Monkey Joe's Animoto

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Monkey Joe's

I was inspired by Becca's blog to take Gracie to our local Monkey Joe's- she said Drew had a good time, so I figured we would enjoy it, too!  Monkey Joe's is a kids' playgym full of inflatable playground-thingies.  Bounce houses and slides and obstacle courses, etc.  It was all rainy today, so the place was VERY crowded, unfortunately, but we tried it anyway.  Kids under 3 get in for $5, and parents are free.  They have an area just for toddlers, but I took her in some of the other things, and on the slide, too!  Randy was very nervous about the other kids being too rough, but I made sure to stay with her and protect her from them.  She really has NO fear.  She kept trying to walk and bounce around, but didn't have much luck if other kids were near.  She loved the big slide, and we even let her go down by herself!  Once we'd been in a couple things we let her walk around and she headed straight for the toddler area- climbed on in and was off!  I got a couple cute pics of her in there, and a short video.  We had a great time, but boy is it hard to haul her around in all that stuff!  I was worn OUT.  Here's a couple videos and pics from today.  I highly recommend the place, but try to go when it's less crowded- a rainy Saturday is NOT a good time!

Gracie in the toddler area:

Gracie and Daddy on the slide

Gracie goes solo!

In other recent news, I am going into my third week of first grade student teaching.  It has been stressful, but going well.  It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have to write lesson plan after lesson plan- all long ones, too, with all the steps.  Emily is great at helping me sort out what we want to do, but then I have to get busy writing all the needless plans.  It's just very time consuming.  The kids are pretty good for the most part, and I've already been observed by my university supervisor once, and she was very complimentary.  I will be glad to get back to my computer lab, though!

I'm still very nervous about finding a job for next year.  This economy crap has GOT to start improving.

3 weeks til Vegas, baby!!

A miserable night

I know some people won't want to read about this, but we had the first really miserable night with Gracie on Sunday.  She NEVER wakes up in the middle of the night.  Once she's out, she's OUT.  I haven't gotten up with her in the wee hours since she was about 3 months old.  However, for some reason on Sunday night, Gracie woke up at 1:00am hollering.  I waited a minute to see if she'd just lost her wubby, but a check on the monitor showed her standing there, holding the wubby, so I knew that wasn't it.  I ended up going up there and she was just bawling and fell into my arms, calming down almost immediately.  I sat with her in the chair and she settled down and fell asleep in about 10 minutes.  But as soon as I tried to lay her down in the crib she woke up and started crying again.  At this point, Randy came upstairs and I decided to change her diaper, as she WAS wet and had had a bit of a rash earlier in the evening- maybe that's what was bothering her.  Randy didn't think so- he still thinks she had a bad dream, as we had scared her a bit with the vacuum cleaner that night.  After a fresh diaper, Randy volunteered to rock her, and she fell asleep.  After 30 minutes or so he tried to lay her down, but guess what?  Yep, hollering again.  He came on downstairs and we thought we'd let her cry it out, but more than 10 minutes later she had thrown the wubby overboard, so I had to go up there and retrieve it.  I ended up bringing her downstairs to let her sleep with us, but since she's never slept with us before, she had no idea that she was supposed to sleep!  She did finally fall lightly asleep in Randy's arms, but as soon as he moved, she was awake, ready to play.  At this point, it is 3:00 in the morning.  None of us were getting any sleep, so I took her BACK upstairs, rocked her for a minute, put her down, and just let her fuss.  I stayed in her room so she could see me, but I didn't move or talk to her- it took probably 30 minutes of whimpering and fussing and whining, but she did eventually wear out and slept the rest of the night.  We were zombies in the morning.  And now we go to bed afraid of a repeat performance.  Keep your fingers crossed for us that we avoid any more miserable nights!

Video at the beach

First Trip to the Beach!

Randy took off from work on Wednesday, the last nice day we're supposed to have for a while.  He thought it would be fun to drive down to Wilmington for little g's first beach visit!  We decided to go to the NC Aquarium at Ft. Fisher- Gracie loved it!  Then we walked out onto the beach, and it was pretty windy, but she seemed to be quite intrigued by it.  She poked around in the sand, enjoying the freedom to run around.  Neither Randy or I are big on the beach- I freakin' HATE sand.  Somehow Gracie even got sand in her diaper!  She didn't even sit down in the stuff!  But at least she got to experience it.  We got some cute pics, too. 

At the aquarium:

At the beach:

I also have to share our accomplishment this evening.  We went to eat with Grant, Sherry and Olivia kind of late, and Gracie fell asleep in the car on the way home (a whopping 10 minute drive).  We somehow managed to get her out of the car, jacket off, diaper changed and new jommie pants on without waking her up!  It was awesome.  She was so tired.

Gorgeous weekend

We had SUCH a beautiful weekend!  I had to work Saturday morning, but it wasn't that bad- then we had a fun weekend!  Yesterday we took Gracie up to the school and let her run around.  We have discovered that the child has NO fear.  She would go quite the distance away from us without even caring that we were so far away.  Little Miss Independent.

She now has several new teeth- 4 total on top, and 4 on the bottom.  The newest on the bottom are just barely poking through.  It seems like she got all the new ones at the same time, which explains the crankiness recently.  Poor thing.

I am tracked out this week- hallelujah!  Gracie and I have some shopping to do.  We're going to visit Grandmama and Boompa in April, and G has very few summer clothes, which she will need in Vegas.  We're looking forward to our trip!

Not much else going on.  I start student teaching next Monday- wish me luck with that!