Swim Lessons

Grace has been taking swim lessons the last two weeks at the community pool. We had looked into it before and hadn't been able to find classes close to our house. Then a friend from church found out about these and signed her girls up, and we decided to go ahead a sign Grace up as well. She ended up having two friends from church in her class, which was fun for her, and nice for me, as I could hang out with their moms, my friends, while she swam.

I must admit that things didn't go as well as expected the first day. It completely caught me off guard as Grace doesn't usually have problems being in new of different situations. She never even went through "separation anxiety" as a baby and has always been very adventuresome and independent. In hinge sight, I was probably a little too overconfident as I should have talked about it and prepared her more. She also isn't used to being around kids that are crying/screaming, and so I think that is what set her off more than anything.

So when we went back the second day, we were more prepared. She even had a brand new video of her darling cousin, Elena, for when she got home for swim lessons, if she had a good attitude of course. She pretty much will do anything to be able to have Elena interaction, even if it is via video on the computer. We also had prayed about it, talked about how Jesus is always with us, and watched kids swimming lessons on youtube. With the extra prep, she did much better, and by the end of the two weeks she was loving it.

So here are a couple pictures I took on a couple diffrent days.

Here she is on the first day, getting ready to head out of the house. It was kinda cold, I was glad I wasn't getting in the pool.
It cracked me up becuase she was using her toes to grab onto the swim teachers arm.

Poor little thing. With her all around lack of body fat, she was pretty cold a lot of days.
Watching her friend Lilah jump to the swim teacher.

I always thought they were so cute standing there on the edge of the pool shivering.
On the last day, the teacher gave her a bag of candy as a treat for doing a good job. She was excited to show it off to Tuna when she got home. And just in case anyone is wondering, I did let her have a piece of candy, which was a pretty big step for me, as I am pretty picky with what she is allowed to eat.

Painting

Last week we had some work done on our garage to make it into a new family room/office. Gunnar did most of the work, but I had one project that I thought Grace would enjoy helping out with. Sure enough, I was right! She was so excited to help me paint this old book shelf someone had passed on to us. I did the top shelves and she did the bottom shelves. It was actually a huge help as I would have had trouble reaching those shelves.
I did end up dripping some paint on Grace's head. I have trouble seeing things that are down around my feet. She rollered the cat, so there was paint all around. Oh well, it came off easily!
After the painting she hung out with Tuna. I have never liked cats before, but Tuna is so great with her, I think he might have changed my opinion on the species. He just chills while she loves on him.

The little model

A couple days ago Grace woke up from her nap and came and sat on the bed with me (I like to take advantage of her nap time to get a nap in as well). She brought her teddy with her and climbed up next to me.

"Can you please take a picture of me and my teddy?" she asked.

And you can't forget the cheesy face!

Blue Berry patch part 2

Saturday morning, we went for round two on the blue berry patch. Gunnar had work to do, so it was just the girls. Maria had really wanted to go with us on Thursday, but hadn't been able to make it up, so we went again. You can never have too many blue berries, right? And don't worry, they aren't going to waste. :)

In the morning as we were getting ready to go one of us said something about Gunnar not coming with us. Grace piped up and said:

"Gunnar going blueberry picking with his sister-in-law!! Embarrassing! Embarrassing! Hello!?!"

Maria and I thought it was hilarious. I am not sure why that would be embarrasing exactly, and we explained to Grace that Gunnar used to lots of stuff with his sister-in-law before we lived so far away. Nontheless, it kept us laughing all morning.

Anyways, back to the blue berry patch. Grace is getting pretty good at this!

This last picture is one of my very favorite pictures ever. Grace was so excited to have Maria here, she kept wanting to hug and kiss her. She is such an affectionant little girl and Tia is one of her very favorite people!

Maria's visit

Gunnar went to Anaheim on Friday night to go to a baseball game with some guys from church, so Maria came up to spend the night with Grace and I. We had a wonderful time as always, and it was great to spend time with her before she heads off to Spain for a missions trip this summer.

Seeing as we had a bounty of blue berries, we decided to try our hand at blue berry pie. The blue berry part was delicious, but something was off with our pie pastry, so it wasn't as good as we had hoped. Oh well, live and learn, right? Grace loves cooking and so she made a little pie of her own. She had such a blast making it (and getting flour all over herself), it was super cute.

Filling it with blue berries.Ready to go in the oven!
Finished pies!!
After all that blue berry consumption, Maria needed a good teeth brushing, and who better to help her out than Grace, right? I am not sure Maria agreed, but Grace thought it was a great idea.

Orange you glad I didn't say Banana?

The orange tree in our front yard has been producing oranges, and they are super juicy and delicious. There are also a bunch of people from our church with orange trees so we have had our fare share of citrus lately.

Last night I bought a orange juicer at Target, and Grace and I tried it out this morning. The oranges are so juicy Grace can squeeze them easily. She loved squeezing them and I loved drinking the juice, so we made a great team!

Berry Delicious

A member of our church invited us over to pick blue berries on his property. Grace and I love blue berries and were so excited. It was as much fun as I expected, possibly more, as blue berry bushes don't have stickers and you don't get dirty doing it. Well, unless you get board when your dad is talking to the host, like Grace did, and sit on the ground and throw dirt on your lap. But dirt on clothes is pretty much an every day occurrence at our house, so I hardly noticed. :)

Grace and Gunnar worked on a bag together. When we got there Grace had gum in her mouth and so she was doing a good job of picking, not eating the berries. A little while into it, however, she lost the gum, and from then on more berries made it mouth than the bag. :)

In case you are wondering what blue berries look like in the wild, now you know. This was actually a pretty bad example, because it looks like that front berry has met up with a bird. Unfortunately, it is the only one I took a picture of. You get the basic idea, nontheless.Some of these berries were seriously huge! Gunnar's wedding band, isn't thin, and as you can see, the berry was way bigger.
Grace and I held up one of the two bags that we got. That would be my 30 week (or 7.5 month) belly there.
I love my girl!!
Here is a look at our plunder. I am going to attempt to make a blue berry pie, so we will see how that goes. I have never had enough blue berries to try it before!
They are as good as they look!

Rain, Rain, go away...

Actually, we love the rain. It so seldom comes, that it is always a treat. Even better than rain is hail, and we were fortunate to have both for a brief period the other day. Gunnar and Grace ran outside to enjoy the hail.

Baby Care

When Elena came up a while back, Grace was so excited to feed Elena her bottle.

"It is exciting when a child can be a mother" she said.

Name Writting Progression

Grace has been working on learning to write her name. She does quite well, if I do say so myself. At first, her R looked kinda like a P, and her letter's struggled to remember which side was up. Here is an example of one of her early attempts.

In the next phase, her G and R were greatly improved, and although she always would write the letters in the correct order, she didn't always place them in a left to right sequence. See? (Sorry, this picture is a mirror image, so the letter's are backwards from what they looked like on the paper-the others pictures, however are just the way she wrote them).

And finally, yesterday she came up and handed me this:

I do apologize for the horrible picture quality, but I think you can see the general idea.

She writes cards and notes to people constantly. I think it is just another extension of her super social, verbal, extroverted side.

She knows how to write a couple words on her own. Like Mom: (it is on the envelope, and the card)
And Papa: (spelled Paapa-but she is three, so I will call it close enough)

One of her other very favorite words to write is "Love." (or in this case OLVE) Underneath that, she was wrote Elena (that is who the card was for.) She said the extra "B" was for baby.
Here is another Love. When she writes "Love" she always has a heart nearby.Lastly, one of her little people. I think this was supposed to be Tia. :) They are so cute, I never get tired of finding them around the house.