Destin Trip April 21-May 1

After my last day of work on April 20th, Joseph and I packed up for a fun trip to Destin, FL with my parents. We had a free roundtrip ticket on Southwest that expired in early May, and with no other travel plans in the works, I realized that we could fly down for free and drive back with them at the end of the month. My parents had been in Destin for most of the month of April (they left right after Easter) and had a sort of open-ended plan for their return, so that if we felt like staying longer or shorter, we could.

Although our flight was early Saturday morning, Joseph did great! We managed to score the first row seats, and although we had two stops, we never changed planes, which I was a little nervous about. I made sure to have plenty of games, books and the always popular ipad to keep him entertained, along with lunch since our flights lasted over 5 hours, and not being able to get off the plane for food would have been an issue.

We arrived in Destin to our only seriously rainy day for the trip, which wasn't that big of a deal since we didn't make it to the condo until after 2pm. We spent the first few days of the vacation hanging out, relaxing and enjoying a couple days with Papa, before he had to leave for a business trip to New Orleans.

While Joseph loves all of his grandparents, grandpas are definitely his favorite. It's really funny, though, how he'll go from wanting no one but Papa to hold him or play with him, until the minute Papa isn't available, and then the next most favorite person on the list moves into the #1 position. Not quite an out of sight, out of mind mentality; rather, he makes sure that someone is always the best choice to dote on him. In this case, Mimi became his #1 while Papa was gone. They had lots of fun playing together, and Mimi didn't have any issues spoiling him. She brought home this enormous rice crispy treat from the donut shop one morning, and let him have it after his nap. 

He was kind enough to take a few bites of the sprinkled section, and then offer Mimi the smallest of bites.

 Somehow it turned into a game of giving kisses, and Joseph didn't mind playing along. Especially when Mimi makes all sorts of fun sounds and gestures after receiving a kiss from the little guy.

 Eventually she managed to steal a few (kisses, that is, not bites) and he thought that was quite a bit of fun as well.

 We had all sorts of new fun experiences in Destin during this trip. Joseph loved helping to take the dogs for their walks, and always pointed out the big trucks and "buses" that came down the road. Eventually I realized that the county bus system stopped in front of the condo, so one morning Mimi and Joseph boarded the bus (which was basically an airport shuttle style bus) and I caught them at the end of my morning run, a few stops down the road. For $1 per adult, we got to spend a hour making the round-trip loop down the beach and US 98 Highway, over to Okaloosa Island and back. Joseph had tons of fun and couldn't stop talking about riding the bus!

The pool was a little too chilly to swim, and Joseph wasn't really ready to run into the ocean, which was also a little cold, so we spent more time playing in the hot tub than anything. It took us almost half a week to even convince Joseph to walk on the beach, and once he did, he always wanted to be down there instead. We had our first hermit crab races, and he wasn't scared at all of the hermit crabs. Instead, he had more fun picking them up and throwing them back into the ocean, so our races were a little fixed. His always made it back to the ocean before mine!

Mimi also made sure to make bathtime as fun as possible, which isn't hard considering the gigantic bathtub in their master bedroom. While it is jetted, they don't use the jets because they scare Joseph. It didn't stop him from playing with the knobs and generally trying to cause trouble, while sinking his boats and other bath toys.

 Wearing the hat of the little man in his hand. It's a good look, right? 

One of the best places to eat in Destin is Dewey Destin's, which has two restaurants, one on the bay and one in the harbor. We ate dinner at the harbor restaurant our first night, and then at the one on the bay a few days later. It's basically a shack built right over the water, and the kitchen is actually run inside a trailer in the parking lot, but they serve some of the best seafood in all of Destin! Because the tables are on piers over the water, Joseph had fun watching the fish swim below while we waited for our food.

 Lots of seagulls hang out nearby as well, despite the signs asking patrons to not feed the birds. Joseph loved pointing them and the passing boats out to us.

And playing the kissing game with Mimi. That's always a favorite!

One of the other big firsts for us this trip was that Joseph slept in a big boy bed for the whole trip! He's really too tall for the pack-n-play (although he's still never tried to climb out of one), and since the condo has a room with bunk beds and little else, we opted to add a bed rail and see how he'd do. And he passed with flying colors! I snapped this picture right after he woke up from a nap, so he looks a little out of it, but he was generally pretty happy about being in the bed. At the beginning of the trip, I told him he needed to stay in bed and call out for one of us to get him  when he woke, and about half of the time it worked! We put a toddler child lock on the doorknob that he never figured out, so even when he did get out, he'd just sit on the rug and wait.

The best part is that when we returned home, he was fine with sleeping in his crib again! He is so easy to please, it's wonderful.

I remembered a Thanksgiving trip a few years back when James was a little over 2 years old, and how he loved playing with playdoh. I picked some up, thinking it could be a fun experience, and Joseph loved it! It took a bit for us to teach him how to play with it, but it quickly took priority, even over his trains. It came in really handy to keep him entertained while we made dinner or worked on cleaning things up.

Papa returned from New Orleans at the end of the week, and Joseph was thrilled to have him back. They spent a lot of time catching up on playing trains together.

 Joseph also got more comfortable playing with Maggie and Sadie, and would frequently grab a tennis ball or other dog toy and try to get the dogs to play with him. Maggie didn't take the hint this time, as she was quite comfortable on the lounge chair!

We had absolutely beautiful weather for the last weekend, and spent lots of time playing outside. The condo has tons of sand toys, and Joseph could have spent all day outside digging, building and destroying the sand castles he and Papa built.

Eventually Papa decided to start playing tricks on Joseph, and would bury his toes, then feet and fling them out of the sand when Joseph wasn't expecting it. Or he'd start digging with the toys by holding them in his toes, not hands. Silly Papa!

My parents brought one of their tandem sailing kayaks down to leave in Florida, and Joseph and I went out with Papa one afternoon. Joseph loved it! He sat in my lap and we sailed down the pass, under the bridge, and around the harbor before it was time to head in for dinner. He kept talking about going on Papa's boat for days afterward.

On Sunday we took Papa to the airport to fly home, and my mom and I had planned to stay down through Wednesday or Thursday of the week. However, an unexpected death in the family had us making arrangements to leave a few days earlier, so we packed up and hit the road for St. Louis on Tuesday. Although we weren't able to stay as long as we had originally planned, it was still a great trip, super relaxing after 2 months of being a working mom! It'll be interesting knowing that the next time we're down in Florida, there will be 2 kids in tow!

Easter 2012

This year for Easter, we opted to have the family come over instead of traveling, as we had spent almost every weekend in March driving to and from St. Louis. Although it meant more work for us, it was so nice not to have to go anywhere!

Ashley, Mikael and Jen stayed at our house, and my parents stayed at a nearby hotel. On Easter Sunday, everyone was up and over early to enjoy a quick bite and watch Joseph discover his Easter basket and the eggs left by the Easter bunny in the front yard.

The bunny knew that Joseph was a big fan of trains, so this year he got a musical caboose for his train table, a book about trains, and of course candy. The bunny also brought Joseph a baby doll to help him figure out this whole "baby sister" thing. :)

 Papa showing Joseph how to open the eggs in his basket to find the candy, and reading his new book to him before his egg hunt.

It was a little chilly, so we layered Joseph up and let him hunt eggs in his pjs before changing into his Easter outfit. He only wanted to hunt with Papa, so we all watched.

Leading Papa around the yard; Joseph did not want to let go of his hand, which made picking the eggs up a little challenging.

It didn't take long before Joseph filled his basket, but he wanted to keep going.

Eventually, the eggs were falling out of the basket, so Papa showed Joseph another safe storage place... his coat pocket! Joseph thought that was great fun, and Papa enjoyed pulling the eggs back out and dropping them when Joseph wasn't looking so the hunt could continue on longer. Joseph never caught on to where all the new eggs were coming from!

After church, we met Mom and Gary at our house for Easter brunch. I love the auto start and timer feature on our oven - I was able to get everything ready before we left, set the functions, and came home from church to having everything hot and ready to eat!

The weather was beautiful, so we set up another table on the porch, opened the french doors wide, and ate in both the porch and dining room. Joseph had lots of fun playing with his best four legged friend after eating and running around the yard.

He still could (and does) spend hours just following her around the yard, copying her every move. It's particularly cute when she plops down, and he'll do the same, looking to her for guidance for their next move. It's a good thing he hasn't been interested in chewing on a bone!

 Nana and Papa brought Joseph a new bubble mower, which he loves! Our yard is a little uneven for the bubbles to work consistently, but he doesn't mind and pushes it around all the time.

After Joseph went down for his nap, everyone packed up and headed home. Joe and I also managed to sneak in a little nap and relax, which was wonderful!

Catching up

So I knew I had a lot of catching up to do... but wow! It's been a crazy spring! Back on March 31st, Joseph's daycare held their Easter Egg Hunt. Because they are a national chain with a handful of locations throughout Kansas City, this hunt was fairly large and organized by age at a neat park. Joseph got tired of waiting and we started "hunting" a little before the official start.

Once he realized that the eggs were filled with candy, he became much more interested. Briefly. He'd rather open each egg, eat the candy inside, then go for the next egg, instead of the Parsonage method of grab as many as possible, then check out the goods later.

And after about 10 eggs, he got distracted and decided to head for the nearby playground. Even though we tried to convince him that there was more candy in the remaining eggs. Oh well.

He was having a blast playing mostly by himself, since the hunt was still on for the other kids. Then Joseph noticed a piece of candy on the ground and got all excited about grabbing it for us.

Too bad it was a Jolly Rancher from the older kid section, so it was a no go for him. No problem, as he ran right back up to play some more.

Unfortunately, after a few minutes, he took quite the spill on the steps and a HUGE goose egg popped up on his forehead. It must not have bothered him too much, as he went right back to playing after some consoling, but the remainder of the spot is still visible on his forehead today!

Nothing a little candy can't fix!

Despite the wipeout, he had a blast and was asking to continue playing. We knew he'd have a lot of fun at the remainder of the egg hunts we had planned for this year.

In other news, I extended my job at work through April, which explains in part my lack of posts for the past month. I've finally gone through the 500+ pictures on the camera since this egg hunt, and am working on adding them to the blog and getting back into the swing of things.

On Easter weekend, at 18 weeks pregnant, Joe and I were able to find out that we're having a little girl! Quite the change, and because she was not nearly as cooperative as Joseph was, we're still not completely certain, so we may opt to do another ultrasound, just to check again. The pregnancy is still going great. I've been able to keep running, typically 2-4 times per week, although my mileage is down to 2-3 miles each time and my pace has slowed significantly, to between 11-11:30 per mile. I'm hoping to keep running as long as possible, and keeping my fingers crossed that the sciatic nerve pain I experienced with Joseph stays away.

And while we haven't picked a name or decided how to paint the new nursery (we're moving the baby upstairs with us in the bedroom we created at the top of the stairs when we remodeled, and leaving Joseph in his same room), we're working on it and enjoying shopping for baby girl clothes!