Lately

We have been so busy here lately that I have failed to do a good job of blogging about all the fun things we have been up to! So here it goes... a (very very long) update of what's been happenin here at the Nida's!

No this hydrangea is not in our backyard. It's in Granny and Papa's backyard! We decided to take a spur of the moment trip to Alexandria... and we ended up staying for a whole week! We decided on a Wednesday afternoon and left the next morning. This is one of the great advantages of being on a student schedule... you can just do things like this when it is semester break!



The first thing we did when we got to Granny and Papas was take Grace out back and let her dip her feet in the pool.


Grace and Granny had good times hanging out!



Grace even got to swim for the first time!!!



All of Grace's cousins came. This is a typical breakfast at Granny's house. One kid with a sunburn, one kid with a Popsicle and one kid with an Eggo while watching cartoons on the couch. Ahhhh... if only every day could be a vacation day!!!!



We had a Nida family birthday fiesta for Grace while we were there!



Grace got lots of fun gifts!



Cousins can be very entertaining.



What Alexandria birthday celebration would be complete without an Atwood's cake? I can still taste it... yummmm!



And of course her first bite of sweets had to be an Atwood's Petit Four (Mommy's favorite dessert ever).



She wasn't quite sure if she wanted to touch it... but she knew she wanted to eat it... so she figured out a way to make it work.



Can I have cake for every meal?



All that party excitement proved to be a bit too much for my sweet kiddo. Bedtime takes a vacation when you are on vacation sometimes and that was kinda difficult.


So then we came home and SOLD OUR HOUSE!!!!
I can't believe I forgot to post about it! All we have left to do is our FHA inspection and then find out our closing date and then sign the papers! Woo-Hoo! I never ever want to sell a house again!!!

And then Nana and Aunt Mary Allison came for a whole week!!!


Grace LOVED to push Aunt MA's chair around. Talk about entertainment. She slept very well every night.


We did a lot of shopping.



And we even went to Huber's farm for fried chicken and strawberry pickin'!



I was really surprised by how much fun Grace seemed to have.



She picked the berries and put them right in her mouth... after giving them a good squish or two. Let's just say I'm glad I brought a change of clothes for her.



Mommy and Grace in the strawberry patch.



Grace and Aunt MA!


Then we had a birthday party!!!


I made the invitations. They say...

Hop, Skip, Jump and Play
Grace is Turning One Today!
We hope you can come celebrate with us.
Come for burgers, balloons, and birthday cake.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
11:00 Till' Naptime
Graces House


"Please Join The Birthday Girl in the Backyard"


The chair all nice and clean... pre-cake.


We just put out pallets and toys and a table with food and we decorated with yellow and pink balloons and crepe paper. We also had a bubble blower which was lots of fun.



Grace and her Aunt and Nana before the party.



Granny and Papa could not make it, but they did get her this awesome slide! She had a great time standing on it and turning the wheel.



Grace was not too sure about opening gifts... but wrapping paper sure was fun!



I made her a birthday cake.



And cupcakes for everybody else.



She played and played and played with all of her toys after the party.... actually she is still playing with them! It is so much fun to be one!



Sunday was Grace's actual birthday. Nana and Aunt MA had to go home, so after church Jonathan and I spent the whole day just playing with our 1 year old. It was a great day.

Grace even TOOK HER FIRST STEPS!!!!

Whew! If you have read all of this then you are a real trooper. But now I have updated you and documented all of these things I don't want to forget.

Now on to packing! We are moving Jully 4th weekend!!!

The Shrimp Po-Boy Saga

To say that Louisville is lacking in the good seafood department would be an understatement. We found a decent po-boy place, but it is pretty overpriced and only serves chips, not fries. And in my book, if I am paying $10 for a shrimp po-boy it better come on toasted buttered french bread and if you are going to serve me chips with it then they should at least be Zapps. So we have been making our po-boys at home lately. I mean they are not great or anything, but we can pile the shrimp as high as we want and we usually have all the fixings in the house, so it makes a good quick meal.

Monday night seemed like it would be a good po-boy night, so that's what we had. When I went to take the fries out of the oven, however, the cookie sheet must have been super hot cause I burned my hand through the oven mitt! Of course I dropped the sheet when it was half way out of the oven and spilled fries everywhere! Uggh!!! But we didn't need to eat that many fries anyway, and so it was all good.

Fast forward to Tuesday morning. I was sound asleep in the bed when Jonathan comes in the room with a nervous look on his face holding the smoke alarm and begins to tell me how he just put out the fire that was in the oven! Yes, like a real fire that has to be put out with the fire extinguisher!!!! Apparently something from the night before had fallen onto the element under the bottom of the oven floor and when Jonathan went to make his toast it caught fire.

Once I knew everything was ok I went down to assess the damage. Let me tell you, that I am thankful for the fire extinguisher, but I am not so thankful that it makes such a huge mess!!! That stuff gets everywhere!!!! This would not have been such a huge deal except for the fact that we were supposed to get our house appraised at 10:30 that same morning. I called Jonathan (who was already on his way to school) and told him he would have to come back for a little while. So he took the baby to the park for a while cause I really didn't want her playing in a house full of fire extinguisher "stuff" and I mopped my ENTIRE house. Cleaned all the cabinets and everything that was out on them and dusted the ENTIRE house. Whew!!! Talk about a crazy morning! But we got it all done and were out of the house by 10:30.

Fast forward to this morning when the GE appliance man came by to check things out so we could start to use our oven again. We were up and dressed and waiting by 8:00 (because he could only tell us that he would come by sometime between 8 and 12). Right after the baby went down for a nap he showed up, and I can only say that it is a small miracle that the kiddo is still asleep upstairs after all the banging and door slamming and vacuuming that went on during the brief 15 minutes that he was here. And guess what we found out?!?! A french fry had fallen down onto the element under the floor of the oven and burned. The oven is fine and we can start to use it with no repairs. I am so thankful for this because I can not imagine what a repair would have cost me seeing as how I just paid the fella $109 to tell me that everything was a-o-k!

What was the first thing I thought as I watched the man pull out of the driveway...
We should have just gone to Ruth's Chris. It would have been way more fun.

My Little Cleaning Lady

It amazes me how the littlest things are so fun for little Grace. She has always loved "helping" me fold the laundry, and lately she has started "helping" me clean up too. Yesterday she actually went to the drawer got a towel and started "scrubbing" the floor and the proceeded to "scrub" the dishwasher as well. Of course I had to get it on video... I am sure she won't be this enthusiastic about cleaning forever... I need documentation for her teenage years that this actually did happen :)

Also, she can say Uh-oh now (in addition to bye-bye which she would not say for the camera) and we are working on teaching her when it is supposed to be used. I think she is catching on. So you will hear her enthusiastic uh-oh-ing if you watch for a while. I think it is pretty cute! I hope you enjoy!

Let Her Eat Cake!

Today is Grace's First Birthday!!!

We had a small backyard party for her yesterday morning. I will blog in more details about everything that we have been doing lately but wanted to give you something today. So here are the pictures of my sweet kiddo devouring the cake I made her.












I think she had a good time!