Vacation All I Ever Wanted!

This might take me a few posts, but I will try to sum up our vacation as best I can. As I mentioned in my previous post, Jake hated the ocean on the first day. HATED IT. He was ok if he didn't go *too* close and he did like the sand. We went with my BFF Melissa, her husband Dennis and their son, Ben. Ben loved the ocean from day 1...no fear!!


Fortunately, by the end of the 2nd day he was running full speed ahead into the water. And who was the one who got him in the water? That would be yours truly. Yea, that's right...the one who is normally known as "The Coddler" in our house got our kid into the big, scary ocean. Ok, that's all, I just wanted to state that for the record.



On Day 3, Brian's family came to visit. It was very nice to have some extra hands to help out with the boys & I'm sure they enjoyed seeing them on the beach :)



The rest of the week was pretty much spent chasing our little fish around the beach & in the ocean. We could not get him out of the water and he has been asking for "wa-wa" pretty much every waking minute since we came home :) I'll let the rest of the beach pictures speak for themselves.



Look at this kid...bliss.



Bye, bye Sea Isle!! :(

Some Beach Videos

The first one is of Jake's 1st day on the beach...he hated it.

The 2nd video is sometime mid week, he loved splashing in the waves (and you'll hear me tell Brian to turn the camera off at the end so that I can fit the video onto the blog...gotta love my priorities)

The 3rd video is our last day on the beach...a huge improvement for Jake over his first time in the water.

We're Baaaaaaack!

After a wonderful vacation, we are back home. It's bittersweet...it's always nice to come home to your "stuff" and sleep in your own bed...but we had such a great time, none of us wanted the week to end.

I promise to get some pictures, videos & stories up soon, but until then, I leave you with my favorite pic from the whole week and the reassurance that this little boy had the time of his life last week :)

Book Review: Target Underwear and a Vera Wang Gown

Target Underwear and a Vera Wang Gown
by Adena Halpern

Chick lit is always hit or miss for me & lately I've felt like it's been more "miss" than anything. This book is a memoir by a 30 something girl who remembers and defines her life by the fashion crazes of each moment. The author is sarcastic, witty and funny (3 of my favorite characteristics in anyone!) and I really enjoyed this book. It would make a great beach read.

18 month check-up

The latest stats are in:

Weight: 24.5 lbs (30th percentile)
Height: 32 1/4 inches (40th percentile)

Everything looked great, right on track and only 1 shot this time, so that was a bonus.

In other news, we've decided to keep sending Jake into daycare once a week to keep him familiar with everything there. He hadn't been there in over a week, so I was nervous when I went to drop him off yesterday about how he would react. Fortunately, I had nothing to worry about! He recognized the school as soon as we pulled up and practically drug me into his classroom. Once we entered, he immediately ran over to his favorite teacher and gave her a huge hug. While that was happening, his partner-in-crime, Dom The Bomb, was saying "Jake! Jake's back! Hi Jake!" and the two of them had a joyous reunion that involved a man hug. I wish I had my camera!

His teachers told me that they had been devastated when they heard the news that Jake wouldn't be there everyday. They said that one day last week, they were really missing him and during snack time, his seat at the table was empty, so they pulled out his sippy cup & dishes & set a little ceremonial place setting in his honor.

Pour one out for Jake, yo.

Pouring of sippy cup is a reenactment....not our actual home or sippy cup. Photo courtesy of google image search.

Luau Party 2009!!

I was nervous....pacing...looking at the sky. Was it going to rain? Would all of Brian's hard work on the yard be wasted if we couldn't go outside?? Would we get everything set up out there only to have it start raining partway through the party? Could I even FIT 40+ people in my house?

Fortunately, my fears were unfounded as we had great weather for the luau on Saturday! It did sprinkle a few times, but nothing major and it passed just as quickly as it started. It was breezy and not at all hot, so I was grateful for that, it made for a perfect day!

We had a few guests come early so that we could put them to work :) (and some were staying at our house, so they had no choice but to help out!) The main project of Saturday: Fruit Skewers. Here are the ladies hard at work and the fabulous final product!!



Here are some other food and decor shots:



Here is my mom modeling a grass skirt made out of some of our yard plants :)



Jake had a great day running around the yard and enjoying all of the company....here he is with my friend blogless Lisa's baby and with my dad:



He also fell head over heels in love :) He and The Boss have met a few times and there were rumors that she had been smitten with him before...but I can say without a doubt that the feeling is now mutual. I'll let these pictures speak for themselves.



Thanks to everyone who was able to make it to the party...we look forward to seeing you next year!!!

Hannah, me & Melissa


Jenn & Me


Melissa showing off her cool new shades:


Amy (Aunt "Mamee") and Sally ("Nana")

Summertime...time to be laid back...

....and laid off, apparently. After more than 6 years with Pennsylvania Culinary Institute, I was laid off last week due to some corporate restructuring (we are owned by the company Career Education Corporation) and my position was eliminated. I'm not going to lie, I was pretty much a mess at first....this was my first job out of college, this was all that I knew. While I didn't always love my job, it was easy, I had a great boss & I really liked the people that I worked with. Those factors had been enough to make me stay.

Once I got over the initial shock, I dusted myself off, tended to my bruised ego & decided that there was nothing I could do about it (aside from collect unemployment of course...thank you to everyone who is legitimately employed for your generous donations toward my unemployment compensation). I'm really looking forward to taking advantage of this time with Jake; we have the rest of the summer to attend Story Hour, schedule playdates and just hang out.

In the meantime, I've started to get my resume together & check out some other jobs. I'm hoping this will be the start of something great and that getting laid off was just the push in the right direction that I needed to take a leap of faith & do something new. I did enjoy working in a college setting and as we all know, I have a huge place in my heart for Pitt, so I'm obsessively checking their website to see what they are hiring for and hoping that maybe something will come up there. Maybe. ;)

Mama Bird...Gracie Bird?

Yesterday was a gorgeous Pittsburgh day....the sun was shining, the birds were chirping and Gracie was outside all day on the gazebo floor. Hold up...did I say she was OUTSIDE, on the FLOOR? This is weird for 2 reasons:

1. Gracie is a princess; she doesn't really "do" outside. She much prefers to be in the air conditioned house.
2. Gracie doesn't lay on the ground, ever. Not even on plush carpeted floors...she's always on furniture. So if she is outside, she can always be found on our padded gazebo chairs.

So she's out there all day, we figure something came over her & she was getting in touch with her inner dog, rather than pretending to be a human. Then in the evening, she starts scratching and digging at the floor boards of the gazebo...ah-ha! Baby birds! Their nest was directly under the floor boards of the gazebo....they were chirping with their little beaks in the air. Adorable, right? It was great until we realized that Gracie thought she was the Mama Bird. Which explains why she didn't move from that spot all day long.

All was well & adorable....until the real mama bird tried to swoop in to feed the birds....Gracie jumped OUT of the gazebo at the mama. Gracie is small....the drop off the gazebo was at least 3 or 4 feet...thankfully, aside from yipping when she hit the ground, she was ok. Ok enough to get right back up & return to her post!

We had to drag her away after that, the poor "real" mama bird was sitting on our fence with a disgusting amount of worms dangling out of her mouth waiting to feed her babies. We didn't want Gracie to be attacked by the bird, or harm herself with another flying leap.

Here's a shot of the baby birds (after the mom was able to get in & feed them, they went to sleep...it was probably a traumatic day having what appeared to be a fluffy, white ogre hanging over their house all day) and a shot of Gracie with "her babies".

Fall Fashion Must Have

Did you think I meant fall fashion for me? HA, that's a good one! No silly, I meant fall fashion for Jake. Don't you know his wardrobe needs come first now??

On a recent episode of Tori & Dean, I squealed with delight when I saw itty-bitty adorable Chuck Taylors on Liam's feet (by the way, I am slightly obsessed with Liam & his level of cuteness) I have made it my mission to find these shoes. The good news is, Jake is even cuter than Liam, so he can definitely pull them off ;)

Thankfully, my BFF informed me that they have knock offs at Target! Keep your fingers crossed that they have them in his size....

Word to your mother.

I've been bad at updating Jake's words on here (oops!) but here are some new ones over the past few weeks:

What's that?
Apple
Penguin (only he says "Mengui" if that counts as a word) :-)
Flower ("Fwowa")
Up
Outside
Peas
Cheese
Water ("WaWa", not to be confused with the Eastern PA convenience store)
Nana
PopPop
Amy (pronounced "Mamee")

Animal Sounds:

Elephant (complete with hand motion for trunk)
Rhino
Monkey
Lion

And here he is modeling his "What do YOU want?" face.

Baby it's cold...in the pool.

While the weather was perfect for hanging out outside, it did not cooperate to warm the pool up during our visit to the in-laws over the weekend. (is it just me, or does it not feel at all like July??)

Jake was all about the pool from afar (running toward it, yelling "wa-wa! wa-wa!") every time we were outside and signing more. He even loved to splash in it with his hands:



Since he was so enthusiastic about it, we figured we'd give it a shot. We put him into his swim attire, slathered him up with sunscreen, put one toe into the water & he screamed. FAIL.

The good news is, he was content to just sit in his boat on the pool deck. Yep, just sit there and rock the boat. (We found out today that the boat has been recalled, along with many others made by the same company...moms, you might want to check your kids floaty toys!)



A few days later, he also enjoyed splashing in the water on a slip & slide. That was as close to swimming as he got all weekend. Hopefully at the beach in August he'll get his chance.....

Weekend Getaway

We took advantage of the long weekend, loaded up the car & made the trek across the state to visit Brian's family & friends.

Highlights of the weekend for Jake included bubble chasing, jumping on a trampoline, eating his first icee pop and eating his body weight in black raspberries.



He also learned to play quoites with Aunt Amy & PopPop. Never heard of quoites? Don't feel bad, I hadn't either, until I started dating Brian :)



By the end of the weekend, Jake was saying PopPop, Nana and Amy (only it came out "Mamee" which made it even cuter)

Cheers to the 4th of July!



Now DRINK!