Hello, Jesus, Whassup?

Grace likes to play 'phone' where she hands me the phone and insists I carry on imaginary conversations with random people, usually one of the grandparents. After exhausting all topics, I started to run out of things to say, so I told her it was her turn to call someone. This is what her conversation sounded like:

"Hello, Jesus, Whassup? What you doing? I got boo-boo (pointing to her band-aid). Make it all better. Talk to you later!"


And speaking of phones, I recently had to change my number because, apparently, there was a typo in some ad and I started to get random calls and texts from people thinking they were calling an escort service. It was funny at first, then annoying, then downright creepy.

Two Stitches

Today was supposed to be a stay-in kind of day because Grace and I have started the sniffles. My goal was to tackle the mountain of laundry that never seems to go away and start taking down the Christmas decorations.

Things didn't quite go according to plan.

While I was taking a load of clothes out of the dryer, Grace decided she'd put the taking down of the Christmas decorations in her own hands. She managed to climb onto her table and pull down a stocking and stocking holder right onto her forehead.

The girl cried for a second while I checked out the wound, but immediately stopped when I promised her a Hello Kitty band-aid. Although the cut was small and stopped bleeding right away, I was concerned about how deep it looked. So I took her to the ER to make sure it was okay.

Two and a half hours and two stitches later, we finally walked out of the ER. She is doing perfectly fine. I, on the other hand, could use a glass of wine (or something since I can't drink).


Loving the fact that she gets to wear a Hello Kitty band-aid.

Grace's Diner

Welcome to Grace's Diner. It is open from the moment she wakes up until she has to go to sleep at night. I don't even get a 'good morning' anymore like I used to. Now it's 'I have to make breakfast for my Baby Alive'. If you ever get the privilege of eating in her diner, you're in for quite a treat. She will serve you anything from green eggs and ham to chocolate cake. Sometimes, she will even insist on feeding you herself. It's a good thing all her meals have zero calories because this little chef likes to feed you. A LOT.

Family Pajama Day

This is not the most flattering family picture we've ever taken, I know. But I still wanted to document the laid back afternoon we had. As soon as we got back from a morning of running errands, we changed back into our pajamas and spent the rest of the afternoon lounging on the couch, watching movies and lamenting at the state of our house, thanks to all of Grace's presents.

At the end of the day, I do my best to ignore all the mess and just enjoy the simple, quiet moments I spend with my family.

Grace's 1st Friend

Jasmine is Grace's very first friend. They met when Grace was just days old and they had many 'play dates' during their first few months.

Jasmine was in town to celebrate her second birthday and it was so sweet to see how much the two girls have grown since their newborn days in Japan. How quickly the days have passed! It seems like only yesterday that these two were itty-bitties and now they feed each other birthday cake and play ring-around-the-roses.

Merry Christmas 2010

I was so excited about Grace seeing what Santa brought her that I completely forgot to take a picture of her sitting in front of the tree with all the presents piled underneath. Once I remembered, the living room was a disaster area with wrapping paper and boxes strewn all over the place that it was too late to even fake the moment. I even splurged and ordered her the holiday plaid pajamas from a fancy shmancy boutique store for the picture perfect moment. Oh well, there's always next year.

Despite the missed photo opportunity, it was a wondrous Christmas morning for all three of us. When I went to get Grace from her bedroom, the first question she asked was "Did Santa bring presents?" and I told her to go out there and see.

She bypassed all the presents and went straight for the plate of cookies and glass of milk to see if Santa ate his snack. She was quite amazed that he tried all the cookies she offered.

Then, even though she's been talking for weeks about Santa bringing her presents, she was a bit hesitant about actually opening them. Mike and I had to do a bit of prodding, but after the first few, she got the hang of the whole thing. After a while though, she just wanted to play with the presents she had already opened and told Mike, "You open them, Daddy."

After presents, Daddy and Grace played with all her cool new stuff before he had to head to work (Don't even get me started!). Thankfully he was back by early afternoon so we had the rest of the day to relax and watch Grace turn the house into a complete and absolute mess while playing with all her new toys. Mike always doubted the need for a playroom, but experiencing how quickly the house gets overrun with kiddie clutter without one, space for a play room is on the top of our list when looking for our next place.

We ended our evening with a new Augustine family tradition- movie night. In an actual movie theater! We watched Tangled and Grace liked it enough to be relatively well behaved for most of it.

We hope you and yours had a wonderful Christmas! Merry Christmas and much love from the Augustines!






Grace was so exhausted from all the Christmas morning festivities that she fell asleep while eating her lunch.

Christmas Eve

The Blews are here in Florida to spend the holidays with family. Because they are like family to us, the Augustines made the four hour drive and crashed their family time for a little bit. We are so grateful that Julie's mom and dad are so sweet and didn't mind adopting a Filipino/Italian family for a couple of days. It was truly a memorable time spent *shopping*, eating, and just hanging out catching up with each other.

We said our goodbyes to the Blews and headed back home just in time to make some cookies for Santa and change into our church clothes for Midnight Mass. Even though Grace's sleep schedule had been completely disregarded the previous nights, there were no sleep issues on Christmas Eve, especially when I reminded her that Santa doesn't come to visit unless all the children are asleep.

*We spent five hours at the outlet mall and didn't hit up nearly enough stores as one would think with that amount of time. That's because the little rugrats refused to cooperate. The pair were partners in crime, crying in tandem until we let them out of their strollers. And once they were free, it was like trying to get a wild animal back into it's cage- darn near impossible. Impossible also describes how one shops with two toddlers in tow. But they were so cute with their double-trouble antics that it was also impossible to get too mad at them.

Gracie and Grace may not have enjoyed shopping, but they sure did like their bath!

However, there was a bit of conflict when it came time to open gifts. It didn't matter whose name was actually written on the gift tag, they both strongly believed the gift was their own.

We wished the rest of the FABE 4 girls could be with us, but they're always with us in spirit. We missed you Jojo and Melanie!

Hanging out by the pool.



Thank you to Mr. and Mrs. Dennis, Julie's parents, for your kind hospitality!

Quickly decorating Santa's cookies before heading out to Midnight Mass.

All dressed up and ready to celebrate Jesus' birthday!

Breakfast with the Blews

There are some friends that as soon as you meet them, you know they'll be friends for life. It's rare when that happens, but we were lucky enough to find people like that during our time in Japan. The Blew family is very special to us and Grace and I were able to have breakfast with them this morning as they were driving through Jacksonville on the way to visit family in Florida.

She's Up to Something

I just had a feeling Grace was up to something when I saw her trying to drag her big chair out of her room. I didn't question it. I just let it happen and documented the whole thing...



What can I say? The girl is goal-oriented! She just wanted to get her hands on the gingerbread train that her mean ol' mama set on the countertop out of reach.


After the fifth bow went missing from her hair, I finally questioned Grace about their whereabouts. She immediately lead me to the back of the Christmas tree where she was slowly doing her own kind of decorating.

Gingerbread Train

Distracted by the candy decorations.

She couldn't keep her hands off the final product.

The 1st Annual Daddy and Daughter Gingerbread creation!

A glimpse into her play world

There was a time a few months ago when I wondered if Grace would ever learn to play independently without my having to be by her side every single minute. Although I was quite flattered to be her favorite playmate (not that she has much choice in the matter), it was hard to get those pesky house chores done if I played all day like she wanted me to. It was times like those when I really saw the benefit of having babies close in age- instant playmates!

Now she is finally at the stage where she will play by herself for a few minutes at a time and it's such a pleasure for me to sneak a peek into her little world.

Today I tiptoed to her bedroom where she was quietly playing to see what she was up to and this is what I heard...

Shhhhhh (with a finger over her nose), little babies. Go to sleep, go to sleep (said in a semi sing-song voice). I'm going to read you a story, okay? It's really, really fun! (Music to this former English teacher's ears!)

She then proceeded to read her babies "Curious George Rides a Bike" and "Guess How Much I Love You."

After story time, she leaned down, kissed her babies, and put a blanket over them.

It was one of the sweetest things I've ever seen. I don't ever want to forget these innocent, quiet moments that if I don't document now, may be forgotten in time.

Holiday Lights

When I was growing up, my mom and I used to have great fun decorating the outside of our house with as many holiday lights and decorations as possible. I have many fond memories of being out in the freezing cold stringing lights all over the yard, but loving it because it was our thing.

I haven't had a chance to decorate like that in a long time, but I love looking at houses that go all out for the holidays. I heard about this one neighborhood near us where almost every single house puts up Christmas lights. So after dinner tonight, we decided to take a drive through the neighborhood and check it out.

Oh. My. Goodness. It was wonderful! I would love to live in a neighborhood that has so much Christmas spirit. Almost every yard had a Santa in it, much to Grace's absolute delight. I think we may just have to do a drive through every night until Christmas.

I was so tickled by this display of a tropical Santa being pulled by his flamingo reindeer.