Beachin' It

The first full week in June, we went to the beach for a week with Grandma and Poppop. It was the girls' introduction to Emerald Isle, the NC beach I grew up going to each summer and one of my most favorite places on earth. Thankfully, they LOVED it, so we will definitely be going back!

For the first time ever, we were oceanfront (a special splurge this year) and it was great - especially with two little kids along. It made getting children, sand toys, towels, beach chairs, etc to and from the beach so much easier. And it was definitely awesome to head out to our ocean deck to just hang out and enjoy the view. We ate ice cream out there, had dance parties, observed pelicans and helicopters, and just watched the world go by.

our house, view from beach side

Both girls really did love the beach. Hayden ran right to the water when we got there and wasn't hesitant about it the whole trip. Eliza got her toes wet quickly, then got a little timid for a day or so, and then decided that the ocean - and going out PAST the waves, no matter how rough - was the best thing ever. "pick it up" "more swimmen" which we heard over and over again in the last half of the week was Eliza for "PICK ME UP NOW AND TAKE ME OUT SWIMMING THE WAVES!"

checking out the ocean upon our arrival

E's toes in the water for the first time on an NC beach

The girls quickly got into the swing of a tradition Sanford family beach vacation. Hayden embraced jigsaw puzzles and game playing. Eliza put her feet up and tried to wear as little clothing as possible. Hayden learned about building lagoons and drip castles. Eliza learned the words "M&M" and "pelican" and how to mooch food from everyone else, including Popop's sandwich. (A bowl of M&Ms is a Sanford beach tradition. The girls quickly learned where the bowl was located and who was most likely to let them have one.)

learning to play Chutes and Ladders. Love the naptime hair!

even at the beach, a pool can be fun.

Beach Hair!

Both girls learned the fun of jumping on sand cliffs when out for an evening walk on the beach.

enjoying the beach breezes

down

up all by herself

and down again!

our weird dog, taking a breather at the bottom of the sand cliffs

Eliza decided she needed to be taken for a walk

the blonde girls enjoying a lovely beach evening

In between beach time, naps and meals, we managed to fit in a couple of our traditional beach outings. We went to the NC Aquarium (drastically renovated and redone from when we went before!). We went to see the turtles behind the Food Lion Plaza in Emerald Isle. We got lunch at the Big Oak drive-in (paved parking lot now!) and went out for ice cream.

turtle outside the aquarium. inside pics didn't turn out well.

what is everyone looking at you ask?

why turtles of course!! (check out the big one!)

But mainly we just enjoyed the beach. We had a designated system for applying sunscreen each time we went out - at least for those under the age of 5. First get naked. Run around like crazy. Once an adult catches you, sunscreen is applied to your body whether by lotion or spray (depends on what's handy and how much protesting you are doing). Then run around naked again yelling "naked time!" so that the sunscreen dries. Then get corralled by an adult again and put into a swim suit. Finally sit in the sunscreen chair and complain horribly while sunscreen lotion is rubbed onto your face. Sometimes the order would be reversed depending how long you'd been running around and where you got caught.

Once sunscreen was applied, we'd head down to the beach with towels, beach chairs and sand toys in tow. We'd play in the waves, build sandcastles, snuggle into towels, watch the ocean, rescue little crabs who'd been stranded in dry sand and do all other sorts of fun things. It was great.

the flipflop deposit spot

The beautiful quiet beach at Emerald Isle. Love it!

beach towel burrito

And of course we took pictures. I even tried to get one of the pooches, who got to come with us. Of course, when I was trying to tell the dogs to sit down, Eliza was the one who listened (Blizz was already relaxing) and sat down next to Blizz. Then she did downward facing dog as she got back up.

grandparents and grandkids

Beach babes!

And one of us! Yay for family beach vacations!

It's hot! Eat a popsicle!

In honor of the ridiculous hot temperatures today, (currently 91 degrees says my favorite weather website), I'd like to show you the lovely May day when we introduced Eliza to popsicles. We made homemade popsicles with yogurt, lime juice and fresh local strawberries, and the bites I had were quite tasty. I think the girls liked them too, as you will see.

In order to let the girls enjoy the popsicles without being fussed over (since these weren't the brilliant idea 'slow-melt' popsicles you can find at the store), the girls were herded outside so we could eat them without fear of a huge mess on the floor and/or furniture. With the promise of popsicles for snack, they didn't mind heading outside.


Eliza's shirt was removed to help ease clean up. She didn't mind since she asks to be naked all the time. They were instructed to get shoes on so we could go outside. Here is Eliza's official popsicle-eating-outfit - she picked out the boots herself.
So far, so good, she didn't make too much of a mess. She was too busy eating and pointing at the camera.

But then she got down to the last little bit and she was faced with the eternal Popsicle dilemma - How do you get those last bites off of a popsicle? She went with the shove-the-whole-thing-in-your-mouth-gag-reflex-be-damned method.

And then she was done, and all was good, even if she does look like she got in a fight with the popsicle and lost.

And just to give you more context, it was perfect popsicle-eating weather (though not like today, can you imagine how quickly a popsicle would melt today?!!!), sunny and warm; Blizzard thought it was hot. The patio could use a good weeding.

And the azaleas on our back patio were finally in bloom, only a couple weeks past most normal azaleas. I guess you'd call them "late-bloomers." HA!

Finally, two more pictures just for fun.

We have Eliza running after bubbles.
"Bubbles!" "Pop!" she says delightedly when we get out the bubbles. We don't have a picture of the excited fast feet dance she does when it's time to go out side for bubbles, but she does that dance regularly.

And we have Hayden posing with her animals. Notice that the bear is dressed in one of her dresses and the monkey is wearing a vest. She's really into dressing things these days. It's cute until she pulls out the entire contents of her closet.

Hope you're staying cool! Eat a popsicle!!!

Happy Anniversary!

It was our 8th wedding anniversary this past Tuesday, along with Hayden's last day of school. (and Eliza's 20 month birthday, cousin Lucy's 7th birthday, and Granddad's birthday if you really want to note the significance of May 24th in our family...) We tried to live it up in true parents-of-two-small-children style by going out for an early dinner to our favorite Mexican place. We should have taken pictures of the spread because we ended up with SO much delicious food. Hayden, true to her unpredictable food preferences these days, did not eat anything from the restaurant. Eliza loved the "dilla" or quesadilla we ordered for the girls. Jason and I ate just about everything we possibly could and yet STILL took home ample leftovers for lunches the next day.
Hayden and Jason at the restaurant

After we made it home, Hayden was kind enough to take our picture. She's turning into a pretty good photographer for a 3 year old! Then I managed to get a couple cute ones of the girls on the steps. Hayden is wearing one of her favorite dresses - the one with ice cream cones on it - because they had ice cream and hot dogs at the end of the year party at school.

The big surprise for Jason from me was an attempt at replicating our wedding cake. I hit the high points - blue, square, tasty. Despite aspiring to be an amazing cake decorator, I have a long way to go. It's not as easy as it looks on TV! We didn't cut the cake till after the girls were in bed, but they were able to enjoy the bonus cupcakes that came out of my experiment. Both the girls loved them, at least the icing part.

So here it is. The cake! Doesn't look too bad, right? Like I said, I need a lot more practice. Things weren't quite even. One of the cakes stuck in the pan. My icing wasn't completely smooth. But luckily everything was DEE-licious! Basically a dense vanilla cake with chocolate butter cream and fresh raspberries on the inside with vanilla butter cream on the outside. It's amazing we still have some in the fridge for dessert tonight!
It's been a good run so far. Hopefully things will continue to go well in the future. :) Maybe next year we'll actually make it to our wedding site for a picnic and pictures, as I wanted to do this year but they close too early for an evening picnic. (plus it was hot!) The celebration continues on Saturday when Jason and I get to go out by ourselves for a grownup dinner.

Conversation

Our days are full of conversation these days. Hayden asks questions incessantly and likes to talk about anything and everything. She asks hard questions (what happens when an airplane has an accident?), dumb questions (the roundabout What's this? It's a ____. What's a _____? (what we are looking at!!!)) , smart questions (where will the baby sleep? when we first told her about nugget), and silly questions. Favorite recent topics include the royal wedding (she was mesmerized when we caught a repeat showing of it that morning and has poured through the pictures in our magazines), her birthday wishlist (just about everything is one it), and planning special trips to get ice cream (she just asked me tonight if she and daddy could go get ice cream sometime when it's hot and sunny.) She also likes to narrate her life as in "she runs away " when she runs into another room. She has extended playtime alone with her animals and dolls, often during naptime, with lots of chatter. She's starting to get jokes - both to tell them and to hear them, and it's so fun to tease her and make her laugh.

Eliza's language continues to explode. She's up to 269 words on her list, and I'm sure there are ones I'm missing. She has even started to say Yes when we ask her questions! She's started combining words together (i.e. "more flying" when playing with Jason, or "no thank you" when refusing something offered her.) Some of her more recent acquisitions include bug, stick, camera, mango, morning, drum, pool, sandals. We are even starting to have conversations - even though she only says one word at a time. (see conversation described in previous entry about the pool being fun.) She will pick up a play phone and say hi over and over - often Hi Katie, since she just saw Aunt Katie.

The girls are interacting more and more together. While it often involves screeching and unhappiness, there are also really fun times too. When Eliza woke up from a nap grumpy a couple days ago, I had her in my room snuggling her in a chair. Hayden came in the room, climbed on the bed, and started goofing off by standing on the bed and then falling over. Eliza thought it was hilarious and her laughter made all of us laugh. We rediscovered the hokey pokey recently and both girls had a blast dancing and singing. We had a rousing round of "if you're happy and you know it" in the bathtub tonight.


And a new favorite game is called the wake up - cockadoodle doo game. (or something like that). I pretend to be asleep (or anyone willing to play) and then the girls yell "cock-a-doodle doo!" like roosters and I wake up all surprised. Check out the video. Eliza's Cock-a-doodle is actually cock-a-doo and is SO cute. For the record, I don't snore like that in real life! :) We play this all the time . Eliza requests it by saying sleep, sleep and tilting her head to the side, much like she does in the video.


Eliza also is starting repeat words when we tell her to say them. My favorite is guacamole. If we had it more often (if only!), she'd probably know what it was, since she did like it, but otherwise she is just good at saying it. I am trying to get it on video. Somehow she turns a spanish-esque word (is it a real Spanish or Mexican word? must be.) and make it sound italian because her version comes out Wock-ah-moan-ee. So funny.

So come on over and enjoy some good conversation. And I'll make Eliza say guacamole. You'll love it!

Water, Fun.

It's Pool Season! Yay! The neighborhood pool opened recently and on Friday afternoon, we headed over to check it out. It was nice and quiet and the kids loved it. The water temperature was a little bit cool and so their teeth started chattering almost immediately but that didn't stop them at all. Both of them seemed to enjoy just being in the water. Eliza modeled her new hat which she actually kept on quite well. (good training for the beach in a couple weeks!). And she enjoyed wandering the deck, identifying things - including some arm floats which she called fish.


And Hayden, my little girl who hasn't always even enjoyed a bath, headed right into the water. She wasn't really interested in getting her head wet, but she was happy to be in the water and even tried some kicking with me. She was also perfectly content to snuggle in a towel after we'd been there for a little while. I'll turn her into a water baby yet!I too had a great time being back at an outdoor pool. I even got to swim a few laps for the first time since State College! I'm hoping to get to swim regularly this summer, which is very beneficial to the pregnant me in many ways. :)

I think both girls really had a good time and will be quite agreeable to my plan to spend many hours at the pool this summer. Eliza spent all yesterday saying Water. Fun. Cups. Water. Pool. Fun. That's Eliza speak for "We had fun in the water at the pool, we played with cups in the water. It was fun." I think she'll have a good summer. And then Hayden was excited when we planned to go to the pool again this afternoon. Unfortunately it didn't quite work out, since we had a busy morning celebrating cousin Preston's first communion, and naps were later than usual.

Hayden was quite unhappy when she woke up only to learn that we were not going to go to the pool again as promised. (There just wasn't enough time between wake up and dinner to fit in a pool time.) So I think we'll have fun this summer going to the pool - now if I can just figure out how to get sunscreen on my back by myself, we'll be all set.

Strawberry Season

It is the start of my favorite time of year - BERRY season. And the girls have embraced this with open arms. We started getting strawberries from our farm share at the beginning of April, and they were good. Much better than store bought ones. But THEN we went to pick strawberries and boy are they GREAT. We cannot get enough of them. We've been twice now - once with Grandma and Aunt Katie, and once with Hayden's class - and we have plans to go at least one more time. They are delicious and amazing.

We had a great time heading to pick with Grandma and Aunt Katie. Eliza wondered up and down our assigned row, eating strawberries from whoever would give them to her. Aunt Katie was an especially good target for berries. Hayden helped pick some, but also did her share of eating. It's a good thing they don't require the kids to be weighed before and after.

Mmmmm, juicy strawberry.

doesn't she look so grown up?!

getting berries from Grandma

Having Aunt Katie visit made the strawberries picking even more fun!

Eliza and part of our haul.
I tried to get her to look up but either the sun was too bright or she couldn't tear her eyes away from the ruby red fruit!

Strawberry girls

(note: Hayden insisted on being the "girl" so Katie's on her knees for this pose!)

Strawberry coma.

Is there a limit to how many strawberries a toddler should consume at one time? If so, Eliza probably exceeded it.

Three days later, I went with Hayden and her class to pick. I like the phrase "strawberry beard" to describe the face of a child who has been enjoying fresh berries in the field. Unfortunately no pics to share from the field trip. We used those berries to make some strawberry shortcake to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. And we ate a bunch too. :) Strawberry shortcake was a big hit with both the girls. Jason and I enjoyed ours later in the evening with just about as much gusto, but less on our noses.

Not the most exciting video, but she's just so intent on eating. She won't answer any of my questions. She's barely distracted by Hayden's chatting. She picked all the berries off first and is now working on the cool whip and the shortbread biscuit.


Then this morning we made jam. Hayden liked helping to smush the berries. Eliza asked for a turn too, but when she got up on the stool, all she really wanted to do was swipe more berries to eat. I actually had to tell both girls to stop eating all the strawberries! And Hayden was ready to have the jam with lunch - it was not quite ready for that. Luckily we had a jar from last year in the fridge.

Happy Berry Season!

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We also had a nice visit with Aunt Katie and her boyfriend Jeff, even when strawberries weren't involved. Katie and Jeff took the girls and my camera out to get ice cream and had a great time. Hayden knew exactly what she wanted - vanilla custard in a cone with sprinkles. And Eliza quickly figured out that she did not like Katie's fruity italian ice as much as Jeff's custard and ice chocolate/peanut butter mixture. They even stopped at the park briefly to play.

Thanks for coming to visit Aunt Katie! Come back soon!