Our new addition

Ryan Michael Gourley born September 13th at 1:44pm. Ryan weighed 7lbs 11oz and 19 in long. He seems to have a mellow personality and is already a champ at nursing. The girls came to meet him yesterday...Morgan is in love and wishes that she could be with him 24/7.

Mom and her kids

Morgan just adores him

Preschool

I meant to update last week about Morgan's first day of preschool...but I got carried away in all the business of the week.

Morgan was so excited to go to school. She loves making friends, learning, and just socializing with others. She woke up and couldn't contain her anticipation to meet her fellow classmates and teachers; so luckily I had a playdate planned in the morning to distract her.

When I picked her up, one of her teachers turned to me and said, "Morgan did great." I thought to myself, I wasn't worried. Morgan really does thrive on social interaction.

This was her silly face after picking her up.

In the car, enjoying her treat from her teacher.

Gracie's new skill

It has been a rough week for several reasons....Gracie has had a nasty stomach bug for the last week. But luckily she seems to be doing better, though she still is not consuming her normal amount of calories. Hopefully we will get her back to her norm before she loses all the weight we have worked hard to put on.

Amidst the sickness Gracie learned a new trick. We have been working on pulling to a stand for a long time and though she is not pulling to a stand from the floor---check out this progress.

Photo Shoot

Yesterday my dear neighbor took Gracie and Morgan's pictures for me. We were going to go to the amphitheater in American Fork, but it was reserved so we ended up doing it in my mother-in-law's neighbor's backyard (which is beautiful).

We did it first thing in the morning since that is when Gracie is her happiest and lighting is usually good. Gracie was great. Very happy and smiley and lasted an hour before she started asking to be done. Morgan was a ham. She would pull some of the funniest faces...and would have rather been playing in the beautiful garden with all of the little statues.

Ginger, thank you so much for taking these amazing pictures. I absolutely love, love, love them!! I think I am obsessed.

Here are some of my favorites---it was too hard to not chose to many. And if any of you need a great photographer check out Ginger's site---www.posiesphoto.blogspot.com

Morgan

Ginger thank you so much. I know I have told you this already, but I absolutely love, love, love these pictures. I think I'm obsessed, I can't stop looking at them, ha ha.

Here are some of my favorites...it was so hard to decided which pictures I wanted to post, so sorry there are so many.

Gracie

Jason doesn't care for this last one, but I love it. I love that you can see her scar--it has made her who she is.

Happy 2nd Birthday Gracie Girl!!!

These pictures were taken a few minutes apart from each other---Gracie threw up her breakfast and needed a wardrobe change!


Gracie is 2 years old! Yeah! I was a little worried because the last few days Gracie has been a bear and I really wanted today to be a happy day. Fortunately she woke up as happy as could be and was extremely pleasant all day long. Morgan couldn't wait for Gracie to wake up this morning--I think she was more excited for Gracie's birthday than she was for her own last year. I am so grateful Gracie has such a wonderful big sister who loves her so much!!!

Morgan wanted to wear the tiara too.

We didn't do anything major today, we played and sang songs and just had fun until our extended family came over for cake and ice cream. I made Gracie her very own Mickey Mouse cake which she loved and even kissed before we cut it up for all to enjoy.

I love the look on Gracie's face--ewwwe you expect me to put that in my mouth again!

We gave Gracie a water table for her birthday gift to promote standing---but she still won't stand for more than 10 minutes (just too exhausting). I guess that is why she enjoyed the box more than the actually gift.

Gracie we love you so much!! You are an amazing miracle and we are so grateful that we are able to enjoy you and have you here with us. You have taught us so much and still have plenty more to teach us. We can't wait to see how much more you will change in the next year!!!

A post of all Gracie's milestones will come soon---I'm just too tired to write that all now.

It's here!!!

We got the call that Gracie's Kidwalk finally came in, after waiting over two months. I couldn't wait for the delivery man to bring it and risk not getting it till after the holiday weekend, so the girls and I drove up to SLC to get it this morning.

I was so excited to get it, set it up, and get Gracie in it that I ended up laying her down for her nap later than normal. Gracie wasn't too sure about it and didn't realize that if she moved her legs she would be mobile, but Morgan tried to help her.

After dinner we took her out for a walk and Gracie did fairly well---we just have to help her gain more control of the walker so that it doesn't just spin in circles. Gracie didn't hate it and even wanted to 'explore' while we were out today, so I'm optimistic that she will catch on fast and once her legs get strong enough, there will be no stopping her. Hopefully with time she will last longer than 5 minutes and will get to the point that she just wants to be in the walker all the time.