Second Post of 2010, and It's Not Even May!

Do not adjust your monitors. Seeing is believing. Yes, I'm back. Hard to believe, I know. But I have a few days off from work, and all of our SD cards are full, so now's the time to finally download some pictures and catch you all up on the past six months or so of life in the Teigen household.

It's a new year (OK, OK. We're almost five months in, but I like to think of myself as a glass-half-FULL kinda girl...), so I'm trying something new for picture sharing. Instead of posting pictures here, I'm posting them to our Windows Live account. Here's the address: http://cid-52d767639fdc418c.photos.live.com/summary.aspx

You'll have to set up a Hotmail account if you don't already have one. It's super easy. Then create a password and go from there. Once you've established yourself as a user, you can come back and view our online albums any time. I'll still use this blog to keep a record of Grace's developmental milestones, but please go to Windows Live to see photos.

So how does one sum up an entire six+ months of toddler development in a single blog post? I have nobody to blame except myself. My priorities have shifted in recent months and I have only about an hour of down-time each evening. Blogging is not what I want to do after being on the computer at work for 8-10 hours/day, and our weekends are even more full than usual for some reason. It's all about doing more with less these days, it seems. So here goes:

Potty Training: Done. Pretty much. It's rare for Grace to have wetting accidents, but she still struggles at times with pooping in the potty. In a given week, I'd say she chooses to poop in the potty at least 90% of the time. We can't even call the other 10% 'accidents' because after they happen, she usually tells us she didn't want to go on the potty. It's all about control, right? But she's getting there. In fact, most days she wakes up with a dry Pull-Up!

Growth/Health: Although Grace has a bit of a cold right now, she has been remarkably healthy this winter. She's had a couple minor illnesses, but only one especially virulent virus that kept her out of school for almost a week in January. Grace has always been an awesome sleeper and eater, plus she gets lots of fresh air and exercise, so it's no wonder she's so healthy! She's also growing like crazy. She weighs 27 pounds and wears size 3T in clothes. We'll be taking her to the doctor soon for her 3-year check-up, so we'll find out how tall she is then.

Vocabulary: There is no way I could list all the cute/funny/endearing/brilliant things that come out of Gracie's mouth, but here are some especially memorable Gracie-isms I just have to mention:

• Go 'way/Leave me 'lone! (usually spoken in frustration when she doesn't get her way; not that we condone it, but it is awfully cute.)
• Solly, solly. (sorry, sorry)
• Pease picka me up.
• He a mean guy? (Grace loves the villian in every movie she watches. She can identify the 'mean guy' right away but usually asks just to confirm.)
• Her is my friend.
• Us going bye bye?
• I wanna go to Gamma's house.
• Nu not a mean guy. (nu = you)
• Seeping Booty (Grace's favorite Disney princess)
• May I please be excused? (as in, from the dinner table. Yes, my heart beams with pride every time she says it!)

There are so, so, soooo many more but these are just some of our faves.

Interests: You might recall that right around Christmas, Grace was obsessed with all things Pocahontas. Well, after watching the movie approximately 46,982 times and being inundated with Pocahontas-themed Christmas gifts, she moved on to a new fixation: fairy tale princesses. My friends with daughters warned me that, like most little girls, Grace would eventually uncover an innate penchant for princesses regardless of our efforts to redirect her interests, but I figured that Gracie would be the exception. Alas, it's as if the love of 'pinky princesses' is embedded in little girls' DNA. It's not that Chad and I actively discouraged Gracie from playing with/taking interest in princesses, but we certainly did not encourage her in any way. Yet here we are, a few days after Grace's princess-themed third birthday party with a house full of new princess-themed toys, books, room decor, apparel, and even dinnerware (!), and it seems we've only scratched the surface of Grace's new-found fascination. I suppose there are worse things, right? :-)

Well, that's all I have time for tonight. Be sure to check out our pictures at Windows Live. As we add new pics to that site, I'll try to post little reminders here to let you all know. In the meantime, set up your account and bookmark the site so you can access our albums as we create them. Enjoy!