It's a...

beautiful, healthy baby boy!!! Jason and I went in for our ultrasound this morning. Everything went very well. His heartbeat was 138 bpm and he is perfectly healthy. Our doctor was not in the office today so we had to see another doctor from the practice. She was slightly concerned because I haven't gained any weight so far. She just asked how my eating habits are and I explained that I have been eating plenty, but I am pretty active still and I had the flu a few weeks ago. I have to go back in 4 weeks for my 24 week check up with Dr. Ogden. Here is a video of the little man for now. We had a name picked out, but I'm not sure if I still like it so he doesn't really have a specific name yet.

Merry Christmas!

Grace is loving this holiday season. After she was born we found an Elmo stocking that sings "Jingle Bells". This is the first year that she can actually enjoy it. She loves when we push the button and she can sing with Elmo.

Pretty, Pretty, Princess

This post is long overdue, but I was waiting for Jason to upload the pictures and then I needed to find time to write the post. Time is very hard to come by these days for Jason and I. During the month of August, Grace went through this phase where she would only wear dresses. It was the cutest thing because she would pick out the dress and I would put it on her. Next, she would run to the family room and then twirl in her dress and sit down and primp it. It provided my mom and I with a lot of entertainment.

The picture below shows Grace in a dress my mom picked up at Big Lots one day. When she woke up from her nap she found in laying on top of the ottoman. She immediately asked to wear it so I had to give in.

The dress below is actually my old dress from when I was Grace's age. She picked this one out one day and she absolutely loved it. I will have to find the picture of myself wearing it to compare in a future post.

This dress is from Grandma Gina. I received it as a shower gift before Grace was even born. She seemed to love the length of this dress. We also put little clips in her hair so she could have Princess hair.

This is just a picture of Grace being silly. She ran into the office one day and climbed in the chair and started to pretend she was using the computer just like her Daddy. She has such a great sense of humor!

Happy 2nd Birthday to Grace!

Jason and I would like to wish Grace a Happy 2nd Birthday today! It is hard to believe that it has been two years since Grace was born. It has gone by so fast, but we have cherished every moment. It is amazing how much laughter and love Grace has brought into our home. At this time last year she was only saying a few words and phrases and she was still crawling. Now she is walking, running, dancing and jumping. She has "small" conversations with us and she loves to crack jokes here and there. She is such a blessing!

Yesterday we were able to celebrate Grace's life with our friends and family. It was such a wonderful day and we had a great time visiting with everyone. Thank you to everyone for such a great day! Here are some pictures from the party.

Springdale Farm Trip

Sorry for the long delay in posts. We have been very busy and although we have taken a bunch of videos and pictures, we haven't had the time to upload all of them.

For the past few months, we have been working on animal names and sounds with Grace. About a month ago we found some great farm animals at Toys R'Us and they quickly became one of Grace's favorite toys. We finally had a chance to take Grace to Springdale Farm and she had a blast. Here are some pictures of our trip.

They also have a playground and picnic area. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to pack our lunches that day so we had to eat at home. Grace still loved going on the playground with Daddy though. :)

Grace hamming it up for the camera!

Here's Grace riding the tractor. Unfortunately, I am terrible at taking pictures so her face in blurry. :(

Here's Grace feeding the baby goats. She loved this part.

Grace pet the sheep, but we had her stay away from them since they are so big and she's still so little.

Grace and Daddy on the tire. :)

We taught her how to feed some grass to the goats so she kept trying to feed grass to all of the animals. So cute!

We all know how Grace loves horses (aka horsies).

I'm sure we will be visiting Springdale Farm a lot more in the future! What a great place!

Spring Break

I was able to spend the past 9 days at home with Grace. I was really, really, really looking forward to it and now my time at home has come to an end. :( I absolutely love my job, but I also love spending time at home with my little peanut. Jason had to work many, many, many hours this past week so Grace and I had a lot of Mommy & Daughter time at home. We didn't really go anywhere because we were waiting and waiting and waiting for Daddy to come home. I have to say that it was really a blessing in disguise because we usually have a million things to do while I am on break and for once we were able to relax at home. Here are a few pictures from our week:

Here is Grace with two of her favorite items in the world, chalk and bubbles. She loves to play outside now that the weather is a little nicer. It is very difficult to get her inside once she is outside. She usually throws a fit so we have to time our playtime outside wisely.

We spent a lot of time watching the birds, squirrels and ducks in our front yard. Below is a picture of Grace watching Grandma Peej feed the ducks. We just love how she says bird (bur), squirrel (girl) and quack (ga-go). Too cute!

Here is Grace playing with her "Word Whammer". She loves to push the button and sing-a-long to the "ABC Song". I tried to record her with the video camera, but of course she stopped singing whenever I tried. This an awesome toy that I purchased for my students in Vegas, but she really loves it. I don't even know if they make them anymore.

On Monday I decided to mop the floors. Grace showed a lot of interest in this activity so I grabbed her mop and bucket so she could "pretend" to help. She decided to dip her mop in my bucket and help that way. She also liked playing with the real mop. :)

It's unbelievable how fast our little Grace is growing. We can actual converse with her now and she understands what we are saying. She loves to sing songs and she has many phrases that she says over an over again such as "Where'd it go?" "I did it". When we took her for her 18 month check-up last month the doctor asked us if she said about 10 words and we just laughed. She is definitely a chatterbox just like her Mommy. She also loves to draw like her Daddy and she is also quiet and shy in public just like her Daddy. She seems to really love animals right now. She has a great sense of humor and she loves to make people laugh. We are so grateful to have her in our lives. She makes us laugh/smile everyday and we are so grateful to that.

Swim Class Part 2

We are happy to report that Grace is really enjoying her swim class now. I ended up going in the pool with her during the second class and then Jason when in with her for the third class. We think she was just adjusting to her new surroundings. It has really become a great Saturday routine for us. It doesn't seem like she is really learning a lot, but we are all having a lot of fun doing it as a family. We are learning a lot of different techniques to use when we have Grace in the pool so at least we are getting something out of it. She isn't really swimming yet, but she is definitely getting used to the water. We sing a lot of songs and incorporate different movements to the tunes. Grace also gets a chance to practice "jumping" into the pool. Which basically means we stand her up on the side and carry her into the pool. Here are a few pictures from this past Saturday.

Above is a picture of Grace learning how to do the superman pose while reaching for the ball.

The picture above shows Grace trying to grab different colored boxes. At the end we had to put them in the correct bin.

The picture above shows Grace practicing her kicks and scooping motion.

The above picture shows Grace practicing her jumps. She really just wanted to sit on the side of the pool though.

We were practicing some sort of song here, but I don't remember which one. It may have been "The Wheels on the Bus".

On the road to recovery...

On Monday my mom went to Strong Memorial Hospital for stereotactic radiosurgery. Click on this link to learn more about it:

http://www.urmc.rochester.edu/neurosurgery/neuroendocrine/treatments/Stereotactic-Radiosurgery.cfm

It went really well, but it was a very long day. We had to get to the hospital by 6am. When we arrived they took her back and got her settle in (inserted IV and gave her some sort of sedative). Then she was transported to the radiology department for the MRI. This took about 45-60 minutes to complete. After that she was transported to another department. This was the worst part of the day. They had to numb her forehead and the back of her head. At this point Peej lost it a little bit because the pain was so extreme. I love to watch medical shows, but I thought I was going to lose my breakfast. It was the most disturbing thing that I have ever seen. After her head was numb they screwed in the headgear (which was a lot heavier than we thought it would be). They actually used a screwdriver to insert the pins into her head. It was insane. Thankfully she couldn't feel this part. Fortunately at this point the worse was over.

Once the headgear was in place we were taken to another department where the CAT scan was performed with the Medical Physicists. This took about 30-45 minutes to complete. Then we were transported back to the 23 hour unit. Peej was finally able to eat some strawberry jello at this point but of course she was still starving.

We learned that Dr. Milano had an earlier opening so instead of waiting until 3:30 for the treatment, they were able to take her at 1:30pm. We were so thankful for this. The actual treatment took about 15 minutes and then they were able to take the headgear off. The spots where it was screwed in were a little tender, but they gave her some vicodin for it. We were able to leave the hospital at 3:30 which was wonderful.

Peej is feeling really good today and she is very thankful that they were able to do this procedure instead of operating and taking the tumor out. Her head has some bruising from the headgear and her eye has a small black and blue, but other than that, you wouldn't even know what happened. She has to go back in about 4 months for another MRI to see if this worked. We will keep you updated.

First Swim Lesson...

did not go as planned. We have a swimming pool in our backyard so we have always wanted to take Grace to the YMCA for swim classes. Well she has really developed a love of water over the past few months so we thought it was time to sign her up. We have been so excited about this for the past few weeks. I went shopping for a bathing suit and cover up for Grace last week and we decided that Jason would go in the pool with her. The class started on Saturday and this is what Grace thought about it...

She literally cried for about 20 minutes straight. We couldn't believe it. She loves going in the bathtub at home and she loved going in our pool last summer. We think she may have wanted me (Stacey) to go in with her or she was just a little scared of her new environment. This is how the class ended....

Hopefully next week will be more like the second video. I'm going to try and bring my suit on Saturday so I can try to calm her down and we can switch if she gets upset. It was a great parenting lesson for us though!

Juke Box Baby

We have a new ritual in our house. Every night we have a "dance party". Grace loves to dance and she has many moves now. We were finally able to catch some of the action on video. Enjoy watching our "Juke Box Baby" bust a move!

Truly Blessed

We received some wonderful news today. My mom finished up her last round of chemotherapy two weeks ago so she had to go for another CAT scan last week. She received the results today and apparently the cancer in her lungs is gone. She has a few spots on her lungs that they believe are scar tissue or dead cancer cells, but that's it. What a miracle! Dr. Ashbury said that the radiation office at Strong will be contacting us soon to set up an appointment to start radiation on the small spots still left on her brain. We are so thankful and truly blessed. Now my mom is just looking forward to packing on the pounds that she has lost while fighting this battle.

I will leave you with a picture of our little angel. It's amazing how much joy this little girl has brought to us during our "rough" time. What blessing she has been to our lives!

Hockey Battles Cancer (In Honor of Patty Guck)

Hockey Battles Cancer (In Honor of Patty Guck)

hosted by

RYH Squirt Minor AAA Hockey

Free cocktail / hors d’oeuvre happy hour 6:30 - 8:30

Live music by “Different Every Time” 8:30 - 11:00

Saturday January 23rd, 2010

Max at High Falls, 60 Browns Race

Free Parking, Silent Auction and Raffle

$20 Individual $35 Couple

Proceeds to benefit the Interlakes Foundation, where Patty Guck receives Chemo & Radiation Treatment

For tickets contact Brian Guck at brian@maksymum.com or Patty Guck at 305-1351

If unable to attend, and would like to make a donation,

please mail check payable to “Interlakes Foundation” c/o

Ann Wall

47 South Village Trail

Fairport, NY 14450