Texas Vacation

Oh sweet sweet vacation.  We definitely were ready for a vacation come end of May when we flew to see my mom and stay at her house on the river.  We had an easy time all through security and the plane ride to Dallas, both kids did great on our "early" flight (9am) and both fell asleep on the second leg of the plane ride...yes let me repeat that, Logan fell asleep.  On a plane.  In the morning.  All by himself.  With no prompting or bribery.  Miracle.  Although he was never the one I worried about on the plane now that he is older.  Fiona's first plane ride was easy, no problems with her ears or anything, ugh she's just so good sometimes. 

Our little pilot

 Sleeping on the plane

We got to spend a week at my mom's and her house on the river was a lot of fun.  Logan was busy from morning to night riding anything and everything that had wheels.  He had his own little mini tractor car to drive and he became a pro at that real fast haha.  He helped Craig drive the real tractor and the boat, helped Granny Mo drive the golf cart, helped daddy drive the jet ski, rode on the tube with daddy and mommy, got to sit on the motorcycles and tried out the plasma car toy.  When he wasn't doing one of those things he was versing us in what animals lived in Granny's yard (armadillo, fox, fire ants, and a lesson on poison ivy ;), swimming in his own little "pool" aka the hot tub, fishing with Granny Mo, playing with all the new toys Granny Mo got him to have at her house, it's a miracle and a blessing that he would actually stop and take a nap everyday!

Logan loved going fast on the jet ski!

 the wind blown look while driving the boat with Craig

 The big kid tractor

 the little kid tractor

 

Showing granny Mo and aunt Kas how to drive the golf cart

 tubing on the river with daddy

Fiona was busy being entertained by Granny Mo and various relatives who got to meet her for the first time.  She was like at a baby hotel the way Granny Mo prepared for her and she was a sweet baby still, just a little problem going down for naps some days.   She gave Umpa some giggles and she was smiley and ready to be held by everyone that came around.  Granny Mo was nice enough to babysit for us one night so Dom and I did a double feature (Xmen 2 and Neighbors) and she got to give Fiona her bottle and wrangle both kids into bed.  We also burried Fiona in the 90s aka all our old beanie babies haha.  It was fun to look through them again and remember, Logan had fun playing with them too and even got to take a few home with us.  Spammy and Umpa also wanted to take us to ToysRUs to spoil Logan and Fiona, Logan had fun picking out legos and Fiona got some cute clothes and teething toys.

Meeting Great Grandma Spammy for the first time and Fiona's namesake, Harriet

 Meeting Great Grandpa Umpa for the first time, she loved to giggle at him

 snuggling up with Granny Mo

 Uncle Erick even got to hold the baby ;)

 Great Aunt Kas loves her babies

 so relaxed she fell asleep at Spammy and Umpa's house

 getting a ride from big brother ;)

 cheese baby!

 enjoying some tummy time

 my baby in the beanie babies

Dom and I had fun doing nothing!  haha we did a lot of fun things too but when you have two kids to look after 'nothing' is something you rarely get to do!  My nothing consisted of reading a book during daylight hours and finishing it in a few days, small miracle.  We watched hgtv and all those silly home shows for no good reason.  We sat on the porch and listened to music and drank beer.  I got to take a shower whenever I wanted not just when the timing was right so that every child was asleep or safely entertained.  It's the little things right!  Oh and I ate a crap ton of sweets my mom made and all her delicious meals she had planned.  So yes, all the above in itself was a vacation for me!  But for the fun things we did, I got out on the tube with Logan and Dom (Logan was somewhere between horrified and exhilarated) then got to go with just Dom which meant I held on for dear life so as not to have to fall into the river...I know what lives down there ew!  Went on a few jet ski rides with mom and Dom and rode on the boat cruising with Craig, Uncle Erick, Dom and Logan.  We got to go to a place called the Homestead and enjoy some yummy lunch and walk around to some cute shops.  We also had fun getting to see my moms side of the family and hanging out and drinking Uncle Colt's home brewed beer.  We went fishing our last morning there and I caught a few plus a river house record catfish, thing was huge!  I also got a surprise visitor in our bedroom upstairs the first night we were there...while sitting on the floor and taking off my shoes, I look over to my left and under the table I see a snake.  I thought it was fake at first (Logan had just gotten a fake snake toy earlier that day) but then I realized that it was in fact alive and oh so real and I could reach out and touch it, I quickly vacated the area to see who was the best snake wrangler in the house (I knew it wouldn't be mom haha) and so Craig came up to save the day but when I went back in the room the snake wasn't there (ahhh!) so I jumped on the bed faster then I knew I could and then peeked under the table from there and saw that luckily the snake had just retreated farther under the table, phew, I didn't want to wait around in that room and find him again by accident!  Craig got the snake in a bowl and took him outside and far away.  Still a mystery how the snake got into the second story room...  

We had a great time visiting my mom and family and enjoying our time on the river.  We look forward to doing it again!

drinking and talking with the fam

pretending we are young again

 Craig, Mom and the kids at the Homestead

 

Logan, always cooperating with the family picture attempt ;)

 

Playing and racing with Logan's toys

 We survived the tube ride, yay!

 

although I can't say the same for Mom and Dominic haha

 the little fish in the river...

 the big catfish in the river!

 

4 months

Little Fiona is 4 months old now and growing fast!  She has thighs full of rolls and weighs 13lbs and  8oz., the  50th  percentile.  She is 24.75in. long, the   75th percentile.  And that head is    16" and in the 50th percentile, and slowly getting more hair. 

Fiona got to go on her first vacation, first airplane ride and first boat ride all at Granny Mo's house in Texas.  We had a fun relaxing week on the river and Logan will probably never stop talking about it ;)  More about it and pictures to come in a future post!  As for Fiona though, she did great on the airplane ride, can't ask for more then a sleeping baby! 
Dom had his first Colorado triathlon too which he did really well on, Fiona cried a lot as i was trying to get her to fall asleep for a nap while trying to watch Logan and see Dom at transition but we did pretty well, luckily the Valania's were there to help keep Logan entertained through the waiting to see daddy portions ;).  So Fiona is getting versed in becoming a spectator and will have another chance in August to cheer daddy on.

 

Fiona has been busy learning new things, she rolled over for the first time (tummy to back) on May 30 while watching Logan play with daddy, there was no crying and she made it seem like it was no big deal.  Then she didn't do it again until she got it down for good June 18.  Logan is so cute when he watches her he likes to cheer her on.  And she loves to watch him, whenever he's in the room she gives him a big smile and won't take her eyes off of him.  Fiona also likes to play peek-a-boo with us and wheels on the bus is a favorite as she always smiles when you move her arms to the motions.  She is good at grabbing things now, holding them and putting them straight in her mouth.  If her hands are not busy doing that, or being in her mouth, she has found she likes to rub the top of her head now.  Fiona's favorite noise she likes to make is a gurgling sound, she loves when you do it back to her too.  Other then that she is fairly quiet compared to another little baby I remember ;).  She likes to try and sit up now, so she is getting lots of practice and sometimes will sit in the bumbo for a little while too.  She has always liked bath time but lately she has really enjoyed kicking her feet and splashing and watching us pour the water and trying to grab it.  Logan loves to help give Fiona a bath, I think he has just as much fun watching her and splashing too.

  She is such a happy and easy baby still!  The only difficulty we are having at the moment is trying to transition her away from sleeping swaddled since she is rolling over now, she just really loves being swaddled and it's a bit harder to get her to fall asleep and stay asleep unswaddled because her hands just go to her mouth and wake her up.  We are only trying during her short naps during the day, hopefully she will get used to it and better at it so we can do it all the time.  She's still hit and miss with sleeping through the night but we've had more good nights then bad lately.  She goes to sleep about 7:30pm and wakes up to eat on a good night about 3am then falls back asleep until 6:30am.  She usually takes an hour nap around 8:30am then her longer 3ish hour nap around 11:30/12 and then her last cat nap around 5:30pm lasts about an hour.  The only other somewhat difficulty we are having is she is not always a fan of the car and it's not always predictable when she decides to scream the whole way and when she decides she can be happy about it, Logan will remind me when she is screaming to "turn the music up" because once it gets louder she stops crying usually.  Otherwise she is just a lot of fun and growing so fast!  It is so nice to watch her and Logan interact more now and the love they show for one other is just so heart warming. 

My babies!