because, look at her!

my gracie girl is 15 months old!!

i realized it's been awhile since i've written down all the fun and silly and not so fun things she's doing right now. so here it is.

.she finally has 4 teeth! two on top, two on bottom. slow teeth growers, we are 'round here.

.her favorite foods are mac n cheese, blueberries, chicken nuggets, eggs, waffles, pb&j's, graham crackers, & "nanas" (bananas)

.she started really walking around 13.5 months and hasn't stopped since

.she allows headbands and bows to be on her head (she was on strike there for a few months) but if she gets bored enough, she'll rip them off and they usually end up in her mouth at some point

.speaking of hair, she can wear two little piggy tails now and it's just about the cutest thing on the planet

.she LOVES to dance, especially to taylor swift. literally every day, she brings us the remote (we play it through our blue ray player on our tv) and starts moving her arms around cuz she wants to music on so she can dance! we know every song by heart (jae included)

.she can make just about every animal noise, including dog, lion, bee, horse, monkey, bunny (the bunny makes a 'bouncy' noise, thanks to one of her books), pig, and others i can't remember. my favorite is probably elephant. she makes an elephant noise while putting her arm up in the air like the elephants trunk. it's awesome.

.she's still on the small side, so she wears a lot of 12 month stuff still. she actually was the exact same weight at her 15 month appointment as her 12 month. hello 3%ile! and her shoe size is definitely still in the 6-12 month range ;)

.when it's cold or we look outside at the snow, she pulls her arms across her chest and says "brrrr!"

.she is officially an almond milk drinker. and she's actually drinking less and less lately, which i guess is good in a way because it means she's getting more full on actual food.

.most naps/bedtimes lately, she doesn't care much to be rocked and/or drink a bottle. she is just ready to go to bed. it is nice that she can be so independent and go to sleep so well, but i can't help but feel a little sad and rejected when she sits up and just wants me to put her in her bed instead of rock with me :(

.she still sleeps so well at night - roughly 730pm-7am. naps during the day are always a battle, but we take what we can get.

.she is good at playing independently and loves blocks, cars, puzzles, books, anything that plays music or makes noise, finger puppets. and of course, also things like tupperware, zoey food, random clothing items, tampons, and whatever else she can get. ohh and our phones. gosh if she see's the phone, it's all over. game.over. it's a battle, i tell ya.

.she gives the BEST little puckered kisses. like, real kisses. and makes a "muah!" noise. did I mention that it's just the best?

.she has the sweetest, most fun little personality showing more and more. she makes such funny faces and lets you know exactly how she feels about everything.

.she's slightly obsessed with her belly button and you can often find her with her shirt half up her belly and her fingers over her belly button.

.she knows most her body parts and can point them all out when you ask her - nose, ears, eyes, arms, fingers, legs, toes, belly, bum, tongue, teeth, hair.

.zoey and gracie are best little buds, even though most the time gracie is trying to kiss or hug or sit on zo and zoey is growling at her....they wrestle and play and try to share toys (ick) and i completely love that they love each other. gracie has started picking up zo's food bowl and carrying it over to her bag of food to feed her. then we put food in her bowl and she carries it back over and sets it on the ground for her. smart girl!

.she tries to say any word that you say. she repeats almost everything (enter: mom and dad, be careful what you say! phase). it reminds me often of that friends episode where phoebe is trying to teach joey how to speak French. know which one i'm talking about? phoebe says something, and joey repeats it and thinks he's totally saying it the same. except it totally isn't at all what phoebe said. I feel like that's how it is a lot of the time right now - jae or I will say a word, and she'll say it back. only sometimes it sounds absolutely nothing like what we said. but she has no idea. it is the funniest.

it just blows my mind how much her little brain has grown and seeing her little mind just sucking everything in and learning all this new stuff, every single day. it is unreal. she keeps us laughing all the time. she is a weirdo but so smart and so cute and so funny. yes, we're obsessed.

 

and now, some more pictures of our sweet girl because basically she steals the show. and that's that.

5 years.

jae and i celebrated 5 years of marriage a few weeks ago. since last year we had a 2 month old, we ended up just staying downtown SLC and taking the baby with us. which was great! but now that she's 15 months, we decided a night or two by ourselves was much needed.

jae planned a few days away at one of our favorites - the Zermatt resort in midway. it was a perfect way to start our new year and a perfect way to celebrate these 5 years together.

we ate at a yummy Mexican place, swam in the crater, soaked up the heat in the steam room, ate a fancy meal at the homesteads restaurant (simon's), went on a little railroad day trip, had some more yummy food, slept in (until 8!!! haha), and best of all - basically just did whatever the heck we wanted. and it was amazing. of course, i was texting my sister the entire time to check up on gracie girl and make sure she was sleeping and eating and everything. and of course, she did great the entire time. we enjoyed every minute and mostly only took time to take pictures of scenery and food.

it was beautiful and wintery and everything was covered in frozen white magicalness. even though i am not one to love winter or snow or single digit temperatures, i cannot deny that it was lovely up there.

thanks for another amazing year, jae, and another amazing trip and

for being the perfect husband for me!

a new year, a new outlook, & some changes.

 

 

here we are, 2015. 

after my first full year of being a momma (and a wife and working full-time...), i've decided there are few things in life that are really necessary. there are few people that are truly worth my time and energy. there are (very) few social media sites that need checking, few 'extras' at the store that need to be bought, and a few too much that we try to pack in our days just because it seems like we should be able to check off 173 from our to-do lists in a 24 hour period.

that is why, for this coming year, i want to really strip everything down to the basics and keep one thing always in the back of my mind:

simplify & focus.

this has been something that has been irking me for a few months now, and i've already started to kind of simplify things in the last few weeks. but it's not enough. 

we have enough going on with both jae and i working full time and little 1 year old gracie girl and our fur baby zo. we need to just focus on us and the things that are necessary for growth and love in our little family and let the other stuff go.

 

a few specific goals in mind:

-less time on social media 

honestly, i've already started this one. the only things online that i check at least semi-regularly are facebook and blogs (no, i don't have insta or pinterest or anything else, and i don't have them for a reason! this reason!). i deleted my fb app from my phone a few months ago and can i just tell you, it has been such a good thing for me. instead of being able to so easily scroll through my news feed any time of the day i want, i have to go to my internet and log in that way if i want to see it. and as silly as it might sound, it's a lot more work and takes more time and i honestly don't do it very often! a couple of times a week is all, usually. it feels awesome. as for blogs, i've narrowed down my 'must-read' blog list a lot, and only check the ones i truly care to read. ones i get something out of, or ones of people i know personally. and guess what? i don't miss any of it one bit!

-finances

 this is one i need to work on, and i need to work on it a lot. i have always been great at handling expenses and paying bills. the part i'm terrible at is saving and spending 'excess' money wisely (or not spending it at all..?). since building our new garage this past year, we have left ourselves without much wiggle room. but the garage is something i finally came to terms with as a need for us if we want to be able to stay in our home long-term, so we did it. and it is/will be a wonderful thing for years to come. with that said, we've got to learn to buckle down on spending and enjoy a more frugal season of life.

-family/friend social events

 not that we're exactly social butterflies these days, but sometimes trying to please people or work around others schedules becomes too much. and sometimes you just need to say no. i love spending time with our families and our friends, but i need to make sure to recognize when too much is too much. sometimes things needs to be skipped. and that's ok. i need to do what's best for myself and my family.

-homemaking

i'll be the first to admit, i'm not a great homemaker. it's still something i'm working on and an area i'm  constantly learning and growing in. in the way of simplifying life, i want to purge all the excess stuff in my house! i tend to hang on to stuff or just not find a permanent home for things or get something because i'm sure i'll find a good place for it in our house. i want to get rid of the stuff!!! i have also sort of started this one already - many trips to the DI over the last few months, as well as selling a few things online or in jae's mom's yard sale. this new garage will help a ton with storage (since we currently have nothing but a couple of small closets in our house now), so we can get the stuff that needs to stay out in the garage in proper storage and get the rest out of the house, whether that's to a new home or to the dump. i just want a simple, clean, happy home. it feels freeing already :)

-being healthy
i've never been consistently healthy. i am one of those roller coaster people that does good for a certain amount of time and then just stops out of nowhere and doesn't make much effort for another x amount of time. i've never been terribly out of shape or unhealthy, but at this point in my life (post marriage, post baby), i feel like i am at one of the unhealthiest points i've ever been in my life. and i know making lofty goals of exercising daily and not eating any chocolate chip cookies ever again just isn't at all realistic. so I'm not going to. instead, as part of my i want to be healthier but also trying to simplify things and make life easier, i have put together a little work out schedule for myself. a couple things i've discovered from past experiences that i work/don't work for me and working out - i need to go to a gym and i need to try taking classes. this encourages me both to go (paying for a membership) and actually get a good workout in during that precious sixty minutes I'm there. so, here it is: Tuesday morning is yoga, Thursday morning is cardio, and Friday morning is cycling. that's it. three days a week. all early morning (hello 5am!) so I'm gone while gracie is still snoozing but back before jae leaves for work. i am not going to cut out chocolate or the occasional dp from my life, but i am going to try to eat less of those things and more salads and whole wheat bread. and that's that. it's easy and consistent and something doable.

 

i feel like if i can put my efforts into simplifying my life in general, it will help me focus on what's really important and deserving of my time. as crazy or stressful as things can get sometimes, i love my little life and little family and wouldn't trade it for anything. i'm excited for the new year and really working hard to make it the best it can be!