the teeney-weeney

Hello again! This entry is a bit belated, but it's been a busy month. We celebrated my birthday at the beginning (a wonderful weekend full of little special things - thanks everybody!) and then we moved right into Penn State's spring break. We didn't really have any plans to go anywhere (that was coming a week later) but we did enjoy how nice and quiet State College is without all the undergrads around! We didn't do anything too special either- there was still work, and school, and chores, and the daily grind, but we DID manage to get out for a fun lunch at a local restaurant that we had never been to before. A cute little place with the whole 50s diner theme - quite tasty. One of their signature items is the "teeny-weeny" - a miniature ice cream sundae. We just had to try them and when the waitress only brought two, I graciously let Hayden eat mine. :) (okay, I might have snuck the cherry, and I might have scooped out the couple bites of hot fudge, but she got the rest...)

Anyway, Hayden's introduction to a teeny-weeny was captured on camera (of course!). There's not much to it (toddler meets ice cream, they fall in love) but the pictures are really cute. Jason even took a video but it's just Hayden very carefully scooping ice cream into her mouth so I'll keep that one to ourselves. I hope you enjoy the pictures as much as Hayden enjoyed her teeny-weeny!

What a cool looking treat mom - is this how I dig in?
(turns out, the ice cream was pretty hard and she couldn't quite get a scoop...)

Sometimes you need a Daddy-hand to help get you started...

Okay, so mom stole the cherry, maybe I can try and taste it on my own.

Such concentration!!!
Now I'm getting the hang of it - this stuff is GOOD!

Do you think she has her mouth open wide enough?!!!!
When she was a baby, how wide her mouth was told how us much she liked a new food. I'm going to guess that she REALLY likes her teeny-weeny.

Working hard to scrap out the last little bits...
YUM!

It's all relative...

...at least when you're talking about the weather. By that I mean, we've been having some "warmer" weather lately and we've been able to take some fun outside pictures. Now, when I say warmer, I'm not talking Durham, NC warmer (70s) or South Georgia warmer (80s). As much as I would love to be reaching those kinds of temperatures, I have resigned myself to the fact that we are settled in State College, PA and those temperatures come around in June. If we're lucky. So by warmer, I mean above freezing. YAHOO!! Actually, it was actually even warmer than that. (Though I will admit we have used the words, mild, balmy and nice weather, to describe a day when it is not windy and is not below 32 degrees Farenheit. What can I say? We set our standards low.)

Anyway, we have had a couple of nice days lately, that were on the warmer side, even if you can't tell because Hayden is still bundled up in a coat and hat. If you're worried about the lack of distinction, the things you CAN'T see that say it is in fact warmer are 1)she only has one layer on under the coat, 2)she does not have leg warmers under her pants, 3)I am not feeling intense Mommy guilt for the fact that she is not wearing gloves and 4) we are actually going outside to play. So yes, it was warmer weather. That being said, here's the pics!

Here we are, about to head outside (FINALLY!) to the park. Or as Hayden says the "part." I'm not sure who was more eager, Hayden or Blizzard.

It's good that it was fairly warm and sunny, because our walk up to the park was REALLY slow. That might have been because Hayden insisted on holding Blizzard's leash herself, by herself. And so we ambled. I swear we were passed by the same woman THREE times as we slowly made our way up the street.


Hayden climbing the steps of the climber. Look how great she can do it on her own!


And speaking of gross motor skill development, she figured out how to go THROUGH this little hole at the bottom. At first she wanted my hand as she made the step through, but pretty soon she figured out how to do it on her own.

After we had played a bit, it was time for snack. As we were sitting on the sidewalk (only dry place), some boys on scooters were coming up the path. Hayden was just fascinated by them. I love how she's leaning over on one hand here, trying to peer around me to see what the boys are doing.


Okay, so now we're on a different day, when the weather really was warm - 60s! We introduced Hayden to the game of basketball. However, we might have been a little bit late in our introduction, or perhaps our introduction of another sport skewed her interest. Every time she grabbed the ball (which was often), she had no interest in trying to dribble it. Instead she'd go "kick, kick!" and try to drop it to kick it. Maybe she'll be a star soccer player instead?
We had a great time at the park enjoying the weather. We did basketball, football, swinging, climbing, sliding, all sort of activities. Then, of course, it was time for snack. Hayden wanted to come sit next to me on these little stepping stones (some of them move!) and Jason thought it was a cute picture. But getting me to keep my eyes open and Hayden to have her hand down proved to be too much of a challenge, so this is what you get. Notice the short sleeves!!! And after all our playing, I was wishing I'd worn shorts, or at least flip flops!

Okay, final picture, because it's just so darn cute. It's from the first day I talked about (notice the hat has made a reappearance). She's really just SUCH a cutie pie these days. And a sweetie pie - which you can get her to say - "seetie pie, seetie pie" - from a totally biased perspective, it's SO CUTE, just like Hayden!

Cornbread Chuckles

This is a little bit of a random story, but I think the accompanying video is entertaining.

The other night, in honor of Mardi Gras, I made red beans and rice, and cornbread for dinner. Surprisingly, both were a huge hit with Hayden and she really ate them up. Jason and I enjoyed dinner as well. We still ended up with lots of cornbread leftover, so it was on the menu for the following evening as well.

After a long day with both Jason and me working out of the house, and Hayden at school, we all gathered in the kitchen to put together dinner. We opted for breakfast burritos, with scrambled eggs and cornbread for Hayden. Jason got to work on the eggs/sausage, while I got some stuff for Hayden- her milk, some pear slices - while she was securely fastened in her high chair. She had already pointed out the corbread tupperware container sitting on the counter. I turned to walk towards the cornbread and opened it up and Hayden let out this ENORMOUS chuckle/laugh thing indicating that she was beyond thrilled to be having cornbread again. It was HILARIOUS! And she did more laughing when we gave her the scrambled eggs. Which she gobbled up, at least 2 eggs worth, and asked for more. Apparently this girl likes her food so much it makes her laugh. Will she think the veggie muffins are as funny tonight?

Things to note on the video - We did have to prompt her to laugh 2 of the three times. The first laugh described above was about 3 times longer and louder, just so you can start to picture it. And I'd like to point out that despite it being over a week since I first got sick, my voice is still deep and congested sounding! Erg! But the mucus monster has moved out and I'm feeling much better. And if you're wondering, yes, cornbread is a pretty messy dinner option. :)




See, sometimes I do post about things other than visitors or trips!!

Orlando - sunshine and sick don't mix

Okay, so you already read about our Orlando trip when we got to spend time with Aunt Lacey, Uncle JT and Jay. This blog will tell about the rest of the trip, both the very beginning and the second half.

We got to travel with our friends Sarah and Brad, since Sarah works with Jason and orchestrated the successful conference submission that allowed us all to go. Hayden was SO excited about traveling with them. Requests for "Sa-raw and Bad" were rampant the whole weekend. She always wanted to know where they were and was excited when we met up.

We were lucky enough to fly out of State College, and had a fairly uneventful trip. The longest wait was for our rental car. Thank goodness Hayden found a little friend to follow around with while we waited. After having left State College around 11 am, we finally made it to our hotel in Orlando around 6:30 pm. We made the decision to go out to eat and after several false starts (finding a place to eat at a "hip" little shopping plaza on Friday evening was not easy), we found a very child-welcoming, and uncrowded Hoolihan's. Hayden had a great time playing with a glass of water, and tasting lemons.
I got everyone to pose for a first group photo to celebrate our arrival. and then Hayden posed with a very silly grin on her own. We had arrived, there was no snow in sight. Life was good.
Next, as you have already read, the Harrisons arrived and again, life was good. Toddlers played, we ate tapas and did some shopping, pools were played in. Then the Harrisons left and things slowly went down hill. Okay, that might be an exaggeration, after all, we were in FLORIDA, it was SUNNY and WARM. But such things are no good if your sweet little toddler is taken down by illness. It wasn't completely out of the blue, her nose had started running, but soon after nap after the Harrisons had left, she just was not herself. Even when we went out to dinner with Carrie, a good friend from college who lives an hour away and came to visit, Hayden didn't quite rally, as you can see in this picture.

That's kind of what she looked like for the rest of the trip, unless she had recently had a dose of Motrin. Thank goodness we brought some medicine with us! We did still manage to have a nice meal with Carrie and catch up. Hard to believe we'll see her again in May at our 10 year college reunion! So old!

Monday and Tuesday ended up being much lower key days. Hayden and I spent a good deal of time in the room while Jason was conferencing. Or we'd snuggle in a lounge chair by the pool. We couldn't really convince her to do swimming; she just wanted to snuggle with Jason on the side. We did take a long walk one morning where I was able to take pictures of the upside down building that just completely captured my attention.
We did manage to make it to the steak house that Brad had been dying to go to. Quite a place, that steak house. White tablecloths, big hunks of meat, fancy wine - not the best for a toddler, but I think Brad enjoyed his meal! Hayden ate pretty much nothing and refused to sit in the high chair the whole meal. I was quite disappointed that the huge hunk of chocolate cake we could order was laced with Grand Marnier. Who wants orange flavoring with chocolate?!! NOT ME!!! The highlight of the meal was Jason's bacon addition to his house salad. The picture may not do it justice, but this was one incredible hunk of bacon - it cost more than most house salads do on their own, but he said it was worth it!Our final night in Orlando, feeling several days worth of heavy (expensive) eating, we just headed to a mall for a simple chain restaurant. Dinner was fine and Hayden rallied enough to have fun exploring the mall. She just had to give the little dog outside of a special doggie treat store a big hug and was fascinated (as were all the adults) by the indoor surfing venue where you could pay to surf while everyone watched. She also thought the dog/bench combo in Old Navy was too much fun to pass up.
All in all, we managed to have a great trip to Orlando, despite Hayden's illness. She did great on the airplanes and is turning out to be a pretty good traveler. We've learned to always pack some medicine - just in case - and know the importance of being flexible. I'll leave you with two pictures of Hayden from our trip. One is before Hayden got sick, one is while she is sick. Can you guess which is which?

PS After we returned, we got a feel for how tough Hayden was for making it through the trip while feeling yucky. Within a day of our return, both Jason and I had caught whatever Hayden had and boy did we feel awful!! So she must have been feeling REALLY rotten. What a trooper! Luckily we're both starting to feel better. Hope everyone else is feeling okay as we wait for spring to arrive!

Orlando with Aunt Lacey, Jay and Uncle "T"

Sometimes I think this blog is more about documenting our trips and big events than it is about capturing little bits of our life. Or maybe the little bits of our life are actually just big trips and events. I don't know. But I'm here again to tell you about our trip to Orlando. Jason had a conference to go to and Hayden and I tagged along so we could experience some warmth and sunshine. It was planned back in the fall, but given how cold and snowy this winter has been, it was an excellent idea! We were gone for quite a while, Friday thru Wed, and our trip can be broken into two parts - the Harrison visit and the rest of the trip. To try and keep my blog entries from running on forever, this one covers the Harrisons visit.

The day after we arrived, we met up with Lacey, JT and Jay who drove down from Georgia. Such fun to get the cousins together again! We had quite the breakfast at IHOP, complete with a man who made us a balloon dog. Not the best balloon dog I've ever seen but the kids (and adults) were quite taken with the process.After breakfast, we headed out to shop out the outlets (who knew Orlando was an outlet shopping mecca?!). The adults were excited about it, the kids probably not so much, but everyone survived. The kids took turn being worn on backs, or riding in the stroller. Sometimes they were carried like footballs.
Eventually we grabbed some lunch (outside!) and then did the necessary carseat manuevering to get everyone back to hotels for naptime.In the above photo, Hayden and Jay take a load off while we wait for Jason to bring the other car around. Hayden really liked lounging in the parking lot. Other people looking for a parking space did not like us lounging quite so much. :)

After naptime, we rendezvoused at our pool so the kids could swim. Hayden was a little bit hesitant (as were most of the adults) since it wasn't THAT warm, just low 70s. Jay had little hesitation and just loved the water. He showed off his new trick from swim class - swimming on his back! He loved it! Can you see the grin? Hayden had a similar smile, because it was so fun to watch Jay and Uncle JT in the water! Even after they had left, she would point to the pool and say "T!"
After a full day of pancakes, outlet shopping, naps in strange hotels and swimming, you might think dinner would be a challenge with two toddlers. Amazingly enough, we actually had a GREAT dinner at this really cool tapas restaurant (that's TAPAS, not TOPLESS - as everyone asks when we've told about our trip!). The food was great. The restaurant was baby-friendly (how can you feel bad about babies when the table is chipped) and had a great atmosphere (think funky art on the walls, loud music). There was even fabulous entertainment... We had a flamenco dancer come by our table, a belly dancer, and then Hayden and Jason performed their very own spoon tricks!



After dinner, the gentlemen headed back to put babies to bed while Lacey and I got to do some more outlet shopping without anyone in tow. It was lovely! But we were pretty tired ourselves so didn't do anything too crazy. A wasted opportunity I'm sure. :)

Next morning Jason started his conference while Hayden and I met up with Lacey and Jay to hang out while JT packed up the hotel room. We just hung out by the pool, enjoying the sunshine and warm weather. The kids were quite well occupied wandering around until suddenly they both decided that sitting on the edge of the pool, CLOSE to each other, was exactly what they wanted to do. It was the PERFECT picture opportunity! We took many, of Lacey and the kids, me and the kids, just the kids and luckily some nice woman took one of all of us. I won't post them all, but here's two cute ones.
It seemed like the posing lasted forever, but they were soon on their way, exploring and checking things out. And then asking for snacks. Jay got snacks first, and then Hayden asked Jay for some snacks. He wasn't great at sharing on his own, but he didn't mind when Lacey would take some out of his cup. Finally Hayden decided to just dig in on her own.
The final culmination of the visit with Aunt Lacey and company was lunch at a Mexican place. The food wasn't very good but we did learn that you can safely stack three high chairs to use. Why they couldn't just have had ONE table that was normal high chair height, I don't know, but we managed. The extra height just made the drop game that much more fun!
We were definitely sad to see the Harrison contingent head home. Hanging in the sunshine after lunch, Hayden made a round of goodbye hugs, hugging Aunt Lacey and Uncle JT's knees. And then she pointed out where Jay's belly button was. Very fun.

For the rest of our trip, Hayden asked about "T" and Jay a lot whenever we visited the pool. I think she really like watching them splash around. Luckily we'll get to see them again in a month! So check back in March for yet another trip blog!

Video Learning

So here's trying again with posting some video. I have two videos I'm going to try to post. One I learned how to shorten, maybe that will help? And the other, I think I learned how to record with less quality, which I'm hoping will mean it's easier to upload. Of course, they still aren't the best videos since Hayden continues to be distracted by the camera. As soon as she notices the camera is out, she stops what she is doing (if she hadn't already stopped when I went to GET the camera) and she runs to the camera saying, See! See! See! She hasn't quite got the idea of performing yet, but she sure does like to watch herself!



Okay, so this is the one of lesser quality. It captures some of her dancing. I love when she does fast feet. And I'm not sure where she got the snake arms, but she does it A LOT when dancing, sometimes just to request music. If you're wondering, we're listening to the Laurie Berkner Band "I'm gonna catch you". And please pardon my singing, just trying to get her more in the mood to dance. She often dances much more crazy, but of course we can't seem to capture it on camera.


This next one is the one that is better quality but I tried to cut out the part at the end where she runs towards the camera to "See! See!" It did take a while to load, so I'm not sure what the best method is. It shows how CRAZY Hayden can be with Blizzard and how Blizzard tolerates it so well. Yes, Blizzard is doing her groaning noise, and even makes a little bark, but she doesn't get up to get away. So I think Blizz secretly loves Hayden. Enjoy and let me know if you have trouble viewing these.