Grace is becoming quite the toddler! She is doing her best to keep up with the big kids and seems to have taken some lessons on how to be bossy from her big sister. She’s tough as nails but is a total Mama’s girl. She understands so much and is talking a lot these days.

We had her 18 month check up on Monday and she weighed 18 lbs, 3 oz and was 31 inches. She dropped off her growth curve again so she’s now been put on a high calorie diet. Basically, everything she eats now comes with butter, whipped cream or ranch dip and her milk comes with Carnation Instant Breakfast powder. She doesn’t seem to notice a difference, although she’s thrilled to be able to dip everything in ranch and was really excited to get ice cream for a snack.

One of Grace’s favorite phrases is ‘come on!’ which sounds like “MON!” and she pulls your finger to drag you along behind her. She gets very excited when we interpret correctly what she wants or is telling us and rewards us with a big cheesy smile as she claps for us like, “Yay, you’re finally catching on!”.

Grace recently went through a “clean up” stage which was kind of great, except that she cleaned up by throwing everything into the trash can. I pulled shoes, bathing suits, silverware and many other things out. I seem to have missed the tv remote though, which we are really missing. She is also in a baby doll stage. She loves to put her baby in the high chair to feed it and push it around in the stroller. She especially likes to feed her baby a bottle and to tell you “Shhhh!” when her baby is sleeping. She likes to play with the bigger baby dolls in the basement, but has a little tiny baby that she has started taking with her everywhere we go.

Grace LOVES to eat corn on the cob!!

One of the best things about Grace is that she LOVES to go to bed! She rarely cries or has a fit. Normally when we tell her it’s time to go to bed she runs to us and calls, “Night night!” over her shoulder to whoever happens to be within earshot. When we rock her, she snuggles up with her blanket and bunny and when we put her in bed she blows kisses and says, “Night night!” over and over until we close the door. It’s awesome!

It’s hard to believe how quickly she is growing up and changing, but it’s really fun to see her personality develop.

Well…our baby is not a baby anymore! Grace is 15 months and is officially a walker. She can stand up in the middle of the floor, she can bend down and pick things up and she definitely walks more than she crawls. Grace is very happy to be able to chase Eden and Andy and access them easily. She can climb onto the couch and is able to pull herself onto Eden’s bed.

She says about 10 words and she understands so much! I don’t remember Eden or Andy being so good about following directions, but Grace will go find her shoes and bring them to me when I ask her to, she will crawl up the stairs when I tell her it’s time for bed or a bath and she goes right to her chair when we tell her it’s time to eat. She will even follow directions from Eden, which makes Eden very happy!

Grace had her first flight as a big girl when we went to California at the end of April. She did a great job on the planes and had her own seat on two of the four flights. She did a really good job adjusting to the time change, only waking up early one morning. She loved the pool but did not love being stuck in a floatie. She liked the ocean and stood in the water until her legs were cold and I dragged her out. She played in and ate the sand and she did a good job being flexible with her schedule and napping in her stroller.

Gracie is very happy as long as she is included in what everyone else is doing. She is my daredevil and will be the one to give me gray hairs. She is not afraid of anything and is willing to try anything that Eden and Andy are doing.

At her 15 month check up Grace weighed 17 lbs, 10 oz and was 30 inches long.

Grace is now 14 months and she is growing and changing so much! Ben was gone last week on a business trip and she seemed so different in just the week that he was gone. She was diagnosed with a double ear infection several weeks ago, and when we went in for her recheck both ears were still infected. She’s been on her new medication for several days now and I think it’s working because she is actually walking a lot more. She still crawls most of the time, but she will walk on her own now, as opposed to just when we made her do it. And she seems more stable then she did last week as well.

Grace is also talking a lot more. She says: mama, dada, eden, deda, all done, more, bye bye, hi and night night. She gives lots of kisses, shakes her head ‘no’ when she doesn’t want something, claps and is doing great with her milk. She cracks herself up by making noises with her mouth and she is suddenly very interested in books. She’s also been eating like crazy! Last night we went out for dinner and Grace ate a squeezey applesauce while we waited for our food, a bunch of chips with cheese dip, an entire corn dog and some french fries. Andy didn’t even finish his corn dog!

She loves being able to do whatever the big kids are doing. She follows them everywhere and is so happy when they include her in their games. She’s also toughened up quite a bit, not screaming and crying every time that Andy comes near her, although she is still very much the baby. She likes to be carried around and can do a convincing fake cry when she wants attention.

Gracie has her 15 month check up in a few weeks and we’re anxious to hear how much weight she’s gained and are hoping that her ear infections have cleared up.

Where has the time gone? It seems like not long ago we were snuggling baby Andy and lugging him around, and now we can barely keep up with him!

Andy had an entire week to celebrate turning 3! It started off with a sleepover and visit to a train museum and restaurant with Deda and Papa which, as you can imagine, was AMAZING to Andy. Then a trip to the fire station on Monday. Andy LOVED seeing the 3 fire trucks and the ambulance and was also pretty interested in the fire pole. He didn’t actually ask if he could slide down it, but he did want to know basically everything else about it. After the fire station we met Daddy for lunch at Firehouse Subs.

On Wednesday, his actual birthday, Andy got to pick the menu, so we had cinnamon rolls for breakfast, hot dogs and mac and cheese for lunch and pizza for dinner (we are so proud of his healthy choices!). On Thursday, Andy got to go to Uncle Bill’s Pet Shop with Eden’s preschool class. He was allowed to sit in the circle with Eden’s class before we left the church and even got to help with the good morning song. He thought he was pretty special being a part of Eden’s school! Friday we had his birthday party. It was a fire truck theme and all of the kids wore fire hats and spent a lot of time pretending to spray people with their fire hoses. Andy had a great time playing, opening gifts and eating a big piece of cake.

Andy has been working very hard at being gentle with others and has really been doing a good job monitoring himself. He puts on his own shoes, gets himself partially dressed, loves to be chased by Ben around the house, and is suddenly very opinionated about everything (like which seat he should sit in, what socks he should wear, what cars he takes with him and what tv shows we watch). He’s still really into any transportation related things and would watch documentaries on cars, trucks, trains, etc for hours if we let him. A new interest is monster trucks, although we had to put an end to Andy being a monster truck because the main job of a monster truck is to run over things and Eden and Grace did not enjoy being constantly run over.

Andy still has a very sweet and snuggly side. He’s always the one to ask us to cuddle him at bedtime, needs extra hugs and kisses before Ben goes to work and before going to sleep, and is the first to be concerned when someone else is crying. He’s also developing quite a humorous side, cracking Ben and I up with his delivery. He got his eyebrows from Ben and is already figuring out how to manipulate them for added impact. Andy has always been very easy going and still is, for the most part. He’s content to play with Eden when she’s in a playing mood, or is happy to drive his cars around in the basement when she’s in a funk. He’ll sit and watch tv until we turn it off (which is great in the car!), but likes to sit in our laps and read or play outside as well. He’s VERY anxious to start school next year and loves going to church and Wiggle Worship, although he’s ready to get out of the buggy!

At Andy’s check up he weighed 34 pounds and was 38 1/2 inches tall (75 percentile in both). He did a great job answering questions and following directions during the appointment and Dr. Timmons was very pleased with how he is doing.

On March 4, Kenya will hold elections and I’d like to ask you to start praying NOW! In 2007, horrible violence spread across the country as tribes fought against each other following the elections. The politics in Kenya are heavily tied to individuals tribes and this resulted in thousands of people being injured and killed. Eldoret, where we live when we go to Kenya, suffered severely and people that we know and care about saw and experienced awful things. We know people whose family’s were burned alive and also know people who risked their lives to rescue strangers.

Many of the Americans that live in the IU Compound have left the country as directed by IU, but we know that some people will not leave and many Kenyan’s can’t leave.

It’s worth mentioning that one of the men running for president in Kenya, as well as his running mate, are on trial in the International Criminal Court on allegations of organizing violence and crimes following the last elections.

Please pray for these specifics:
That the elections would be peaceful.
For our friends that remain in Kenya (to name a few: Joe and Sarah Ellen, Javan and his family, Pam and her brother Elly and their families, Rahab and Josie and their families)
For the Americans that will return to Kenya after the elections.

I’ve included a couple links below that you can check out for more information:
The Stone’s Blog: Chrissie and Geren are dear friends of ours from Eldoret. They are leaving for Uganda tomorrow until after the elections.

Running on Amnesia: a NY Times news article about the elections