18 months next week!

I feel I should start calling Grace my "big girl" now instead of my "baby girl." Any time now, I know her constant gibberish will be understandable words (though she already says quite a lot of real words). She will eat almost anything. Unfortunately that includes dirt, rocks, and any plant life she finds. She climbs, tumbles, and pretty much runs everywhere rather than walking. She loves water, music, reading, and being around other people. Grace is a social, smart, energetic, sweet, fun girl.

This is such a good picture of Grace, but unfortunately it reminds me that we allowed her to watch a couple episodes of "Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood", a really great cartoon based on the land of make-believe from "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood". I don't really want her watching TV yet, and even after four or five days of no TV, she will still pull me over and ask for "Tiger". Surely one of these days she will forget!

Schools here have been back in session for a couple weeks now, but none of my own activities have started yet. Since May I have been out of town about half the time, and it seems that when we're at home, half of that time we have guests staying with us. While all the traveling, visiting friends, and seeing family is so fun, I feel very disconnected from my actual life here at home. Between all our travel and out-of-town company, and other people traveling, I have pretty much lost touch with any friends I used to have here. I guess I'll be kind of starting over in that department once our fall activities start in the next couple weeks.