First day at the beach on our vacation

Ok, so back to our vacation (maybe by the end of September I'll have blogged about the whole vacation!)

After a lovely time in Atlanta, we headed off to Hilton Head.  I had been there many years before, and I absolutely loved it, and looking back now, I'm so glad we picked it as our destination this year.  I can easily see me spending every vacation there..not sure how Joacim feels about this though.  It's not as though it'll be within reasonable driving distance next year :(



We got to the rented house a little later than planned, but still with enough time to enjoy it.  Oh, geesh...I guess I forgot to mention that my friend Emily and her son, Will, joined us at this point of our vacation.  They met us in Hilton Head, and got there an hour or so before us.  We weren't able to make it to the beach on the first day, but still had a good time getting settled in the house.  We got unpacked, and then Emily and I headed out to the grocery store to stock up for our week.  And apparently everyone else had the exact same idea...that Piggly Wiggly was HOPPIN'!  Rentals on the island are from Saturday to Saturday, and you can see the wave of people coming to the island.  It took us about an hour to get to our house once we got on the island.  Later in the week it only took us 20 minutes.

The house we rented was great..it was LIVED in, so we didn't have to worry so much about making a scratch on the wall or anything, which was a relief.  But the house was really nice, with a private pool downstairs.  Here's a link to the house we rented.  Speaking of the pool...here's Izzy and Joacim taking their first dip in it.

After the kids were in bed, Joacim, Emily and I hung out, had a few drinks (ok, a little more than a few), and an impromptu dip in the pool. Great way to start off a great vacation!

And for some reason, I woke up early the next morning.  I take that back...Izzy and Bri woke up early and woke me up.  I let Joacim sleep off the gin hangover I thought he might have, got the girls some breakfast and got ready to walk to the beach.  Emily and Will woke up and decided to join us.

And what I was most excited for when planning the trip was Brianne's excitement at experiencing the ocean for the first time.  I was not disappointed.  She was just awestruck and giddy as we hiked over the sand dunes and she saw it for the first time.

Her excitement made me happier than I could possibly describe, and I'm so happy that I got to experience this with her.  It's a memory she and I will always have, and I treasure that.

What I love about Hilton Head this time of the year is how warm the water is.  When we took Izzy to Ft. Lauderdale a couple of years ago, the water was freezing.  Granted, it was in late April, but it was still frigid.  Not here though...the water temperature was around 84 degrees, which suited us just fine.  Even Will didn't mind.  Here he is taking a dip. This isn't his first time at the ocean, but he was only a couple of months old the first time on the west coast.

I love Izzy in this dress.  She started calling it her "fireworks dress"...I like it!

 And both of their expressions in this photo crack me up.

 And what was even better is that after our dip in the ocean, we came back and took a dip in the pool (this pretty much became a daily occurrence).  Here's a video of Izzy swimming...there was a pretty strong jet of water that ended up creating a little whirlpool effect.  In this video she ends up getting stuck in a little, and getting quite upset.

And at the end of the day, a cute little baby in the bath :)

Publish Post

Bath

I haven't been playing around with my camera as much lately, but I got it out the other night just in time for Izzy's first bubble bath in her bathtub. For the longest time she was scared of the bubbles...always worried that there was a blue whale under the water (thank you Diego).

The pictures are cute, but the video that follows is MY MOST FAVORITE VIDEO OF IZZY TO DATE. Yes, it's that good :) Enjoy!

Some bath time fun

She's such a ham.....(and that'a ravioli on her face)

Lemmy had to get see what was going on too. If you look closely at this picture, you can see his little tongue sticking out. too funny!

And here's a little collage with some of her funny faces

Crazy hair after her bath

This is what her hair looks like after her bath...seriously defying gravity!

More of Izzy and Lemmy

I took this this morning while I was waiting for my breakfast to get ready

This seems to be where Izzy eats a lot of her meals lately...on the countertop

But it WAS fun tonight because I got to teach Izzy a new phrase

Lemmy is starting to claim every blanket in this house, including Izzy's


Some bathtime fun tonight

Who on earth could resist this face???

I got out the bathtub markers tonight. I almost forgot they were even there, but I'm glad I didn't. She loved them!

And here she is after her bath trying to put her slippers on...she's becoming a bit more independent every day, but it's making mornings a bit tougher since she's starting to want to do everything herself, and gets uber frustrated when she can't.

But it's more fun to actually watch her do it...the focus she has!

A few videos of what we've been up to lately....

Here's Izzy chatting in the tub:


I was telling my friends the other day about the sheer desperation on Izzy's face when it comes to her wanting you to read her a book. Here's evidence that I wasn't exaggerating...just watch the first part and you'll understand :) And it's like this EVERY time with EVERY book. I'm all about fostering a love of reading, but I swear I'll go crazy if I have to read another animal book.


Since we had the absolutely worst night ever last night (I won't bore you with details, but 5 hours of whining/crying sums it up), and because I just couldn't read ANOTHER ANIMAL BOOK, I decided to take Izzy to the park in the neighborhood across the street from us. Every time we walk by there we have Murphy and don't stop, so it was a good opportunity for her to play a bit.
Here she is going down the slide all by herself:

And to end off with the BEST giggle ever....truly.

Visit with Papaw and Aunt Bri

On Sunday morning, my dad called and said that he and my sister, Bri, were thinking about heading down here on his motorcycle. He's wanted to come down and ride with Joacim since he found out he got a bike, and it was such a perfect day on Sunday that they couldn't pass it up. I gotta hand it to my sister...I don't think I could've ridden that long on a bike. I mean, ALL THE WAY FROM NORTH OF WEST LAFAYETTE?? It took them about 2 1/2 hours one way!!! Kudos to you, little girl!!!

Once they arrived, they rested a bit and then Joacim and Dad headed off on a ride while Bri stayed here and played with Izzy. Once she woke up from her nap, she was all smiles for her Aunt Bri.



Cutest thing was when Dad got back...we were outside and he came out there...Izzy RAN right up to him with her arms wide open! Wish I would've had my camera for that! She hasn't seen him since her birthday, but I guess her memory is better than we thought!
Unfortunately, they couldn't stay too late since they had to bike all the way back home, but we were able to have dinner before they left.

Here are some photos of Bri and Dad and the bike. She decorated her helmet herself!





Once they left, we went out our nightly walk with Murphy. Here's a cute video of her after we got back. She and Murphy are becoming best buddies and here's why:

And here's Pappa having some fun..

more bath photos....

I love taking photos of Izzy during her bath. It's such a challenge to get the focus and exposure right. Since I went to a photography workshop last weekend, I decided to try to focus on fixing fewer things at a time, so for the next few weeks I'll be working on focusing...trying to get those sharp-focus eyes and what-not. Here are some cute ones:

Bath time!

What I love about parenting so far is still having a magic bullet for when everything else fails. The last few weeks have been trying for both of us, to say the least, but at least we still have a magic bullet....bath time!!! No matter how grumpy she is, as soon as you put her in the water it's as if another personality takes over....




This will forever be known as the "duck boobies" photo, for obvious reasons!

double ear infection and snow day and funny bath!!!

Izzyboo was feeling kinda puny on Sunday, so I stayed home with her on Monday and took her to the doctor, and found out she has a double-ear infection. Now, I'm glad she's the type of kid to just be a little fussy when she's sick...she likes to keep to herself. I guess it's not all that bad...i mean this is only her 2nd confirmed ear infection, so no worries yet.

And, as the trend goes...once Izzy gets sick, then I get sick. This time is no different. I woke up Tuesday morning with the all-too-familiar scratch, sore throat...followed by the nose that is so stuffed that if I were to be kidnapped and duct tape put over my mouth, I would die because not one single molecule of air can get through. I went to work anyway, and took Izzyboo to daycare, but it was an early day. The daycare called and let me know that Izzy wasn't feeling all that great, and we had a big snowstorm on the way, so I left work a little early so I could get her and beat the storm. And I'm so thankful I did!!! We ended up getting almost a foot of snow!!! Here are some photos...







I was then sick with the nasty cold on Wednesday, which is kinda good because there's no way I could've made it out of the garage and through the neighborhood. So, Izzy and I just hung out all day. We did have another little photo session...here are some cute shots:

This is one of my favorites..




And this one too...such a great little smile..





I found these photos too...had completely forgotten that I took them, but too cute not to show...



Izzy is also VERY close to crawling...she's getting close to being mobile, and she's starting to pull herself up on things, as you can see by the following evidence:


This photo is completely overexposed...but you get the idea...