Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Zach--10 Months

This little cutie turned 10 months old last week!

At his doctor's appt a few weeks ago he weighed in at 19.1 lbs, was 28.25 inches tall, and his head was 17.7 inches. He has started doing the army crawl and scoots around the room discovering new things. It's especially cute when he sees something across the room, gets excited and then moves toward it. He's not crawling yet, just scooting around on his elbows and toes. He loves to just scoot around and play, and I often find him stuck in the craziest places!

This little chunker loves to eat just about anything you give him. He is also STILL not sleeping through the night (he does about half the time), and loves to wake up bright and early (like 5:30 a.m.) Ugh! Seriously, kid, just sleep already!

His face lights up when Mom, Dad, or Emmy walk into the room and he loves to see what's going on. Just today we were at the park, and Emmy was going down the slides while Zach and I watched and Zach would laugh when Emmy would come out of the slide. It was pretty cute. Speaking of laughing, he has the cutest laugh, and the other day he would not stop giggling all during his breakfast. It was hilarious!

He likes to make his presence known and uses his voice loudly. He loves to squeal and squak at everything. He also cries when someone leaves the room. He is pretty pleasant most of the time now (thank goodness!) except at 5:30 a.m. But despite our (nearly) year of not sleeping, we love having little Zach around.

Here's a few videos of Zach's army crawl!




Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Vacation, Part 3

Although we did spend most of our vacation at the swimming pool (and Legoland), we did manage to do a few other things. One of the days we went sea kayaking and paddled out to some sea caves. It was so fun! I didn't take any pictures of this, but it really was fun. My boss (remember how I work online?) lives in San Diego and he kept saying that if anyone ever came out that way that he had some kayaks we could use. So we totally took him up on it.

We met up with him at a beach about halfway between where we were staying and where he lived, which happened to have some cool caves. We paddled out to the caves and saw some sea lions, jellyfish, and big orange fish. I even jumped in and snorkeled for a little while. It was tricky getting past the waves, but once we did it was pretty calm.

Emmy and Zach had their moments of tantrum throwing and whining. There were several points where Matt was pretty convinced that we'd never go on vacation again, but I made him promise before we left that he wouldn't say that. They both had trouble sleeping in the hotel, which made them extra tired. But at least part of the time they enjoyed each other's company!

Playing together before bed.

We also borrowed some hiking backpacks from my friend and went on a little hike. (This almost didn't happen though because the first time we tried to attempt the hike, Emmy barfed all over in the car right before we got there.) But we tried again another day, and had a nice hike along some beach cliffs.

It is a lot harder hauling your kid around in a backpack on a hike!

But it was fun, and they loved it! Emmy kept saying, "I want to stay on this hike!" I should mention at one point she had to go potty so Matt took her in the bushes and then she kept wanting to go potty in the bushes after that!

The sea cliffs reminded me of Bryce Canyon, only with the ocean in the background. Pretty cool!

Emmy got out and walked for awhile, much to Matt's relief!

Anyway, it was a fun trip! I love the beach!

Vacation, Part 2: Legoland

We decided that we were going to just do one of the big, expensive parks in Cali and we chose Legoland. We chose it because a) We are going to San Diego in December with my fam and will do Sea World, the zoo, etc. then. b) Disneyland is expensive and I don't think the kids would appreciate it quite yet. and c) All the other parks like Six Flags, Knott's Berry Farm, etc. aren't really for young kids. So Legoland it was. I think it was a good choice.

Emmy had a ball!
We got our tickets at Costco, so we got a second day free for cheaper than getting a one-day ticket at the gate. I would say about 2/3 of the rides are for younger kids, so there was tons of stuff for Emmy to do.

We went on Tuesday and Thursday, and on Tuesday it was quite crowded. Thursday was better. And after 4 or so, it really died down.

Babies were not allowed on any (except 2) of the rides, so Matt and I took turns taking Emmy on the rides.
They had Lego play stations all over the place. Emmy had a blast building towers.

She built one as tall as she was! They even had these Lego stations next to the ride lines so the kids could play while the parents waited in the line. Genius! And there were lots of things to do that didn't involve waiting in a line, like different playgrounds and fountains and forts. So it was good to break things up so you weren't waiting in lines all the time.


Emmy thought it was so cool that she got to "drive" cars, boats, airplanes, helicopters, etc with Mom and Dad.

She also loved this fun musical Lego fountain. She would jump on the "buttons" to hear the music.

They had some Lego water guns you could shoot at Lego statues.

And they had really cool replicas of tons of cities. (NYC, Washington DC, New Orleans, San Franscisco, Las Vegas, etc.) And they had so much detail (down to cars on the roads and people in the swimming pools.) They also had Lego statues everywhere!

They had a water park that we went to for a little while one of the days. Emmy LOVED it! In fact, when she got in the pool she was jumping around yelling, "Fun Day! Fun Day!"

It was fun to see her having so much fun.

I had heard about the famous Legoland apple fries so I had to get some. Basically they are fried apple strips dusted in cinnamon sugar and dipped in whipped cream. Yummy!

This safari ride was Emmy's favorite and she insisted on going on it 4 times.

They also had a little aquarium, which of course Emmy loved. After we went through it, she exclaimed, "Let's do the aquarium again!"


Here we all are on one of the 2 boat rides that Zach was allowed to go on. I'm not sure why he wasn't allowed on the other rides....they were all pretty tame.

We saw Lego Mt. Rushmore, the Sydney Opera House, the Eiffel Tower, and more! There was even a whole Star Wars section that Matt thought was pretty cool. They had a huge space ship made out of like 5 million Legos!

When it was time to go, Emmy begged for one last ride on the safari jeeps.

All in all, Legoland was pretty fun. I think Emmy was a tad young to enjoy everything, but she had a great time. I think the perfect age to go would be from about 4-8 years old. Anything older than that I think they might get bored. But it is great for younger kids. Also, it was nice to have the 2-day pass so we could come and go. The mornings & early afternoons were pretty crowded, but the evenings were practically empty!

Vacation, Part 1

Last week we had the opportunity to take our little family on vacation to southern California!!! I have been DYING to go on vacation ever since last summer so this was a welcome little treat. I was a little nervous about doing it with kids, but it turned out to be fun. Sure, they had their moments and there were a few tantrums, but for the most part it was fun.

I was most nervous about the drive down there. I tried to plan some fun things for the car. I let her use my neck pillow, which she loved. I also got a little cooler full of snacks that was just for her. I put things (string cheese, grapes, apple slices, cereal, crackers, juice boxes, nuts, raisins, and fruit snacks) in snack-size ziplocks and she could get something out of her "treat bucket" whenever she wanted. She thought it was pretty cool to have her own treat bucket.

We also borrowed a portable DVD player from Matt's mom and brought all her favorite shows. She thought it was pretty neat to watch them in the car. Also, I went to the dollar store and got a few cheap toys and wrapped them up and when we got out of the car to get gas or whatever, she would come back to find a little present on her seat. That gave her something to do for the next segment of the drive. And she found ways to entertain herself back there as well!

I looked back there and saw that she had put crackers in her toes and I was dying laughing. She was pretty proud of herself. Of course they didn't sleep a wink the ENTIRE way there, and Emmy was asking question after question after question. About 30 seconds after we got to the hotel, she crashed on the couch.

It was definately an interesting experience having everyone in the same room. Every night before bed Emmy would say, "I don't want Zach to cry in the night and wake me up!" Which of course he did cry in the night and wake us all up. I don't know how kids can share rooms with babies!

She kept asking the whole way there if we were to the beach yet. So that was the first thing on the agenda. When we got there Emmy was running and jumping and rolling around in the sand. It was hilarious! She was so happy to finally be at the beach!

She had fun filling up her bucket with sand.

Zach tolerated getting slathered in sunscreen.

Emmy did not like the water though. She was scared of the waves and said it was too cold.



She did LOVE the pool at the hotel though. She would have stayed there the entire week if we would have let her. She swam around on that little froggy floatie for HOURS and would cry when it was time to do something else. She would jump around and want us to chase after her in the pool and tickle her. I've never seen her more happy than she was in that swimming pool. Every day she would wake up and say, "Can we go swimming today, Mommy?"

Zach (mostly) tolerated being lugged around everywhere.

He liked playing around on the beach towel. (For a little while anyway.) This was a rare moment when he was having fun at the beach! I just think he looks so cute in this picture!

Mostly we just went to the pool and the beach. We went to Legoland, on a hike, and sea kayaking as well (which I will post about later). By the last day though, Emmy had just about enough of the beach and just wanted to sit in the stroller with her towel on.

The weather was perfect! High 70s most of the week. It felt sooo good!

Monday, August 12, 2013

Helping

Emmy's job is to help sort the laundry. She takes it out of the dryer and puts her clothes in her basket and Zach's clothes in his basket and then takes the baskets to their rooms so I can put them away. She loves it!
What a good little helper!

This is when she asked to go outside and paint. So I got a cup of water and a paintbrush and she painted away on the patio!

And here are Zach's cute, chubby legs!

He's not crawling yet, but is scooting around pretty well.

He loves to play with his toys on the floor!