Relaxing Sunday

I was such a sleepyhead this morning I thought we wouldn't make it to church on time. But it helps to have a husband around who will get up with our child, make her breakfast, and get her ready so that all I have to do is take care of myself. That, and I didn't do my hair this morning. I had to forgo the straightener or curling iron and head out the door all natural, meaning a wavy frizzy mess. Still, we made it and that's the most important thing.

Grace was a handful at church, trying to crawl under the pews and talking loudly at inappropriate times. She even had to be taken into the cry room a couple of times when the whining got out of control.

She saved herself with her love for Baby Jesus. There's a statue at the front of church of Baby Jesus in his mother's arms. When we go up for communion, she never fails to pause and wave at him. Then after Mass, she lights a candle, with help from me or Mike, and kneels down to pray in front of the statue. Grace is building a little fan base of some of the parishioners who know her as the baby who loves Baby Jesus.

After church, I threw together some stuff and made lunch and then the three of us took long afternoon naps. Then it was a quick trip to Chuck E. Cheese which, thankfully, wasn't very crowded for a weekend. We finished the day off with some time at the pool.

It was a wonderful, relaxing Sunday.

National Cheesecake Day

This family likes dessert. So imagine our delight when we went to Cheesecake Factory for dinner and found out it was National Cheesecake Day so all the cheesecake was half price!

We can also be a bit excessive when it comes to indulging our sweet tooth. So we ordered not one, not two, not three, but four cheesecakes.

When one of the servers came to bring it out, he mistakenly went to another table first that had a family of six because, surely, the order of four cheesecakes to go could not be for our table that only had two adults and a little toddler.

What can I say? We love us some cheesecake! Honestly though, I was only going to order one, but Mike convinced me to order more so we could have some tomorrow, too. I couldn't refuse him after he worked so diligently on his honey-do list today and then treated us to dinner so I could have a night off cooking.

Frustrated is the Word of the Day

Yesterday morning I tried a pilates class at the gym thinking I would do just fine because I have done a few pilates DVD's and liked them. Those DVD's must be for absolute beginners because the class at the gym kicked my butt. I woke up so sore this morning I could barely move.

As a result, we stayed close to home today. And when we stay home, that means the house gets good and messy, especially since I was in no mood to constantly pick up after my mess maker.

At one point, she was playing so quietly in her room that I went to check on her to make sure she wasn't getting into trouble. I came upon a room that looked like a tornado ripped through it- every single one of her toy bins had been emptied and the contents were spilled out all over the floor.

And there Grace sat right in the middle of it telling me, "Come in, Mama, and play me."

"Oh my goodness, Grace..."

Noticing the look of distress on my face, she answered, "It's okay, Mama. It's fine for me being messy like this."

"Yes, Baby, it might be fine for you, but it's not fine for me. It makes Mama feel frustrated."

I have been trying to label emotions to help her understand feelings. This was the first time I used frustrated so I wasn't sure she would quite get it. But later we were playing with some matchbox cars and I was teasing her by taking away her car and she told me in an exasperated tone, "You have to share and be nice so I don't get frustrated!"

I was so tickled by her use of the word frustrated that I wanted to keep frustrating her just to get her to use the word. I didn't. How mean would that be? I was tempted though...

We've Missed These Boys. And Their Mama.

The Baggett boys were Grace's first friends in Jacksonville and their mama, Nellie, became my go-to friend while Mike was deployed. It was a sad, sad day when they had to move away last fall. They moved to Virginia where our families are and Nellie's family lives here in Florida, so we still get to cross paths every now and then.

The Baggetts were passing through town and it was wonderful spending some time with them. I wish we could have had more time together, but I will take what I can get. When it was time to say goodbye, Grace bawled and bawled saying, "But I want to hug Ms. Nellie just one more time!" She absolutely adores Nellie. One time she even asked Mike, "Do you love Ms. Nellie? I just looooove her!"

Once Upon a Time

I started off the day with some gym time with my friend Joan. She told me stories of her evening babysitting Grace the other night. My favorite was when she was trying to put Grace to bed and Grace told her she was going to tell a story.

Once upon a time, there was a BEAUTIFUL princess named Virginia Grace Augustine...

That princess also found my lipgloss and did a pretty decent job of applying it. I probably wouldn't have even noticed she managed to put some on except she kept preening and looking in the mirror and asking me, "Do I look beautiful, Mama?"




A few other tidbits from the past couple of weeks:

**I admit that she is quite spoiled when it comes to being carried. She's so petite that it's not a big deal for Mike and I to carry her around all the time. We realize that it's probably a habit we need to start weaning her. One time we were letting her walk around and she got tired and wanted to be carried. Mike asked her why she needed to be carried because she's a big girl now. She said, "Because I'm soooo lazy!"

**I asked her to turn on the kitchen lights for me and she sang, "No, no, no, no, no" to the tune of Bruno Mars' Lazy Song.

**She was trying to get me to do something and I was busy at that second. She started whining. I asked her to be a little patient. "No! I don't want to be patient! I just want to make horrible noises! Wah,wah, wah! (fake crying like a baby)"

**After picking her up from the children's area of the gym, she asked, "Mama, I was trying to get a toy a girl was playing with and I asked her 'May I please play with it?' and she didn't give it to me. Why she didn't give it to me? I ask her nicely and the right way." (She was so hurt by the fact that she did everything the way I taught her and the outcome didn't turn out the way she wanted. Sometimes watching her go through these life lessons can be a little painful for me.)

**The girl is like her mama when it comes to the heat- we don't like it. AC all the way, please! Every single time I put her in the carseat, she immediately asks to turn on the AC in the car. This heat wave we recently had with temperatures in the triple digits for days on end was a bit too much to bear for our little princess. We were out running errands and I had just strapped her into her stroller when she demanded I turn on the AC. When I told her that there was no AC when we were outside, she asked, "Even just a little bit, please?"

Miss Independent

Grace has become fiercely independent. Unless I want to constantly have a fight on my hands, I have to make sure to pad her getting ready time. She wants to do everything for herself. "I can do it!" is probably the most commonly said phrase around here these days.

When we don't have anything on our agenda, I give my little Miss Independent a bit more freedom to do her own thing like picking out her own outfit and dressing herself. The results can be less than stellar, but they sure give me a good laugh.
A too small onesie, pajama shorts, striped socks, and her Crocs. At least everything was in shades of pink and green.


She likes her privacy in the bathroom, but I still have to be vigilant because sometimes she turns into the toilet paper bandit, pulling out the entire roll while running around the house.


She loves books and that makes me so happy! When she woke up from her nap and saw Mike still sleeping on the sofa, she grabbed a book, climbed on up, told her daddy, "Get ready, this is a long one," and then proceeded to 'read' him her book.


Mike was oblivious to the whole thing- story time and cuddle time. If I didn't take these pictures, he wouldn't have had a clue that this even happened.

My Chance at Prom

There are some Navy wives I talk to who do not enjoy the fact that every once in a while, we have to attend formal events with our husbands that require us to find prom-like gowns. They say it's inconvenient. They don't see the point of these events. They say they have other things they would rather do. I nod my head and commiserate.

Secretly though, I rather enjoy these things. You see, when I was in high school, I never went to ring dance or any kind of prom. I was a quiet, shy girl. And I was going through a strong nun phase where I thought I wanted to be the next Mother Theresa of the Philippines. I had the poor people of Manila to think about; I couldn't be bothered with finding a date or a pretty dress!

I didn't feel like I was missing out on anything back then. But every once in a while, I do feel a tiny pang of regret for not participating in that rite of passage. So when Mike tells me of upcoming formal events, instead of dread, I feel excitement. I get to relive what it must feel like to get ready for prom- looking for the perfect dress and figuring out what to do with my hair and makeup.

It's the best feeling to experience it as an adult because I can wear whatever I want and stay out for as long as I want- no curfew! And the absolute best part for me is that my date looks just like Prince Charming. I mean, how can you not enjoy the evening and feel like a princess with Prince Charming by your side?

The event we went to was Farragut's dining out, a formal dinner for the officers of the ship. It was held at the beautiful TPC Sawgrass. My only regret for the evening was not bringing my good camera. The scenery was gorgeous and the little camera we brought just didn't do it justice.


The only picture we took of the two of us with the golf course in the background and we both blinked. All I kept thinking when I looked out on the green was, "Tiger Woods plays here!"

I can't post an entry without including Grace's picture. While Mike and I were out enjoying the evening, she stayed with our dear friend and sweet neighbor, Joan.

Missing Corn

Grace is a picky eater. Meal times are still a source of stress for me because the child eats like a bird. But there is one thing that I know she'll eat if it's on her plate- corn on the cob. Corn kernels, not so much, but if it's on the cob, she will devour it.

With fresh corn in season, it's a regular side for dinner around here. I was getting ready to cook when I noticed that there were only three of the four ears of corn I had shucked earlier sitting on the counter. I was confused for a second, thinking I miscounted, and then it dawned on me that someone may have sneaked the corn off the counter to play with it.

Sure enough, when I called out to Grace and asked her if she had some corn, she said, "Uh-huuuuuuh."

I went to retrieve the corn and this is what I found.

She was eating the corn. Raw!

I quickly googled 'is it safe to eat raw corn?' and breathed a sigh of relief when I found that it was perfectly fine.

This reminds me of a quick little story from a few weeks ago. We were shopping at the grocery store and I had turned my back on Grace to pick out a bunch of bananas when a lady came up to me and informed me that my child had gotten a hold of the bag of broccoli in our cart and was trying to eat it. I quickly turned around and told Grace to stop because 1) the broccoli had not been washed yet and 2) we needed to pay for our food before we could chow down on it. Her response, "Awwww! But I LOVE broccoli!"

This is what she looks like when she's over it- in this case, my taking a bazillion pictures of her and trying to get her to look at the camera and smile at the same time.

Little Moments

One of my favorite moments of the day happens first thing in the morning. Grace crawls into bed with me bringing books and stuffed animals with her. Sometimes we snuggle and we fall back asleep for a few minutes. Sometimes she'll try to get me to wake up by kissing my cheek and then asking me to read her stories. Sometimes she'll let me snooze a little longer while she silently 'reads' her books beside me. And sometimes we'll just lay there and talk about random things- what we want to eat for breakfast, what we want to do that day, stories about what she was like as an infant (she especially likes it when I retell the story of her birth).

I also like watching her when she's at play. She has quite the imagination. She asked me to make a puppy with her blocks and I was at a loss on how to do it. I finally told her I didn't know how. Without hesitation, she said, "Here let me show you, Mama. Put this here for the body, this one for the tail, and here's his head." And where a minute ago there was just a bunch of random shaped blocks, my girl transformed them into an amazing puppy. There's nothing like looking at the world through an innocent child's eyes where anything is possible.

I love that she is such a girly-girl. She adores shoes! If we go into the store and she spots the shoe section, she automatically starts taking off her shoes and begs me to let her try some on. I found her like this the other day. She had found a stash of her old shoes that no longer fit and she was methodically trying on each pair. When I told her they were too small, she would sigh dramatically and say, "Oh! But I love them!"

For a while, after already tucking her into bed, Grace got into the habit of calling out for books and toys that she just had to sleep with. Eventually I instituted the rule that she must gather whatever she wanted to sleep with before turning in for the night because once she was in bed there would be no more additions. So now when we announce bedtime, she runs around the house looking for her favorites that she wants to join her in bed.

These are just a few little moments that probably aren't significant to anyone except me. But I'm so very grateful for them and the countless others that I get to experience with my sweet girl every day.

National Ice Cream Day

Grace versus a humongous ice cream cone...

...and Grace won!

We had ourselves a lazy Sunday around here. Mike was off at work and Grace and I stayed in our pajamas for most of the day. The dreary weather and thunderstorms were partly to blame, but really, we don't need much of an excuse to lounge around and be completely unproductive.

We also don't need much of an excuse to run out and get some ice cream so even though it was only minutes until her bedtime by the time we were done eating dinner with Mike on the ship, I bypassed our neighborhood and headed straight for the ice cream shop. After all, how could we NOT get some ice cream on a day that celebrates my all-time favorite dessert/weakness?

Trying on her daddy's hard hat.

Reunion with the Estoestas

Immediately after Grace's ballet class Friday evening, we drove down to Orlando to meet up with our dear friends, Jojo and James. We met in Japan when James was my delivery nurse. Our families became fast friends and I will always cherish those memories of our time together in Japan. They now live on the West Coast, and we couldn't pass up the opportunity to see each other when they were just a couple of hours away.

We, along with Liezel (another dear friend who I met through Jojo because they are childhood friends), booked rooms at the same Bed and Breakfast and the moment we arrived, we didn't waste any time catching up with each other. I put Grace to bed, changed into my pajamas, and then headed up to Liezel's room where the girls were planning on gabbing and eating chocolate cake. The guys were staying in our room to watch over Grace.

It was a fabulous plan. If the girls had stayed in our room, Grace surely would have woken up from all the loud laughter and excited talking. I didn't make it back to my room until almost 3 in the morning! I can't even remember the last time I stayed up that late on purpose.

The next morning we met for breakfast and then headed out to explore downtown Orlando and do some shopping. The day went by a lot quicker than I wanted it to and, too soon, we had to say our goodbyes because Mike had work the next day.

I don't know when we'll get the chance to see each other again. Hopefully sooner rather than later. But no matter when that time will be, one thing I know for certain- we will have a fabulous time. We always do with the Estoestas!

Here's Some Paper Toilet

My girl is a sweetheart; there is no denying it. After hearing me complain of my drippy nose, Grace ran to the bathroom and came back with some toilet paper saying, "Here's some paper toilet for your nose, Mama. I can't reach the tissues." I hope she will always be this considerate and solicitous towards her mama.

A few minutes after Mike left for work this morning, Grace climbed into my bed dragging her book and toy with her and asked if she could sleep with me. Even though I knew this would mean the end of my sleep since the girl moves like crazy when she's snoozing, I couldn't say no.


Luckily, I was super tired and I managed to sleep for a couple more hours and woke up just in time to head to the gym. I brought a friend along who wanted to try Zumba and she loved it so much she joined the gym and agreed to be my Zumba partner!

When we got home, I instituted a no TV day. We read lots of books and put together every puzzle in the house. Grace especially loved the Dora puzzle. We were almost finished with it and only had the last piece to put in place when Grace refused to give it up. She said the piece looked like a horsie and instead of placing it in the puzzle to complete Dora's picture, she played with it like it was a real horse in miniature. I just love seeing her imagination at work.


Can you see the horse?

She even tried to 'ride' the horse, making whinnying and galloping sounds just like her rocking horse.

My resolve to keep the TV off all day was ruined when it was time for me to cook dinner. She kept getting into trouble and when I heard, "Mama, help me! I'm stuck!" and saw this, I finally gave up and put on a Kipper DVD so I could finish making our meal. If there was a toddler-sized playpen that my little monkey couldn't climb out of, I would totally invest in one!

Kind of the Wrong Way

My girl kept me laughing all day long. In the morning, after a potty break, she waddled up to me and said, "Mama, I need some help. It's kind of the wrong way!"
Then in the afternoon, we decided to experiment and whipped up some strawberry cream cheese frosting. Grace was helping me put ingredients in the mixer and turning it on. She turned on the mixer a little too quickly and we both were dusted in powdered sugar. The giggle fit that ensued lasted a long, long time.
At dinner, sneaky girl tried to outsmart me. I have been trying to stress the importance of trying new foods before flat out refusing to eat them. To encourage (bribe) her even more, I promised her she could have a cupcake for dessert if she ate her dinner, which included a couple of new items. She was still being a bit hesitant. Finally, she agreed to take a bite of her pork chop. After chewing for a few seconds, she said she didn't want it and asked to spit it out. I let her and then praised her for at least trying something new. Without skipping a beat, she asked, "Can I have my cupcake now?"

Snippets From Our Life

Things are good around here. We had an awesome weekend of togetherness. I feel much better than last week and even made it back to the gym today. Grace continues to crack me up with her antics and I feel so incredibly blessed to be able to witness all of them with my dream job of being a stay-at-home mama.

Here are just a few snippets from the past couple of days...

Grace, with bedhead, fascinated with her daddy shaving.


Daddy and daughter monopolizing my phone, or 'Hot Pink' as Grace calls it, and playing Angry Birds.


Trying not to disturb daddy during his nap.


Grace might kill me for all these potty pictures one day, but I want to remember everything about her childhood. She demands privacy when she's doing her business in the bathroom, but I still take a peek to make sure she's not getting into trouble. Lately, this is her position of choice. I have no idea why.


She still enjoys going naked whenever she can and here she is doing some impromptu dancing. I encourage the dancing, but I told her that she can't go running around naked all the time. "Why not, Mama?"


It is so hard trying to get her to look at the camera! Even bribes are not a guarantee. When I ask nicely, she'll do the exact opposite and look the other way.

And when she finally does look at the camera, it's usually with this expression on her face.