Gracie and the Potato

Gracie and I took a quick trip this afternoon to Fresh Market for a couple of baking potatoes. She loves grocery shopping and wanted to hold a potato. I kept telling her over and over not to put it in her mouth, and she just held it and laughed and smiled. We get up to the checkout line and when I have to take the potato from Gracie, she lets out the loudest ear-piercing cry she has ever cried. Before I could even blink an eye, the teenage cashier weighed the potato and quickly gave it back to Gracie. I knew I should not let her have it, and shouldn't teach her to cry for what she wants like that, but I was dealing with a rare afternoon of pregnancy sickness, and just didn't want to deal with it. Anyway, a now happy Gracie and I walked to the car (potato still in hand), and I let her hold the potato on the way home. I again told her not to put it in her mouth, but.....this is what I found when we got home.... She even spit some out and handed it to me when we got home! Silly girl! She is just so precious, though, how can you stand it??!?!?!?

And here's the first belly shot of this pregnancy. I'm about 11 weeks now, and this was taken last week. Already showing a little!

Birthday Cupcake

Buttercream Frosting

Here is the Vanilla Buttercream Frosting recipe courtesy of Southern Living March 2009.

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/8 tsp. salt
1 (16 oz.) package powdered sugar
3 to 5 Tbsp. milk

1. Beat first 3 ingredients at medium speed with electric mixer until creamy
2. Gradually add powdered sugar alternately with 3 Tbsp. milk, 1 Tbsp. at a time, beating at low speed until blended and smooth after each addition. Beat in up to 2 Tsp. additional milk for desired consistency. Makes about 2 3/4 cups.

For Blackberry Buttercream.
Omit milk. Prepare recipe as directed in Step 1, beating in 1/2 cup fresh blackberries and 1 tsp. lemon zest with butter. Proceed with recipe as directed, beating in an additional 1 cup powdered sugar. Makes about 2 1/2 cups.

So there wouldn't be any seeds, I pureed my blackberries and sent them through a strainer, which gave me about 1/2 cup of blackberry syrup.

Gracie's Fabulous Birthday

We had the most amazing, better than I could have ever dreamed, first birthday for Gracie this past Saturday. It was nice that her actual birthday fell on a Saturday. We invited the family and loaded up and went to Pinnacle Mountain. Here is the birthday girl eating her birthday lunch, turkey and cheese.

I had a great time coordinating the "purple" party. Here are her cupcakes...yellow cake mix with homemade blackberry butter cream icing. Yum!

The purple theme of the party was chosen because of our hydrangeas, which were blooming when Gracie was born. As they started blooming this year, Gracie and I would walk out and look at them. I always called them her birthday flowers.

Gracie was not too thrilled with her birthday hat! Here she is with Mimi and Papa.

With Nana and Grandpa. And wrinkling her nose.

With Aunt Dana and Uncle Matt.

With Aunt Lizzy and Uncle David.

With mom and dad and Sabrina!

We begin to open presents......

Her first baby doll!

And she absolutely loved her new clothes, especially this sundress. She held onto it the entire time we opened presents!

Always a favorite, a book!

Pretty in her purple party dress.

Opening her last gift....

A t-shirt with a special message!

We surprised our family with this gift. Gracie's gonna be a big sister come January!

The birthday girl was getting a little sleepy.....
And the much anticipated first cake! Gracie loved her cupcake. Video will follow soon.

Gracie was such a good little girl! She even managed a little nap at her party!

The funny ending to the party--Clay bought these little watermelons from Fresh Market and the first two he opened were terrible. He decided to chunk one over the ravine, but sure enough, as it broke open, he noticed how incredibly red it looked! He went over to take a taste, and of course it was the best one of the bunch! Oh well, a squirrel enjoyed a little birthday treat!

We had such a wonderful day celebrating Gracie. Thanks to all our family for coming in the midst of some super busy times and celebrating with us!

All the Latest

Gracie has been up to all kinds of things! She loves attempting to put on shoes, ours or hers. I put these on for her and she was thrilled! Another favorite past time of Gracie is putting things in her hair--leaves, bits of paper, fuzz, whatever she finds on the floor....she sticks in her hair. I guess her hair is substituting for pockets! Gracie had her first illness last month. You can see in her eyes how puny she felt, pictured here with Nana, who brought us dinner one night. She ran a fever for 3 days, and it took almost a full week for her to be back to normal. I am grateful that it was only a cold, and that this is the first time in all her life that she has been sick. The doctor said to expect for her to be sick more as we stop nursing :( But on a bright note, we only have her morning feeding left. Freedom is around the corner!

Here is a laughing video from the middle of May. Gracie wanted to sit in her bumbo that we had pulled out for little Reese one night.

And here is Gracie with another favorite thing....climbing! She lost her balance at the end, but she's okay!