Blake on the lake 3

We had a beautiful weekend here this past weekend.  This is one of the best "springs" that we have had in many years.  Here in Arkansas it goes from cold to hot balls in like 2 weeks.  This year, however, spring is still holding strong and I could not be happier about it.  (Minus the caterpillars...can't they just turn into butterflies already?)

Unfortunately, Lonnie was on call this weekend and it was a bad one.  He was super busy and we didn't get to see much of him.  This made me very sad because I was determined to take our boat out for the first time this season.  But when he finally made it home late Sunday afternoon he was just too exhausted.  No boat ride.  Sads.  

The good news is that yesterday was just as beautiful.  He called me during his lunch and mentioned taking a ride when he got home.  YES!  PLEASE!  

We still have the life jacket we used for B last year.  It is for kids under 30 pounds.  I bought her one of those puddle jumpers the other day.  It says they need to be over 30 pounds ( she is 24) but I thought I would see if it would work just for the pool and casual boat rides on non-busy lake days.  

It was super cute but WAY too big for her.  She could easily get her arms out.  Oh well..maybe next year!  

My little boat girl did so good in her life jacket.  I was worried because she was not a fan last year.  I think now that she can move around more it isn't as uncomfortable for her.  Let's just say that she LOVED the boat ride.  

When we sit on the deck at our house she always waves to boats as they pass and then says bye bye.  They can't see her on our deck though.  But when we are on the boat the other boaters waved back to her and she just thought that was the coolest.  

We cruised around for a while and then stopped and ate our dinner that I packed.  

My loves just relaxing.  

She wasn't really interested in pictures with mommy.  She just wanted to look around at everything.  BOATS!  GEESE!  BIRDS!  TREES!

Daddy started teaching her how to drive on the way home.  

She did not want to go back up to the house when we got home.  She would take a few steps, turn around and say BOAT!  

We got back right at B's bed time so we immediately put on jammers and drank our milk.  Outside.  Because it was that kind of day.  

It was an evening for the record books.  I loved every second of it.  I grew up on this lake and I remember my dad teaching me how to drive the boat.  He would say "Just aim for that dock WAY over there!"  HA!  There are many pictures of me as a kid asleep on the boat and most of my childhood memories involve the lake in one way or another.  Swimming, boating, skiing or tubing, jet-skiing, cookouts, summer lake parties, laying out...  I can't wait for B to grow up here in my hometown and get those same experiences.  She loved the boat and I think she is going to be a lake girl just like her mommy!  

Blake on the lake 1

Blake on the lake 2

Fears

So I have recently discovered that Blakely is INCREDIBLY afraid of bugs, all kinds.  She basically panics when she sees one.  I was pretty surprised by this.  I am not scared of bugs at all.  Ok I am scared of caterpillars but that is about it.

The other morning she was playing in the living room by the window.  She loves putting her toys on the window sill and then knocking them all off.  I was in the kitchen when all of the sudden I hear a blood curdling scream.  It was so loud and unlike any scream I have heard from her.  I fully expected to walk in and find that she accidentally stabbed herself with a knife or something.  No.  She was backing away from the window with that scream face.  You know the one.  The one where their face is in a total scream but nothing is coming out but you know in about 3 seconds it is about to get really loud.  

I kept asking her what was wrong and she kept pointing to the window and saying bug.  It took me a minute to figure out what she was saying because I haven't ever heard her say bug and it sounds just like bird.  Anyway, I walk over to the window and sure enough there is a dead moth laying on the inside of the window sill.  I point to it and she becomes even more hysterical.  Then I pick it up just to make sure that is what is freaking her out so much and I thought she was going to combust.

Really?  This much of a freak out over a dead moth?  It took her a good 30 minutes to calm the heck down and it basically ruined her morning.  

Since then we have had multiple episodes about BUGS.  The weather has been great so we've been going outside to play as much as possible.  The caterpillars are AWFUL right now.  Big, fat, juicy, furry, slithery, disgusting caterpillars.  All over the driveway.  

I showed her the new beach chair I got her and then she spotted the caterpillar.....

She wouldn't get out of the chair and curled her legs up as tight as she could while it inched closer to her.  

You don't even want to know what happened when a fly landed on her tray during dinner.  OMG.  

This video is when I was trying to get her to come inside but she spotted a caterpillar by the door.  She would NOT come inside.  I started this video about 10 minutes into her freak mode.  You can see when she started to walk away from me that she looks down and stops mid scream.  I think she thought she saw another one.  LOL!  Crazy girl.  

I really have no clue why this started.  No one that watches her is freaked out by bugs and I've asked them all if something happened to make her scared.  They all say no.  How weird! It has gotten to the point where I have to walk away so she doesn't see me laughing!  It is so funny.  I feel bad because she is genuinely scared but I am not going to react to her freak outs about bugs.  I mean really.  We live in Arkansas.  Bugs are everywhere.  

Do your kids have any weird fears?  How do you handle it?  I would love some suggestions! Happy Friday!

vacation via instagram

Since I instagrammed most of our trip I thought I would just share on the blog the same way.  If you follow me on IG you have seen some of these but not all.  Did you know that you can put your phone on airplane mode, instagram your pic and it will fail but it saves to your camera roll?  That way you don't have to blow up everyone's feed but you can still get the pics and blow up your blog with vacation pics!  Hello awesome trick!  

So here is our road trip to New Orleans...with a bit of commentary.  :)

Off we go!  We took my mother in law for the help and so we could go on a date.

We broke the trip up into 2 days.  We stayed in Vicksburg one night...all in the same room.  Lonnie and Bob snored while I tried (and failed) to get Blakely to go to sleep.  

stretching our legs

We made it.  Mommy got wine for lunch for her awesome driving skills and for rolling on 3 hours of sleep.  

Escalators and elevators.  All you need to entertain an 18 month old

Oh.  And steps.  She would have been happy to play in this spot of the hotel all day.  

Morning sunshine!

We taught her how to drink out of a bottle.  So she wanted to do that all the time.  

Playing with our ocean animals before heading to the aquarium.  

She was so sleepy the whole time but she did enjoy seeing the ISH!  (fish)

NanaBob gives B her phone way too easily.  She knows how to get to her games on there.  Mama is not a fan of this but she only does it with my mother in law's phone so I guess it is ok.....

The only picture of all three of us.  In Jackson Square.  

She did a lot of riding on Daddy's shoulders.  

Eating dinner on the gross hotel ottoman.  

Date....

Such a sleepy head in the morning while we were there.  

We had brunch at Bren.nan's.  They gave her complimentary strawberries and cream.  LOVED.  

My brunch..yum!

We ordered bananas foster.  It was awesome.  Blakely ate most of it though.  

Then this happened.  B started running a fever.  I am sure it was from eating dinner off the yucky ottoman...  

She didn't feel bad and the fever only last a few hours.  She was feeling fine to walk to dinner.  

She absolutely devoured the fried crawfish.  I think she ate our whole appetizer...

Her favorite though was breakfast in bed everyday.  Mine too!

We took her to the Children's Museum.  She had a great time.  This was when she saw Lonnie walk in (he met us there).

hard hat area...

This was in the little diner at the museum.  She was kinda ticked those weren't real strawberries.  

She loved crawling around on everything.  She also played well with others.  YAY!

liquid lunch

B got to Fa.ce.Time with my mom one night.  Gran Di was so happy to see her and B just kept blowing her kisses!  Adorbs.

Our second date in a week!

And then we came home.  It was a fun time and I am glad that we went.  Lonnie had meetings every day so he just hung out with us when he could.  I would not actually call this a vacation for me because I didn't get to sleep in one time.  We are headed to Florida in a few weeks with my family and you better believe I am sleeping in.  I am going to assign each person a day to get up with B.  That's right...Mama plans on sleeping in every day!  Happy Wednesday!  

18 months old!

On April 13th, Blakely Ann turned 18 months old!  

Here are a few things about Blakely this month.  

She got her 16th tooth.  It was her bottom left canine.  Now we just wait for the 2nd year molars.  I am thankful that she has not been a bad teether at all.  I have always heard horror stories about teething so I know that I got lucky with this.  

I know I have mentioned this before but Blakely started gymnastics once a week.  She gets better every time we go.  For the first five minutes they sit in a circle and "warm up" with some songs.  Blakely never wants to do this.  She just wants to run and jump on everything of course!  Her favorite is jumping on the trampoline and walking on the balance beam.  She can even do kicks while on the beam.  Now that she knows how to jump she wants to do it on everything.  Couch, recliner, floor, Daddy's belly...  

Thanks for the great idea Bridget!

She likes to "clean".  I'll give her a wet paper towel or wash cloth and she carries it around and wipes off the windows, window sills or the coffee table.  

She learned how to go down steps by herself this month.  We have a 2 level house.  The main level is the 2nd floor and our bedrooms are on the bottom level.  We have a door at the top of the stairs that we keep closed all the time but I thought she needed to learn how to safely go down the steps in case someone ever left the door open.  It took her all of 1 minute to figure it out.  She sits down and then scoots to the edge and plops to the next step.  She can now walk up the steps like a big girl just hanging on to the rail.  She can actually go down them this way too but I make her hold me hand for now.

She can finally climb onto our furniture.  She has always been a climber but our furniture was just always a little too big for her to get on.  Not anymore.  Lonnie even found her standing in the middle of our coffee table the other day.  It is glass.  Not awesome. 

She has gotten so good about letting me put her hair in pig tails.  At first, it took a bunch of bribery for her to sit long enough.  Now she gets excited when I put her on the counter and get out her brush.  And speaking of hair she has started playing with my hair while falling asleep.  She gets to watch Mickey before bedtime so she curls up beside me in the recliner and says HUH! HUH!  That means hair.  I snuggle up with her and she twirls my hair while sucking on the back of her other hand and we watch Mickey like the every day.  Best.  

Since the weather has been cooperating we have spend a lot of time this month outside.  She loves playing outside.

I figured it was about time to teach her my basketball skillzzzz....

And playing on the deck with Daddy.  

This is one of my favorite pics ever.  I was inside and they were outside just talking.  She was listening to him so intently.  I love their bond.  

We even eat dinner on the deck as much as possible.  

We have a few geese in our area and Blakely can now spot them and yells GEE!  GEE!  We feed them occasionally and she likes that too.

She is obsessed with birds.  She will stand outside and look up and yell BUH! every time she sees a bird.  It is so cute to see how excited she gets when she spots one.  

She can say almost every letter but only recognizes a few.  We have been working more on letters lately since she has no interest in colors...everything is PUH PUH.  

She says bye bye to everything.  I think that is her favorite word this month.  Bye bye to all the cars that pass, to the dogs when they leave the room, and to me or Lonnie when we walk out of the room.  

Blakely has definitely started throwing some tantrums.  They mostly occur when we can't go outside.  The other day it was pouring rain and we were under a tornado warning.  She was hysterical yelling so I finally took her out for a minute in the rain just to show her WHY we couldn't be out there.  I think that helped.  She is testing her limits (or our limits) about numerous things.  She wants to stand up in her high chair.  No.  She wants to walk around while eating dinner.  No.  She wants to walk at the grocery store instead of ride.  No.  She wants to play with my phone constantly.  No.  I am learning why it is so important to be consistent.  Hard but important.  I really can't complain too much because she does really well most of the time when I tell her no and explain why she can't do something.  She is just all about repetition so sometimes we have to go over these things 20 times before she moves on.  It can be a bit draining!  

She is still very interested in the potty.  I have not been pushing it at all but I will take her if she asks to go.  She has pee peed a couple of times but no poop in her little potty.  I do believe she is learning more about it though.  It is obvious when she is pooping so I have started asking her if she is pooping.  She will say yes.  She loves to watch us flush her poop in the potty.  She says BYE BYE!  A few times throughout the day I will ask her if there is poop in her diaper.  She used to always say no because she hates being still for a diaper change but now she will say yes if there is.  Definite progress.  

I can't believe my baby is a year and a half old!  It was so fun to watch her coo and wiggle back in the day and now I am enjoying watching her run around constantly and mimic every word we say.  Truly amazing!