Toddlerhood: August-September

This month was crazy busy!  I just realized I have A LOT more pictures this month than last month...as promised!

Memere and Pepere came up for baby Wesley's shower.  While they were here, Pepere found something to work on (shocker!).  Actually, it's always quite helpful having him around!  We took a trip to Pepere's second home and (Lowe's Home Improvement) Grace followed him around and "helped" out.

Practice makes perfect

This is at least a month old but I still wanted to include it!  This is Grace and her friend, Harper Kittner.  Harper's mommy is in daddy's residency class and also went to medical school with daddy so we love the Kittners!

A reason why you shouldn't leave open peanut butter around a 2 year old :)  Can't turn my back for a second...

We find Grace in some interesting sleeping positions.  We aren't sure how she flipped 180 degrees and ended up under the pillow...

Ice cream/cake pop date with mommy

A RARE moment caught on camera.  Maverick doesn't sit still for long around Grace...probably because she terrorizes him.

Just some lunch and resting her head on mommy's pillow belly.

Hide and go seek...wait.  Well, Grace and daddy were playing that game and I guess Grace couldn't find him or she forgot and daddy fell asleep :)  Priceless.

Funny face photo shoot:

"surprised"

"sad"

"happy"

"scared" not to be confused with her cold face that I should have gotten on camera

Two full days with these two best buds=busy!  I planned some fun activities and they loved it.

Before: painter's tape and kid paint

Before

After

After

OH how I love Pinterest.  This is just paint inside of a gallon ziploc bag (with a piece of paper underneath for painting effect) taped to the floor.

They kept coming back to the bags to finger paint.

One morning was spent at the park.  These two have grown so much!

We went to Columbia for Labor Day weekend as Jimmy had a rare, long weekend off.  We were so happy to meet Charlie!  Charlie is Millie and Will's baby boy.  Millie and I grew up together and we were in each other's weddings.

Pool time!

We went to church with Memere and Pepere.  Grace loves visiting their church!

Jimmy and I got to go on a date night to a drive-in movie.  Definitely a bucket list item!  

Nothing like a good bath to end a fun weekend.  Okay well this was Jimmy's idea...I was shuddering at the nastiness of how dirty Maverick was but Grace enjoyed helping wash him.

Shaffner Park has an awesome playground but it's not shaded, and we got hot.  So, we went on a walk in the shaded walk area.

Showing Grace the fish in the stream...she loves fish!

Do you see her face?

Jimmy's grandpa sent us a package that had lots of packing peanuts.  It's funny how things that are so simple bring so much joy to little ones!  I channeled my inner OCD of cleaning when I realized she was having so much fun.

"Snow, mommy!"

Painting with packing peanuts

"I did it!"

It turned out super cute!

Daddy cured Grace's vacuum fears.  She likes to help now.

Jimmy Residency Update: This past month was awesome!  Jimmy was on the PAC for two weeks which means he basically did pre-ops all day but wasn't in the OR so he got home at decent hours.  He is a good husband and encouraged family walks a lot of days when he got home...I love family walks!  He was back in the OR this week BUT....Saturday marked the start of his 9 day vacation break!!!  We are pretty stoked.  We have some date nights planned, an apple picking trip, and a beach vacation we have been looking forward to for a lonnnnng time.  We are going to soak up this family time together before Wesley arrives :)

Kristen Work Update: I guess I should update y'all on my work status.  I have been working for CERTL (non-profit research company) for a few years now and it has been a financial blessing to our family.  I started out working 8 hours a week shortly after Grace as born and now am up to 20 hours a week.  Most of it is from home, which is another blessing.  Speaking of blessings, my boss knows that I'll need a maternity break but we are really in crunch time right now with a big project so a lot needs to be done.  He is going to let me work all of my November hours (as I'll be out on leave) before November so I'll end up having a paid maternity leave.  That was great news to us!  However, that means I'll go from 20 to 33 hours a week until Wesley is born.  It's totally doable but I'll just have to be really disciplined about getting my hours in.  Pray that I'll be able to push through my preggo tiredness and get all of my hours in so I can have a relaxing (haha) maternity leave.