This is Grace...

I often get the question, "What is Grace up to these days?" Well, the short answer is, "a lot!" She continuously amazes us with how fast she's growing and learning.

Last Tuesday she started in the 2A's classroom. I was a bit nervous because she's still 3 months away from being a two year old but three of her classmates also moved with her so that eased my mind a bit. Well, any worry I had was silly because she is doing fantastic in her new class! Mark and I are really impressed with the new teachers and the fun activities they do. Each day they have lesson time (this week they are learning about the letter B, the number 2, the color white, and rectangles), music/dance, stories, and crafts. Don't get me wrong, they still have a lot of that all important unstructured play time but they have really stepped up the learning in this classroom! We've even had a bit of homework--just a bio sheet to fill out and attach a picture to and bringing in something white, but still, it was homework!

And even before the move to the new classroom, we had definitely noticed that Grace's mind was developing at warp speeds. For the last few weeks she's been singing her ABC's (albeit a little hard to understand all the letters!) and on Saturday we were watching Sesame Street and she counted to ten with them. Mark and I just looked at each other with our jaws on the ground! Each day it seems like she picks up 10 new words and every time we're in the car she is pointing things out to us. Our favorite game is for her to tell me whether I should "Go!" (with the fist pumping action) or "Stop!" (with the hand up) at stop lights.

She also has quite the personality. Mark says she has got this from me but when she thinks something is funny she looks at you and shrugs her shoulders and scrunches up her nose. It's so funny! My favorite though is when I try singing along to her songs in the car and she tells me "No, no, no!" When I ask, "Why?" Her response is "Silly!" I guess I already am embarrassing her with my angelic voice :-)

And her independence doesn't stop there. When we get her to school each morning she refuses to hold our hand or let us carry her in. Normally she wants to walk a step or two ahead of us. It's so funny because she's acting like such a big girl but is sucking her thumb and twirling her hair the whole time! Luckily for us, when we pick her up from school, it's a much different scene with her latching on and wanting to be carried!

Be are so blessed to have this little girl!

Grace wearing daddy's shorts as a dress (yes she is in one leg of them with the waist at the floor!)