Fun two weeks ahead!!

Tomorrow Grace and I will be heading north for our LONG stay with Nana and Papa! And I have to tell you, I can't wait!! We have so much to look forward to in the next couple of weeks, and I'm getting a little giddy! Tomorrow is Mom's (Nana's) birthday and we will be able to help her celebrate after we arrive in IN! I think some Pepperoni Grill is in store and my mouth is watering just thinking about that place! On Wednesday, Grace and I are going to play with Grandma, Laura, Brent, and Jack while we wait on Matt to arrive. Next up is of course........Thanksgiving! I don't know about you all, but I intend to wear my sweat pants so I can stuff my face with as much goodness as I possibly can! On Friday morning, bright and early, Mom, Carrie, Maggie and I will head off to do our annual Black Friday shopping! I never thought I would say this, but I AM SO EXCITED!! I have almost 90% of my shopping done, but it's so fun to see everyone in the Christmas spirit.......dressed in their pajamas, drinking 10 cups of coffee, fighting over parking spots, and loaded down with so many shopping bags that the poor kids are walking and the bags are in the strollers! For those of you who haven't experienced Black Friday shopping, I have to say you're missing out........unless you head to Walmart at 4am and get trampled!! You might walk into Toys R Us and see the line that wraps around the building. Don't worry it moves REALLY quickly!! On Sunday, we get to watch Jack play basketball in Columbus. I can't wait to see the new moves he's learned from IU and the Pacers! :) IU may even need to look into recruiting him. It nevers hurts to sign a player A LITTLE early! We were initially planning on travelling back to TN after his game, but I learned that our next event was only a few days away and it didn't make sense to drag Grace back and forth AGAIN. So on Thursday, Grace, Nana, and I are going to see Disney on Ice IN THE FRONT ROW!!!!!!! WHO HOO!!!!! I am SO EXCITED to take Grace I can hardly stand it! It's possible she may have a little tinkle running down her legs if she sees "Mick" up close and personal!!! I'll make sure to take a ton of pictures! On Friday, we'll load up and head out to St. Louis for Vince's big 4th birthday party!! I haven't been able to go the past 2 years so I'm VERY excited to go this year!! Awww I can't believe our little "Bincy" is almost 4 already! If I missed any days, don't worry I'm sure I'll find some Christmasy things for Grace and I to do while we wait on everyone to get home from work........maybe we'll even visit the "cold room" at Pioneer Papa!! :)
To sum up my feelings for the next couple of weeks, I think it's safe to say I'M SO EXCITED!!!! I can't wait to see everyone!!!!

HAPPY

BIRTHDAY

NANA!!!!

A Visit from the Mann clan

Chad, Julie, and Ally-cat made the long haul from Indy and visited good ol' Knoxville last weekend. Julie used to be our most frequent visitor. And then we started having babies which makes travelling A LITTLE more difficult! :) When we travel back to Indiana, we usually have our weekends packed with birthday parties, weddings, graduations, funerals, etc that tend to take up most of our time. Needless to say, Julie and I don't get to see each other very often anymore. So when she said they were coming for a visit, I did a little happy dance!!

Ally is 8 months older than Grace and was such a sweetheart to her! After they arrived in Tennessee, the girls put on their dress up clothes and the "night-o-fairy princesses" started!
They played so well together as long as Ally got to wear the green (Tinkerbell) dress and Grace got to wear the purple (Barbie) dress.......hey a girl has to know what color works best on her, right!?! :)

On Saturday, we sent the boys golfing and then took the girls to the aquarium in Gatlinburg. This was Grace's first trip to the aquarium so I was pumped. It's such a neat place to take the kiddos, and if you're ever in Gatlinburg, I highly recommend it. Inside there is a moving sidewalk and takes you underneath an enormous water tank filled with all kinds of sharks, turtles, etc. It's just like the scene in Jaws where the people are walking in the underwater tunnel. You know right before the dead body floats by the window and Jaws smashes into it!!!! Thankfully, we didn't have that SAME experience!! Whew I've watched one too many horror movies!



Once you pass all of the reminders of Jaws, there is a kids area with all kinds of fun things to look at and touch. The vibrating fish that you can stand on was a big hit as you can see in the pics above! Take a look at the picture of the treasure chest. You might notice a bright green button on the front. If you push that button, a big gust of air blows up from the what the kids are standing on. Now you might think this is a little cruel b/c it scared each and every kid that did it. On the other hand, I've never seen so many parents laughing SO hard!!!

Just like her mother, Grace was happy-go-lucky after we had our lunch!! We tend to get just a little irritable when we get hungry!! :)

We took the girls to the gift shop and let them each pick out a surprise. They had the cutest stuffed animals and little trinkets to choose from. For whatever reason, Grace picked out one of the ugliest things in the store......a purple mermaid. And what did Ally get......the same mermaid in pink!!!! Oh well they sure loved their "dollies!" It didn't take Grace long to start snoozing after we got on the road!!!

Saturday night Julie and I got a night out on the town! Ok so it was just dinner but enjoying a dinner out is a foreign concept to me these days! We got to enjoy A WHOLE meal without any interruptions AND the food was HOT when we ate it!! Ahhhhhh! I still slobber when I think about the white chocolate bread pudding a la mode!!! YUM!!! When we got home, we were pleasantly surprised to find the house picked up AND the dishes put IN the dishwasher. Matt and Chad are "brothers from another mother" and could sit and talk for hours like me and Julie so leaving them together all day is not a bit deal by any means. As a matter of fact, when we got home they were ready for us to leave again!

We had such a good visit with the Mann clan!! Come back anytime!!

We had beautiful weather all weekend, and decided Sunday night was a perfect night for a weenie roast before the big game. Here's a picture of Grace helping Matt with the hot dogs. She did a pretty good job. No eyes were poked out in the process so I'd consider that an overall success!!!

Here we go again......

Well it happened again.....we had our second round at the ER on Sunday! I always thought in the back of my mind that I could keep Grace in my little, baby bubble her whole life and nothing would happen to her that included any illnesses, injuries, bumps, bruises, etc. Doesn't every mom think that?!?! And here we are with two ER visits in less than 4 months under our belts! On Sunday, Grace and I were getting ready to head to the grocery store. She was in a closet downstairs playing peek-a-boo when I told her it was time to go. I took ahold of her forearm (in a VERY gentle way.....not in a LET'S GO OR I'M GOING TO PULL YOUR ARM OFF kind of way) to coax her out of the closet. She took a couple of steps and then fell onto her knees. She instantly started crying and pointing to her arm saying, "Ouch!" I knew instantly that she hurt it because she wouldn't even let me look at it without crying. Poor baby! I called Matt, told him to get home IMMEDIATELY,

and off we went. Grace was fine (and even fell asleep before we left for the hospital) as long as she was up against my chest with her left arm pointing up. The doctor took one look at it and popped her elbow right back into place! OUCH!!! While Grace wasn't thrilled with the actual popping back into place, she was fine RIGHT afterwards! SHOOO!! The combination of me having her arm and Grace falling just the right way was a recipe for disaster! Did I feel guilty you're probably asking? Ummm does a Paula Deen recipe have butter in it?? YES, of course I did! I don't care that it was an accident. It still happened nonetheless!

I posted a couple of pics from later that night to show you all that Grace was back to her old self again.....dancing around with her jammies pulled up past her bellybutton!! Oh I love that girl!! She even got a pair of purple gloves to take home as a souvenir!! :)

Hopefully we won't have to visit the ER for round three anytime soon........OR NEVER!!!!!!

"Trick or Treak"

And here is our Minnie Mouse!!!!

You all know how excited I get for Halloween so you can imagine what I thought when Grace woke up from her nap on the big day with a low-grade fever!!! WHAT!! Poor thing.....had those sick little eyes to go with her fever! I was debating on whether I was even going to take her around the neighborhood since it was cold and raining outside. At the last minute, I decided to bite the bullet and take her to a few houses. It didn't take her long to say "trick or treak" which she repeated at least 700 times over and over again......until someone answered their door that is! Grace completely froze at our first stop. She just stood and stared until the bucket of candy came out. Why shouldn't you be able to take at least 3 handfuls of candy at each house?!? I totally understand her frustration with that! She also felt completely at home and tried to walk on into each house.......well the door was open right! :)

This is Grace's buddy, Jackson, who had the best costume of the night.......Jack-in-the-box of course!! hahahaha How cute is he! And I love the looks on their faces here!! Apparently Minnie was pretty funny!!

Even though Grace only got to "trick or treak" at a few houses, we still had a lot of fun! On Sunday, her fever was gone so I decided to take her around in her wagon with her Minnie ears so she could get in a little more trick or treak time!!

Special thanks to Sophie for letting Grace borrow your costume and also to Aunt Maggie for digging it out for us!!

I hope everyone had a great Halloween!!