Turtle Farm

One morning Grace and her Daddy were laying in bed discussing their "Turtle Farm" they wanted to have. Only turtles, butterflies, ladybugs, and ducks were allowed. No frogs, alligators, or snakes could come close.

Guess where we ended up?

That's right! The pet store buying actual Turtle Food AND a Turtle Aquarium.

Did you know...

I believe it! :)

And some of them have me in stitches from laughing so hard!

Interview with a 4yr old

A little interview I did with her just a few days after her birthday:

1. What is your name? Allie Grace McLaughlin

2. How old are you? 4

3. What's your favorite color? All of the colors

4. Who is your best friend? All of my friends, 2 Camryns and Crewe

5. What is your favorite animal? Zebra

6. What do you want to be when you grow up? a Mommy

7. What's your favorite movie? Madagascar

8. What's your favorite book? The Tinkerbell book

9. What makes you happy? Everybody

10. What makes you sad? When Daddy's not home

11. What's your favorite food to eat? Corn

12. What's your favorite song to sing? He Lives Again

13. What game(s) do you like to play? Baby dolls

"Cleaning and Scrubbing can wait 'til tomorrow! For babies grow up we've learned to our sorrow. So quiet down cobwebs. Dust, go to sleep. I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep."

Taken 5.07.13 (the night before she turned 4).

"Homework"

Grace is really into doing her "homework". This is anything such as coloring, drawing, or writing.

She'll keep herself busy for long periods of time like this. I hope she'll like homework as good when she really has it. :)

Grace-ism 3.27.13

We had a close call with another car this morning...

Me: "Thank you Jesus for looking out for us!"

Grace: "We can't look at him though, because he's in our heart!"

Photo taken 3.16.13

Conversation 3.10.13

A conversation with Grace as we were traveling to Raleigh, but getting ready to stop a Bojangles.

Me: Grace would you like a sausage with rice? (Her normal)
Grace: I don't know yet.
Me: Well, we're almost there so I need to know.
Grace: I think ill wait and see what they have on the menu before I decide.

This child cracks me up!

Pledge...

I apologize that this video is sideways & dark, but I wanted to post it. I'm just getting around to getting some stuff off of my cell phone and this was something I wanted to make sure I kept.



Taken on Nov. 17, 2012
(Grace was 3 years, 6 months, and 9 days old)

Thanksgiving Prayer

For some reason I tried to blog this on my phone right after it happened and it didn't go through. Due to my lack of blogging, I just noticed it...

Lots of our family gathered at my parents for Thanksgiving supper. Grace is usually iffy about saying the blessing when its just Scott and I sometimes so I knew for sure she wouldn't say it at Gigi and Big Daddy's while we were all there.

Here prayer is usually a song that she learned at school that starts off, "Lord, we thank you..."

She actually did want to say the blessing as we all held hands in a circle, it went a little like this...

(starting to sing) "Lord..." (pause and then...)

"Thank you for our families and for Thanksgiving. Thank you for everything we'll get for Christmas. Thank you that we are all here together. Amen."

It caught us all by a complete surprise and I think it was the sweetest thing I had ever heard. If only I would of had my video camera rolling. :)

Me, Haley, & Grace - Thanksgiving Night

I am the Lord of Me

Grace LOVES to sing! She can be riding in the car or playing with her toys and just bust out into song. She even has her own playlist of her songs on the ipod that she loves to listen to and sing along with. For the past two weeks Grace has been singing a new song that I didn't recognize. I assumed she'd learned it at school or church since it was about the Lord. Usually if she's singing a new song I like to get it and put it on her song list for her to have or teach it to myself so we can sing it together. Grace's verse went something like, "I am the Lord of me! I am the Lord of me!" For the life of me, I could not figure out this song. I asked her to sing some more of the song and when I would she's seem to have forgotten the rest of it. So I googled it for the world wide web to help me. :) Luckly I found out the name of the song, but only because another Mom blogged that her child was singing it the same way and she finally found out what it was.

Here's her blog post:
Driving home from errands today I heard a sweet voice in the backseat sing, "I am the Lord of me, yes sir! I am the Lord of me." Although Owen got the theology mixed up, I give him props for heartily singing a song--on his own, about God, and without prompting. (He was trying to sing "I'm in the Lord's army, yes sir! I'm in the Lord's army.")

Once I knew the real song. :) I then found the song on YouTube and Grace was so excited that I finally knew was she had been singing! It's definitely been the song of the week, this week!

And just incase you've never heard the song, here's the song with lyrics...

Grace said...

A bad storm popped up (8.8.12) with lots of thundering, lightening, and rain.
1.The TV started to blink. Grace said, "(sigh) the weather is messing up my tv (sigh)".
2."Hey look Mom, the trees are waving at us!"

As she's pretending to talk on the phone... "I don't know why Mrs. Tobi isn't answering me... Maybe she's already on the phone... Maybe she'll just send me an email instead." (8.12.12)

I let her have a m&m at a baby shower. Instead of saying thank you she said, "I appreciate it." (8.12.12)

The best one so far... (8.17.12)
A little background, first: I was in a hurry to leave Piratse Cove to make it to church on time. I was headed down the stairs and I was carrying Scott's suitcase. I turned over a little trashcan that was by the top of the steps; of course it was full of tiny little trash that we'd picked up here and there, so I said, "Shit" QUICKLY followed by, "shucks" to correct myself, however it wasn't too soon. A little voice from the bottom of the steps said, "Moooo-ooooom, you aren't suppose to say shit, it's a bad word." After my apologies and talking about how it is a bad word and I was sorry I said it, Grace says, "Well you can still sit in timeout when we get to church."

Grace-ism

On our way to a birthday party (on 6.16.12) we were running late. I told Grace we needed to hurry as she was taking her sweet time getting out of the house. She stops and looks at me and says, "It's okay, Mom, they won't start the party without us."

Grace is 3 years, 1 month, and 8 days old. :)

Grace-isms

Me: Grace would you like to go to McDonalds.
Grace: Sure
Me: Do you want a cheeseburger happy meal or a chicken nugget one?
Grace: Cheeseburger. Can we go inside.
Me: We can. But they dont have a play area in this McDonalds.
Grace: {surprised look as she slams her hands on her legs} You've gotta be kidding me!

Incident happened: 6/25/12

Miss Grace

I'm going to have to get a video of Grace singing "HER" song. It is too cute!

Say What?

As soon as Grace says, "Mommy do you want to see my _____ _______?" My ears perked up because I thought she was saying something she shouldn't have been. So I scrambled to my phone to record her until I could figure out what she was saying. What are your thoughts?



So my thoughts were that she was saying "@$$-kicking". Most everyone else that has already seen the video thought the same, except Scott who thought she was saying "house keeping". :) Thankfully it was only "ice skating"!

(sorry the video is sideways!)

Snuggle

One of Grace's favorite things to do is snuggle. :)

She gets in the bed with Scott and I in the mornings if she's up before us and says, "Let's Snuggle".
She has time with her Daddy just before bed and they usually snuggle.
If she wakes up in the middle of the night and I go and get in the bed with her she throws her arm around my neck and say, "Mommy I love snuggling with you."



She makes my heart happy!

3 year check-up!

Weight: 28 lbs. (25%)
Height:             (75%)



Last week (June 6) Grace went to the dentist and it was a nightmare so I thought today wouldn't be much better. However, Grace was like a completely different child! :) She let them weigh her, check her height, check her ears, throat, heartbeat, and all other things associated with a check-up with no fuss what-so-ever! This was definitely a first. Her doctor even told me that I needed to write in her baby book how well she did today. (Yay for my blog being her baby book!)

A few things about Grace:
*One of her favorite sayings, "Can you do me a favor?" {Note: I think I must say this a lot}
*She can count to 13 without any problem, but then tends to then jump to 16, then 18, and then 20!
*She can count to 10 in Spanish (or "like Dora counts")
*She knows all of her colors. She even told me the other day that something was magenta when I told her it was a pinkish-purple. ;)
*She has been wearing big girl underwear since two weeks before her Birthday (May 9th). Since then she's even refused to wear pull-ups at night. She's solely been in big girl undies and we went a month before we ever had a night time accident. Daytime accidents have been very minimal.
*If I tell her "No" when she asks for something, her answer to me is, "You're suppose to share!"
*Some of her favorite foods: cashews, fried okra, corn.
*Her favorite cereal is Honeycombs.
*She also loves vanilla or "ba-nella", as she says, ice cream and popsicles.
*Some of her favorite songs: "Ooo, Ooo, Ooo Miss Grace" & "My God is so Big"
*She's all about compromise. Sometimes our conversations go like this...
Me: Grace, 2 minutes then its (nap time, time to put away something, time to turn the tv off, etc.)
Grace: No Mommy, 5 minutes.
Me: (if I give in...) Okay, 5 minutes
Grace: It's a deal.
*If she thinks she has a better idea than I do, she loves to say, "Isn't that a great idea?", after her recommendation.

Eye exam:


Modeling her check-up gown ;)

3-Year Interview

A little interview I did with her just a few days after her birthday:

1. What is your name? Allie Grace
2. How old are you? 3
3. What's your favorite color? Pink
4. Who is your best friend? Camden
5. What is your favorite animal? Pig
6. What do you want to be when you grow up? To have long hair
7. What's your favorite movie? Ariel (little mermaid)
8. What's your favorite book? Angelina Ballerina
9. What makes you happy? Camden
10. What makes you sad? When people aren't my friend
11. What's your favorite food to eat? Pizza and Okra too
12. What's your favorite song to sing? Oooo, Miss Grace
13. What game(s) do you like to play? Dora Legos


Rocking her baby night-night.

Now I Lay Me...

I know there's nothing to watch, but this is Grace saying her prayers with me last night.

Out of the mouth of Grace

Tuesday night while in the tub Grace was playing with her tub toys. I guess she was pretending to play with her friends from school too. I heard her say, "Dear God, thank you for our friends and thank you for the bible. Amen. See Camden, that's how you say your prayers." Guess she's teaching her friends how to pray! Maybe she'll end up being a teacher like her mommy!

(an instagram photo I grabbed of Grace playing in the tub)

She was sitting on the bathroom counter as I was brushing her hair after bathtime. Grace grabbed my deodorant and took the top off. I told her to put the lid back on but she touched the actual deodorant with her fingertip about the same time. I told her we dont touch that part with our fingers that its only to be put under our armpits and she replied, "Why not? It'll make me taller."

Just a little while later we were sitting on the couch after Scott got home from work. A throw pillow fell off the couch and Grace proceeded to hang over the couch to pick it up. Scott said, "I'll help." Grace said, "It's okay, girls are stronger than boys." :) 

{Blessings}

This video is sideways, and I'm not sure how to fix it, sorry, but I did want to share. I've tried a lot of times to record this and finally had success with it last night.



Thank you Jesus..
For our Food, For our Food
And our many blessings.
And our many blessings.
Amen, Amen!

The sound may not match up with her lips, sorry about that too. Not sure why it's doing that either.