Hawaiian Getaway

My blog is usually about Summer because she is awesome, interesting and super cute but today I thought I would blog about my recent trip to Hawaii. I know what you are thinking, how cool a trip to Hawaii but it was really a work trip and I went alone so I didn't do the normal vacationing things that you would imagine, however I still had a very nice time hanging out with my brother, an old friend, and co-workers. The picture I took above was out the plane window as we were landing on the island, luckily I had a window seat and there were no clouds at that level.
When I first arrived I got my car and headed to my hotel. I had a few hours to kill before a co-worker was picking me up for dinner so I threw on a tank top, some shorts, and my flip flops and headed to the famous Waikiki beach.


I am not a big fan of actually getting in the ocean because it is full of scary things and the water is generally colder than I like but I do like looking out into the ocean and beyond and sat for a while, well until I got bored of just sitting there burning. I decided to take a stroll through the shops and bought a very expensive bottle of sunscreen, expensive only because I was buying it in Hawaii, but it was well worth it, my shoulders felt like they were going to catch on fire and I protected myself from any annoying burns. Since I had not really been on the sand yet I decided I would again go to the beach side and actually walk out onto the beach, not just sit on a bench on the other side to take a picture. I really don't like sand, it is sticky and annoying but I saw there anyway, all alone, looking around at the people having fun and took a few more pictures.



I could only handle so much beach and sun so I headed back to my hotel and finally went to dinner with a coworker where I enjoyed the coconut shrimp and coconut cake. Over the rest of my trip I tried the local flavors, I love the Asian food that you can easily find anywhere on the island. I met up with my brother and my very first boyfriend and his wife, small world, and we enjoyed dinner at some neat little island place.



The food was decent until they brought the fish, and I like fish, mostly, but when it comes out with a head, eyeballs, and a tail bleh I don't like that kind of fish. We all four picked at it, luckily that was the last dish and the rest of the food had done the job so we were not that hungry.
I have a feeling that was my last trip to Hawaii, at least for awhile, and I really tried to enjoy it. I went shopping and bought some really cheap items to give away to friends and family and I ate way too much but it was overall a nice relaxing trip. I even did a lot of work while I was there which is bonus since this was a company trip.

Thump Bump and a Boom

At some point last night between 2 and 3 AM I was asleep and awoke from the sound of a thump bump and a boom. Summer's room is right above our room so I can easily hear anything unusual. This thump, bump and a boom has happened a few times in the past week but I normally just make sure it goes away and go back to sleep but last night I quickly grabbed the monitor on my nightstand and looked in on Summer to see what may have caused the noise. As I looked in the monitor I saw Summer getting into her bed and laying down. She moves a lot when she sleeps and I am guessing she is moving around so much to the point she falls out of her bed onto the floor, which would be the thump bump and a boom sound I am hearing, and upon falling she wakes up and gets herself back into her bed. I can't see her just waking up in the middle of the night, getting out of bed to turn around and get back into bed so I think she is falling. Luckily her bed is not very high and if she falls out she is not going to get hurt, but she doesn't have a lot of room to wiggle out of her bed because the bar along the side is suppose to keep her in. Your guess is as good as mine as to how she manages to fall out, if that is in fact what is happening.


Oh well whatever the thump bump and a boom is at least Summer loves her new bed, she really loves having a bed she can get into, she goes right to bed each night and pushes me away while I try to sing her Twinkle Twinkle Little Star because she is ready to go to sleep. She loves the little sheets and having her own little pillow, she is such a great night time baby, she sleeps all night, except for the thump bump and a boom but she goes right back to sleep. Her bedtime is around 8:30 and she wakes up around 6:30. Normally she wakes up talking and singing and hanging out in her bed which is such a nice way for me to wake up because I can hear her through the monitor, such a soothing slow mellow waking. I have such an easy going baby and she is still the most awesome little thing I have even known!

Water Balloons

Remember this post about our neighbors moving, well they ended up around the corner in the same neighborhood. We saw them last weekend when we stopped at a garage sale and recognized the lady. How odd is that, so the house next door is on the market to bee sold to hopefully someone with a young kid, wishful thinking?
In that same post I told you about the fun time we had playing with water balloons and it was so much fun we had to do it again! Summer isn't a big fan of getting wet for some reason, I know, strange kid, but she likes playing with these balloons and when they pop and happen to spray her she is ok getting wet.
First I have to tell you what happened while I was filling the balloons up, we have this system where I fill up the balloons with the faucet on the house and hand them to Kris and he ties them. Papa and Summer were sitting near the end of the walkway and Kris decided to throw a balloon in their general direction. The balloon ended up landing in the dirt bed just a few inches away and when it did it made a wonderful THUD, popped, and threw up watery dirt up ALL OVER Summer and Papa. Luckily Summer had her back turned to the dirt but she ended up with muddy watery dirt all over the back of her shirt and legs. Papa did not get hit with as much dirt but was not happy to see Kris and I over near the house doubled over laughing our butts off. It really was one of the funniest things ever, and the fact that Summer had no clue that mud had been flung all over her back made it even funnier. That set the right mood for the rest of the time we spent playing in the front yard that afternoon.
I filled up several balloons and put them in a container for Summer and daddy to do what they wanted, throw them up in the air, let them roll down the driveway, throw them at each others feet, pop them with their teeth, and they had a blast.





See the mud on Summer's arm in the last photo (hehe)! It was a nice scorching hot day and we had a lot of fun playing, I bought a large package of water balloons so we will be back outside in the near future to fill up, pop, throw, bite, roll, kick, step on, and have fun with water balloons.

Its Raining Its Pouring ...

... and instead of inside snoring we were outside playing! It doesn't rain much in Vegas so when it does it is a treat. There was no rain in the forecast that day, we only expected hot blazing sun rays and a temperature of 110 so when the skies turned black that afternoon and the rain started pouring down we took the opportunity to use the umbrella that has been in the back of my car forever and have some fun. Summer wasn't exactly thrilled to get wet at first but after watching daddy run around and have fun she decided it wasn't that bad. She did however have some issues holding the umbrella. Maybe I should get her a small size umbrella that she can hold but then again as much as it doesn't rain I probably won't. She also slipped on the wet garage and fell but not bad enough to keep her from running through the grass with her daddy while screaming little girly screams.





I would like to say the rain cooled things off but it did not, in fact it made things worse, the humidity jumped from 0 to 50% and that never feels good. We still had a fun time for about 20 minutes while we got to play in the rain.

Ice Cream Cone

Luckily for Summer I had a fun photo contest that involved an ice cream cone. Summer has had ice cream and popsicles but never an ice cream cone and never all to herself. I didn't know what to buy but decided I would just get her a single cone from the store so I would not be tempted to eat one myself.

We went outside after dinner around 7:00 pm, the sun was still blazing and the temperate was still nice and warm, around 100 I would guess. I sat Summer in the swing, set up my camera, peeled open the ice cream cone and handed it off. Summer took no time at all at this new thing in her little hands and dove right in.



I asked her what it tasted like and to my surprise she said "Chocolate". I wonder if she really knows what chocolate taste like or if she was just guessing. Maybe she does, I don't know that she really ever has chocolate, in fact the more I think about it I have to wonder if I really did hear her say that, perhaps my photo taking was impairing my hearing ... anyway she liked it even if she knew what flavor it really was and things started getting way more exciting.



After a short while, short because it didn't take her anytime at all to devour this monstrous thing, she started dropping pieces and using her hands to dig into the sticky sweet mess.



Around this point I figured she had enough and was to my happiness she had achieved the ultimate messiness that I had hoped for. The ice cream was everywhere, her face, her arms, her dress, her legs and I sat there wondering what was the best plan of attack to clean her so she could come back inside. I decided the water hose offered the best opportunity to remove the sticky icky mess and since it was still well over 100 degrees out maybe she wouldn't mind if I sprayed her off.



She did not mind a bit, in fact I walked her over to the water hose, turned it on and put it right against her mouth and let it work the mess down. She gasped a little but seemed to enjoy it as I used my other hand to help wipe off the messiness. Then I used the house to douse the dress, arms, legs and shoes. She seemed satisfied, or maybe it was a chocolate ice cream overload? I enjoyed taking photos and she enjoyed making the photos so it was a win win situation for the both of us.

Rock Climbing

I am so behind on updates, I have pictures just sitting there waiting to be posted and yet I haven't found time to update ... I have no idea why, oh maybe because I am in Hawaii this week, for work, not a vacation. I am all alone while my honey and baby are back in Vegas, probably not missing me and probably not keeping the house clean ... but enough about that - I need to update, I have Red Rock, Ice Cream Cone, Rain and Water Balloons to tell you about but I don't want to overwhelm you so I will start with Red Rock (which is about two weeks old almost /sigh) but still worth mentioning and sharing the awesome photos that I took.
On Sunday, the day before Summer's birthday, Kris and I decided to travel out to Red Rock and do some sight seeing and maybe some hiking. We had never really been there before to just look around and we it had always been a mystery and a thing we would do "one of these days" so on this morning we woke up early and decided to check it out. We woke up normally but because the temperature was going to be over 100 we wanted to get out there early and get back home. We arrived to the gates of the canyon by 8:30 and it was already 88 degrees out. We stopped at the first hiking/scenery area and decided to walk down and have a look. We hadn't planned on really doing a lot of hiking but somehow we ended all the way down to the bottom of the canyon. Of course the walk down was easy, we had no problems getting down and around except there was a lot of lose gravel so we really had to keep a tight hold on Summer and assist her so she didn't slip. The area at the bottom of the canyon was really nice and there were trees and big rocks and because we were so close to the canyon wall it was actually a lot cooler and shaded. We saw lizards, acorn trees, birds, some neat branches and a lot of cool rocks. Summer was enjoying the "hiking" but we really had to keep a hold of her arm to keep her from falling and she tired out pretty quickly. The pictures of her in the canyon were amazing and it was worth worth hiking around with a huge camera strapped around my neck.






Overall it was a great hiking experience for all of us, we did a lot more hiking than we expected to do and did fine until we tried to get back UP to the car. We somehow made it up, Kris and I both had to carry Summer up and even without carrying her and lugging an extra 30 pounds we felt like we were going to die. We weren't really prepared for the hike, at least I wasn't, I mean we did bring plenty of water and had sunscreen but I had on shorts and was worried about scratching my legs. At one point during the hike we saw this neat 5 or 6 foot overhang that Kris suggested I climb up to get a picture. I am such a baby when it comes to climbing however I did end up climbing up and sitting there hanging on for dear life while he snapped a quick picture.


It really doesn't look so scary does it, and it really wasn't scary, yet I still managed to bang my knees together when I jumped down and end up with two ugly bruises. Only I would do something like that ... well Summer got hurt too, she had a small scratch on her leg from one of the times she slipped on a rock but she never indicated she was hurt so I guess it wasn't a bad scratch.
By 10:00 am we were back in the car heading home. We had a very productive morning and the temperature had already reached 98. The road through Red Rock is 13 miles and we had hiked at a path off the first stop which was a mile in so we had a nice drive to exit the park. I think Summer fell asleep around mile 3 or 4 so I know she was exhaused. She woke up before we got home and still took a nice long afternoon nap.
We went back the next Sunday with Cliff this time and did not bring the camera. Actually we were going to and I decided at the last minute that it was too much trouble lugging around that big thing when we were going to be doing some serious hiking instead. We did not bring the camera and of course there were some awesome photo opportunities that we missed, several opportunities, several really cool things, we even saw a baby bat! That just means we have to go back and take the camera next time, even if it is big and clunky and hangs down around my neck while I am trying to maneuver myself over the rocks. We plan on making Red Rock a weekly thing, we love being around nature and Summer did so much better the second week, she seemed to know what she was getting into and enjoyed herself more. Papa had a hard time and vowed never to return but we may get him back again because he did like the scenery. On the way back from our second adventure Summer ate an entire McDonald sausage burrito during the 11 mile trip out of the park so I guess the second trip made her hungry. I wonder what she will do next time?
I still have several posts to update and I will get to them, just be patient and enjoy having something to look forward to. I was afraid when I restarted this blog that I would run out of things to talk and show about but so far that hasn't happened (yay) so until next time ...

Second Trip to the ER

To quote the last sentence in my last blog "She will not see the doctor again until she is 3, unless she gets a cold which is a possibility but we will try to keep her healthy as best we can!" That was on Tuesday and not TWO days later we end up in the emergency room.

Around 8:15 PM, we were all in bed watching Sesame Street. Summer had her bath and was clean, sleepy, winding down, I was on my laptop and Kris was watching Sesame Street with Summer. Summer was really tired tonight, she had a busy day playing and her day had been great. While watching Sesame Street she proceeded to pick up a pillow and try to flop down on the bed with it but instead she missed the bed and hit the wall at the front of the bed. It was a pretty loud bump and she started to cry but at first I thought she was laughing. Kris grabbed her and was holding her while she calmed down and we noticed he had blood on his shirt so we both jumped up and carried her into the bathroom so we could see better. That is when we noticed she has split open her chin, thinking she must have cut through with her sharp little teeth! Kris has had to go to the ER twice and get stitches in his face and immediately said we had to take her to the ER to have stitches. When we saw the wound it was open and looked very deep and bloody. I threw on a bra and shoes and we jumped in the car by 8:19. Two minutes into the car ride the bleeding had all but stopped and I could barely even see the cut and Summer was asleep. 17 minutes later we were at the ER.




Summer continued to sleep while we checked her in.


She got a nice ER bracelet, had her oxygen and temperature checked and the nurse looked at the cut. She didn't think the doctor was going to do much for it and she was right, another hour and a half of waiting to see the doctor only to find out that neosporin would be all that she needed. It looked a lot worse when it first happened of course. We were back home and I was in bed by 11:00.

It amazes me how easy kids can get hurt, and how scary it is when they do. I love my child to pieces but that sick feeling you get when they are hurt is insane, I don't know how some people manage to function in a real crisis. I was seriously wondering if I was going to pass out or throw up as Kris was driving to the hospital. I know you just do what you have to do but wow if I react this way to a little bit of blood and a tiny little cut, can you imagine what it would be like if ... wait a minute I have a great idea, I just won't let anything like this ever happen again so i don't even have to think about it.

Anyway today she seems fine, I doubt she even remembers anything, she stopped crying right away and basically slept through the entire trip. I hope she doesn't have a scar, we are slathering her with scar cream to help keep it moist and heal better.

Two Year Check Up

Her official height and weight measurements were about the same as my home measurements, 31.3 pounds at the office, I had 31.5 on our bathroom scale and 35 1/4 inches at the office while I had 35 from her bedroom closet door jam.



Look how much taller she is just in one year, can you imagine growing that much, I guess we all did it but wow I was pretty amazed at the difference in even just the past 3 months. I should get a pretty chart to measure but the door jam is so reliable and if we ever move I can transpose the numbers over. So Summer is about 90% for weight and 80% for height but the doctor said she was proportional.

Here is her stats since birth:

Birth: 7 pounds 11 ounces, 18.5 inches
3 Months: 13 pounds, 24 inches
6 Months: 19.5 pounds, 28 inches
9 Months: 22.5 pounds, 29 inches
12 Months: 24 pounds, 31 inches
15 Months: 26.5 pounds, 32 inches
18 Months: 28 pounds, 33 inches
21 Months: 30.5 pounds, 34 inches
24 Months: 31.5 pounds, 35 inches

She is developmentally right on track, and as for her speech the doctor said she was highly advanced which is no surprise to us. I was surprised at how much she actually talked to the doctor since she can be shy at times but she rambled on and on about odd things.

The physical exam was perfect, Summer sat on that table and did not move or make a sound, she let the doctor look in her eyes, her ears, and her mouth, she even opened her mouth nice and wide which I attribute to the dental visits. The doctor said her teeth were nice and white and asked about fluoride. Since we drink bottled water I will be getting the water in the children area that has the added fluoride and give her a teaspoon a day mixed in with her water.


We are switching her to 2% milk - we actually already did about two weeks ago, she no longer needs the extra fat that whole milk provides for her brain development. No need for vitamins because she eats so well. The doctor asked if we were starting to potty train, we said sorta but not really and the doctor said she is still really too young which I totally agree with. I think I will wait until she shows a lot more signs and is able to pull her pants off and on by herself.

We really had no questions or concerns for this visit. She had to have one shot, or as I liked to call it - immunization, I kept saying immunization so she would repeat it, it was her HIB shot. Before we went in to get the shot I gave her a sucker thinking it might help. She sat on Kris's lap and he held her arms against her chest and the nurse swabbed her leg and quickly stuck her with the needle. I immediately got tears in my eyes and Summer didn't do anything. She watched the nurse give her a shot, pull it out and put the band aid on and continued happily with her sucker. She never cried and even said thank you (per daddy's request) when she was finished! Figures we sometimes stress and worry over nothing.

She will not see the doctor again until she is 3, unless she gets a cold which is a possibility but we will try to keep her healthy as best we can!

Our neighbors are gone!

We had some neat neighbors ... there was a mom, a dad, and about 5 kids all under the age of maybe 8. They were all girls except the youngest was a boy who was a little bit older than Summer. They were all cute and very well behaved kids and they came over into our yard a few times and played with Summer. If we were out and they were out I would go get the sidewalk chalk so they could draw. Here are some photos I took of them last Thursday night.


Earlier that same evening we played with water balloons and they all had fun.



Sunday night they rang the doorbell and asked if the "little girl" could come play, but it was too late, already after 7, and Summer was about to take a bath and settle down. That was the first time they ever came over to see if she could come out and play. The next morning they had a lot of trash out and we realized they were gone! I think they were renting and quickly left. Bummer we didn't get to play together one last time. They were cute and Summer will miss them. Maybe a new neighbor with kid(s) will move in.

Not Me! Monday

I love reading blogs and one blog that has really inspired me to be more active on here and show more photos is this one, I encourage you to check it out if you love reading blogs as much as I do. This mother also takes pictures like I do but she is a professional and she has 4 kids instead of one, can you imagine? Anyway go check out her blog, she has an awesome following.
In honor of her weekly Monday theme, she writes "Are you feeling guilty for not changing your children's bedsheets for weeks on end? Feel trashy taking your trash to the curb with no bra on? Overcome with embarrassment after your child wets his pants in public? We'll don't be! Not Me! Monday was born out of my desire to admit some of my imperfections and reveal a few moments I'd rather forget. You may find it therapeutic to join in and do the same thing!"


... so I decided to give it a go and tattle on myself!

Here we go! I NEVER bribe my child with suckers so I can take pictures, I would NEVER do that!




and I never forget to brush her teeth, never. Of course I HAVE started potting training her, for goodness sakes she is already 2! I haven't ever told her to go pee in her diaper when she tells me she has to go, don't worry it doesn't happen often anyway, I mean if it did happen. I never ignore her to play farmtown on facebook, what kind of mother would do that? I also never tell her to go find her daddy or papa when I am playing on the computer, I would not dare do that! OK I think that is enough for now, I am quite certain I could continue but you probably have something else you need to do.

2 one more time ...

Because celebrating you are turning two once just isn't enough, or because we wanted to do it again with papa, or because we had an entire Elmo cake that never got touched ... anyway we had another small family party at home a few hours ago. Summer was ready, it only took mentioning Elmo cake and she was game. Earlier in the day I had bought her a bunch of balloons and just yesterday we decided she was ready for a toddler bed. Not exactly, we didn't just decide she was ready for a toddler bed, in reality we saw the toddler beds while randomly shopping, thought they were super cute and we were a little surprised at how not expensive they were so we decided we would try it. As of right now Summer is in her new toddler bed sleeping like a baby. After her bath I brought her upstairs, set her in her room just inside the gate and as I, daddy and papa proudly watched, she walked over to her new bed, climbed inside and proceeded to go to sleep. It was amazing how easy the transition was, she could not have had a bigger grin on her face nor could we have. I sat on the computer just outside her door thinking she would probably get up once, maybe twice, but she never did, she was asleep within 5 minutes I bet. Why did it have to be so easy??? Here she is earlier when we brought the bed upstairs and set it up in her room.


I actually cried when we put the bed in her room and she so easily went to it, why does she have to grow up?

Back to her second party, so tonight we had dinner and afterward did cake again! Summer was ready. I put in another candle and this time she knew what she was doing, she blew it out before I could even get a picture of it lit!


There she is with a look on her face that says, Mom, hurry up, I want to eat this thing! She enjoyed it and did surprisingly well with the fork.


She didn't make near the mess as she did with the cupcake, I guess she learned how to do it this time. We let her eat off of the Elmo for a few bites then we got her a small plate because if not she would have sat there and ate the entire thing.


So after cake Papa took her upstairs to play with some of her new toys, I gave her a bath and then she went to bed, on her own, like a big girl. She will wake up in her new bed as a TWO year old leaving one behind with the crib. I don't know what happened to that little 7 pound, 11 ounce baby that I had 2 years ago tomorrow, she was so small and tiny and slept most of the time. She surely did not talk nor did she like cake.

The Birthday Party

This is what it looks like to be 2, or almost 2 ...

The day was a FULL day preparing for this party. I had to make an Elmo cake, Sesame Street cupcakes, a fruit basket and I bet I spent at least 3-4 hours on baking the cakes and decorating them. I thought the cake would have been harder but it was actually easier to decorate than the cupcakes. I am very happy with how they all turned out. Summer played and watched tv while I baked cakes and I let her lick the batter.

I made 20 cupcakes and that was enough because we didn't even touch the Elmo cake so I am saving it to eat on her actual birthday on Monday, hopefully it will still be good ...

We started the party off with real food, we had hamburgers, hotdogs, chips, fruit salad, mmm everything was yummy.

After we ate we did the birthday candles, Summer picked out an Elmo cupcake, we put a candle on it for her and she smiled so big while we sang Happy Birthday! You should have seen her trying to blow out the candle, she kept blowing and blowing but just wasn't getting enough air to the flame, however she finally got it.

You should have seen her trying to blow that candle out, blowing and blowing and blowing LOL

After the cake was cleaned off her face and hands we headed into another room to open the gifts

Summer loved opening her gifts, this was really the first time she has actually opened a wrapped gift, she kept asking for more after one was opened and if she got clothes she tossed them to the side and said "more gifts" it was cute.

After all the gifts were opened and looked at a few times the girls headed outside to play in the pool. I bet they swam for at least an hour, it was late by the time they finished and I think everyone was exhausted, I know I was.

We ended up getting home around 8:30 - whew it was a long afternoon but a wonderful day overall!

I want to thank everyone who came and celebrated at the party with us, Nick, Charlene, Terri, Becca, Evan, Sabrina, Craig, Joe, Yvonne, Jessica, Chloe, JC, Bette Mae, Casey & Ana and thank you for all the wonderful gifts, I am washing some of the outfits right now, when I get done I will put all the gifts together and take a picture! Summer is actually playing with her gifts this morning because she didn't have time to play with any of them last night. So far she loves everything!