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The Girls & The Beach

Posted on September 7, 2010 at 12:50 pm

We took our first family vacation this weekend – well our first with just our family I should say. We went by ourselves, just our family of four, down to the Miramar beach area for a long weekend. The weather could not have been more perfect – highs in the upper 80s, breeze… no rain. Perfect for the beach.

I honestly had no idea what to expect. We’ve only seen sand a few times – Amelia has always been hesitant. She seems to be texture sensitive and she doesn’t like the idea of having sand on her feet. Katherine usually digs right in. Apply that to the beach & ocean and I figured Amelia would stay on a towel the whole time and Katherine we’d be chasing all around the entire trip.

Wow, was I suprised, pleasantly, by Amelia. In fact – proud might be the better term. Yes the first day she was hesitant – but she walked on the sand and went in the ocean. But day 2? Day 2 she was floating, with her floaties, by herself in the big ocean wanting to go further and further out (yes we were right there – she is only 3.) And while walking in sand wasn’t her favorite? It got her to the ocean which she loved. We even ate lunch at the beach one day having a picnic per Amelia’s request.

I think it was her love of animals that really won her over. On the beach we’d look, and find, little baby white crabs that delighted her. In the ocean we could clearly see, in lovely blue water, fish swim around us – she thought that was really cool. No fear about the animals, instead she was in awe and loves them, and I think its really what made it so wonderful for her.

In the pool she’s been getting braver, but this trip by far brought the biggest changes we’ve seen. She jumps off the edge without daddy to catch her, she can doggie paddle across the pool…I am just so darn proud of her. [She loves those floaties - next step is swim lessons to get rid of those.] Probably one of the funniest moments – she would tell daddy to back up, no back up further, no further… then you could see her think and then ask him to maybe move just a little bit closer. Happened a few times and was just hilarious how she would position him just right. Other favortie activities for her were kicking and jumping with waves, seeing dolphins and doing these leg exercises where she’d lift her feet out of the water.

Katherine, when she felt good, was as expected. I had to chase her around, she’d just half crawl/half walk down to the water. However, not only is she teething molars but she also caught a virus by the last day. So give her motrin and she was her fearless self – otherwise she was really cuddly and a little cranky and tenative. All in all she really enjoyed the sand and the water. She is a sun baby like me – put her in the shade and she’d crawl into the sun. And she tans! I have a kid who tans like her mom finally. Amelia is pale like daddy and enjoys the shade. Though we did see a bit of tanning happening after three days in the sun.

The first two days were spent on the beach in the morning, and the afternoons were reserved for exploring. Mostly we went to San Destin’s village area because Amelia loved the merry go round and the playground, and they had live music which is fun as well. The last day was all beach, all day. With a little pool thrown in. Afterall, the beach is what we don’t have here in Atlanta – so get as much as possible.

The girls stayed on eastern time for the most part which was a bit rough – that meant waking up at 5:30 central time most mornings. But it also meant seeing the sunrise, so it wasn’t too bad. And after they went to bed nice & early, we’d enjoy just watching the ocean from our porch with a glass of wine or a beer – so relaxing. I think being on the patio with a breeze watching the ocean might be one of my favorite places in the world.

So other than summer colds at the end of the trip – this was just a wonderful relaxing vacation for the whole family. We are already looking forward to a beach trip next year.

Thanks Miramar beach for a wonderful time!

My superstar Amelia.

Girls with daddy, ready to go.

Attempt at beach photos. Amelia was in a, I’m not going to smile AT the camera mood, most of the trip…

Awww, love this.

See the baby white crab on Chris’ hand?

Me and Katherine…. teething. Katherine that is, not me. She was chomping in the back right the whole trip.

I was out with them, but really wanted to capture how well Amelia was doing – a photo doesn’t do it justice – she loved doing it all by herself!

Amelia rode this two days in a row!

During live music – Katherine danced/crawled/walked near me and Amelia danced up front. When everyone clapped for the music, she took a bow.

Another Katherine daddy shot. We tried to get Amelia in it but… again, she’s at that age.

Daddy and Amelia walked to the end of the pier!

They had a playground with this cool swing.

Seriously – I didn’t edit this color… it was gorgeous, particularly the last morning. Look how clear!

Playing with mommy’s hat – it went on, off, on, off…

The view.

The view again.

Amelia posing during sunset – gorgeous colors. (She isn’t that tan…)

View of Amelia swimming with daddy from our porch.

Sunrise the last morning – just a peaceful picture.

Me and the girls our last morning during sunrise.

This is just a selection of photos – the rest can be found at:

http://dyaranddyar.shutterfly.com/2449

(And actually that is just the 100 or so I edited… I took A LOT)

Enjoy!

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The transition… and some photos!

Posted on August 26, 2010 at 12:41 pm

I think my girls are both in a transition.

Katherine – its obvious. She just turned 1. She is walking a few steps, standing a lot… at school she is now a young toddler, with only one nap a day (she sleeps great on a cot – who knew?), and drinking from sippies (she says no thank you except for a few sips of water). At school, they say she is doing great. At home… it comes out at night. When its time to sleep. She drinks her bottle, goes to sleep like an angel. And then 9pm hits and its very hit & miss from then on out. Sometimes she cries herself back to sleep. Sometimes she cries until we feed her or try motrin (she has also gotten 4 teeth in the past 6 days.) Sometimes daddy has to just hold her, though that is rare. She prefers to be in her crib with her pacis. It got to a point where I brought her to the pediatrician – are you sure there isn’t an ear infection in there? Nope. Healthy – which is great. But man, this is rough. We do have a plan to get her not so picky about sippies (she does fine, she can use them fine, she just shakes her head no after a sip or two and hands it back.) We have a plan to disassociate sleep & bottles. So we’ll get there.

Amelia – this one is harder. I think she is having a bit of a rough transition into little girl from toddler. She is a sensitive loving girl, and I think some things just take a toll on her. She’s in a new room at school which she LOVES. But she is learning a lot more, at a faster pace. She has a lot going on in that head of hers. So sometimes going to sleep is hard and she needs a back rub. She gets scared easily so that’s a challenge – just the other night the TV made a noise and now she is scared of TVs when they are off (not on of course – Mickey is still the favorite around here.) She doesn’t always understand why we say ‘no’ – that there is logic – and she gets all teary and sad. Especially if she is tired. She used to be in the independent I can do it phase, really before she could do it. Now she has entered an ‘I can’t’ phase – which makes mommy mad. I don’t ever want to hear her say that, I just want her to try. SHe is allowed to ask for help if its not going well – but to not try, not acceptable. So that’s the battle we have a lot around here. Besides, most of the stuff? She could do (and has done before.)

These rough times are really a small part of the day to day life around here. Most of the time the girls are doing great – but we are in a transition, and there are a few bumps along the way.

Speaking of turning one – we did Katherine’s one year photo shoot with the fabulous Elizabeth of Libbie Wicket. I really didn’t know what we would get – I knew in the beginning there would be good ones – because the first 10 minutes were a good smiley 10 minutes. But what followed felt like a hot mess of cranky teething 1 year old and slightly non-cooperative 3 year old…. so to see these photos? The first time I watched them was with awe. The second time made my grumpy wake up mood go away. Another time today made me tear up. Thank you Elizabeth.

http://libbiewicket.com/slideshows/Dyar0810/

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We baked her a cake…

Posted on August 23, 2010 at 1:12 pm

Amelia and I baked Katherine a cake (dairy, egg and nut free since Amelia was doing the baking) for her actual birthday on Saturday. The icing turned out thin but that turned out okay since apparently the icing is what Katherine was not a fan of with her party cupcake.

Katherine wasn’t sure what was going on.

Daddy tried to teach her about blowing out the candle – but instead she used her hand to put it out.

Isn’t that so sad?

She then decided to try eating the cake – that’s better.

Think she liked it?

This was a brief pose for mommy Sunday morning. Now that she is mobile – I try to take advantage.

Happy Birthday Katherine!

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And then she was one….

Posted on August 23, 2010 at 12:58 pm

Katherine turned one on Saturday. So hard to believe. We held her party on Sunday afternoon, and it was a small but fun-filled party – mostly with 3 year olds running around like crazy. Gotta love sugar highs.

There were cupcakes of course, as well as pin the candle on the cupcake and a cupcake pinata. Even cupcake wine and cupcake coloring! Probably the most ‘themed’ party I will ever throw.

Here is a gallery of the photos – since there are so many this will just have thumbnails – you might have to click on the image to see the full one. Or check out: http://dyaranddyar.shutterfly.com/2337 - the full gallery.

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K: You Are One

Posted on August 23, 2010 at 12:52 pm

Dear Sweetpea,

You turned one this weekend! That’s right – a year ago I was thinking I had another week to go, when you had different plans. You decided to scare me into going to the doctor – and good thing you did. You were delivered just a few hours later at 5:43 p.m. on Friday, August 21st, 2009.

This year hasn’t always been easy. From needed to visit CHOA at one week of age for a few days, to constant sleep issues due to teething or reflux or some other mysterious tummy trouble… we are glad that we see an end to that and we hope we all start getting more sleep as soon as this last batch of teeth are in. You managed to cut through at least two teeth this past weekend, the weekend of your birthday. Another one will probably be today, and a 4th maybe even later this week. I guess you wanted to do all the teeth at once.

But while there have been a few nights of sleep deprivation – the year has been mostly about our hearts growing more than we ever knew possible to include you in our family of four. I think its natural for parents to wonder if they can love a second child as much as a first, and the answer is definitely yes. We love you very much baby girl!

It seems like overnight you have become a toddler.

You are taking up to 4 steps at a time, interacting more and playing peek a boo with your friends at school.

You eat what we eat, and drink out of sippies, some of the time anyway. You prefer water out of sippy over milk. Your favorite food is either cereal bars or blueberries – its a tough call. You also love pizza – you ate almost a whole piece for lunch the other day, cut up of course.

You babble away as if we know exactly what you are saying.

You blow us kisses.

You get mad and throw a temper tantrum if we tell you no or take something away. Or like the other night, give us this pout that we couldn’t help but laugh at.

You like to pester your sister – no matter what she is doing.

You like to dance and be the center of attention.

You like to be held and to cuddle. You like your pacis.

Your favorite toys right now are this ball that suctions to the window and a hand clapper thing we won at the school carnival.

You will not wear hair clips in your hair for more than about 15 seconds. We are lucky if your shoes stay on.

Some weeks you’ll hate getting put into your car seat, other weeks you are fine with it.

Sometimes you like bathtime, others you don’t want us pouring water on you.

You are already showing a love of puzzles & blocks – just like your engineering family.

You can say mama, dada, uh oh, ya … and lots of syllables – we think ‘ai ya’ is Amelia though we aren’t quite sure. You stopped talking for a couple of weeks except for ‘ya’ while you worked on walking, but it was like someone opened up the dam because you started again this weekend and babble non-stop.

We love you so much baby girl – you are already growing into such a strong-willed, independent, loving and funny girl. You are beautiful, inside and out. You make our family complete.

Happy first birthday Katherine,

Love Mom

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Saturday Fun

Posted on August 14, 2010 at 4:56 pm

Today was a unique Saturday. We stayed home. We just played all day long together. Well Chris did projects around the house (thanks for our new shelf in the pantry and bike rack on my car!), and I entertained the girls… we did bubbles, colored… just a fun lazy day. And of course I whipped out my camera. Felt like it had been a little while, even though it really hasn’t. The light was just good with it being cloudy and I felt like we got a few good pictures!

At first Katherine didn’t want to be cooperative. She was cruising away from mommy, paci in mouth.

Then she decided to be up close to mommy – hard when I have a 50mm lens on. Though I always love pictures looking down their face when you can see the eyelashes.

While eating the lens cap, the light hit her eyes just perfectly – you can see the grayish brownish hazel color that I love so much.

Outside during bubbles – what a great shot of Amelia! She loves this new hair band, she wears it non-stop. I make her take it out to sleep otherwise, she’d sleep in it as well.

You can see in her eyes she is up to something.

Showing her sister how to blow bubbles.

Bubbles in her face! (From elmo, not her sister)

Cruising around.

Hi mom.

Have you seen Katherine’s crawl? She often does it straight legged, especially if its rough texture for her knees. (She is close to just walking everywhere so I wanted to capture it – she has been standing for multiple minutes the last few days.)

Pretty tree in the front yard (we were on front porch.)

Finally got Katherine to use the crayon on paper instead of eating it. It lasted for a good while but she eventually went back to eating.

Amelia’s really big into making me cards – which I love & treasure.

Don’t really know what she is doing, but its a cute picture.

I hope everyone is having a good Saturday (& weekend). We needed the break before we continue the madness about to hit (Katherine’s 1st birthday!)

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Baby Picture Day

Posted on August 11, 2010 at 4:00 am

Its baby picture day – now that the girls have moved up rooms, today is the day to bring in a baby picture. Since I printed them for school thought I’d post them here as well. Hard to believe they were this tiny!

This is miss Amelia – she was almost a week old here. She was a tiny petite little thing at this point, but didn’t take long for her to become a big ol’ belly baby. Now she is back to being tall and lean and has no hips to speak of. Takes after Chris. And that color? She was somewhat jaundiced – I was hoping the redness meant she’d have my olive skin but nope. Pale skin, but still that gorgeous black hair.

And Miss Katherine at not quite a week, snuggled up asleep. She never lost the hair you see here in the picture, which is why she needed a haircut last week. Its gotten lighter, more of a brown now. She has never been the petite flower her sister was – takes after me. She’ll be one next weekend – crazy!

Enjoy!

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Haircuts for all

Posted on August 1, 2010 at 11:23 am

Well, I kept putting it off. I didn’t want to cut Katherine’s hair before she turned one – but she won’t keep bows out of her mouth and it was down past her eyes…. so off to Pigtails & Crewcuts we went. (While we were there we got Amelia’s trimmed quite a bit – to control the curl craziness that summer heat is resulting in – so much more maintainable and most people probably can’t tell it was even cut!) I also got my haircut the day before and its still in its not yet washed, smooth, pretty & straight look in these photos. It won’t look like that again until my next haircut.

Katherine was a handful for sure – not upset, just the nice hairstylist would get the hair just right to trim, go to cut and … Katherine would jump a foot the other way. I helped out after a couple minutes because otherwise who knows what would’ve happened.

This is the mess we had to take care of – she doesn’t care that it is in her eyes, but I do!

This expression on her face cracks me up.

Who’s the cutie pie with the bangs? Oh that’s Katherine! No more rag-a-mop.

The messy version – no longer in her eyes!

Amelia got to sit in a car next to Katherine and get a matching princess robe. She could care less – she is in a zone watching Finding Nemo on the tv. Don’t worry, the minute the haircut is over she knows to ask for a lollipop.

Thanks wonderful ladies at Pigtails & Crewcuts – West Cobb!

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A Princess Candyland Party

Posted on August 1, 2010 at 10:48 am

Once we started playing candyland a few months ago, Amelia’s birthday request had been a candyland party. Luckily – it was easy to fulfill – found all the decor at Celebrate Express, got invites through Etsy with your picture and everything… and our good friend Shannon made the cake. We also combined her love of princesses into the party as well – having her and her cousin Lena both dress up. It was a small family party, but it was fabulous – I think everyone had a good time, but most importantly Amelia loved her party. I hope I can always give her such an enjoyable birthday.

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Sneak Peek into Princess Amelia’s Birthday Weekend…

Posted on July 26, 2010 at 3:34 am

So with like 400+ photos to go through, and work that I get paid for to do…. it’ll be awhile before I get a full birthday post with photos up. I wanted to just show a sneak peek – from both the waterslide joint part on Saturday and the Candyland princess party on Sunday. It was a great weekend – Amelia was sad it was all over last night until Chris told her she had another birthday next year. Enjoy!