1st day and 8 months!

Tuesday was Grace's first day in her new class at school. As you can tell, she was so excited. She looked adorable in this dress, yet, 2 seconds before she walked out the door, she decided that it just wasn't up to par for the first day. Much to Chris' frustration, she HAD to change in to her 'tutu dress' so she could twirl. Apparently the twirl factor in dresses is very important these days, and key in making a decision on what to wear. When I went to pick her up, her new teacher said "Well, she did great! Acted like she owned the place.... in a good way!" The 3 year old class is a kindergarten readiness class, and they have more structured activities, lesson plans etc. Grace seems to love it.
I am still working on her birthday plans. Yes, I do realize that her actual birthday is in 4 days... but since it falls on Labor Day this year, I think we are going to wait a week or two to have her 'friend party.' (This is what I tell myself anyways, maybe the more honest truth is that I haven't really been on the ball! OOPS!)

Harper was 8 months old yesterday! Can't believe it. Her little first year of life is flying by faster than I ever dreamed. Her fine motor and language skills are coming along. She says DaDa, MaMa and BaBa pretty regularly, along with lots of yelling, babbling and squealing. She loves to do things with her hands, and her fine pincer grasp is coming along nicely. She loves to pick up Cheerios one by one... (very closely monitored, I might add) though she doesn't seem to put the small things in her mouth... yet. My girls are more fine motor and language oriented...neither cared much about the gross motor skills. Although you can tell that Harper wants to crawl so bad, she won't stay on her tummy long enough to learn! Within 1 second of putting her on her tummy, she has rolled over and is trying to do a 'crunch' to sit up again. I am trying to use a technique we learned with Grace when she was in PT at this age. I like to call it the 'cheerleader sit' so that when she leans forward on her hands, she will naturally fall into the hands and knees position, and may learn to crawl that way. I hold her there and rock her back and forth on her knees, but she is not amused. Still no teeth for this little one. I think Grace's first tooth popped through on her 8 month birthday, but Harper's gums aren't even swollen or red. She does love to gnaw on her hands and lovies though.

The girls are loving to play together these days... Harper gets so excited when we go in and wake up Grace in the morning... she squeals, laughs and lunges for Grace as soon as she sees her. Grace says she wants Harper to call her "Sis." Yesterday Grace was sitting with Harper in my bed. She looks at me and says in this really high pitched voice: "Mom, I just love Harper so much, I really really really love her and I just have to snuggle her." So sweet.
If Grace laughs at something Harper does, she will do it over and over and over again...and lately this includes spitting each bite of food all over everything in site. Lovely.

On an unrelated note... Ice Cream anyone??? Here is a preview of one of the things I made Grace for her birthday... An ice cream station! I was inspired by the one they had at the Chicago Children's museum, so I decided to make one of my own. I think it turned out really cute! Hope she likes it, I've spent hours working on it..

Somehow I just erased the picture of the caddy complete with ice cream cones, bowls, sprinkles and the works! I'll try to re post a picture of it later... it's cute! But for now, I'll leave you with the ice cream scoops!