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…on this nice warm sunny morning after a few “cold” days in a row.

Today, Mommy and Daddy surprised Grace with a trip to “Build-A-Bear” in Sarasota. She’s been to the store before and even has a few items, but has never gotten to pick out a bear and build it… until today!

In case it isn’t clear from the pictures… Grace named her new bear “Cinderella.”

And for bedtime tonight, Grace got her Cinderella bear all dressed up in her comfy PJs and cozy slippers… they’re snuggled together in bed trying to sleep so that Santa can come.

“…while I play?”

Boy… they start young with this one, these days!  And so unashamed about it, too.

This one came out of Grace’s mouth tonight while she was pretending to do Mommy’s job.  She is truly cute.

“…I can wear your shoes to a meeting!”

Mommy blogged about this on her Beyond Baby Talk site. You should check it out. Maybe we can get her to start blogging on this site too!  Leave a comment on her blog if you think she should!

On Saturday morning, Grace and Daddy had a morning out together. After some quality time at Starbucks and Barnes & Noble (yes… she’s a Daddy’s girl), we hopped into the “Big Red Car” for the ride home. I asked Grace if she wanted to ride home with the top down, and she said, “Yes!”

“That’ll really blow my hair,” she continued. “And the sunshine tickles my eyes!”

Priceless.

Today’s pictures are from our visit (yesterday) to the Sarasota Children’s Garden. It is quite the magical place nestled on a cozy piece of property just north of downtown Sarasota. Grace climbed up Tire Mountain (our name for it) with Mommy. She also thoroughly enjoyed her visit to the dress-up area. The Children’s Garden was delightful to visit — even for Mommy and Daddy. It has quite the combination of whimsy and adventure.

Well, it finally got down to 60 degrees… and in Florida, that means it’s time to crank up the old fireplace!

In reality, we’re getting some cold weather tomorrow night, but Mommy and Daddy decided to treat Grace to a fireplace experience tonight anyway. It was her first opportunity to have a fire this season — which means she probably doesn’t remember the last time this happened.

On Saturday, December 29th, Grace went with her Mommy and Daddy to visit Mow-Wow (her Great-Grandmother) to see the amazing Poinsettia. According to Mow-Wow, this is the plant’s 2nd season. It appears to be benefiting from Mow-Wow’s green thumb — she cut it back to a very small height at the end of the 2006 Christmas season.

Grace thoroughly enjoyed her visit to Mow-Wow’s house — she got to “balance” on Mow-Wow’s brick pavers and check out the Poinsettia with Mommy and Daddy. Mow-Wow always has great decorations around, including a beautiful wreath that was hanging on the front door. Grace’s pretty Mommy took advantage of a photo-op next to the amazing Poinsettia herself. Did we mention that this Poinsettia was featured in the Bradenton Herald?

Today, it became necessary to expose Grace to some historic Rock and Roll. This is actually the continuation of a process that began some months ago — she is already quite the fan of Lynyrd Skynyrd (”Gimme Three Steps” and “What’s Your Name?” caught her fancy in particular).

So, in the midst of her playing dress-up (more on that in a moment), I busted out the soundtrack from “A Knight’s Tale” and cranked up “We Will Rock You” (original Queen version). After a moment or two of working with her on the two foot stomps and the hand clap, Mommy and I started singing the chorus along with Queen at high volume. Grace thought about it for a moment and said, “No, I’ll rock myself!”

This, of course, drew into sharp focus the question of how a little developing mind such as hers perceives the meaning of various things we talk about. I’m sure she imagined herself in a rocking chair!

“Dress Up”

This has been an important part of her play activity lately. I think it may have cranked up a few serious notches when she came into a large collection of Polly Pockets thanks to some great friends of ours who were relocating with their 13-year-old daughter to Spain. These are a little out of her age range, but she has acquired the skills needed to dress these tiny little figures in short order.

Also, Mommy recently went through a ton of Grace’s baby clothes — this was a nostalgic and emotional process for her — and decided what she was going to keep for posterity and what she would give away. Grace discovered a bunch of her clothes that no longer fit her and started trying to wear them in interesting ways. Today’s photo shows her wearing what appears to be a yellow top but is actually an infant sleeper worn backwards with only one snap fastened in the back (that’s about all we can manage). She also found a set of socks made for someone at least twice her size but which are part of her dress-up pile. Then out came the necklaces of beads, a set of dance shoes that are too small for her, and a headband. She dreamed up this particular ensemble herself (she was already wearing the blue shorts).

All this Daddy can say is… this little girl stuff is a whole new world!