Happy 4th Birthday Gracie!

Happy 4th Birthday to my Gracie Girl!

How is it that you are 4 already? It seems like yesterday I was sitting around pregnant, at 41 weeks, and waiting for you to arrive. And here we are today! You have done so much this year and I am so proud of you! You are a beautiful and talented and smart girl and I love you! Here is something I wrote for you.

Happy 4th Birthday Gracie

Happy birthday to my special girl

Today you are turning 4!

It seems like yesterday you were my little baby

But everyday I adore you more and more

You took your time at picking your birthday

To meet you took awhile

Finally you made your appearance on July 1st

Slow moving is just your unique style

Birthdays have come and gone so quickly

And now here we are

What a year 3 has been for you

Probably the best by far

This year you went to preschool

You were brave and such a big girl

You learned a lot and love to play school like Miss Deb and Miss Darlene

Your first year sure went by in a whirl

You also did lots of other things

You had your first ballet dance recital

Miss Kathy had you dance to the song "Tutti Fruitt"

You were a watermelon and you did beautiful

You also took gymnastics and played soccer

You saw your first movie, Toy Story 3

You also later went and saw Tangled

And you even went bowling for the first time and scored a 53!

You love to go to bouncy houses

And go to the park and swing

You go down the slides all by yourself

And "Cowboy" is your favorite song to sing

Green is still your favorite color

From Toy Story you love Jessie

Your favorite princess is Jasmine

And Scotty is still your bestie

You went to two Disney on Ice shows

And you LOVE to go to the zoo

Riding the panda is still a favorite

And "cooking" is one of your hobbies you like to do

You are working on sharing with Evie and Presley

But you are a good big sis

Sometimes it seems like you are 14 instead of 4

Some days you are just one sassy Miss!

You love to eat pancakes with syrup

And peanut butter and jelly is always there

You still are a picky eater

You would eat cookies and sweets all day if I didn't care

You have made Mommy and Daddy so proud

You grow more and more each day

How we love watching you learn all you can

And we laugh at some of the silly things you say

You will always be our little girl

Now matter how old you get

And because of your love for animals

Maybe one day you might be a vet

You are smart, talented and crazy

And have the most beautiful eyes on your precious face

Happy 4th Birthday my sweet girl

I love you so much my amazing Grace!

Love, Mommy

The Morton Arboretum

Today we headed to the Morton Arboretum. It was a gorgeous day and my husband was off work. Grandma, Grandpa, Auntie Amy, and Gigi came too! While they took a tour of the grounds and rode the tram, we went and played in the brook.

Gracie had fun soaking up the sunshine. Maybe she might actually get some color!

Evie just wanted to climb all over the place and Presley was too busy playing with the rocks.

Gracie was the supervisor, making sure Bub didn't throw any of the rocks.


He tired eventually and decided to sit and watch his sisters.

After cooling off in the brook, we headed to the tree with all the bridges. Gracie must have went like 10 times!

And because these bridges were wooden, Presley and Evie went too.

Then we found our climbing tree that we discovered last year. Look at this massive thing.

Daddy had fun climbing it.

The girls had fun hanging out on the branches.

And Presley thought he was big stuff trying to lift up the roots.

Then we found another fort with more bridges.

This time the bridge was made of netting but Gracie braved it and tried it.

That is until her skinny leg fell through!

We are sure glad that we bought Grandma and Grandpa a memberhsip for here. We love coming to explore!

Zoo!

Today was the perfect day to go to the zoo! Chuck was on vacation, the day was wide open, and the weather was beautiful. So we packed up and headed there.

Guess what? We ran into our buddy Gavin and his mommy and daddy! It was his first time to the zoo!

After walking around for just a short time, the kids decided to hit the splashpad. Gracie was enjoying it and came out pretty wet. The other 2 weren't quite sure. Then we always stop by the wall to take pictures as animals and yet another surprise.....it was a brand-new wall! Cool! Gracie wanted to be a giraffe. Then we went to see some penguins. And some wolves. Then some giraffes. Then it was time to hit the Children's Zoo and pet/brush some goats. You know who else we ran into at the zoo????

Our BFF Jackson. We had so much fun with him, I forgot to turn the picture around! Meanwhile, we went to pet the miniture pony. Then we went and saw some sea lions. I love that they swim right up to the glass. And of couse what zoo trip wouldn't be complete without a trip on the carousel? Gracie of course rode her favorite, the panda bear. Evie rode a bug. And this guy? He didn't ride anything. He rode the bench!After a brief incident of Evie kicking off her shoe, not being able to find it, buying her new zoo crocs, and then find the shoe by the carousel, it was time to head home. But not before I took a pic of the girls in thier animal shirts. And then Bub felt left out so we took another one. We waited for Gracie to pick out her animal figure, which is a zooly thing, so Evie tried on her sunglasses. And Presley said "Let's go already. I'm tired!" We weren't even out of the parking lot and he was out. With his chips and craackers still in his hand! Evie was out quick too. Gracie fell asleep shortly after. We love the zoo!

Animal Safari

Last week I signed Gracie up for an animal safari and picnic. It got rescheduled once due to rain and the day that they did have it.....well, it was cold! It was fun though. We ate lunch with Miss Darlene, who was Gracie's teacher last year, and was in charge of the animal safari. After that, we had to make binoculars so that we could see the animals when we went looking for them. Who knew that 2 toilet paper rolls glued together plus some stickers, foamies, and bling could be so fun to decorate?

We also had to make a safari hat too.

While we waited for everyone else to finish making their stuff, we played with animals.

And then Miss Sylvie read us the book "Giraffes Can't Dance." If you have never read that book, you should. It's really cute. It's already in the Weiss library.

Before the safari began, we got our cameras ready so that we could take pictures of the animals.

Gracie hit the trail with Miss Sylvie and the safari began.

First we spotted a zebra. Gracie spotted him with her binoculars and then took a picture of him.

Then we saw a tiger. We had to make sure to stay quiet so that he wouldn't hear us.

Then we saw a mommy giraffe with her baby. We had to walk real slow so that we didn't scare them away.

Then we heard a loud noise! It was some elephants! We had to use our binoculars and stay a safe distance away.

After our safari, we were hungry so we got snacks. Animal crackers!

This was a totally cute and fun thing for us. It was just Mommy and Gracie on the safari and we had a blast. I was thinking how simple and easy this might be to do for a birthday party someday for some animal lover that I know......