We have a crawler!

Grace has been working to conquer the feat of crawling for quite some time now. First, she learned the butt scoot. Then, she moved on to the backwards crawl. On Friday afternoon, she finally made some forward progress. I was on the phone with Billy, when Grace crawled forward a few feet! I was ecstatic! I was the only one home, so I've been waiting for her to do it again.

Yesterday, we spent the day in Waco, and Grace had ample opporunity to show off her new skill for Nana, Pop-Pop, Uncle Brian, Aunt Jen, and Uncle Billy all at once. But I guess she decided she wanted more of a private moment because today she started crawling all over the place! It's so cool to watch her. She gets this super serious look on her face and off she goes!!!

Daddy is in awe and is all smiles while he watches her. I, on the other hand, keep tearing up, as I realize that my little baby girl is becoming a toddler before my very eyes.

What an Easter Sunday! Alleluia :-)

Check out Grace's 1st Tooth!

After many unsuccessful attempts, I was finally able to snap a picture where you can see Grace's very first tooth. Check it out! Isn't it the cutest?

Happy Easter!

Easter has always been one of my favorite holidays! It's such a special day for so many reasons. From a religious standpoint, it's the day when the Alleluia returns! After the journey of Lent and the darkness of Good Friday, today we rejoice for Christ is risen! Alleluia!

In an email a few days ago, a very wise friend of mine wrote, "For some time now, I've seen Easter as the marking of our victory, as people, as sons and daughters of God, brothers and sister of Christ. We win." His quote has been going through my head all day. I love thinking of this feast as a victory. We do win! Jesus is risen, and thus we have the opportunity for eternal life. I also love Easter because it's a day to renew your Baptismal promises. Since this is Grace's first Easter, I got choked up as Martin and I renewed our own Baptismal promises and Grace's too. What a wonderful day!

We started our morning with Grace playing in between us in bed. I love weekend mornings. Having time to enjoy the morning as a family is the best! Grace was her usual cheerful self this morning, complete with lots of her signature happy screams. We're watching my parents cat for the week, and Grace gets seriously excited every time she sees the kitty. This morning was no exception.

We got Grace dressed in her beautiful Easter dress, and she looks like a little angel! I've already posted lots of pictures from today. Be sure to check out our photo site. Before we left for Mass, Grace scoped out what the Easter Bunny brought to our house! The Easter Bunny put her basket with all of the other Easter presents she's gotten from family and friends. It was quite a spread!

Grace was a good girl at Mass once again. She even worked on her singing during a few of the songs. She likes making noise when everyone sings. Adorable!

After Mass, Martin, Billy, Grace and I went for lunch at Plucker's. Billy gave up Pluckers for Lent, and Martin and I gave up going out to eat, so it was a fun lunchtime place for all of us, especially with March Madness in full swing.

On the way home, a song came on the radio that made me all teary. Ever since Grace's first tooth came through, I've been feeling very emotional about how quickly she's growing up. I know this is a normal Mom reaction; it's just crazy how fast time is flying! The country song called "Stealing Cinderella" is about a little girl growing up and finding the man of her dreams. The young man realizes he's "stealing Cinderella" and that in the eyes of the girl's Dad, she will always be his little girl. It's a great song, and I imagine I'm not the only one who's gotten a bit teary listening to it.

Now we're back home, and Grace is playing. We'll be having a nice family dinner later. I'm looking forward to the rest of the day with my incredible family! Happy Easter one and all!

Grace's Happy Scream

Oh my goodness, Grace is in such a fun phase right now! We seem to be laughing non-stop at her antics! The last few days she has started this happy scream, and she's doing it A LOT! I managed to capture it on video tonight...enjoy!

It's a Good Friday...

...literally! The Catholic service on Good Friday is, in my opinion, one of the most moving of the year. There is no Mass on Good Friday; the service consists of Liturgy of the Word, Veneration of the Cross, and Holy Communion. Grace and I went together to the Noon service, and it was amazing. Grace was a very good girl, although she let out a few high-pitched, happy squeals at super quiet moments. With an almost ten-month old baby, that's to be expected!

Grace and I ran errands after church, then took care of things around the house until Martin got home from work. I finished my bunny cake, which I'm SO proud of, and got us all packed for our overnight trip to Waco. We got on the road around 7:30 and had a nice quiet drive while Grace took her usual road-trip nap.

Martin and Billy went out for the evening, and Grace and I had a fun night with Nana, Pop-Pop and Uncle Brian. Grace kept us all entertained with her loud screams and giggles! She played with her Easter eggs, and Grace helped Nana by "folding" the socks while Nana folded the rest of the laundry.

Oh, that reminds me of a cute moment earlier...when I was getting ready this morning, Grace was playing in my bedroom. She made her way over to the laundry basket that was full of clean (and folded) clothes. She proceeded to pull all the clothes out of the basket and throw them on the floor. She's already a troublemaker, but she seriously cracks me up!

Let's hope we'll be getting to bed soon. Grace still seems to have lots of energy, but I'm starting to fade.

Happy St. Patrick's Day...

...from our home to yours! St. Patrick's Day is an important day in the Fogarty's world. They say that everyone is Irish on St. Patrick's Day, but since Martin is 100% Irish all year round, it's a particularly special day for him. Unfortunately, it fell on a Monday this year, which seriously hampered Martin's drinking plans.

I picked Martin up from work and dropped him off at our favorite bar. I then spent the evening hanging out with Grace at home. Grace looked so cute today in her shamrock outfit! She's one cute kid :-)

Grace and I met up with Martin, Billy, and a few of our friends at the bar later in the evening when I went to provide chauffeur service. Grace wasn't so sure what she thought of the band and all the people. We made it home a little after 10, and everyone's in bed but me. I'm heading that way soon. Nighty night!

Grace's First Tooth!

It's official...after months of incessant drooling, serious fussiness, and a bunch of Baby Oragel, Grace's first tooth has made its appearance! It sure is cute :) Her first tooth to come through is the bottom right tooth. I'll get a picture up as soon as she lets me snap one. Grace is totally not into showing off her tooth. In fact, when I try to check it out, she clamps her mouth shut!

Grace pulled herself up!

Another milestone for Grace Calleigh...today she pulled herself up into a standing position for the first time. It was awesome! She used my legs as a booster and managed to get herself up.

Grace is still working on mastering crawling, but she has been way more into standing for awhile now. She has mastered the "butt scoot" and gets around the room to pretty much whatever she wants to reach. She's also gotten the hang of the backwards crawl, but still hasn't figured out how to crawl forward yet. She'll get the hang of it one of these days!

A New Car!

Today started out like most other Saturdays. I was up even before Grace. I just can't seem to sleep past 7:00 AM these days. While I waited for Grace to wake up, I did some research on cars. Martin and I have been talking about getting a new car for awhile. One of our cars has been going downhill, and we wanted to trade it in while it still had some value. We had already decided that we wanted a Mazda CX-7, so I did some browsing to see what I could learn about it. I happened to find a great deal online on a pre-owned 2007 with very low mileage. As I crunched the numbers, I thought we could make it work.

So once Martin and Grace woke up, we decided to go run errands, including going to the dealership to check out the car. We agreed that we wouldn't buy today; we'd just test drive it and make sure it's what we want. Low and behold, we left the dealership several hours later as the proud owners of a 2007 Mazda CX-7! We got an even better deal than we hoped for, so we bought it. We're really excited about our new wheels.

Grace was with us at the dealership the whole time and was such a good girl. She digs the new wheels too!