Wait......Where's Savannah?

That's right, for the first time in a long time, little miss Savannah is not in the car with me.

So nice having family around, my mom and grandma gave me a couple of hours to do what I wanted this afternoon so I decided to relax at the beach.  

 All that a single gal needs...

Ahhh... so relaxing.

It's funny how 2 hours to yourself is so incredibly appreciated now.  

Family Time

Getting in lots of family time! My grandma flew in from Michigan on Saturday then my mom came down from Sarasota on Sunday.  We've all just been hanging out, eating, eating some more and enjoying our little munchkin.  

Heading out to Olive Garden, and little miss squirmmy pants wants Down!

 This little girl loves her sunglasses!

 Who? Me?

 Gotta just let her go sometimes!

Hangin' with Gigi sharing snacks

 Now we're off to brunch at MarinaVillage

My grandma, mom, me and Savannah - 4 generations :)

...and of course Shaney

Savannah was tearing up the oranges!

 I worked in the accounting department at the Resort at MarinaVillage throughout my pregnancy but decided not to go back after I had Savannah.  There is a nice restaurant there that over looks the water, thats where we decided to go Sunday morning....

 She loved running around the huge resort inside and out, and she got to see some fishys 

 night time fun (she loves wearing her shoes at all times)

 Sharing a brownie with Gigi

More fun to come :)

Little Dippers

How did we not know about this place?  Since Savannah started walking, I constantly google things to do with her in our area.  Not once did this place pop up.  Someone had commented about it on Facebook so I googled it, and we checked it out today.  It's the perfect little summer tot spot for little ones.  Savannah loved it, especially going up and down the stairs in the water...

Not the greatest video but I thought I'd share it anyway...

1st Family Trip Part Deux

Our trip went great, fast but great.  I know I said I enjoy packing for a trip but I really didn't realize how much I was gonna need to bring for Savannah.  Holy moly, she literally had 5 bags.
1. clothes
2. toys (i had to bring a few things for her to play with)
3. food and snacks
4. diapers, swim diapers, overnight diapers and wipes, bath toys and wash etc.
5. her diaper bag

Wow. Plus, the umbrella stroller, pool toys and the bumbo (to use as a highchair in our room) which we didn't end up needing.

I tried to stay really organized so I wouldn't forget anything; I had lists coming out of my ears! I didn't want to forget something for her then have to buy it up there, what a waste of money.  And I'm happy to say that all of my list making worked because we didn't need anything for her. And luckily my mom was still able to fit in the car with all of our stuff!

We headed out around 10 am to pick up my mom in Sarasota.  Got her picked up, stopped for lunch at Cracker Barrel, then we were on our way.  Savannah started to get cranky when were about 45 min away.  It was past her nap time and I didn't have milk handy for her.  This was her longest car ride yet so I'm sure she was wondering what the hell was going on.  We stopped for milk and she was out; after a small traffic jam we made our way into Clearwater Beach.  A lot of memories for me, my mom and I were reminiscing the whole time (sorry Shane).  I loved it.  A lot has changed, and it was crazy busy there.

We all really had a great time.  Shane, my mom and I have always gotten along really well, we laughed all 4 days and truly enjoyed each others company.   And I have to say our little munchkin was A-MAZ-ING.  Since this was our first trip, I wasn't sure what to expect from her.  I've said before that she's easy going and she is but you just never know.  Well, she was awesome, we even used the hotels crib and still, she was fine with it.  That was probably my biggest concern, she has only spent the night out 3 times, ever, and it's been in her pack-n-play.  But she had no problem, probably because she was so tired by the end of the day. We hung out at the pool, the beach, checked out the area and where we used to stay when vacationing back in the day, shopped and relaxed.

No complaints.  We are already planning our next family vaycay next year!

How sweet is this??

You know it's the cutest thing ever when you see a father with his little girl, how about when he's painting her toes?

Love it.

Holy Toledo it worked!!

It took 9 days but she did it! She drank 3/4 of her milk out of her sippy cup this morning! I can't tell you how excited I was, it was awesome.  I switched up my plan all together and it freakin' worked.  Are you feeling the excitement? As you may have read in my Sippy Cup? post below I was taking a very delicate approach.  I have been extremely easy going with it and did not want to force it on her.  So this morning when she gave me the oh so adorable but grating on my nerves "No, No" I thought to myself every morning for the past 9 days she has told me No, No and eventually I just go and switch the milk to her bottle, she's going to continue to do this because she knows she is going to get what she wants.  Sooooooo when she said No No, I said YES (in my firm mommy voice) Picked her up, put her on my lap and put the sippy cup in her mouth.  She drank almost the entire thing without hesitation. Awesome!  I know that's not the end of it but at least it's a start.

(as Im typing this Shane is trying to give her her nighttime milk in the sippy for the 1st time, she's not very happy about it)

 Yay!!

Good Job Savannah!

Cleaning with mommy

I've grown very accustomed to cleaning with a little one around, especially one who is my constant shadow.  It definitely takes me longer to get things done, but they get done regardless and I always try to have some fun with her in between. Usually we dance around together :)

So Im kinda a weirdo about the house being clean when we go away.  Whether it's for the weekend or a week, the house must be spotless.  I'm telling you, it's a little crazy.  I even clean the fridge, not just of food but wipe down all the shelves and everything.  All laundry has to be done, everything dusted, floors done...etc. I really hate the idea of coming home to a unkept house with piles of dirty laundry.  I tend to take it overboard though.  Oh well, I am a product of two obsession clean freaks.  That's my excuse.  Better then being a dirty freak.  well, you know what I mean ;)


(please excuse my horrible indoor iphotos)

can I help mommy?

Hmmm...what do I do with these things?

Uh-oh, break for boo-boo

kiss it and make it all better!

 "I'll supervise Mom"

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Shane turned <blank> on Tuesday.  Boy, you know you're getting old when you don't want to announce your age to everyone.  Just kidding babe!  I have to mess with him just as he does with me ;)

Anyway we celebrated at his parents house with dinner and cake...

Happy Birthday Babe!  We'll be celebrating again this weekend at the beach!

Savannah is 15 months old!

All about our 15 month old munchkin...

She weighs 18 lbs 12 oz , our little peanut

She wears a size 4 diaper and size 4 shoe

She wears 18 mth shirts and 9-12 mth bottoms

She has 2 teeth on the bottom and one poking through on top

She drinks 2-3 bottles of milk a day and mostly water in a sippy cup throughout the day.  Sometimes I'll add a splash of Motts Tots juice

She eats 3 meals a day and usually 2 snacks

She LOVES fruit, especially blueberries

Some of her other favorite foods are:

Scrambled eggs
Oatmeal
Waffles
Peanut butter sandwich
Goldfish
Crackers
Cookies
Spaghetti
Pasta

I stopped making homemade baby food at 11 mths

She pretty much takes 1 nap per day now

Her bedtime routine is bath then bottle with mom or dad then we lay her down turn the projector and fan on and walk out.  We've never have a problem with bedtime

Her bedtime is between 7-8 o'clock and sleeps till 7 every morning (lucky mama)

One of her favorite words is Baby and more recently "No, No"

She loves when we put her shoes on

She is great with our 2 chihuahuas, she still has yet to try and pick them up.  Not that they would ever let that happen....

She follows mommy around the house through out the day, always.  However, when we are out and about she is very independent

Hmmmmm....what else???

Just a thought.....I wouldn't take my time as being a SAHM (stay at home mom) for anything in the world.  I know her inside and out, every mood, facial expression, every thing.  I have been there for every "first" and every milestone.  And even though there have been times I questioned it, I am so glad I made the decision to quit my job to be home with her.  You can't turn back time.  No regrets :)

Chuck-E-Cheeeeeese!!

Saturday we decided to take Savannah to Chuck-E-Cheese for the 1st time.  It was a hit!

Pizza time! It was pretty good!

Pretty girl eating her pizza

Her 1st ride 

taking a ride with stuart little 

time for a little ski-ball competition between mom and dad 

one of her favorites

monster trunk time

Sketched picture :) 

$10 for 50 tokens turned into 150 tickets which got us 10 cents worth of crap

She didn't know what to think of the cotton candy

just us

Sippy Cup?

I've started working on weaning Savannah off the bottle, my motto is the earlier the better.  The longer she is on it the more attached she will become and the harder for me to get her off of it.  My plan is to be consistent and persistent but not pushy.  I don't want to force her to drink out of it because then it turns into a bad experience.  Now, she has been drinking juice and water out of sippy cups since she was 6 months old, but not milk.  So since last Monday I started putting her morning milk in a sippy cup instead of the bottle (it's fitted with a nipple to help things along) And every morning she tells me "No, No" when I try to give it to her.  I usually try 3-4 more times, and she'll take a couple sips but that's about it.  Then I let it sit there for a little bit to see if she'll go for it on her own, she hasn't yet.  When she's not paying much attention I switch it to the bottle. I don't want to switch when she's upset or fussing about it because then she'll do that every time to get her way.

I'm not giving up, Im going to continue and eventually she will give in.

So here we were one morning last week, as you can see the sippy cup is sitting there in plain view and she wants nothing to do with it.  

she's smiling because she's watching her absolute favorite nursery rhymes DVD.

Books, books, and more BOOKS!

I'd have to say that picture books are Savannah's favorite "toy", she loves them! She'll go get one and bring it to us, sit right in our laps and we go through it pointing out everything for her.  She could do that forever it seems.  It's been about 3 months now that she has really been into them and for the past few weeks we have really started noticing her talking more.  Now, when we go through the books all we do is just point to certain things like doggy, kitty, birdy, etc. and she will say what each one is.  It's was awesome the 1st time she did it! She has a whole list of words that she says on a regular basis now,  it's so darn cute.

1st Family Trip!

We'll be leaving for Clearwater Beach in 10 days!! I can't tell you how excited we are!! My mom mentioned that we should do a beach trip a couple of months ago and I was all for it!! (yes all the exclamation points are necessary) We haven't been anywhere since our honeymoon; I guess being pregnant and having a baby kinda puts a damper on those fly by the seat of your pants trips huh? Shane and I used to love taking short trips to Tampa, Orlando, we even went to Naples for a birthday weekend. We're the kind of people who love preparing for a trip, packing, staying in nice hotels, drinking at the lobby bar and meeting people from all over the world. We always have had such a great time, so I'm super excited to be taking our first family trip with Savannah and my mom! Growing up in Michigan my grandparents owned a vacation condo in Clearwater Beach and we would come down every year. Those were the best trips ever and my favorite childhood memories. We would all load up in my grandfathers huge blue van and make our way through, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and finally the long state of Georgia (that one was torture) then into beautiful sunny florida. Oh, it was the best. We vacationed there even after my family moved to Florida in 91'. But in 95' or 96' they sold their place in Clearwater and bought a home in Tierra Verde, a quiet little island off of St. Pete Beach. So needless to say I haven't been back to Clearwater in (eek) 16-17 years?! Holy moly, I'm getting old. There are so many wonderful memories there and I can't wait to go back with my hubby and little girl and make some new ones. 10 days and counting!!

Busy Lil' Bee

We have been staying busy with our sweet little bee these days....  Just the way I like it! It's so fun watching her explore and enjoy place's and people.  Even if it's just running around Books-a-million,  she takes it all in and always seems to have fun.

A tour in pictures....

Friday, we met up with Tony, Laura and Anthony at the Cape Beach

Uh-oh! 

I'm sure it was tough for her to resist a man with big ole' he-man arms!

Saturday morning we met up with the Rice's again, this time at Lakes Park -
 which I loved by the way! Huge playground, lot's of places to walk around
 and best of all 2 tot spot water areas!  Loved it.....

....And so did Savannah and Anthony 

Water baby

 ...and she's out.

after showers and naps, were off to the mall.
Apparently, Shane's very happy about it!?

We actually stopped in books-a-million on our way out for yogurt, (don't judge)
It was de-lish, I shared with Savannah and she loved it! Then it started pouring out so we
 walked around the store and let me just say she was having a blast! Walking as fast as she could
 up and down all the aisles, laughing and giggling the entire time.  Made my heart happy.

 Sunday, she was exploring the "wilderness" outside Sonnys BBQ

Then off to our favorite store, what would a Sunday be without a trip to Target?  NOT a very good one.  And of course, I just can't pass a single hat without trying it Savannah.  What a cute little cowgirl!