Vote for Grace!

I entered Grace is a photo contest for a chance to win $600 in toys. I submitted 5 photos and they chose one of the pictures and put her in the running.

This is the photo that was selected for the contest.

I had previously entered her in the Great American Photo contest and was severely disappointed, because it was really hard to vote, they had a multitude of "special offers" that you had to wade through, and in the end I was inundated with spam emails! And worse, I had asked all my friends and family to vote too...major bummer.

This contest is through Parent's magazine. It is legitimate. What I love about it is that they make it really easy to vote and you don't have to give them any of your information. So...please vote for Grace!! :-)

To vote for Grace, click on this link (or copy and paste it to your browser) http://photos.parents.com/category/vote/photo/688727

Voting ends February 6th. You can vote once every day till the 6th.

Thanks!!

Beth

Six Months of Joy

Grace is now six months old! She was six months old on January 23rd! Halfway to a year old! The time has been going by so fast. It's incredible! We are very much enjoying being her parents. She makes it so easy!! Here she is on her 6 month birthday.

Grace is a big baby! On her 6 month doctor visit, our pediatrician told us she is as big as an 11 month old. She weighed 20 pounds and is 28.5 inches long! Grace is well on her way with eating solids. So far she likes peas, carrots, sweet potatoes, squash, apples, pears, and bananas. I introduced prunes the other night and she was not to crazy about it...who is?? We also introduced a sippy cup. We're hoping she catches on so our daycare provider can use it to give her milk. Grace hates the bottle. Some days she drinks very little milk at daycare...then she makes up for it with me when we get home and through the night. On the days she doesn't do well at daycare with the bottle, she wakes up twice during the night to nurse. Pray for us that we figure out a good solution for her to drink enough milk while at daycare.

Tonight we decided to ditch the sippy cup's top and try having Grace drink straight from the cup. She did pretty well...I think we are going to try a cup with a straw...

It's been a crazy month! But Grace makes all the craziness from work seem not so bad. She is such a joy to Jonas and I. We are truly blessed.
Beth

Baby Dedication

We celebrated Grace's baby dedication today. It was great! Our pastor did an awesome job. It hit me how much of a responsibility it is to raise a child to love God. We have been commissioned to teach Grace to love Jesus by our actions and our example of what it means to be a follower of Christ. May our lives always show her the love of God.
Grace was awesome while she was being dedicated. She was all smiles and even tried playing with Pastor Matt. Pastor Matt shared scripture from Deuteronomy and walked us through several commitments.
Pastor Matt prayed for us. He also allowed the congregation to bless us with encouragement. Our hope is that Grace from an early age will have understanding and make a decision to follow Jesus.
Here we are after the service with Pastor Matt.
My sister Alicia and her family drove down from Fresno to be with us. We were very blessed!
This video is of our friend Kim playing with Grace. We were already home from church and lunch. I was thrilled to have Kim join us today. She's a good friend of mine from UCSB.

She loves to play and is becoming more and more social. We love it!
I have tomorrow off. I get to stay home with Grace, which is my favorite thing to do. I am planning on getting a little scrapbooking done while she naps, but other than that, I'm just looking forward to spending time with her.
Blessings,
Beth

It's a Tooth!

Yup, Grace has her first tooth! It's a cute little thing that sure did cause her some discomfort coming in. She had one fussy day while we were in Nashville and one really fussy day two weeks ago. Not bad. And she continues to amaze us with her developmental growth. Five months sure has been a busy month for her. She's getting stronger and chattier by the day! Today, she started making a smaking noise with her lips. We have also introduced food. She's getting better at opening wide. She didn't like rice cereal much, but she likes applesauce. Right now she is hanging out with dad while he plays on his Playstation.

See what I mean, she's love chatting it up. She's playing with a new toy that I was able to get on Craiglist for $10! There were three interative toys that I wanted to get for her. Each about $50. I wanted to save money so I decided to look for them on Craigslist. I found all three toys for less than half the cost of a new one. And each one is in like new condition. I feel pretty proud of myself and I loved how much money I saved. I picked up a fourth when I went to pick up one of the toys...it's a toy that is no longer sold in stores and so far, it's Grace's favorite. I love Cragslist!!!
I love that face!
Getting ready to work off those Holiday pounds...she's got on her sneakers!!
It has been a fun three weeks off from work. I go back to work on Monday and I am not looking forward to it. I will miss spending the day with Grace. She is so much fun and so easy to hang out with. Next Sunday, we are dedicating Grace at church. I am looking forward to it!!
Blessings,
Beth

Happy New Year!

It's the start of a new year and new decade! We in the Denny household are gearing up for what we hope will be an adventure filled 2011. We had a wonderful Christmas with Grace. We were in Nashville. Grace's first Christmas was also a white Christmas. It was absolutely perfect. We spent a week in Nashville visiting with Jonas' family. It was fun with the exception of both Jonas and I getting what seemed to be a 24 hour flu. We actually lost weight on our trip!
Grace is now 5 months old and the last two weeks have been eventful for her. She has started sucking her thumb, rolling over, and today sat up unassisted for the first time. It's so much fun watching all these new developments. And she is chattier by the day... I guess she will grow up to have a lot to say! She also seems to be taking everything in! She was such a trooper though out our travels. And she keeps growing and growing and growing! She is now starting to wear 12 month clothes!!!
Grace all dressed for her first Christmas.
The first Denny family Christmas photo.
Grace with her cousins John Luke, Amanda, and Steven.

A couple of photos from Grace's 5 month photo shoot...one of her best yet.


May you have a blessed start to 2011! Jonas goes back to work tomorrow, but I have one week left of vacation. I'm looking forward to lots of scrapbooking, spending time with Grace and maybe starting to exercise...no new year resolutions...just a few goals for the new year.
Blessings,
Beth