of the fabulous event :)

The BRIDE and her sisters!


Gigi wore her gold beads :)

Grigi and her friend Grace played together :)

Grandma and Gigi

Many great friends were there to share in Alyssa's special shower!





Auntie Lili and Auntie Ashlee LOVE their Gigi!!!


I am so blessed to have my sisters as friends!!


Thank you everyone for coming!! and a BIG thanks to Katelyn and Christine for throwing such a GREAT shower!!! It was so a fun day!

9m Dr. Appt :)

So I finally made it to the Dr!!! Remember me saying last week that I completely spaced it... not this week I EVEN got up early to prepare for it !!

It was a great visit :) I was able to kill two birds with a stone because Gigi had been running a fever and had a runny nose so it was nice to get that looked at too. I thought she was teething her first top tooth... but it looks like she is going to get all four in very soon! The Dr. said they are just BEGGING to break through...oh dear me ! Poor thing :( However, That teething fever and runny nose turned into a small cold... booger sucker here we come!!

Everything looked great as far as her growth. She is just under 23 lbs and is 29.75 inches long :) I definitely think she will have both her mommy and daddy's height. She said we are good to start feeding her table foods... oops we started that months ago :) Since Gigi loves her sippy so much Dr. B said we can start her on a regular cup... oh boy I see many many spills ahead ;) I think we will stick with the straw for now!


She had to get a heel poke...that didn't even phase her. Then she has to get a skin test... again nothing... and even the regular flu shot.. a squinting of the eyes but no crying... she is definitely NOT my daughter... she must get her pain tolerance from her daddy :)

The only test she failed was her clapping test... she doesn't know how to hit her hands together. She will smack her lags and thighs but not her hands. She can say mama and dada and practically run the stairs. She has GREAT fine motor skills and showed the Dr. this by using her pointer finger and thumb nails to slowly peel her band aids off, yet she doesn't clap... I am not worried... she will learn to clap eventually ... right ;)

Her new favorite thing to do is dance dance dance. Anything I jump up and down and move around and say yay she wrinkles her face and squints her eyes and dances :) Pure Joy!
She is just starting to stand by herself... oh no... this means my baby girl is growing up and will be walking soon!!!!



All in all she is one BIG healthy girl!

BIG Girl at BIG SURF!

My sister and her husband offered to take my little brother and his friends to Big Surf as a last HOO RAH before school starts on monday.




I am so glad they asked me along too! Usually tickets are 26$ EEKS! but Ashlee being the smart shopper she is found a deal where if you get 4 or more people to go it is $40 WHAT A STEAL!! Of course Gigi was $3.. seriously.. for a baby... :( Oh well we did have so much fun... we took Gigi into the baby pool at first. She played the HUGE Alligator raft and went under the mushroom waterfall but as soon as we sent her down the slide... TEARS STARTED Falling :( As soon as she was at the end of the slide and in Mama's arms everything was alright... we will wait a little longer to try that one again ;)
The wave pool however she LOVED!! They make kiddos wear a life jacket and even though it squished her face to where all you could see were her eyes and great big cheeks (Wish I had a picture) it was so much better. As soon as the Tsunami came it lifted both Gigi and I up... the cool thing was the jacket had a special pillow that floats up and immediately lays her on her back, head supported and all.... SO SMART!!! It was a lot of fun :) After that Uncle Tommy took a turn hanging out with her while Ashlee and I rode the BLACK HOLE together!! It was a lot of fun, I can't remember the last time I went down a waterslide on a raft!

After the Black hole, Tommy went out to the wave pool with the boys and Gigi settled down with some milk and nice 45 minute nap while Mommy and Ashlee talked and sunned.


I was so adamant about getting my money's worth that Ashlee and I took turns staying with the stroller while the other rode slide after slide after slide. We rode 6 slides each in 30 minutes!!!!!


Overall it was a fun day... I can't wait to try out Wet N Wild next year with Gigi and Daddy :)

9 months old today!!

I can't believe that my baby girl is nine months old today! I was going through all of her hospital and newborn photographs with hope that time would just stand still... sadly and obviously it didn't. I looked up to find my "little" climbing from her mini piano to the ottoman and reaching out as if she was going to straddle the stand up fan.. oh gone are the days of playing nicely on the floor.



As you can see she is a VERY busy girl.. and when the gate isn't up I am trying to keep her from eating dog food, pulling on cords, eating off the floor and pulling the recycling bin over!



She has grown so much just in this last month! Once again so MANY new things! Some good, some not so good. Here is a snippet of what month 9 brought!


* She eats anything now... pretty much whatever we eat only in smaller bit size portions! Some of her favorites are sloppy Joe's, peaches, canned mixed veggies, chicken, BLUEBERRIES, potatoes and baked beans :) She is NO way a picky eater :)
* She walks along the furniture.. from the couch to the table to the love seat to the piano etc... She thinks she can walk and will completely leave one item and lean towards the next but usually falls to her bum and crawls over to pull herself up.
* Two separate times now she has stood ALONE!!! BIG GIRL!! as proud as I am of her.. I am SOOO not ready for her to learn how to walk!!
* She crawls so fast that one second she is by me and then next time I look she is across the room trying to get over the make shift barrier (the guitar case) in front of the stairs.
* She says "Mama" all the time! My favorite was in the store pushing the cart she would grab my shirt, pull it to her face and say "mama" other times she grabs my cheeks and says it... I AM IN LOVE!!! It is the BEST SOUND in the world!!
* She goes CRAZY when Daddy gets home from work.. all I have to say is "Who is home? Is Daddy home?" and she will turbo crawl to the front door till he walks in... then she pretty much flies (waving her arms up and down) so hard and smiles so big... we are still working on "Daddy" but we know she knows who he is!
* She had her first skinned knee. She was standing up on our sliding closet door mirrors and it slid so she fell sideways and scraped her knee on the track.. no tears.. much blood but no tears :)
* Her favorite thing at night aside from her cozy blanky and Binky's is her naked doll that says her prayers (Yes her doll is naked. She once had clothes but Gigi threw up on them and well.. we couldn't save them :( Recently she LOVES to have her snow globe wound up as she falls asleep.
* She no longer needs a bottle, she drinks out of a sippy cup for her milk, and a straw sippy for her water... sometimes at just before bedtime we give her a bottle so that she will wind down!





I know I say this every month, but this has BY FAR been the most fun! She gets more playful and more interactive as each day goes by! I am so excited for her CUPCAKE THEMES FIRST BIRTHDAY but I can't help but think that my baby girl is almost COMPLETELY gone and soon only a toddler will remain :( In the midst of my sadness I am so excited to design and maker her cupcake birthday dress and plan out her party!!

One thing coming up that is even before her party is of course our Wedding Anniversary! We are so excited and blessed BEYOND BELIEF to be able to spend it this year on a Cruise to the Caribbean! Though it will be lovely for just the two of us to get away... it will be so sad to leave our precious Gigi for a week!!

Our marriage has been SUCH a blessing and becoming parents has been the most wonderful experience! I thank the Lord for allowing me to have a baby and we are amazed each day at what He continues to give us! Our lives would not be the way they are if it were not for our GRACIOUS, COMPASSIONATE and LOVING God!! We hope to continue to live our lives as an example for others and glorify our Lord with out marriage !!!

LOVE YOU ALL!! Thank you for caring about us :)
The Mr.
The Mrs.
and the Little Miss :)