Hot Date in a Cool Pool

We recently met up with my friend Alona and her son Bradley for a swim date. Alona has this really cool water playground near her house in Coral Springs (Cypress Park for you locals), so we decided to check it out one Sunday. We packed up our cars with enough baby equipment to survive a flood, and headed out for a fun afternoon at the pool. We thought we would beat the heat by getting there around 4:00pm, however, we didn't realize that the pool closed at 4:30pm. Of course, I had maneuvered Brianne into a swimmy diaper and bathing suit and unloaded the car by the time we figured this out.

It was so sad to get to this super fun water play ground in the 90 degree heat and find out that we couldn't go in. So we packed everything back into the car, and headed to Alona's neighborhood pool. The poor babies were beat red from the heat so we jumped in the pool as soon as we got there. Brianne is a born fishy, and enjoyed showing off her swimming skills to Bradley. We are looking forward to going back to Cypress Park some time soon, though maybe we'll try the morning next time.

Here we are taking a break from swimming. I even brought Brianne's shades, though she didn't really want to wear them. It looks like we are having a nice mommy-daughter hug in this photo, when really I am holding down her arms so she doesn't rip the glasses off her face.

Bradley is one cool dude in his shades. Brianne was impressed - though I think she was more in awe of his walking :o)

Diapers Are a Girl's Best Friend

Of all the things Brianne likes to play with, her current favorite toys are diapers. Don't worry, she only gets to play with clean ones. But every time she is on the changing table, she rolls toward the diaper caddy and pulls out some clean diapers to hold onto. But once she's done being changed, she has to hold onto the diapers. The longest she's gone while holding onto a diaper was about 3 hours. Even when you try to distract her with something noisy and flashy, she still has to have at least one diaper in hand. If you stop by our house, you will find at least 10 (clean) diapers in random places around the house.

Here is Brianne bonding with her diapers.


She even crawls while holding diapers. She slips and falls on her face, but never lets go of those diapers.

Dancing Queen

Brianne has learned to dance! She watched the tail end of Ice Age 3, and enjoyed dancing to the music as the credits rolled more than the movie itself. Marty and I were dying laughing. She was so cute, it hurt. It was more bouncing up and down with a head bob here and there, but you can tell she is working on her rhythm. Before you know it she will be plie'ing her way onto So You Think You Can Dance!

Busy Little Bee

Now that it is summer time, it is next to impossible to do anything outside between the hours of 9:00am and 6:00pm without melting. We have been looking into different activities that we can do with Brianne that are indoors, and have discovered that there are a bunch of little indoor playgrounds around town. These are great as they have a lot of toys, and other young kids, and best of all - air conditioning!

One that we recently found is called Busy Bee Kidz. Mi Ma Debbie and I took Brianne over to check it out, and we really enjoyed it!

Brianne enjoyed bouncing around the ball pit.


Of course, Elmo was her favorite! It doesn't hurt that mommy does a mean Elmo impression.


Though her favorite toy was a little Sesame Street Kitchen. This little girl sitting next to her is actually two years old. Brianne isn't even 12 months yet, and she was just as tall as this little girl. I never realized what it meant for her to be in the 95th percentile for height, but now it's making sense!


The coolest toy they had here was a tricerotops that actually moved. Brianne didn't know what to think of it at first, but decided she didn't like it too much and cried when it moved it's head and roared.

They had a kitchen area with kid-sized tables for snack time, and Brianne enjoyed sitting at the table like a big girl.

Island of Adventure

We recently did Baby's First Trip to Sanibel with Brianne. Some of my fondest memories of family vacations growing up are of renting a condo in Sanibel with my family, with a bunch of our family friends in neighboring condos, so I was very excited to share those experiences with Brianne. There's not much to do in Sanibel, but to relax and enjoy the outdoors, but as long as you're there with good friends and family, you can be sure to have a good time.

Granddad Steve and Grandma Janet own a home in Sanibel, so we drove over on a Friday evening and enjoyed a relaxing couple of days. We went to the beach, barbecued for dinner and enjoyed being with each other. We attempted to make s'mores, though we learned the hard way that you shouldn't put marshmallows directly onto a grill. One positive thing that came out of that was that we invented a new ice cream flavor - coffee ice cream with charred marshmallow fluff. Yum.

One of the down sides of Sanibel is the lack of beach parking. So it is next to impossible to find a spot unless you either go really early, or stay at a place on the beach. My Dad's condo is a bit inland, so we had to drive to the beach. We went in the late morning and there wasn't a spot to be found. So we got creative with our beach going, and went to the causeway (bridge connecting Sanibel island to the mainland). Here you could actually pull your car right up to the edge of the water, which was very convenient especially when you have a ton of baby stuff to bring.

Here is Brianne relaxing in a beach chair before going for a swim.


Another issue on Sanibel is that the beach is made up of mostly crushed shells instead of sand. To Brianne, it just looked like a bunch of interesting things to put in her mouth. I had to wrestle a couple handfuls of shells and pine cones out of her hands, so the beach was not very relaxing for me.

After the beach, we went back to Granddad's house and hung out. Here we are enjoying the early evening on the porch deck. Their house is right on the edge of a natural preserve, so there are hardly any other houses around. Very peaceful.

Brianne and Grandad Steve.

Congrats Marc and Jen!

Marty's brother Marc is engaged to a lovely girl named Jen. They recently celebrated their engagement with a very nice party hosted by Marty's parents at the Weston Hills Country Club. Brianne had a great time crawling all over the place and seeing everything there was to see at the club. And it was another opportunity to wear a pretty dress! Brianne also got some good practice for being their flower girl. Marc and Jen are getting married in May 2011.

Marc and Jen cutting their cake. I have to make myself a reminder to tell Marc that nothing good comes from smashing cake in a bride's face on their wedding day.

Brianne eating a teether biscuit. She looks like she's really enjoying it!

More pretty dresses for Mommy and Bree Bree.

Lady in Red (Shoes)

After 26 years as the principal of St. David's Catholic School, Grandma Mimi is retiring. In celebration of her retirement, the school threw her a lovely retirement party in the church hall. The party started at 7:00pm, which is Brianne's bed time, but she didn't want to miss out on a chance to wear a fancy dress. Brianne has more dresses than she knows what to do with, so we were glad to have a party to show off. Not only was her dress adorable, but she had to have her matching hair bow and patent leather shoes. She was definitely the bell of the ball! She only made it until about 8:30pm, then was ready to hit the hay. I had to jet out of there before our little Cinderella turned into a pumpkin!

10 Months Old

Man, the time is flying by, and Brianne is 10 months old. She is right on track developmentally, and continues to surprise us with the new things she does.

She is crawling up a storm, and is pulling up more and more. If it's sturdy enough and has a low enough grip, chances are Brianne is pulling herself up onto it. She has also started cruising, which means once up on her feet, she takes some little steps while holding onto the object. The coffee table in our living room is actually a long ottoman, and I never thought I'd be so thankful to have a padded coffee table. The ottoman is her favorite piece of furniture to pull up on (and ours too, considering she doesn't poke out an eye when she falls against it). She has learned quickly what things she should not pull up on, like folding table trays.

Brianne is becoming more vocal, and enjoys shouting at the top of her lungs - at our dog, in church, pretty much anywhere. It's lucky that she's so cute, so people tolerate her noise pretty well. She doesn't actually speak yet, but I notice her making different sounds over and above the da da and ba ba she normally says. It's funny watching her watching your mouth and trying to mimic the sounds.

Brianne enjoys feeding herself now. I try to give her more finger foods - one of her favorites is bread (she gets that from me). She also likes cheerios, pancakes, scrambled eggs, and string cheese. Eating is always fun with Brianne, as she likes to squish or crumble up her food before she eats it. Cooper (our dog) is starting to learn that he should stick around when the high chair comes out, as something delicious will soon be ending up on the floor. It's actually a pretty good system, since he eats up the little bits so I don't have to get the broom out. She has texture issues with wet foods (fruits and veggies), so we are still working on those, but I keep trying!

As much as I hate to admit it, Brianne has become a little TV watcher (thanks Marty). She LOVES Sesame Street. Sesame Street is the only show she watches, but she could watch it over and over again. There are episodes on OnDemand that you can view anytime for free, so whenever I come home, Marty and Brianne are watching Big Bird and Elmo. At least it is educational, and with OnDemand, there are no commercials (that's what I tell myself to make me feel better). We try to limit her TV watching to an hour a day (or 1 episode of Sesame Street).

Little Stinker - trying to pull up on a table tray. She almost got a cup of water dumped on her head.


Brianne is quite the little fishy, and loves to swim. She has no fear of the water, and loves to splash around. We have to watch her every second, because if you sit her on the ground near a pool, she crawls right toward it.

Here she is practicing her eating. She just ate French toast and banana.

Don't Trust the Weathermen

The only profession I've seen that can be wrong 50% (though usually more) of the time and not get fired are weathermen. We trusted said weather men a couple weekends ago when we wanted to go to the beach. We chose to run errands on Saturday, and save our fun day for Sunday, since the weatherman forecasted sunshine all weekend long.

Of course, it was beautiful on Saturday, but completely overcast on Sunday. Sometimes, even if it's rainy out west where we live, it will still be sunny at the beach, so we decided to give it a go. But on this particular Sunday, it was rainy everywhere. We didn't figure this out until we actually got all our caravan of stuff set up on the beach (murphy's law strikes again).

We still had a nice visit with Grandad Steve, Grandma Janet, and Great Grandma Marvelyn, though a little sun would have been nice.

We just invested in some cool new beach gear, including a new beach tent and some sand toys. Here is Brianne and Dad testing out the new toys.


Checking out the surf. There was a really big rip tide right off shore, so we only dipped a toe in.


We only stayed on the beach for an hour or so. Then we had a nice lunch, and showered off at Marty's Uncle Gerry's house. Brianne really enjoyed the view from their condo, and practicing her pulling up in their dining room.


Brianne doesn't look too excited about swimming in the ocean.