Almost Freezing

As I sit here and write this post, it is currently 36 degrees outside. That, my friends, is almost freezing. However, I am not complaining, since I haven't even been outside. However, my cable is out and is not working. So, is it too cold for the cable wires to work? I wonder.

Herein lies the problem in which I believe Floridians tend to be "cold" when the temps drop below 70...........we have NO winter attire. None, zip, zilch, zero. So we (Floridians, but not me) freak out when the temps are indeed below 70, and the news has nothing better to talk about except how everyone needs to "bundle up tonight" and that when the temps get back to 80, IN WINTER mind you, that everything will be alright again in the world. Ok, so back to 36 degrees. That, in science, is almost freezing. So today, or at least this morning, we can say its a little cold outside. So what am I going to wear to Grace's soccer game so I don't freeze? (and for those who say, "Gabbi? Freeze?" Yes, I freeze. I am human you know. Just because I LIKE it cold, doesn't mean I can't BE cold.) Actually, I think Grace may not go to soccer today, since she does not have winter attire and will probably freeze her little soccer shorts off. (It was 30 degrees warmer last Saturday, and she was a little chilly.) So there you have it my friends, the one day where Florida is cold. Yes, just one.

Soccer Pics

Here are pictures from last Saturday. It was Grace's very first soccer game. Sorry it took me over a week to post, but here they are:

Nate Keeping busy during game time:

Grace before the game:

Game pics:

Post-game team hand shakes:

Post-game team meeting and prayer:

Playing around after the game:

Pluto

The other day a show Nate loves called Little Einstein's was on and they were talking about the planets. They included Pluto, since I guess at the time they show was created Pluto still counted as a planet. So, I started explaining to Grace that there used to be nine planets, however, Pluto is no longer a planet and there are now only eight. Today, for some reason that I cannot remember the subject on planets came up and I wanted to see if Grace had remembered what I had told her the other day. So I asked her, "Grace, how many planets are there?" "

"Eight," she answered.

"How many did there used to be?" I asked.

"Nine," she answered.

"What was the name of the planet that used to be number nine?" I asked.

"Pluto," she answered. "But, now it's a dog."

Changes

What a difference a year makes!!

Publix Breakfast Bread

I have a new favorite thing. Although, it's probably not the healthiest, it does have cranberries, apricots, apples, raisins, and walnuts. It's Publix's new Breakfast Bread. It's really yummy. And apparently, Publix claims that two slices of the bread gives you one full serving of fruit. So try some!

Picture Page

Picture page, picture page, now it's time for picture page, time to get your crayons and your pencils.

Ok, well not really. But it is a picture page. A page of pictures. Not pictures that I drew....heavens no! That would be an awful page. Grace is almost ready to surpass my own people drawing skills. No, this is a page of pictures of Grace, and Nate, but mostly Grace.

Oh, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOHN, today. And HAPPY BIRTHDAY TARA (my friend, not Wendi and John's), tomorrow.

This is my new pic at the top of my blog, if you haven't already noticed. I think it's one of the very few we have with all of us together.

Grace and Ray at the wedding (Keith's) where Grace was the flower girl.

Say cheese!

This is a cute picture of Grace as flower girl.

Yeah, not quite sure of the face she's making, but I still think she's cute.

I see a pattern of weird faces here.


A very cute pic of Ray and Grace from the wedding.

The Decision Is In.........

The decision on school is in. I am.............................................

NOT GOING! After going back and forth through my mind, my wonderful, loving, awesome, caring, fantastic, great, considerate, kind, bestest husband in the world (did I mention that he's awesome and wonderful?) made the decision for me so that I would not have to feel as if I was quitting. Truth is, I am busy. And I am tired. And I would be even more busy and more tired if I went to school semester. So to say the least, I am a bit relieved.

FINALLY!

Ha.....this is a shout out to Lady Di, who has been prompting me to "update" my blog. I told her I would trick her by starting the blog with last blog's title, which so perfectly fits this title anyway.

So to update everyone, I ended the semester with an "A" in English, and a "B" in Chemistry. As of now, I am still debating what to do this this semester. If I continue going (I have until Tuesday to back out and get all of my money back), I will be taking Anatomy and Physiology I and Lab. I will let you know what I decide once I've decided it.

Since the end of the semester at school, I have been busy with out-of-town family members in town. The last of them left this past Tuesday, the 9th. Grace was also in a wedding as a flower girl, and she was so beautiful. She did a great job, which I was worried about since she went through spurts of "I don't want to walk down the aisle, I'm shy" moments. But thankfully, it went off without a hitch and she was not scared to walk down the aisle in the end. I will be posting some pictures soon, I promise. Other than that, not too much is going on. Nate has continued to sleep through the night, thankfully. Now we are working on getting to feed himself with a spoon or fork. We have a lot of work ahead :) but he'll get it.

So that concludes my update. Hopefully, I will blog a little more often, lest I come under the wrath of the Blog Update Police.

So there you have it. I have updated my blog.

FINALLY!!

Well, Nate has FINALLY decided to sleep through the night. He has done this before, however, for some reason, he regressed. I think it started sometime after August, since I can clearly remember on our Eglin-Tallahassee trip that he was sleeping through the night fine. But somewhere along the line, not too long after that trip, he decided that he was hungry in the middle of the night and needed to eat. He would wake up some time between the hours of 12am-4am, and some nights it would even be twice. But, the tides have turned. Nate has been sleeping for the last 5 nights all the way through. Is this the beginning of a new Nate? We'll see. Perhaps my blog just jinxed the whole thing. Hopefully not.

Grace's Profound Conversation

The other day, while driving in the car, my little Grace says, "Hey mom."

I say, "Yeah?"

Grace: "Um.....hey mom!"

Me: "Yeah?"

Grace: "Um....hey mom!"

Me: "Yeah?"

Grace: "Um......hey mom!"

Me: "Yeah?"

This continuted for another minute. After all that, I'm not really even sure she had anything to say.

Now, as for dear Nate, the one who I was hoping to be the "calmer" child, has been quite the opposite. He has learned how to climb on the couch much to my dismay. This means that I cannot leave him alone in the room by himself for even a minute. I learned of his ability to do this the other day while in the kitchen washing dishes. The kitchen looks straight into the living room, but I didn't think he need to have an eye on him at all times since there really isn't anything to get hurt doing. Ha ha ha. I'm working busily when all of a sudden, I look up and there Nate is standing on the couch, leaning over the edge of the arm. I screech and tell Nate to not move, not that he would understand me to listen. Perhaps he did, since he then looked at me with a big smile and took both hands off of the arm and raised them above his head, almost to say, "Look, no hands!"

Today, he has figured out how to open the doors. Granted, they are lever handled door-knobs, but Grace was never really into trying to get into rooms. I wouldn't be surprised if Nate started climbing out of his crib soon. Then, I don't know what we'll do around here.

Snow in Florida??

We FINALLY had our first real blast of cooler air develop over the last several days, Tuesday being the coolest of them all. Here the temps never got above 62-63, and Wednesday morning as I left for school it was officially 40. Fourty is pretty low for us south Floridians, especially since we typically don't see these temps until late January or even February. This was, as they said on the news, "Unseasonably cold temperatures" for this time of year and record lows for that day in November were broken all over the place.

I know, you northerners say, "That is NOT cold." But I must correct this statement to say that, yes it is cold. It is NOT freezing cold, but it is still cold. It is not considered Hot, Warm, or Cool. I would tend to think that it is still technically considered "cold", however it is just A LOT colder up north. When I watch the news and I see its 40 or 50 somewhere up north, they do NOT show people walking around in shorts and tank tops. There are people shown in jackets and sweaters. Why? Because it is cold. Anyway, this blog isn't meant to complain in any way, shape or form, because I like cold. I love cold. It makes me happy. Just ask my husband who thought I was strange the other night when I would not stop smiling. He thought something was wrong with me. This is just to make a point that while I enjoy the weather I think we are allowed to say its cold. This comes from a girl who laughs at the weathermen on TV when they say to break out the jackets for 60 degree weather. This is 20 degrees below that. Cold. (Oh and for the record, when I woke up yesterday morning, I checked weather.com and it said it was only 8 degrees warmer here in Florida than in Minnesota at 8am eastern time, so there.)

Now onto something more interesting and since I have heard about it Tuesday night I have been almost obsessed with this fact: Tuesday night it snowed in central Florida. Thats right, it was reported that the rain was mixed with snow flurries, and even though it wasn't full blown snow sticking to the ground, I think its pretty darn interesting that it was cold enough for that to occur. The last time this occured in the central Florida region was in Jan 2003. Last time it happened in south FLorida was in Jan 1977, although I have seen one report claim it was Feb 1978. It has also been reported that in the Great Blizzard of 1993, a.k.a. '93 Superstorm, Florida's panhandle saw snow. Which I have to say, any reports I have found on snow in Florida have all occured later in the season, not in November. Man, if this is just a taste of our "winter" this year, I am totally stoked. This is great! Yay El Nino!

Here is the link if you're interested in reading about the snow flurries in central Florida, or if you just don't believe me :)
http://cbs4.com/topstories/local_story_326102037.html

Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Sick and Tired

Let me first explain the above picture. This picture was taken in Florida. This picture was taken in SOUTH Florida, no less. It looks as though it were taken some place else.......some place more northerly. Truth is, the "hills" you see in the background is none other than good ol' Mount Trashmore, as we south Floridians call it. But I will just look at it and pretend that it is not FLorida, that it's Tennessee or Kentucky or something.


Well, I haven't posted any blogs lately, because I have been a little sick and tired. No, I haven't been sick and tired of anything in particular, I've just honestly been sick and tired. On Sunday evening, I started really feeling tired. Thats not unusual. However, I also got very cold, and had to ask for a blanket over at Ray's parent's house. Now THAT is unusual. The most bizarre thing: NO ONE else needed a blanket. Anyway, so Monday rolls around, and I can't remember exactly what part of Monday I started feeling bad, but it was pretty early on in the day. I started to run a fever, I had a MAJOR headache (that did not go away) and my body ached all over. Yuck. And that was pretty much how Tuesday and Wednesday went as well. Finally Thursday came and I had no more fever. No more body aches. No more headache.....ok well no more major headache, I still had a little one until late Thursday, but compared to the one I had, that was nothing. So that was that. Grace has also been a little sick. She actually started this cough of hers a good few days before I ever got sick, but she's been progressively sounding worse and worse each day. So Thursday I brought her into the dr's ofc and lo and behold, Grace has bronchitis! Poor Grace. So far, Nate and Ray haven't caught any of mine or Grace's germs.

In other news, Grace is signed up to start soccer in January. It will be 8 weeks long, with a game once a week. Cute. I'll definitely keep you posted with info and pics, once it gets underway.

Man, is the weather NICE or what???? Well, that question was directly to the south Floridian blog readers. Obviously, the weather is not nice in Minnesota. But its nice here. I was finally able to open up my windows today. First time since April or May I think. The forecast for the week is Sun: high of 77, Mon: high of 69, Tues: high of 66 (YAY!!), Wed: high of 71, Thurs: high of 77. I'm super excited about this week's weather, although it would have been neat for it to be cooler on Thanksgiving, but I will NOT complain. I'm grateful to get the cooler days, no matter which days they fall on.

Well, I think that's about it. So, as they say in Looney Tunes, that's all folks!

Blurbs and Pics

I have been trying for a few days to post some pics, but I was having a problem with my browsers. I was using Firefox but had recently switched to Netscape, plus I had Internet Explorer. Well, everytime I tried to sign into the blog, Netscape would autmatically shut down. Then, when I went into IE, I would sign in, click on my little icon to upload pics, and IE would freeze. So, I finally fixed my IE yesterday and uninstalled my Netscape for the time being, and here I am trying again. I have a lot of them, so this should be fun. Anyway, some other things going on:

• Nate is now a walking kid. Yup, thats right, at the tender age of 10 months old, he walks. Technically, he was 11-12 days shy of turning 10 months. He beat Grace, who also was 10 months old, but was technically 5 days away from turning 11 months old.

  

• Nate is now getting tooth number 7, and tooth number 8 is on the way out. Yes, he beat Grace in this area, too. Grace had just started getting her first tooth when she was 7 months old. By the time she was 10 months old she was only on tooth number four or five. Just to recap, Nate had 4 teeth at 7 months old. Oh and by the way, tooth number 7 and number 8 are where I think the first molars are. To see the dental chart, click here. He has not yet had the lateral incisors or the cuspids, however, the cuspids are due to come after the molars. The lateral incisors are running a bit late. Hmmmm.
• Grace needs some prayer. Or is it maybe I need some?? Her behavior has been trying lately, and its been very hard on me, to say the least. I'm not sure what's going on, but I think we might all need a little prayer. She's four, I know, but her behavior has become worse than usual, and its different for her.

  

• I got a 76 on my Chem test. I know, I know, I already ranted on this, so I won't go into it too much, but it still stinks. I know you might say, "Well, a 76 isn't bad," or, "That's still a C," or, "At least you passed." But, when you are striving for the best grade possible, it doesn't seem good enough. Also, the nursing program at BCC places you in a ranking, so-to-speak, so that when you apply for a seat in the program they look at how many points you have, and however many seats they have, the top amount of people get in. Points are based on your grades in the prereq classes, your nursing preadmission test, and any gereral eduaction classes you might take before getting accepted into the program. And even though I may not be in the program anytime soon, the classes I take are for the program and are counting towards those points. So, keep me in your prayers that I can do better on the next two exams.
• Grace may start soccer in January. Calvary Chapel Fort Lauderdale has a Youth Soccer Program that starts in mid-January and lasts until mid-March. 8 weeks total I think. And for $40 you get shorts, a shirt, and socks, and your child gets to play. This has been the best soccer deal I could find as far as amount of money goes. Although, right now, she said she didn't want to play, I may sign her up anyway and see if she changes her mind. She had, in the past, seemed interested, but I think I may have caught her in a bad mood. So, stay tuned. Currently, ballet is going well.
• Christmas is coming! Only 1 month and 20 days until Christmas. I love Christmas. I love the cool weather and getting together with the whole family. I wish we lived closer to all of them.

And I believe that this concludes my rambling. Now onto pics:

This was a tree I found on my excursion in Stuart. It made me feel as if I was up north somewhere, since south Florida does not believe in any other tree other than a palm tree. So, I took a picture of it. Pretty.

Here's the pumpkin patch. It looks as if Grace is saying, "This here, folks, is a pumpkin patch."

Grace with a scare crow.....and some bales of hay.

Grace getting practice for the tractor life I hope to provide for her one day. Grace, get that grass cut!!

Grace hard at work again.

One of the two cutest little pumpkins in the patch.

Here's the other one.

Grace finally found her pumpkin. She didn't think the tractor was all that bad either.

Phew. Pickin' pumpkins is hard work!

Grace at Glory Nite, an event that the church where she goes to preschool puts on every year right around Halloween. She's getting ready to get on a BIG slide.

Grace going down the BIG slide.

It took a while, but Grace FINALLY got the idea that you couldn't just go straight to the front of the line and that you had to go to the end and WAIT your turn.

Here are the kids from the preschool. There are four different classes, however, not all the kids from the preschool showed up to sing.

Here's Grace holding some leaves for a song.

Isn't she cute?

I think this song was about a squirrel. They're doing the hand movements.

Here's Grace last Sunday at a park nearby in Coral Springs. It was originally made out of wood by people and parents from the neighborhood some years ago, but during Hurricane Wilma last year, it was destroyed. The city decided to build a new one and it is awesome. Its pretty big, with a rubber floor (my favorite) and I think its also supposed to have a huge canopy over it for shade (awesome idea for a Florida park in the summer). However, we aren't sure about the canopy yet.

Here's another pic from the park. I LOVE this pic of her....I think the green from the playground brings out her eyes.

Ok, off subject, but here's Nate sleeping. He has three blankets in his crib and he took them all and snuggled with them. We straightened out the one on top a little, but this is pretty much how we found him.

This was Grace at school on Halloween. All the kids were to dress like someone from Noah's Ark. Here's my little lion.

The lion again.

The class got to have some cool snacks after the costume parade.

Ok so here is Grace at the Boca Town Center Mall. We took her trick-or-treating. This was her first time. The years before, she never really cared. But this year, she asked and we decided it would be ok. She wanted to be Cinderella, go figure. Who'd a thunk it?

Here's me and the princess and one tired little Nate-dog. It is currently his bedtime and he was wondering where his bed was.