Gracelyn is ONE!

RM Photography once again did a phenomenal job taking Gracelyn's 1 year pictures. Rebecca is so patient, even with a certain 1 year old that begins crying after less than 30 minutes into the shoot and wants her paci (that totally clashes with her outfit and this mom cannot locate the purple paci) And Rebecca is so super creative that as soon as we finish I am so anxious to see what she captured. If you are in OK or even if you aren't, you should contact her, she has camera, will travel!

Gracelyn is lots of smiles these days and I'm talking huge, expressive smiles. She is one happy girl and we L.O.V.E. it! G does love her pacifier and lights up when she sees it and will snatch it from you and pop it in her mouth. I won't paint a picture of a 24/7 pleasant baby because she is can be full of drama and will throw her head back and squint her eyes and make a really pathetic whimper or wail at times. All in all, she is our princess, the boys, all of us treat her as one.
Miss G is very picky with foods right now. I sometimes can get her to eat yogurt, sweet potatoes, several fruits but it depends on her mood. One thing that Gracie does love, pancakes and will gobble them up!! She is a snacker, just like her mama and does enjoy graham and animal crackers, cheerios. and vanilla wafers.
As far as development goes, as of her 1 year birthday, the 16th, Gracelyn had taken 3 steps with no assistance! She is saying "mama" and "dada" and she does call her brothers something specific but I cannot tell exactly what it is. G can sign "more" and "all done" and "drink"
Gracelyn is sleeping sooooooo much better at night!! She wakes every 3-4, which is quite an improvement over every hour! And sometimes it's just because she lost her paci!! Naps are hit and miss, especially at CDO where they average about an hour long, but that's just fine because she is sleeping at night!
Gracie looks very healthy but I have no idea her stats as her 1 year well check was supposed to be this Friday but instead it was moved to next Friday. I'll post them after the appointment.
Gracelyn Paige, our miracle baby, our princess: mom, dad, Brandon, Blaine and Britton love you greatly. You light up our lives, make us all smile and have taught us so much about determination and helped strengthen our faith.

Happy 1st Birthday to the Princess!

Gracelyn Paige has turned 1!!!

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Saturday, October 16 was her 1st birthday as well as her 1st birthday celebration! Our princess had a princess themed party fit for a true princess and because so many people love her we hosted it at the upstairs of our bank. Everything was so perfect and so pink and purple!!
Gracelyn had 2 onesies to go with a purple tutu and a bow and pink sparkle Tiny Toms to match. She was excited about her friends and family being there and smiled a lot! She enjoyed the icing on her cake but not the strawberry cake so I gave her a piece of white and chocolate from the main cake. She loved both of those flavors equally! Gracie helped a bit during the process of opening presents but because I requested mainly clothes, her attention drifted. She is one blessed little girl who is loved by so many! We are all blessed to have her.

11 months have flown by

11 months! Just thinking that in ONE short month Gracelyn will be ONE makes me cry. As quickly as this year has gone by, so much has happened.


Gracie is doing well.
I have started introducing her to table food. Up until the last few weeks the littlest pieces of food that were not pureed would make her gag. She's had small pieces of banana, grapes, potatoes and carrots. She loved them and handled them pretty well. Yogurt and mirilax help her bowels, which makes it very nice to not have to give her suppositories every other day!!
G is saying mama and has said dada a couple of times and still loves to wave!! She also gives open-mouth, super wet kisses, mainly to Britton, but occasionally to me as well.


She is also a full-time crawler, no more army crawling for her! With that also comes little red, chapped knees, which are so precious!! Gracelyn in the couple of days before turning 11 months began standing for almost 1 minute! I think in the next few weeks she may just try taking a step!
Her bottom 2 center teeth are still only about halfway in (10 weeks later) and in the meantime the top 2 on either side of the center have cut and the top center 2 are in the process of coming through. Teething tablets are plentiful at our house!

so in the middle of the photo shoot, the chair falls to the side and Gracelyn remains standing!
She stood for a good minute and I was just snapping like a paparazzi-crazed mama! (of course I'll admit that's what I am anyway!)

I'll also admit that these pictures were taken today at 11 months and 1 day because there was literally no time yesterday. life these days is insane so I'm afraid that posts just may become few and far between.

our little walker, with a walker!

Gracelyn is walking now, with assistance!!! She does well most of the time. She gets going really fast and wipes out but most of the time will stand back up and go again! Miss G can pull up to her walker and start and even transfer her weight from something TO the walker and take off!!
She is not going to let anything get her down!

peek-a-Gracie

I have been playing peek-a-boo with Gracelyn for awhile now and she thinks it hilarious, which makes me think it's hilarious too!

Up until now, she would always pull the blanket (or shorts while changing her diaper) off her face after I covered it. As of today she will raise the blanket up to cover her own head and take it off, all on her own. (In the video she only does it once because we had been playing for quite some time before it finally dawned on me to video her.) It's a lot of fun because she will play and interact more and more each day. She still isn't a fan of patty-cake so we partake in a lot of peek-a-boo and singing.

What's even funnier about this video is that she is playing with Britton's beloved "bay." She loves how soft it is, or maybe that she knows she isn't allowed to touch it. Either way, it was handy and he was off playing with Blaine so he had no idea that his "bay" was be touched by someone other than himself. He watched the video after I uploaded it to YouTube and he was none too pleased to see it in the arms of his sister.

G's 9 month, um, I mean 10 month stats

Gracelyn had her 9 month well-check Friday. It was a month and 1 week late, partly due to my tardiness in scheduling it and the pediatrician being on vacation. It's kind of what happens when you have 4 kids, at least in our world, and according to my dear mom friend who also has 4 kiddos!

Miss G weighed in at 20 pounds, 10 ounces and is 27.5 inches long! That puts her in the 50th percentile for weight and 50th for length.


Doc thought she looked great!


I mentioned to her that Gracie wasn't sleeping and hadn't really since we got home from the hospital in March. She said it was perfectly understandable. Just as I was having difficulty letting her out of my sight (and hold,) so was G with me. She called it a form of separation anxiety. It made total sense as we are pretty much a package deal. It's not like Gracelyn wants to be held all day. she gets down and plays a lot, but pretty much always knows where I am in the house.


Gracie also received her 6 month shots. I opted out of them at 6 months. For me it was too soon after she was discharged, even though the Botulism Treatment Center in San Fransisco that supplied the Baby BIG immune-globulin to treat her botulism said that vaccines were fine, as long as they were not live virus vaccines. I was still and still am leery of them knowing that the serum is still in her system, helping to protect her from any further botulism sickness for the next few months. There is no way to be absolutely certain that nothing will counteract but this is where I have to trust God, turn my anxiety to Him. For He is the ONLY one who knows and can comfort and protect her.

Can you tell that she is adored???

crawling cutie

better known as a "Rockstar!!"

So I wrote the other day that Gracelyn was getting up on all fours and crawling one movement, meaning moving one hand forward and one knee and then belly flopping. I promised that I would catch it on video but was honestly having difficulty because with only one quick stride, she was done before I captured it.

Today Miss G proved yet again, how she is my miracle baby. She army crawled herself to the kitchen where I was preparing lunch and as the boys were making their way to the table she went from a sit to all fours and crawled the ENTIRE WAY TO THE TABLE! I'm talking like 6 feet! I just stood there with my mouth touching the floor. Even the boys commented. Britton pointed and said, "Mom, Dadie (his version of Gracie) crawling." The first time she goes from one crawl to that!! She had sat herself right at her brothers' feet so I ran and got my phone and knelt down and called her over to me. She started to come to me but opted for a detour and made a sharp left turn to go to the living room.

Gracelyn is truly our rockstar. She has scaled the hurdles and is making such progress! It's awesome and something that I can really only thank God for. It's with Him that she has done the things she has.

Even though she is capable of crawling now, her preferred mode of transportation is still the army crawl. She is quite speedy so who can blame her? I have also noticed that, so far, she only will crawl on our kitchen tile. Of course she has only crawled long distances three times now but as soon as she gets to the carpet, she drops.

The next milestone I would LOVE to blog about would be Gracelyn sleeping! The girl does NOT sleep. ever. even in the day I'm lucky if she takes a 30 minute nap. She wasn't sleeping through the night before she was diagnosed with botulism but she was only up once in the night. Now it's every 2 hours, if not every hour and it takes a good 20 minutes to get her to go back to sleep, at least.