Ugggghhh...

I have been sick for five days now.. bleh :( I finally decided to go to the doctor yesterday and I have the flu. I have never had te flu before and I don't ever want to again. Being sick and being a mom are two things that should not happen at the same time. I feel like such a horrible mother, but I was so weak and achy that I could barely get off the couch. I am feeling a little better today because they prescribed me some medicine.. it is helping. At first I thought this was just a cold, but it kept getting worse and worse and everything just hurt. At least today I can get off the couch, but if I just barely move I start coughing or sneezing my head off. Luckily Grace just had her flu shot last month, so she has not gotten it from me, but she has gotten a little raspy with her breathing (nothing new there really though, she pretty much stays that way in winter). I'm just hoping we are both fine by Christmas Eve (we have to go to Chris' Aunt's then).

As far as Christmas itself..  have officially finished all shopping. Even for the stockings. I just have one present left to wrap and I have to put bows on everything. I also have to redecorate the tree because Grace pulled off all the ornaments she could reach.. I planned for that and only put non-breakable ornaments on the bottom.

In other news.. Chris got pulled over for his tag light being out. I didn't even know that you had to have a tag light?? The cop was a real jerk to him. Even searched his car basically accusing him of having drugs.. and guess what? He found NOTHING. I hate that cops seem to assume every young guy does drugs or drinks.
And here we are right before Christmas and the cop gave him a ticket for it?? Chris didn't even know it was out! Plus he told the cop that he had Grace and me at home.. he must have been the most heartless cop in the world. And guess how much the ticket is??? $85!! For a tiny little light!!! We budgetted everything out for Christmas and we only have money for what we budgetted, so we have no idea how we are going to pay it. Any other month and we would have been fine, but since it is Christmas we have spent all of our extra money on presents for everyone. And we have to pay it by the end of December or they will put out a warrant for Chris!! I just don't know what we are going to do. We'll figure it out somehow though.. Even if we have to borrow money from our parents.. we never have had to do that since we moved out, and we really don't want to, but it's better than Chris going to jail!

Where did this weather come from???

This summer was really hot compared to last summer so I figured we would have a warm winter, and it has been for the most part. Just a week ago we were in the 50's which is usually what winter is around here, and then a few days ago it went from 48 degrees to 24 degrees in just a few hours! It snowed that night, but was melted by the morning. Now today it started snowing again. I drove to my moms and stayed for a couple ours to let Grace visit her and my sister. I was about to leave and I walked out the door to get some clothes I was leaving with her and I almost fell off the porch! They are redoing their porch so it has no rails and to my surprise the whole thing was iced over! I fell on the stairs and almost off the side, but it didn't really hurt. I checked the roads and they weren't iced yet, so I figured we should leave immediately to get home before they were iced. My mom and I devised a plan to get me and Grace off the porch without falling again, but I ended up falling anyway lol. Thank God my mom was still holding Grace! I busted my shin pretty bad that time. It still hurts. Anyways, Grace and I made it home safely, but when we got here our neighbor was about to hit a fence.. she was backing up and he hit a patch of ice and started sliding towards the fence, so I called Chris and he came out and helped them while I got Grace inside. I think it would have been easier to get Grace inside if I would have been wearing ice skates. Our whole entire driveway is iced over! If it is going to be this cold why can't we have snow instead of ice??? I like snow so much more!

On the bright side, I picked up Grace's prize today (I don't remember if I said on here or not, but Grac won one of the photo contests!!). She got an adorable red and white tutu and a matching red and white bow with a snowman on it. That is $15 worth of stuff!

Grace's words..

Grace has had a language explosion this past week!
On top of her original words (mama, dada, uh oh, yay, hey, wee, hi, bye(bye)), she can now say dog, no, yea, go, you, hello, and daddy. But that is only the half of it! She is now starting to form sentences. The main thing she will say is "hey you" but she can also say "hey daddy," "hey dog," "lets go," "I see you," and "I love you." It is so cute to hear her talking!!!
Some other things that involve language.. If I ask her where her tummy is she will pat her tummy, and if I ask her where her hair is she will grab her hair (also, if you hand her a hair brush she will "brush" her hair). It is so cute!!
She is also beginning to answer questions now. Just the simple "yea" or "no" but it's still an answer!
And if you ask her if she wants more she will hand you her cup if she wants more. But my absolute favorite thing is that she gives kisses now!!! If I ask her for a kiss she will lean in and kiss me. I LOVE IT!

Her favorite things to do are chase Ollie and laugh when he runs (lol), and play ball with Chris and me. She is getting pretty good at throwing things!

Also, this is her newest development.. she's eating by herself with a spoon!!