Here are a couple more......

You might think you've just turned on A Christmas Story and you're seeing Randy shove his face into his mashed potatoes. But you're really just watching Grace trying to drink her watermelon juice! Ummmmmm in case there was any doubt, YES she LOVES watermelon!!








And here is another video of Grace cheering on the Colts in her jersey!

I'm "Grace Gentry!"

Grace just learned her full name. Here is a video of her saying Grace Gentry!

Fun filled weekend in Tennessee!

Last Friday, Grace and I headed down to Pigeon Forge for a long, overdue reunion with my old college roomie, Susan, and her mom, Jeri! I was SO excited since it has been 7 years since I have seen them! I got to meet Susan's two, beautiful girls, Maya and Riley, and we tried to catch up on each other's lives in about an hour. This turned out to be a little daunting considering we met at a restaurant for lunch and two out of the three little ones were ready for their naps! :)

I got a little teary-eyed as I was driving home thinking about the good ol' days and how much fun we had! And all of the sudden I blinked, and there we sat seven years, two husbands, and 3 kids later......between the two of us of course! :) It's amazing how quickly time passes in our "busy" lives. I already can't wait until next year. Sus, maybe we can meet during nap time so we can have a conversation without patrolling over who is eating their macaroni and cheese, trying to wipe off the entire bowl of jelly off of clothing, asking why my daughter has 3 tubs of butter in her mouth, and trying to find lost pacifiers!! hahahaha

On Saturday morning, we headed downtown for the Race for the Cure. We have walked with the Bowen team for 3 years now. Unfortunately, our team was A LITTLE small this year, but we still had fun nonetheless. Grace LOVED the firetruck at the starting point and both she and Jalen did great during the walk. However, I do have some EXCITING news to report back from the race. We got to get our picture taken with Ronald McDonald (or as Grace says, "Rocky, Rocky") and the UT men's basketball team.....and yes I said Rocky first because of Grace's excitement when we saw him!! Once he was spotted, I ran over to get close to him (exactly like I do during a concert when I'm trying to get close to Keith Urban b/c I KNOW he is going to see me)! And all of the sudden I see the b'ball team. I ran and got Matt's attention to bring the camera over, and I slipped in and got a picture with them AND "Rocky!" Ummmm yes, I was floating on cloud nine and almost forgot why I was in downtown Knoxville on a freezing cold Saturday morning! :)
Misty ran (champ) and while I considered running (give me a minute while I tinkle in my pants from laughing) I decided to walk with the "Family Fun" peeps. It was a fun morning, and I hope more people can come out and support Misty and team Bowen next year!

UT football had a big game (Alabama) on Saturday afternoon and we got to enjoy it with our neighbors. I forgot my camera, but we watched a good game (that we should've won) and had some good food with good friends! Awww shout out to you Lauren since I know you read this! haha

Finally on Sunday after the Colts demolished the Rams, we carved Grace's pumpkin. Grace helped dig out the "guts", but was quickly distracted during the actual carving process. She's like me what can I say....easily distracted by the ball, flowers, dog poo, anything shiny! She was pretty excited about the finaly product and kept kissing her pumpkin when we were trying to get her picture with it.

Only 4 more days to go until Halloween and I CAN'T WAIT!!! It's SO exciting that it's on a Saturday this year! Oh horror movie marathons here we come......after Grace goes to bed of course!! :)

Pumpkin Patch

On Sunday, the three of us headed out to the pumpkin patch. I was SO excited I could hardly wait for Grace to wake up from her nap! I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the pumpkin patch and could easily spend an entire day there! Anyway, this year there was so much more Grace could do which made it even more fun.

Immediately after arriving, Grace jetted toward the giant slide (see pic above)! Nevermind the pumpkins, let's get RIGHT to the RIDES!!!! YES!!!! That's my girl! This was no "baby slide" folks, this was a slide for the big kids including myself! :) We climed up the steps, sat her on my lap, and took off. It actually got my stomach the first time so I wasn't sure if she was going to like it. As soon as we landed, she got right back up and headed for the steps yelling, "Gain, Gain!" hahaha She does have my blood running through her after all! We could've stayed there all day, but we distracted her with a few more activites that the place had to offer. Next up was the train ride. It was VERY bumpy and Grace liked it for the most part as well.

Devan, Misty, and Jalen met us for the hayride and punkin' pickin'. Grace went up to EVERY pumpkin, would try to lift it up and say, "Oh heaby." She ventured over to a pumpkin that had been busted open. Matt wasn't thrilled, but I let her check it out and feel the seeds and "guts". Just wait until pumpkin carving night, Daddy! :)

We found our two pumpkins and were ready to head back. Once it was our turn to get on the wagon, the driver said we'd have to wait for the next one because it was full............GREAT!!!!! I knew what was coming next...............................................Yep, FULL MELTDOWN!!!! Sir, don't you understand that when a 20 month old wants to get on the "train", she WANTS to get on it NOW!!!!!
After trying to convince Grace that we weren't left behind and her wanting to be held and put down, held and put down, another wagon finally came and rescued us! Phew!! There were several things that we didn't get to do again this year. That just makes me even more excited for next year!!

Awwww she's a country girl at heart!! That's also in her blood after all!! She keeps telling me she wants to help Papa with his corn when she's big!! :)

Here's a few pics of Grace and I going down the slide.

Game faces on!!!

"Gain, Gain!""

Grace is still loving this holiday! She points out every "pider," "carecrow," and "punkin'" she sees. This time of year, our neighborhood has a tradition called "BOOing". Once you've been "BOOed" your instructions are to put the "BOO" sign on your door, make 2 copies of the sign and instructions, and take a Halloween something-or-other to 2 neighbors without them seeing you. This continues until Halloween night, and you can see how far it's spread by the "BOOs" on your neighbors' doors. Last week, our doorbell rang during dinner. I went outside expecting to see a salesman and instead discovered we had just been BOOed!!! The next night, Grace and I loaded up our Halloween surprises and waited until it was dark. We ran up to each house, put down our goodies, rang the doorbell, and started sprinting. Ok this part was interesting considering I wasn't supposed to be running yet and I was carrying a 27-pounder........in the rain! I tried to "explain" to Grace that we were supposed to be quiet so one would hear us. After we rang each doorbell and hid, she would yell, "Qiet, Qiet!" hahahaha Oh well, we had fun anyway!!

One final picture of my little punkin' head!!

Nothing beats a good belly laugh.......

I also wanted to share this video of Grace belly laughing at Matt. The picture quality is poor, but the content is pretty cute! ENJOY!!

Another Trip to the Zoo

Last Thursday, Grace and I decided to visit the zoo with Lauren and Vivienne who are in our play group. Yes, believe it or not, we actually got a whole day in Knoxville WITHOUT rain!!! We had so much more fun at this visit than the last because we found a couple kiddy areas that we missed the first time. Note to self......when visiting the zoo with a one and a half year old, MAKE SURE FIND THE KID-FRIENDLY AREAS!!! HELLO!!

Grace got to ride a carousel for the first time, and, not surprisingly, LOVED it!!! It looks like she is going to love all that fun stuff like I do!! YES!! As a matter of fact, we could've stayed there all day since it wasn't a very pretty sight when it was time to get off! Ohhhhh I do love a good meltdown! :)

We also came across an outdoor petting zoo. I'm not quite sure what the goat was wanting Grace to do here or what Grace was about to do, but it turned out to be a rather hilarious picture! She went right up to the goats and sheep as if she is used to being around them on a daily basis. I guess if Pete has taught her something, it's that she is fearless when it comes to animals!

We also found an indoor area that had a million activities for kids to see and do. We saw rabbits (Hoppy as Grace calls them), turtles, rats, lizards, etc. There was also a play kitchen area filled with every kind of food you can imagine, dress-up clothes, a tunnel to crawl through (that I did with Grace and was actually pretty neat), an area with a zillion play tools (once Grace found a hammer, she carried it around until we left.....see picture to the left), and a few things we didn't even get to see! We couldn't leave without taking a look at the gift shop to see what we HAD to have. We ended up bringing some butterflies home and Grace kisses them every time we go into her room.

While I was trying to get Grace to eat some lunch, she tucked herself into a bunch of bushes and ended up hitting her head. The nice lady who worked at the gift shop came out and gave her a sucker which seemed to dry up the tears instantly and give her the right to completely refuse a chicken nugget even coming close to her mouth.......SWEET! By the time we got to our car, she was glued to the stroller and her hair was matted to her face! :) Oh well!

Our zoo offers "Boo at the Zoo" where the kids can dress up in their costumes and get in a little trick-or-treating action. I just might take her to see what goods we can get to start my Halloween candy stash!!!!

A LOT to blog about.......

We've had A LOT going on around our house over the past week, so I decided to try and fit 3 events into one entry. First up: our new wagon! Grace got a new wagon in the mail from Nana and Papa and she absolutely LOVES it.....to say the least!! Anytime I mention going outside, she instantly says, " Waggy, waggy!" I've said forever now that she is destined to be an engineer because she loves figuring out how things work and trying to take things apart and put them back together again. Here are a couple pictures of Grace "helping" Matt put the wagon together and one picture of them pretty excited about the final product!! Thank you again Nana and Papa!!

Last week, Grace and I tried out a new program called Mommy and Me. It is offered twice a month through a local church, and each week has its own theme. This week was called, "It's all about Me." The hour starts off with singing and dancing then the kids are allowed to roam from station to station at their leisure. There were tubs filled with rice and measuring cups, puzzles, cowboy, fireman, and butterfly costumes, "wall coloring", and FINGERPAINTING!! How we got out of there without getting paint all over everything is beyond me! Grace visited the painting station 3 times and LOVED playing in the rice. We can't wait until the next program because this child loved it!!

Finally, Grace and I got to babysit for little Jalen on Friday and Saturday. He is an angel baby and hardly made a peep! He would just look at Grace while she rambled on about who knows what and turn to me with a look that said, "WHAT did she just say??" :) Grace took it all in stride, and by the end of the first day she was crawling around the house saying, "Wa, Wa!" haha She was an old pro by Saturday and turned into quite the little helper. She got Jalen's toy and "me" when it was time for his naps, and loved "assisting" with his bottles! :) On Sunday night while we were eating supper, she kept saying, "Dana (Jalen) where are you?" How cute! Here are some pictures of our two days with "Dana." In the picture to the right, Grace was "helping" me get Jalen out of the pack-n-play after his nap. haha

The next two pictures are showing Grace "reading" Jalen a book and playing peek-a-boo during lunch.

Jalen seems to love our wagon also....hint, hint Santa! :) Come back anytime!

Well that's all for now. 10-4 and out!