Day 4, Video

Vacation, Day 4

So sorry Heather for the break in posting the rest of the pictures from our vacation :) The internet connection in our condo was so incredibly slow that I lost my patience and decided to wait until we got home. So, Sunday we spent more time at the beach, and it was probably the most crowded day of our trip. The weather was great. So, here's Paisley getting ready to head down to the beach with her coverup and sunglasses. Paci had to stay behind...

Paisley learned the awesomeness of collecting shells on Sunday, and we spent a lot of our time doing this: Sitting at the edge of the shore digging for shells together. Usually a beer in hand for Dad/Mom. 

Here's the catch of the day:
Paisley enjoyed the shade under the umbrella with all of the sand castle-making stuff.
And, here's the crazy girl enjoying cheetos. Or teetos, if you're Paisley. She ate her weight in cheetos. 

Oh, and here's Paisley at dinner Sunday night. She has her paci because, as we sat down to eat on this lovely patio (I am exaggerating a bit), amongst a pretty quiet group of 8 or so tables, Paisley stood up as best she could in her high chair and yelled "SIT DOWN". Awesome :) Such is life with a toddler, right? 

I am uploading a short video from our Sunday beach day and I'll post that next - Paisley is discussing her seashells. She apparently thought they smelled good... Goofy girl!

22 Months Today!

It's hard to believe we'll be celebrating P's second birthday in a few short months. Lots of moms tell me that this age - really 18 months to 2ish - is one of their favorites. And while I haven't seen what's yet to come, Mike and I are truly enjoying all of Paisley's personality traits these days. Since I am a bad mom and have not kept up with a baby book per se, I want to make sure I am keeping track of Paisley's milestones along the way, if nowhere else, than on this blog.

So, P, here's what you've been up to these last few months:

1)learning your colors: you've mastered quite a few, including pink, blue, red, white, brown, yellow, orange, purple and de-um (green). You love to attach the color of something to it when you point it out - like your "de-um froggy", which is your most favorite stuffed animal right now.

2)Speaking of, you sleep with froggy every night, and he keeps you company by singing songs, talking about hands and feet and dancing... You can play for a very long time with him in your crib before you fall asleep. And just for the record, his music drives me nuts sometimes!

3)I think this is partly due to Dora, but you can amazingly count to 11, and we've even heard you count backward from 5 a few times. Whenever you, me and dad are out somewhere, you want us to each hold one of your hands while you say "1, 2... 1, 2..." and then you very adamantly expect us to lift you up for a big swing through the air. It's quite cute, and good for mom's arm muscles.

4)You aren't much of an eater. The doctor's been on us about your weight gain issues, and you are a very skinny almost-two-year old. I'd have to say, of all issues I thought I'd run into as a mom, this certainly wasn't one of them. I guess you're just going to inherit Aunt Heather's body type, and that's fine by me, considering she's so beautiful. If you could emulate her behavior as well, that'd be awesome! :) When you do eat, you expect dip, either "ranch dip" which you will ask for by name or ketchup, which you will also ask for. You'll dip anything into those 2 items, and I mean anything. When there's a meal had without dip, we can forget about you being much interested.

You love to tell all things "night night" before bed - colors, toons (cartoons), stickers, books, Mack and Shelby of course, and mom and dad too. You still give big open mouth kisses (guess we'll have to work on that one at some point), you say "wuv you" a lot, and when you give hugs, you will lean into the person, but you don't really feel its necessary to hug with your arms quite yet. :)

Love you baby girl! You make life so much fun, every day. I can't imagine life without you, and thank you for helping mom and dad remember what's important!!

Vacation, Day 3

We had a great Saturday. Spent the morning grabbing some donuts and heading down to the beach for a while. We ate sandwiches for lunch (with cheetos, as you can see with the picture of Paisley sporting a bright orange smile) and spent more time at the beach after lunch. Paisley warmed up to the ocean water and found a new love for gathering seashells. She also went crazy chasing after the birds, yelling "catch it" and running around with her hands in the air. 

Here's Pais with her crazy cheeto mouth

And a somewhat successful attempt at a family picture out on the balcony during lunch
Dad decided to bury Paisley in the sand, and she liked it


Catch it! Paisley was very excited about the birds flying around

Vacation, Day 2

Blogger isn't cooperating very well tonight, so these pictures are kind of out of order. Anyways, here's how our Friday went:

We woke up and ate some breakfast, good start to the day! Mike and Paisley went down and tested the water in the pool, which was still a little cold, and then played in the hot tub for just a little bit. 

At lunchtime, we drove to a small local seafood mrket and picked up some crab legs, shrimp, and corn and potatoes. The fresh seafood was awesome & Paisley really loved her hot dog too :) 

We then headed down to the beach for the afternoon. Paisley had a great time. She wasn't too sure about the water, and to her defense, it's a bit choppy - red flag type beach weather with some crazy strong wind. However, she had a great time playing in the sand. By the time we came back inside and showered, she was out. You'll see below a picture of her how she fell asleep in bed after her shower. 

We had a nice dinner out, came back and hung out at the condo while it rained outside. All in all, it was a great day! Saturday recap to come tomorrow... 

Pais fell asleep within 2 minutes after her shower yesterday once we got in from the beach:

We went down to the beach later that afternoon after naptime for just a little bit.

Paisley has been battling a runny nose for several days, so we've got lots of pictures of her with this type of look- where she's trying to keep the snot from running too far. Poor girl! 

Just a couple of funnies: Paisley's translation of 

bathing suit: "baby soup" 

and her translation of sandwich: "sammips"

Good times! 

Vacation, Day 1

Wow. 

We left Texas around 3 PM on Wednesday, heading east to our destination. The plan was to get to Shreveport and eat dinner there so Paisley could get out of the car for a while and stretch her legs before we made the longest part of the 11 hour drive.

So, we stopped at Cracker Barrel in Shreveport and had a good meal and we were back on the road around 7. The rest of the driving was rather uneventful. Paisley had her DVD player and that made the time in the car perfectly acceptable to her, although from 7 PM to 2:30 AM, she only took a "nap" for a little over an hour. 

We were all glad to get into Gulf Shores ~ we pulled into the management company's office around 2:30 AM. Mike picked up the keys and we made the short drive to the condo building. Here's where the adventure began:

We drove through the parking garage and were just about to get into the unloading zone and Paisley started throwing up. Man, I've never seen that much puke come out of her. I am not sure what caused that, but if she's anything like I was as a kid, traveling in the car and traveling in the wee hours of the morning just don't settle well with her stomach. Oh how I wish that were the only challenge we dealt with in the next few hours!

So, we got Pais cleaned up as good as we could and unloaded all of our stuff onto 2 sort-of luggage carts and headed up to the 12th floor. We arrived at the door to our condo unit around 3 AM. We were all ready to go in, throw our stuff down and pass out. There was a slight problem, however: the keys to our condo didn't work. The door would not open. Um. Yeah. 

This place isn't like a hotel where we could just go down to the front desk and ask for another set. These condos re individually owned and managed by different companies, all of which have OFF-SITE offices. Awesome. 

So, after Mike and I had our Oh S*&t moment, we called customer service. They said they would have to come out and see what was going on. So, we waited for them to come over to the property from their office, only to test out the keys yet again and confirm what we already knew - the damn things don't work. 

So the guy left again to go back to his office and find some other keys to another unit that might be vacant that they happen to manage in this particular building. Here we were, all of our crap loaded onto carts, standing in the breezeway of some random place, a 2-year old in my arms asleep in PJs with puke all over them, Mike and I barely able to keep our eyes open. 

The guy comes back about 20-30 minutes later with keys to a larger condo several floors down. We got all of our stuff in and he informed us that we could stay there until they found out how to get into the original condo we booked. The condo we stayed in that night had another family coming in Thursday, so we couldn't be there for too long. 

So, there you go. The next morning, Paisley and Mike slept in a little bit and I stayed on the phone with the management company trying to find out what was happening with the original condo, since we still had not unpacked anything, unable to really begin our trip. When they finally got a "key technician" out to the unit, apparently all that was wrong was a few loose screws in the deadbolt.

While he was working on it, I went in to check out what was supposed to be our condo for the week. We had specifically picked this unit out online, it looked like it was kept up really nicely, etc. When I walked in, it reeked of smoke. Unbelievable. 

So, by the end of Thursday, we ended up in the 3rd condo of the building for us and it has turned out to be great. We were able to get in and get our stuff unloaded and start our actual vacation around 3 PM on Thursday. 

Thank God for no issues on the road as we headed down, and thank God Paisley wasn't actually sick, just had a little upset stomach that morning. Whew... 

Vacation!!

In less than 48 hours we will be hitting the road for our first solo vacation as a family of three. Gulf Shores, AL is the destination, we'll be there for a full week. I am THRILLED to be going on vacation & even more excited to be spending the entire week with my little family.

Of course, we've been other places, like quick trips that mix a bit of mommy-work with pleasure in Austin & San Antonio where I spend a considerable amount of time working, and our trip to California last summer with ReeRee. But, this will be our first long trip, just us three. Mike and I are really excited for our little adventure!

Here's where we'll be staying:

Some of you may be wondering, "hey, where the heck is Gulf Shores?" It's on the Alabama coast, just west of Pensacola, and south of Mobile. Anyone that lives in Alabama has more than likely gone their on vacation at some point, as did we when we were younger. It's known for it's white sand and gulf location. We plan to spend 7 days making sand castles, searching for shells, learning to swim in the ocean and pool, eating, napping, and enjoying each other's company. It sounds like a glorious week to me.

I plan to post daily about our trip, not so much so I can bore all 3 people that read this blog, but mostly so I can keep a record of our trip for the future. I want to try and remember as much as possible! My mommy brain seems to forget much more than I can remember.

How will an 11 hour car ride work out with an almost-two-year-old? Stay tuned... :)