Valentine Happiness

so I decided to stop calling gracie miss monkey or miss princess or whatever and actually use her real name...who cares. and mark is mark. and i'm katie. there you have it, i've come out of hiding. Now I need to venture out to other blogs and start making blogger friends. I've done it in the real world - only recently - and now I need to try it on here.

Gracie had a fun valentine party today. we had two actually. The first one was with our playgroup and the second one with my neighbor (we just had lunch together). She was clingy as always at the playdate and screamed as soon as I set her down and walked out of sight, but she was so cute in her little outfit and playing with the other kiddies. She does so much better with just one or two people and babies. If it gets too crowded she flips. She's freakin hilarious lately...always cracking me up with the funny laughs and noises she makes. She's been sleeping from 10 PM to 10 AM and I've been thrilled. So no more morning nap since she sleeps so long and usually just an afternoon nap.

Life's been good to us. My little family is happy, healthy and looking forward to so much this year! I forgot to take my camera to the playdate so I was only able to take a pic of all of gracie's valentines when we got home. I'll start posting more pics of her and us soon.

Random thoughts:
I've been reading Skinny Bitch...I'm thinking of trying to go Vegan after reading about how animals are treated and killed in slaughterhouses and about how full of hormones and crap it all is. I try to eat healthy anyway, and I actually eat a lot of beans and legumes and leafy greens, but my meals always center around a meat. this week i've tried to not focus our meals around meat, but we've still had some here and there.

I've been going up to the national gallery of art in D.C. for a drawing class on saturday's. There's nothing like a sunny saturday morning in DC. I'm thankful for my mom (affectionately called MiMi) being able to come over and watch Gracie for Mark and I. Since mark doesn't have off regular days or nights, this has been such a blessing!

I love the freedom Mark gives me with making choices. he works so hard and provides well for gracie and I. He bends over backwards to make sure I can come and go as I please and do things that keep me sane. Not that I'd be insane because of being a mom...not yet anyway -i only have one baby and she's so easy going, but just because I'm a busy body and like to go and do things and do girly things and go to the gym and etc., etc. I hate being stuck at home and most all of the responsibilties of house and baby fall on my shoulders because mark is gone all night most every night 6 or 7 days a week and he is asleep during the day. Yet he goes out of his way to stay up longer and wake up earlier so I can do things for me. It makes me feel selfish, but at the same time very grateful.