What a Great Week!

This past week has been full of really fun memories and a great holiday weekend. A few nights ago, a group of my girlfriends went to a late-night showing of the movie Breaking Dawn. The movie was great, the acting was a thousand times better than in the previous movies, and I had a great time with my girls. :)

This year for Thanksgiving, Ryan and I decided to stick around here. We'll be in Salt Lake in a few short weeks, and I just know my back and tailbone are going to HATE that drive as it is. We missed all of our family members but were excited to find a few friends staying in town to eat dinner with. The Watsons and the Hadfields joined us at our house for a 4:00 Thanksgiving dinner. Grace loved having 2 little two year old girlfriends to play with because, let's be honest, none of them ate more than a couple bites anyway and played the rest of the time. We had the most wonderful food and TONS OF IT!! Ryan and I made our first ever turkey together, and I made rolls and a broccoli casserole. We also had another turkey (so there would be enough leftovers to share), squash and sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes and gravy, jello, stuffing ... all the good stuff, of course!

Our table barely fit all the yummy dishes!

Our first turkey worked out great! A huge thank you goes to my husband who did all the steps with me. :)

I made these little edible turkeys for everyone.

Later that evening we met up for dessert at the Hadfields house for pie! I made a Toffee Banana "Danger Pie" and Amanda made pumpkin pies. Boy, did we eat well! Thanks for a wonderful holiday and meal, Hadfields & Watsons.

Amanda, me, Edith,

Craig, Ryan, Matt,

Honor, Grace, Annabelle

Honor has some fun light-up toys which Grace always loves to hog when we're there.

Over the long weekend, Ryan only had to tudor for a couple hours but I'm so grateful that we had him the rest of the time! It was so wonderful to have so much down-time as a family. Grace loved all the wrestling and silliness with Dad. We were able to get some Christmas shopping done, take a load of things to the DI, take a drive to Summerlin to pick up some things, and (my favorite part) set up CHRISTMAS at our house!! Ryan and I have both been commenting over and over about how wonderful it feels to have the Christmas tree up. It just makes you want to cozy up on the couch together and read a good book, doesn't it? It makes me so happy. :)

Grace especially enjoys pointing out the Rapunzel ornament, the snowman, Mickey, Pooh, and Tigger, of course.

This year we're grateful to have our very own "real" tree (as in a normal, tall, but fake one) to set up for the first time in our marriage. We lucked out recently and got it for free from a family friend - and it sure is beautiful! We've always had a little 3-foot one (one year we actually bought a real one) and even though Ryan was sure this one wouldn't fit in our tiny place we got it to work. We had to move our love seat into Grace's room and put her rocking chair by the tree instead, but it all worked out perfectly. I hope this Christmas season goes by nice and slow. It's a shame it's already less than a month away, but we hope to enjoy every minute of it!

On friday we saw a sign at the District mall advertising that they were lighting the tree and Santa would make an appearance, so we decided to go over and see it that evening. There was a short program with some singers in the beginning, so there were lots of people already seated and ready for it. We found some standing room (which unfortunately was a horrible view of the Christmas tree - oh well) and enjoyed watching the program, seeing Frosty the Snowman, and Santa. When they lit the huge tree they also lit off some fireworks RIGHT in front and on top of us, which took us all by surprise. I think it freaked Grace out a bit ... She laid her head on Ryan's shoulder while they were going, and then it wasn't until we were walking back to the car a few minutes later that she finally spoke her first word again: "Wow". haha But I still think she had fun watching the performers dance around and seeing Santa in person.

The actual Christmas tree is behind another tree, so you can't really see it well, but it was fine because the fireworks were fun and the whole experience was so neat.

Afterwards we headed over to Cafe Rio for dinner where were able to enjoy a completely free dinner!: free salad to share, free chips and salsa, and free quesadilla for Grace. It was a really fun night, and overall the week was a special one for us, especially since Ryan leaves again this week for more interviews. I'm grateful for the time off of work that Ryan had and that we were able to enjoy the long weekend together with nowhere to be and nothing planned. :) I'm grateful for my sweet daughter, my amazing husband, and our little man joining us soon... who is ever-present due to his constant movement. ;) I'm very grateful for the Christmas season and that we can be surrounded by family time/memories, symbols of the season, reminders of the love of our Savior, peaceful music, and a special spirit attached to this time of year.

Update: 12 Things

1. Ryan has been gone in New York all week for interviews in Rochester and Syracuse. He didn't feel great about the program in Rochester but had a really good feeling about Syracuse's program (even though the town is a bit run-down). He was also able to visit Palmyra and see the Hill Cumorah and Sacred Grove. It was a wonderful experience for him and sent me a few thoughts about it I wanted to share:

"I felt as though this may have been the main reason that I came to interview at these programs. I may not have been able to have an experience like this at this time in my life without those programs inviting me out. And maybe the Lord knew I needed this experience for some reason. Whatever the case may be, it was an experience never to be forgotten."

2. Grace and I survived the week without him without major issues, although there were a few times that I was just DONE being a single parent. I don't know how my friends do it having their husbands away for weeks and months for rotations this year. :( Not fun. Today has been the best day of the entire week though! Grace hasn't had to go into time-out at all, she was content while we went shopping, she let me take a nap during her nap, she ate her whole dinner without issues, and we had some nice cuddle time while watching Cars. It was a great day!

3. Speaking of Grace, she did two pretty funny things today. First, she was playing with fridge letters in the kitchen and had only put a few letters up after getting bored of it. I went over to the fridge and noticed that the letters "OMG" were together like that, all by themselves in one spot. I thought to myself "Ok then. I guess that's how she TRULY feels about me." haha

Second funny thing was when she took off her sweater and yelled "NAKED!" That's my girl.

4. Lately, watching all of Grace's 2 and 3 year old friends who are boys is making me feel increasingly nervous to have one myself. Grace is pretty chill and a pretty easy kid, to be honest. I wonder if we're being sent a crazy, energetic boy just to stir things up and keep me on my toes. I can definitely say that he is almost constantly moving, even now, and I remember Grace was more sporadic at this point. So... we'll see.

5. Next week is Thanksgiving and we're hosting it at our place this year! Our friends the Hadfields are coming over to eat with us. We're the only two loner families staying in town (or not having family come here) and I'm so grateful we won't be totally alone. :) We're splitting the dinner items up but we're both making small turkeys so we each have lots of leftovers to freeze. I'm really excited to have this new experience, but I'm pretty nervous about doing my first turkey. Hopefully I don't mess it up! It's like I'm an adult now, or something......

6. So... I'm slightly ashamed to admit that I like pinterest now. haha. It's been such an obsession for so many women in the world that I guess I kind of vetoed it for awhile until I saw what it was all about. I joined up finally and it honestly is a neat place to get cool ideas! I've found some good recipes, fun kid ideas, cute crafts, good photography shots/posing ideas, etc. In fact, this week I worked on trying 2 new kinds of flower clips: one made of ric-rac and another made of felt. They turned out so cute and I'm loving having new crafts to try out!

7. Speaking of crafts, I FIIIIIIINALLY organized my craft stuff into one plastic bin so it's all accessible and easy to get to. It's been a total mess for years, and just being able to group like things together into smaller, separate containers (like ribbons, material, paints, etc) has made all the difference in the world. I'm so happy with it. :)

8. Recently we rented a storage unit/garage here at our complex and are splitting it with our friends the Hadfields. It's a super good deal because it's a huge garage and half the price. Ryan and I have been feeling claustrophobic for the last year or two just with all the stuff we've collected in that time, especially with kids. I'm so incredibly grateful that we could move some of our stuff into the garage (especially Ryan's bike, which has had to be in our kitchen for the last few years - ugh). I'm so glad we won't feel so jam-packed in our apartment for these last several months here, especially now that we're adding lots of boy stuff to the collection.

9. Ryan and his two friends, Nephi & Josh, were able to finally hook up and use their golfing passes they got for Father's Day. We wives bought them each a groupon deal way back in June and they've all just been so busy they couldn't get together to go. They had a great time and I'm so glad it finally worked out! Especially since the groupon was expiring in a couple weeks.

10. Last weekend, Ryan and I were able to go on a date for the first time since September and it was oh so wonderful. :) We had a gift card to Outback Steakhouse and our wonderful friend Lisa Casey watched Grace for us. We met our friends the Thompsons there and had a really great double date! We didn't feel any rush and were able to eat super yummy steak dinners and enjoy ourselves. Thanks Lisa - and thank you to Ryan's parents for the gift card. :)

11. I am 28 weeks along now and officially in the 3rd trimester! I'm so excited and can hardly believe how fast it's going. My 1st pregnancy felt like years, but this one has gone by pretty quickly. Plus when I think about the fact that Grace was born at 36 weeks... well, that's only 8 weeks from now, if it follows the trend. Crazy! I'm still seeing the Perinatologist every 3 weeks and so far there has been nothing but normal numbers and measurements. The doctor even asked me the other day if I thought it was ridiculous to come in so much when everything seems fine. I said "No! Please still have me come. I feel so much more comfortable knowing exactly what's going on." He agrees, and is still pretty sure I'll go into labor earlier than 40 weeks. So even though I shouldn't get my hopes up about it I do feel like I won't make it all the way to Feb 10th. We'll see! I'm just going to make sure that I'm "ready" and have what I need by 36 weeks just incase. The doc wants me to get a 3-D ultrasound in a couple weeks and they'll take all the baby's measurements again, which I'm really excited about. It'll be fun to see exactly how big he truly is at that point and I've never had a 3D ultrasound! Maybe we'll get a better idea of what he looks like.

12. In the ultrasound I had the other day, we had a really good view of Baby Boy's feet. He DEFINITELY has his daddy's feet, with the extra long 2nd toe. haha It made me laugh to see it so clearly on the screen like that. Grace's feet are more like mine with all "normal" toes, but his will be like Daddy's. :) I can't wait to meet him and kiss those little feet all the time! p.s. I have been meaning to scan the photos from all our ultrasounds for weeks now. I will try and get those up soon.

The Birthday Girl

Grace turned 2 years old on wednesday! She was lucky enough to have her Daddy home for a couple of hours before he headed to work (a pretty rare thing) so we tried to make the most of it. We all got up at 7am and gave Grace her birthday presents!

Here is the video if you'd like to watch... She really loves her new kitchen toys!

We made a yummy breakfast of waffles, strawberries, and scrambled eggs and even stuck two candles in Grace's waffle for her to blow out. I wanted to make sure I told her many times throughout the day that it was her birthday, and try to make it special, so she would feel the excitement of it all. :)

Showing us all how good her breakfast was.

Ryan headed off to work and Grace and I walked up to the park with some friends. She had a great time running around with Honor, Brig, and Jaren! She spent quite a bit of time playing in the leaves and dirt, and is now especially good at climbing up to the different slides and going down all by herself. Funny story: A bird pooped on Grace's head while running around. Yum.

After her nap, Grace decorated a few cupcakes (yes, pre-birthday-cake cupcakes...) just for fun. I let her decide what color she wanted for her frosting and what sprinkles she wanted to add. I'm pretty sure she thought that was the neatest activity! We'll have to do it more often.

Here's our little chat we had while eating our cupcakes... Do you like how she owns up to her toots? That's my girl.

After dinner that evening we had some friends over to celebrate and eat cake with us. My super-talented-cake-decorating friend Robyn had the genius idea of swapping services for each other, as she was in need of some photos of her 2 girls and I was in need of a cake. :) She made Grace the most BEAUTIFUL cake and under all those butterflies and flowers were 2 different kinds of extremely yummy cakes! THANK YOU again Robyn.

Mmmm, both layers were SO GOOD!!

I requested chocolate (and nothing fruity) and Robyn outdid herself.

Everyone sang Happy Birthday to Grace... She was so calm with just a hint of a smile while we sang, simply enjoying the attention I'm sure.

She blew out her candles with only a little help from mom and dad...

And had a great time with our friends in our tiny apartment. We moved our big comfy chair into the back room for the night so we could put out more folding chairs and I'm so glad we did. The kids had a little more space to play too. They especially loved running around and hitting each other with the balloons! :)

Our sweet friends the Hadfields gave Grace a Mrs. Potato Head which she adores!

And of course the men all end up off in the corner chatting about rotations, interviews, etc... but that's typical of them when they haven't seen each other for months.

The 3 November babies! Greydon, Grace, and Jaren.

We had a fun day celebrating our 2 year old, and I hope Grace enjoyed it too. Love you, sweetheart!

Two Years!

hehe. Such a cheese ball.

Grace at 24 months...
-weighs just over 27 lbs pounds (50th percentile)

-33.5 inches tall (just above 50th percentile)

-head is 19 inches (75th percentile)

-gets scared (and sometimes cries) around loud noises such as the vacuum, wheat grinder, lawn mowers, etc.

-still does what we ask most of the time but is starting to get a mind of her own

-loves pretty things to wear like dress up skirts, wings, jewelry and mom's high heels

-still has just 12 teeth and might be getting her first canine on the top left side soon

-loves her Grandmas & Grandpas

-loves to play with her friends and cries when they have to go home or we have to leave

-asks for a PB&J sandwich when I ask what she wants to eat, but then usually doesn't eat more than a bite. I usually just make her something completely different even if she asks for PB.

-loves watching "Buzz movies", Nemo, Lion King and Little Mermaid.

-is really sweet with her baby doll, putting her down for naps with a blankey, and letting her drink her milk. I think she'll be a great big sister!

-loves to go outside and run around the apartment complex while I try to keep up behind her.

-enjoys taking her afternoon nap everyday, never complains about it, and sometimes even asks for it. I'm not sure if that will change after we take the binkie away...

-finally has enough hair for pigtails! It still has never been cut and I've been debating doing it really soon just to even things up... I just hate to lose the progress she's made by cutting it off!

-she is in the stage where she says the same thing over and over AND OVER AND OVER until you repeat what she says. Her favorite phrases are:

"Mommy! Wait!" (yells this over and over until I stop whatever I'm doing)

"A mess"

"Daddy home"

"Big truck!" (she says this aaaallll the time... we don't even have to be outside for her to say it. If she hears a noisy car or truck outside she'll gasp and say "Big truck!")

"Mommy, help"

"Big hug"

"Uh-huh, okay" as if it's all one answer... but sometimes her answer of "okay" doesn't work with what I ask... such as "Is that a yummy sandwich?" and she'll say "okay" back. Silly girl.

-is not understanding daylight savings time yet and it's driving me crazy that she wakes up with the sun still, which is now at 6:30am. Wonderful. She used to sleep until 7:30 until we switched the clocks. I'm hoping she goes back to normal and realizes that she needs that last hour of sleep... 'cause I sure do!

-only recently had her FIRST real cuts which needed bandaids for several days because they kept opening and bleeding. Her darn shoes from the 2 year photo shoot (above) were cutting into her ankles and we didn't realize it until we were done. By then she was bleeding and the scabs didn't heal very quickly. They're finally healed now.

-sings songs with us before bedtime at night. She even knew some of the words to "I Am a Child of God" and said them right before we did. When we ask what song she wants to sing, she'll usually say "light" (for Teach Me to Walk) or "temple" for "I Love to See the Temple".

-says prayers over dinner or before bed with our help. It's so sweet to hear her saying the words and see her little eyes closed so tightly.

-loves to color in coloring books or draw pictures herself. She will spend lots and lots of time with her crayons and books, either at the kitchen table or on the carpet, and we always have something on hand for her to color if we're eating at a restaurant or in Sacrament meeting. She doesn't just scribble and turn the page either... she takes the time to fill in most of the picture and sometimes says out loud what she's coloring "eyes, hands, shoes, etc".

-knows almost all of her colors (still confuses orange and yellow sometimes), can count to 10, and knows all the letters of the alphabet.

-loves to play with the toddler learning games Ryan finds for his iPad. There are some awesome games on there, I admit! And she would sit with him and play them all day if she could.

-loves giving big hugs ("bee hug") to Ryan and I and sometimes to her friends' parents! She is so loving and affectionate. She'll even come up to my belly and tell me she's giving kisses to baby brother. :)

As Grace has gotten older, we have been able to see the special characteristics she has, even as a child. One of these that we've noticed for a long time, but is even more apparent now, is her ability to make those around her feel like the most loved and important person in the world to her. She has this way of looking at you, tugging on your heart strings, paying attention to you when you least expect it, or surprising you with her comprehension of what you're saying/feeling that truly amazes everyone who has noticed. Grace has been known to do small things like pat an uncle's knee while walking past him, asking where an aunt is when she can't find her, noticing something around her that reminds her of a grandparents or friends, or simply stop in the middle of playing and say "I know you, Mom" (which really means "i love you" in her language). She is such a sweet little girl and we are thankful every single day for how great she is to us. There are definitely days or moments where Grace can be extremely trying and will do all the wrong things... but for the most part she is a very good girl. I don't know how I deserved one like her, but I am so grateful.

I have had more spiritual experiences and Testimony building moments with Grace in my life than I had during the many years prior! example #1: When I learned I was pregnant with Grace (nearly 3 years ago) Ryan gave me a Priesthood blessing. I was told and promised that Grace would be my "little buddy" and that she had been waiting and watching for us to be ready specifically for her. Truly, Grace is my little buddy. She will even remind me of this sometimes by telling me "Mommy buddy". She is my sweet girl and I love every ounce of her.

example #2: When Grace was born and we went through those 2 extremely trying weeks, I felt an incredible amount of peace and love coming from my Heavenly Father. I was still sad, and they were the hardest 2 weeks of my entire life... yet they were also the best 2 weeks of my life for reasons I don't think I could explain. A couple of nights before Grace finally came home to us, my dad and Ryan gave her another blessing. She was blessed that her mind and body would finally understand how to gain the weight she needed, and was promised that she'd have no lasting effects from the traumatic birth. Once again, those promises were fulfilled and she had no struggles with development or health because of what happened ... even though we were told it was likely she'd be a bit behind.

example #3: From those moments I spent holding Grace in the hospital, up to the quiet moments I spend with her now, and all the times rocking or comforting her in between, I have had many experiences where I've known my Grandma Helen Goates was there with us. I've always believed the veil between this world and the Spirit world is thin, but there is something about the connection between Grace and my Grandma who passed away years ago that is very special. Even yesterday I was coloring a picture with Grace and had an undeniable feeling that Grandma Helen was checking in on us and sent her love. :)

I feel like there a million more things I could say about our Gracie girl and how much we love her! She is such a blessing to us and we are grateful to have had her as our very first child. She has taught us so much, and continues to show us how to love and laugh and forgive and enjoy the little moments.

Happy Birthday, Grace!!

Magic

Yesterday, Ryan and I took our almost-2-year-old to the happiest place on earth: Disneyland!! We wanted to celebrate her 2nd birthday by doing something special and decided to take her to see some of her favorite characters while we live "close" to Anaheim. It's only a 4 hour drive, after all, haha. I was so glad for the excuse for us to go there on Ryan's saturday off, before I got too big and unable to handle all the walking. It was, in a word, MAGICAL. Anybody who has taken a child there and seen the pure joy radiating from their sweet face knows what I mean. It was so wonderful!! (sorry for the cheesiness - but it's true!)

We started the day super early so we could be on the road about 6:30am. Grace was really good on the drive there - watching Nemo and talking about "Diwee Wan" most of the way. By the time we were just a few minutes away from pulling into the parking lot, she was beside herself with excitement, even though she had no idea what was coming! We've been talking about who we would see there for days and there is a commercial on TV everyday for Disneyland which she gets excited about seeing. As we bought our tickets, we overheard an employee saying that they were filming in the park, and how lucky we all were for coming that day. We had no idea what that meant but walked in and realized what they were filming. If you've ever seen the Disney Christmas Day Parade on TV, then you know exactly what was happening yesterday. They were filming the big parade hosted by Nick Cannon, a live concert by One Republic, and a firework show above the castle later that evening. Literally the minute we walked onto Disneyland's Main Street, they started the parade and it was SO COOL! We didn't stay to watch all of it because the crowd was insane, but we saw the opening Toy Soldier marching band and the big floats with all the favorite characters.

You can see the start of the parade here and the camera crews.

This is going to sound ridiculous, because I was laughing at myself at the time, but with the parade going, the neat music that the parade was choreographed to, all the cheering, and the excitement it created, I was literally getting choked up. haha Call it pregnancy hormones, but the joy I felt knowing that Grace was finally there for her first time to experience Disneyland made me emotional. :) It truly is magical there.

We headed up towards Fantasyland and Toon Town, so Grace could see all the younger kids things and the characters she loves. We jumped in line for the Dumbo ride first and Grace did have a couple of meltdowns standing in line for those 20 minutes. Finally we got our turn and she had a great time! We saw Mickey's house and walked through to meet him. Again, it was about a 20 minute wait, but once she did see him she was SO HAPPY! "Mickey Mowf" is very popular with Grace and I know she was happy to meet him in real life.

Sitting in Minnie's living room.

The line for the Princesses was pretty long and we figured that Grace doesn't really know them as well as she does some of the other characters (Buzz, Woody, Pooh, etc) so we skipped a lot of Fantasyland. We planned to come back later in the day to do some of the rides there and see the Tangled tower, but little did we know that they were going to close that entire part of the park for the rest of the evening! My only frustration with the day.

We had packed a cooler for lunch so we could save money there and I'm glad we did so we could just have an easy picnic lunch in a quiet area. :) After eating, we went to Autopia where we could drive the cars.
We split up into 2 cars (Grace went with Ryan) and I guess Grace's excitement caught the eye of one of the employees. As we got out of our cars, this guy asked if we wanted to do it again. We were like "Yes please!" and all jumped in one car this time. Two rides for the price of one! Grace wasn't loving it the second time and had her hands clasped the whole time for some reason.

As we walked down to see Winnie the Pooh and Tigger, we ran into some more of the parade going on. I'm not sure if it was more filming for Christmas or just a typically scheduled parade, but we just caught the tail end where Grace got to see Rapunzel and Flynn!

Walking up to where Tigger and Pooh were meeting the kids was by far our FAVORITE part of the whole trip. Even after we were done seeing them, Ryan turned to me and said that watching Grace during that visit made it all worth it for him. :) So sweet!! She was such a good girl while waiting her turn to see them. She kept jumping up and down and saying "Gigger. Jump." We let Grace walk up to them all by herself, which she did slowly, but with a big smile - not scared at all. She gave them both big hugs and I honestly wish I'd had the video camera! The pictures don't even do it justice or show how incredibly sweet those minutes were.

While waiting in line she turned to me and said "Gigger!!"

Look at that happy girl!

This is probably the most awkward looking hug, but it was the most adorable thing to watch. There were some teenage girls standing watching and they were "aww"ing the entire time just watching Grace with Pooh. :) I didn't even have to force or urge her to go up to Pooh. When it was her turn she walked slowly but surely up to him, with a big smile!

We also went on the Buzz ride (Grace ALWAYS asks for "Buzz movie" these days) and she was super excited to see the life-sized, talking Buzz while you wait in line. This was her reaction, while she shouted "Buzz!!"

We saw/heard One Republic perform their song "Good Life" two or three times through the day... apparently that's the only song they were asked to perform. It was neat to see them live but the whole filming thing turned into quite a drag. The area in the round-about by Main Street and right in front of the castle was all roped off and full of extras and camera equipment. It was right in the way and several times we had to take big detours to get to where we wanted to go.

With lots of lines to wait in, I got some funny pictures. Grace and Daddy had lots of bonding time since Dr. Daddy wasn't allowing me to hold Grace very often (30 extra pounds really puts a lot of strain on me). They were being so funny together...

Such a cutie.

Making silly faces during long lines...

We went on the Jungle Safari ... which is all exactly the same as last time I was there. Even the jokes the tour guide tells. :) An oldie but a goodie.
Some of the other things we did were: Finding Nemo Submarine, Goofy's Playhouse, Mad Tea Party (which made Grace squeal and laugh right out loud!), Winnie the Pooh ride, and ate dinner, but unfortunately didn't get to do It's a Small World (closed) or pretty much anything in Fantasyland. :( By about 5:30 pm they were setting up for One Republic's nighttime concert and the big firework show over the castle. I'm guessing they closed that area because it was the fall-our area for the fireworks, but it sure was disappointing. With just a little bit of time left before we had to go home, we decided to take the Disneyland Railroad all the way around the park and hoped to see the fireworks once they started going. When they did go off finally, we happened to be at the station by the front gates. We were able to get a pretty cool view of Main Street lit up, the castle, and the show ... except we only saw the final 30 seconds of it.

As we headed out of the park, we got some Dole whip (almost like the kind we got in Hawaii 2 years ago) and bought Grace her new favorite friend! "Mickey Mowf!" She sure loves him.

We didn't even make it out of the Disneyland parking lot before Grace completely zonked out! She pretty much slept the entire 4 hours it took to drive home.
A VERY successful trip to the most magical place on earth. It was definitely on my list of most wonderful days we've ever spent together as a family. I am so glad we got to go before moving and before we had another little family member to bring along. I'm so grateful for my sweet family and the special memories we can make together. I am so blessed.