I'm a slacker

I wonder if I'll ever post more than once a month?  Perhaps my goal for October should be to post twice.  HA.  Like that'll happen.  ;)

What have we been up to in September?  

We've been walking  a LOT.  The weather has been glorious lately, so we're walking several miles most evenings!  We usually break up our longest walk with a stop at the park. 

I braided Halston's hair for the first time!  It was adorable, if I do say so myself.  But gosh, how is she so big?!  

 (photo bomb courtesy of Gardy)

Chad's in class every other Saturday morning this semester, so last Saturday H and I went to the zoo while he was gone.  She was excited to see the new wolf pups (which we couldn't really see, unfortunately).  But she had a blast running around all morning.  I was only able to get her in the stroller by promising her popcorn, and even that was short lived.  Whatever it takes, right?

(she really liked getting her photo taken with statues.  not sure what that was all about.)

Halston and I were sweeping the front stoop a couple weeks back and found a huge green caterpillar -- she thought it was awesome!  I'm so glad I was able to capture this on camera!

Happy Fall, friends!

San Diego

Daycare was closed for a couple of weeks recently, so we used the opportunity to take a little trip.  Chad's been to California a number of times, but I'd never been.  We decided to head out to San Diego to see some friends and spend some time at the beach!  

We purchased a seat for Halston, even though she could still have flown free...and it was worth every darn penny.  It was so much easier flying with her in her own seat than it was with her on our laps like when we went to Florida in February.  She was much more content having some room to groove.  I also purchased a number of little snacks and toys to keep her occupied on the plane -- fruit snacks, cheddar bunnies, a sucker, new crayons, stickers, etc.  We also discovered that she looooooves Dora and now has an attention span long enough to watch a whole episode, so next time we go somewhere we'll load up the laptop or iPad with her favorite tv shows to keep her entertained.  {sidebar:  I always thought I'd not let my kiddo watch tv til she was two.  ha.  hahahaha!}  

We flew into LAX (which kind of sucked, actually), picked up our rental and hit the road.  We were on the interstate til Newport Beach (?)  or Dana Point and then picked up the PCH.  We stopped at this local diner in Oceanside for some awesome fried chicken and then walked around for a bit. 

We spent the first 4 days of our trip in La Jolla, which was beautiful.  We stayed at a hotel right on the cove and could even heal seals barking from our room!  Halston had a little bit of a rough time adjusting to the time difference; the first morning she was up at 4:15am...ouch. We made the most of it though, and went for an early morning walk before getting breakfast. La Jolla is peaceful and lovely at 5am.  You know, in case you're a morning person.  We actually started most of our days with a walk along the cove and it was great. 

See?  What a lovely way to start the day!

We of course spent a day at the San Diego Zoo, which was awesome.  We fed the flamingos -- super fun!  H was a little scared of them, but had fun.  Her favorite animals were definitely the hippo and the giraffe though!  

While we had planned to do a lot of different activities, we spent the most of the rest of our time in La Jolla, walking and playing on the beach.  The beach immediately across from our hotel was suuuuper crowded, so we ended up walking across Scripps Park every day and going to Shell Beach which was slightly less busy. Halston had an awesome time getting splashed by the waves, and sadly I have no photographic evidence of this.  #momfail  If you know me, you know I love to collect shells, so we scoured Shell Beach each day to find the best.  It was no Captiva, but we did ok.  :)

Of course, we spent a little time on Coronado Island too, on the beach at the Hotel Del.  So beautiful!

We spent our last couple of days in Temecula with our friends Casey & Lindsay...only wish we'd had more time with them!  We spent a day in Temecula's wine country, which was super fun (from what I can remember!).  One winery had the most adorable baby alpaca (or llama?).  My life will not be complete until I have one of my own.  

As you can see, we had a wonderful trip!  Can't wait to see more of California.

Happy Birthday, America!

 (Belatedly….)

We had a lovely 4^th of July weekend!  My dad visited, which was nice.  He had a great time hanging out with Halston, and she had a great time hanging out with him.  She was especially excited to see his dog, Maggie.  After they left she walked around saying “Maggie? Maggie? Grampa? Maggie?”  Pretty cute. 

On the 4^th itself my dad and I took Halston to the zoo.  She had a good time, of course.  She loved looking at the snow leopard which was laying right up against the glass.  I think she was disappointed she couldn’t actually pet him though.  Halston really liked the petting zoo/family farm part of the zoo this time too.  Last time she wasn’t too impressed, but this time she thought the goats were pretty dang awesome.  She liked the cows, too, but didn’t want to pet one. 

 

Later that night we got dressed up in our red, white and blue and headed to a bbq.  Halston was the center of attention, being the only kiddo there.  Everyone commented on how happy she was – of course she was happy, she was the star of the show!  She also begged ice cream off of just about everyone, which didn’t hurt her feelings either. 

We were home before dark, and did not do fireworks.  Maybe next year Halston will be big enough, but right now she’s just a hot mess if she gets too far off of her schedule.  Not worth it. 

Saturday morning was glorious, and we met my friend Erika and her family at Afton Apple to do some berry picking.  We hadn’t been there before, but had a great time!  It took a few minutes before Halston realized she could actually eat some of the berries…once she realized that, though, it was game over.  She was covered in berry flesh and juice!   Good thing I’d intentionally dressed her in dark colors.  She had a good time inspecting her buddy Lucia’s bucket too, in between shoveling strawberries down her hatch.  After paying for our berries (we came home with over 9 quarts!) we took the kiddos to the little petting zoo.  More goats, plus some alpacas (llamas?  Who knows?).  A good time was had by all.

We hit up another bbq on Saturday night.  It was so great to see our friends Joe & Julie who were in town from Pennsylvania! 

Sunday was spent relaxing…I think I stayed in my jammies until almost 1pm.  Eek!  My dad headed back to Wisconsin, and a nap was in order for everyone else.  I could definitely use more 3 day weekends! 

Back to work on Monday, of course, but daycare was closed on Wednesday so Halston and I had a mommy/daughter day while Chad was in Milwaukee for work.  We hit up MOA to do a little shopping.  H got a couple of new swimming suits for our upcoming vacation, and we both got some treats at the Nestle Tollhouse shop.  Nom nom nom.  We have a little bit of a cookie problem.  It’s a miracle I only bought three.  It was such  a pleasant day…Halston was super well behaved; definitely one of those days that make me wish I could stay home with her all of the time! 

Halston - 19 months

I should have started this a long time ago.  19 months and 13 days ago to be exact.  I wish I had started documenting our family's life when our daughter was born, but now is just as good a time as any to start, right?  Right.

So, what's Halston up to? 

• If you ask her what color something is, it's always 'purple.'  Or sometimes black. 
• She loves animals, especially dogs, cats (Boofy is still a favorite), squirrels, camels and hippos (she calls them 'hoe-poes' and it's adorable).
• She has some of her 'own' squirrels:  Ice, Molly and Blackie.  These are 3 of the many squirrels that live in our neighborhood and frequent our front yard.  Blackie got his name because he's black.  Duh.  Molly just came about rather innocently.  Ice, though...Ice is a bit funnier.  We were looking out the windows at squirrels one morning and noticed one had an injured front leg.  I said, "Halston, that squirrel has an owie!  What do you think we should name him?"  In her 18 month old mind owies need ice...so Ice he became. 
• She's learning shapes at daycare.   Her favorite seems to be oval.  At least, that's what she asks us to draw for her on the regular.
• Generally, H is a pretty good eater.  She loves yogurt and cheddar cheese, chicken (grilled or baked, she doesn't seem to care for breaded), rice, peas & corn, and any fruit, especially berries or grapes.  She'd live on cookies if we let her, but only gets them as a special treat. 
• She's learning her ABCs and started singing the entire alphabet on her own last weekend.  She also likes to sing Rockabye Baby or Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. 
• SO. MANY. WORDS!  Knows almost every animal sound, plus Mommy/Daddy, fan, light, button, animals, Gardy, Ebbie, Boof, Johan (O-han), Grandpa/Grandma, Uncle, Isaac, Dalton, Chris (kiss), book, shark, nigh-nigh, love you (love oo), milk, grapes (gapes), berries (bewies), snack (nack), blankie (minky), NO, cuckoo, outside (side), bye-bye, bubble, apple, bunny, cracker, belly, chica, Please/Thank you (sometimes has to be prompted), baby.
• She'll follow some instruction...can throw things in the garbage when asked.
• Our awesome daycare provider started working on potty training Halston, and it's starting to catch on.  She'll use the potty a few times each day.  Still definitely needs diapers though, as she hasn't quite figured out how to know when she needs to go. 
• Halston loves music and TV!  Bad parent alert, I know.  She doesn't ever watch for very long, but we do usually keep it on when we're home.  She especially likes TV shows that have catchy toddler music, i.e, Thomas, Zou, Bubble Guppies, etc. 

Like any kid, Halston loves being active and playing outside.  She's fully embraced summer, and we've tried to take advantage of Minnesota's shortest season.  I'm trying to be more intentional about planning outdoor activities for her -- so far we've enjoyed a nature reserve with an awesome kiddie playground and Teddy Bear Park as well as a couple of trips to the zoo. 

Halston was recently in her godparents' wedding and was the cutest darn flower girl ever!  Her daddy had to walk up the aisle with her though, because she only wanted to hold his hand, not Dalton's.  The wedding was held on my grandfather's family farm, which was where Chad and I were married 5 years ago!  Halston got to go on her first tractor and 4 wheeler rides, which she thought was pretty awesome.  

My sweet girl has such a zest for life!  My hope for her is that she lives it to the fullest.