Sweet Baby Jesus

Yesterday Grace played Jesus in the Christmas Eve service at our church, Central Presbyterian. It was the 4:00 service which is geared towards kids. Several Christmas carols were sung and then the Pastor had all the little ones come up to the front of the church and sit as he and Bartholemew the Camel (a puppet) told the Christmas story. Towards the end Mary and Joseph enter with Baby Jesus (played by our sweet little girl!).
Grace did so well. She cried a bit but Katie, the young girl who played Mary, was able to soothe her (perhaps a babysitter in the making...) As we posted earlier, the Journal Courier, our local paper, was there and took many shots of Grace, one which ended up on the front page! Watch out Broadway--here comes Grace Williams :)

Hone Christmas

Our first Christmas celebration was last weekend when we traveled to Michigan so Grace could meet the Hone family (Mark's mom's side). What a wonderful weekend we had! Grace got to meet so many people who love her so much :-)

Grace meets my dear friend Meredith, her adorable little boy Sam, and her sweet cousin Gabe with his wonderful mother Shanna. I'm sure the six of us will make many fun memories together as the kiddies grow up!

Grace with cousin Taylor

Kelley has the magic touch (and it's her birthday today--happy birthday Kelley!)

One of Grace's many Christmas outfits.

Family Shot #1

Family Shot #2

Hanging with Grandma

Loving time with Grandma and Uncle Greg

Aunt Amy and Uncle Greg are so fun to hang out with!

Chatting up a storm

Sarah Grace with Baby Grace

Cousin Nate

The Hone "kids" with the two great grandbabies

Too many photos tires a baby out!

The Grands and the Greats

Grace loves GG!

Those crazy Hone grandkids!

Such a fun family!

Aunt Karen rocks me to sleep before we head for home

And I slept through most of the blizzard conditions on our way home--including a detour due to a 50 car pile up on I-94!

And my sis slept the whole way home too!

Merry Christmas

Grace was baby Jesus for the Christmas Service yesterday. The local Lafayette/West Lafayette paper was there to take photos. Look who made the front page

Photos to be uploaded shortly.

-Mark

Jungle Gym

Well, our routine worked last night and we got a great night's sleep with Grace getting up twice but each time nursing and then going right back to sleep. This morning we decide to try out our jungle gym...check her out!!!

A night in the Williams' house

So last night didn't go so well with Grace sleeping--she didn't want to go to bed. So tonight we have tried keeping her up. First we had lots of play time on the floor. As you can see, she is starting to hold her head up for even longer periods of time--she's so strong already! After that we took a bath and then she spent sometime with her best friend, Daisy. Let's hope tonight we get a good night's sleep!

*** Disclaimer: We staged the doggy pictures and were standing right there :-) ***

The many faces of Grace

We love to watch all the face that Grace makes. She was sitting on Mark's lap the other night and within a few minutes made all of these faces. She does smile, we just haven't captured a smile yet!

Happy One Month Birthday Grace!

Today is Grace's one month birthday. To celebrate we did a little rendition of "Happy Birthday to Grace" and helped her blow out her first candle. I think she was a little confused by what Mommy and Daddy were doing!

Hiccup!

Poor Grace gets the hiccups all the time. The pediatrician has assured us that they are more painful for us than for her.

Four Weeks!

It's amazing how quickly time flies! Grace is four weeks old today! It's so hard to believe that it's been four weeks but at the same time it feels like she's been here longer. We have thoroughly enjoyed these last four weeks and watching Grace as she grows and changes before our eyes. The big news is that we have had to put away most of her newborn clothes so she has been trying out all her new 0-3 month outfits and last night we used our last newborn diaper. Size 1 here we come!

Daddy loves getting to feed me!

Chillin' with mommy

Love my papazan--look how far down my feet come now though!

Ready for bed

I love my daddy!

Look how big I look in my car seat!

Big girl diapers!

Growing up before our eyes!

It seems as if our little girl has been growing each and every day. Perhaps the biggest change we have seen is how alert she is. Here are a few videos showing her alertness. The first is her enjoying another bath and the second is her on the changing table of her pack 'n' play. We have some animals hanging next to the changing table and she is fascinated by the zebra :)

In other exciting news, this morning she was having tummy time with Grandma Applebee and then Grandma rolled her on her back and held a little toy off to her side. Grace was very focused on the toy and kept batting her hands at it, even hitting it a few times! We didn't get a chance to catch her on video but we'll be sure to try it again tomorrow and hopefully get it on film!

A big day!

Yesterday was a big day for us. It was my first day back to classes so I woke up with great anxiety. Grace and I have started a little ritual where when she gets up at 6/7 in the morning for breakfast we fall asleep with her on my chest as I sit on the couch after she's done eating. It's my favorite part of the day! Anyhow we were having a great morning and then it got even better. Mark got home from some appointments to find this on our porch:
If you haven't heard of Graeter's, you are missing out! It is the best ice cream in the world, and I am not exaggerating. I fell in love with it when I was working for AXiD and living in Lexington, KY. I lived and worked with my dear friend, Betsie Keeler Zeedyk there and I think you would have called us regulars at Graeter's. Betsie, in all of her wonderfulness sent me this package containing six delicious pints of Graeter's ice cream! Who knew they could ship ice cream?!?! Thanks Bets!

After a great morning it was time for me to leave. Mark's mom had come up to help out with Grace and to give me some time to focus on school work. I left the three of them at home and headed off to my Psych class. They had lots of fun while I was gone. Grace took a bottle I had prepared before I left and then had some great tummy time which Grandma taped so I could see it.

Unfortunately, class took a bit more out of me than I thought it would. I came home feeling exhausted and was supposed to go back for my evening Stats class. I just couldn't do it though--too much in one day. We ate dinner, I fed Grace and then took a glorious nap (yes, when you have a newborn, you can nap at 7:00 at night!). After the nap I felt much better and we decided to make the day even more exciting by giving Grace her first bath. Her ubmilical cord fell off last Friday morning and we got the okay from the doctor to do real baths at our appointment on Monday. So, out came the tub. She screamed for some time until Mark figured out that if he let her suck on his thumb bath time would be much more pleasant.

It was quite a day and Grace was very alert after her bath. She and I stayed up chatting for a few hours after everyone else had gone to bed. You may laugh at the thought of us chatting but she actually is starting to respond a bit more and is focusing on our faces as we talk to her so I really do feel like we were chatting--hopefully the first of many late night mother/daughter chats :)

Separation Anxiety

Yesterday was a big day in our house. I have to start back to classes today so yesterday Mark, Grace and I did a test run. I pumped a bottle for her and when she was hungry I left the house. Our lactation consultant said that Grace would take the bottle much better if I wasn't there so off to the grocery store I went. I was a mess! To think that this was the first time in over 10 months that I didn't have my little girl with me was just a little bit too much for me. I wandered around the supermarket aimlessly for about a half an hour. Luckily, Mark and Grace did much better than I did! I called to see if I could come home yet and Mark informed me that Grace had downed the three ounces in 5 minutes, no problems whatsoever! Hopefully today goes as well--I don't think I've ever dreaded going to class this much though :-(

Since it was just Mark and Grace here for the bottle there is no picture, but no blog is complete without a picture so here is one of us with our friends Rebecca and Noah last night. Rebecca is one of my officemates and her little boy, Noah is 4 months old. They brought over a delicious dinner for us--thank you both!!! Noah and Grace will have so much fun together once they're a little bigger!

Photo Shoot

Grace had her newborn photo shoot last Tuesday and the photographer just posted a sneak peak of her photos. She did not like being naked so she looks a bit worried in some of the pics but we think she is just beautiful regardless of her concerned look!