hello sunshine

Talking to Daddy on his layover

Come home soon!

She starts out coloring on the driveway...

You should have seen her face!

Day 262

Since I became visibly pregnant, I've learned that strangers have things they want to comment on or talk to you about.  First it's things like,  'what are you having', 'when are you due', "what are you naming the baby', and later 'you look like you could have that baby any minute'.  Then the baby comes and a new constant stream of comments begins. I guess I'm pretty used to it now. I certainly didn't have near as many conversations with strangers in the line at the grocery store, at restaurants, in the bathroom, and so on as I do now that I have a child. Today, a lady asked me how old Isabella was, if I would have more kids, and said that I definitely should have more, and she ended with saying 'Its just not fair, you only get 365 days to spend with them at each age they are, and then its gone too fast'.

I almost said, well luckily this is a leap year and so I get an extra day of this age with her this year, but I didn't. :)
Here is some of day 262 of our 366:
After breakfast we headed out to the zoo for some exploring.

We made it to Tuesday story time 

Followed by craft time

And, of course, some time to play in the water

Isabella was more interested in seeing the animals today than any other zoo trip. We stayed at the elephants for a long time.

Headed out to have dinner with Nana and Cappy

Goodnight

FaceTime with Daddy while he's out of town

Weekend

The weekend went by too fast with dinner with friends, celebrating my sister's birthday, pedicures, browsing at Anthro, a late night movie, spray grounds, and one too many fits from someone in the family. :)

At birthday brunch

Birthday pedicure time

Spray ground fun

Birthday picnic downtown 

Having a cookie with Aunt flower

Splash pad downtown

She was having so much fun with her friend Ava! We had to drag her away when she wouldn't stop drinking the water. Gross, right?!

We got to go out to a movie! Whoo hoo! (Thanks Brother) We stopped for coffee on the way, because I was already tired!

Happy Birthday Sister!

It was a weekend full of time with family and friends. We are enjoying all things summer with water play, bubbles, popsicles, and lots of sunshine!

Back at home

Rainy grocery store adventures

 Bubble mowing

 Summer adventures to the Oklahoma Aquarium

Enjoying a few marshmallows (shinos) from her apron pocket while we get dinner ready

And the most exciting thing this week:

Way to go Thunder! Thunder UP!

These are a few of my favorite things (from last week)

 1. My nephew's birthday falls during our beach trip every year and the boys decorate number cookies with my mom. Isabella got to help this year.

 Their creations are always interesting! (my personal favorite is the teddy bears in "floats")

 2. Sharing what are old places to us that are new places to Isabella.

 At the turtle rescue

At Pirate's Landing for dinner

3. Watching Isabella loving spending time with family. It was the first week of her whole life that she was not all that interested in me, unless she had been hurt. She woke up every day saying: George? Mimi? Flower? David?

(My lens would not unfog this afternoon for ANYTHING)

 4. Watching Isabella loving digging in the sand, running in the water, and taking it all in. Sometimes I would just watch her and soak in the moment.

 

5. Watching the sunrise over the ocean. I *almost* slept through it on the last day, but woke up in the middle of a crazy dream, threw on a hat, and headed to the beach.

And I was so glad to be there. And for a nap later in the day.

This morning when Isabella woke up she said beach? I guess she's forgotten the entire day it took us to get home from the beach and that we are very far from the beach now. In my early childhood I lived 45 minutes away from the beach, and I hope to be able to take my kids to a beach every year. We were back to normal this morning- waving to Michael from the window as he heads to work, breakfast then our bible story, grocery store run, laundry, and so on. I'm grateful for both a week away and the return to normal.

Last night on the beach

Our last night I wanted to get some pictures in the golden light, so we headed down to the beach about an hour before sunset. Isabella did not want to cooperate with taking pictures, but she had a grand time running along the beach, getting in the water, and digging in the sand.

That was until she stepped on a jellyfish. She had worn shoes at the beach every day, but I didn't put any on her this time. She screamed for what seemed like forever. Maybe 25 minutes. There was no urgent care facility on the Island, so we were told to take her to the fire station and they could check her out there. The fireman said if she was going to go into anaphylactic shock she would have already, so we were OK there. They treated her foot with some jellyfish squish sting treatment relief, (which I plan to have in my beach bag the next time we go to the beach), and sent us on our way. It was a traumatic ending to our fun adventure!