So today the three of us headed down to Broadway Street for the special occasion.

Gracen took her first steps a long while ago. Since then, she’s slowly crept up from just one or two steps at a time, to 3 or four, and then to 5 or 6, but all the while, she’s preferred crawling as her main means of transportation. Today she changed her mind. Today she chose to walk around the house instead of crawl. Today she was taking 15 to 20 steps at a time without being encouraged to do so. I was so captivated by her new skills, that I didn’t take a single photo or video all day, until just 15 minutes before bedtime. This is what I was able to catch…

Previously, when the house would suddenly grow quiet, I knew Gracen was up to something… The kind of something that left Mama or Papa with a significant clean-up project (a value pack of Q-tips emptied in the bedroom, an entire roll of toilet paper unravelled onto the floor, and a pouch of 500 straws shaken all over the kitchen all come to mind). However, recently things have changed. Now when the house grows silent, I almost always find our little girl cozied up with a book. There she’ll be, nestled on top of a giant pillow or buried in a pile of laundry fresh out of the dryer, book in hand and flipping through the pages while pointing at the pictures… I love this kind of quiet.

This little monkey now loves bananas more than ever. But don’t try to give her just a piece of banana. Nuh uh. That simply won’t do. She wants the entire banana so that she can peel it by herself and break off a chunk as she sees fit.

Apparently Gracen’s heard of the new planking fad, because I came into the living room tonight to find her like this.

Today we were mailing some things to Grandma Sue and decided that she needed some artwork to accompany the boring paperwork she’d soon be receiving. Gracen went about drawing like a pro. In fact, I think she may grow up to be an artist, just like her Baba.

Today we were thrilled to catch up with our old friends from Kuwait, Sue and Ava. The girls had fun playing together and at the end of the visit, I attempted to get a photo of the two of them. Ava sat perfectly still while holding her puppy dog and smiling, and our child did this – rolled around on the ground. Silly little goose.

Plop her down in a pile of dirt and she’s as happy as a piggy in mud.

This morning I headed out to Langley to visit a friend, and Gracen stayed home with the boys.

Gracen has loved these pillows since the moment we picked them out at the store. As soon as I put them in the cart, she scooped one up and started squeezing it and smushing her face into it. And the excitement hasn’t worn off now that we have them at home… Throughout the day, she randomly snuggles up on them and each time, a sweet little smile comes across her face. :)