Katherine made her first trip to FL!! We didn't see Mickey but we did see Tootsie Pop!!! :P
We went to FL to spend RC Christmas with the Rents, Jacki, Nikki and MomMom. Katherine was quite stoked at 3am when we woke her up to start the drive. No, that's not a typo. I did say 3am. We thought it would be better to start early so that Katherine would sleep during a bulk of the driving. I'm happy to report... It worked!! Of course a happy, let's play Katherine at 3am isn't what I was hoping for but as soon as we got in the car and started moving she went back to sleep until around 7:30. Success!!!
During our drive Stephen and I noticed several things... Driving south down 95 is VERY different than driving north. The types of eating establishments change dramatically. The scenery.... um, I don't remember much of that. And there was one road that we thought we might commit hairy cary on. Seriously. The speed went from 35 > 50 > 25 > 40 > 25 > 55 > 35.... Did I mention that was in a 4 mile stretch??? CRAZY!!!! Oh and only in FL do you see billboards, yes billboards, that say > Speed trap ahead. Who does that??? Clearly with speed limits like that all they want to do is distribute tickets. Can't I just get my ticket, pay $100 and go 55 straight through??? Needless to say we avoided that road coming home. Neither one of us could take it. I'd drive an hour out of the way to avoid that.
Another thing we found in FL is a highway that has a bike path that is something like 40 miles long. Stephen, at one point, says I think you can take this bike path all the way to the airport. So I asked... um, how would you get your luggage there?? Tie it to your bike and drag it by the wheels??? I got a look. :)
We arrived in FL at around 3-4pm. We think we made pretty good time. And Katherine was pretty chipper when we got there. Tootsie and Pop had just gotten their new kitchen countertops installed. Organizing the kitchen took a backburner to getting some snuggles in with Katherine!!
After snuggles and dinner Dad took us over to show us around the house we were staying in. A lady he'd been doing some remodeling work for was nice enough to let us stay there. (She wasn't there. It's like a vacation home for her.) We put up the playpen and Katherine zonked out!!! She was up bright and early the next morning though. Because we knew no one else would be awake at 6:30am we watched Santa's coming to Town. Katherine liked it.
So I neglected to mention something that made quite an impact on our visit to FL. I'm about to jump the shark on the blog. I'm going to talk about poop. For those non-parents... I'd been told before becoming a Mom... "You'll understand someday". That's all I can say to you now. If you're not a parent, at least you'll be able to laugh at our misfortune.
On Monday Stephen and I realized that Katherine was... um... having some challenges relieving herself. You know how our daughter gets when she's ... you know.... pooping. Our daughter has never had a poop that you didn't know about. Seriously. She grunts, moans and her face gets cherry red every single time. Sometimes she even gets tears in her eyes from grunting. Those that have witnessed it know I'm not kidding. And MOY (Mom of the Year) that I am... I can't help but giggle sometimes with tears in my own eyes from laughing so hard.
PICTURE WAS REMOVED, AS PROMISED, TO AVOID FUTURE HARASSMENT. :)
(Note: this picture will be removed before her first birthday to protect her from future harrassment.)
PICTURE WAS REMOVED, AS PROMISED, TO AVOID FUTURE HARASSMENT. :)
(Note: this picture will be removed before her first birthday to protect her from future harrassment.)
Well, anyway... we realized that she was having a bit of a problem winnie the poohing. In retrospect we think it was because she'd been eating a new fruit - bananas. Did you know they stop you up?? I didn't. So, we decided we would help her out. We put a teaspoon of prune juice in 3 of her bottles and gave her some applesauce and a smidge of gerber prune food. She wasn't a big fan of the prune food so she only had a wee bit. We thought that would help get her going. Help is the wrong word.
We started our corrective measures on Tuesday during the drive. Fortunately nothing happened then. Instead it happened on Wednesday morning when she and pop were cuddling up.
Look how sweet they look. Awww... Pop had his arm around her. Then all of the sudden we realized she was into grunt mode. And um... well, things were not contained. I've never seen my dad jump so high so fast and scream so loud. Really. He was sqealing.... "Is it on me? Oh my god, is it on me? Check!!! Is it on me??!!!" We couldn't stop laughing long enough to either check to see if it WAS on him. Tears were streaming.
Over the course of the 5 days we were in FL Katherine blessed everyone except Aunt Nikki. We don't know how that happened, but Aunt Nikki will have her moment I'm sure. The person who responded best to poohtacular 2008 was Aunt Jacki. She gets a gold medal. We won't go into details but it involved both Jacki and Katherine needing new clothes.
Moving past the winnie experiences... Christmas was awesome. All of the girls wore matching PJs. Yes. Matching. I totally dug it. They were sooo cute!! (thanks Mom!!!) The boys wore red pants with christmas palm trees on them. hehehe Cute!!! And the best part... We wore them ALL day. Even for dinner. The only person who changed was Dad. (Note: Stephen and I showered and put the PJs on that morning.) :))
Katherine did very well for her first first Christmas. :) After seeing the stack of presents all Stephen could say was... Well at least she didn't get a pony. Um. Well. About that. After all the presents were opened... A large bag appeared and guess what happened to be inside said bag?? A pony. A pony that even I can ride. (No comments Nicole!!!!!) Katherine thinks the pony is really cool. She tries to ride it and eats the pony's hair. We're trying to teach her NOT to eat the pony's hair (mane) but she doesn't seem to care. EVERYTHING goes into our girl's mouth.
What did Katherine get?? Let's see... I won't remember it all but... Books, stack of rings (HIT), stuffed animals, baseball diamond thingy, her first laptop (V-tech), clothes, a pony, drums (which actually I liked so much I'd gotten for her for Christmas #2... and returned after she got them for Christmas #1)... She was a very lucky little girl!!
What did I get?? Wii Music and Wii Boogie Superstar. Let me say Boogie Superstar ROCKS. I think I'm the next American Idol. Ok, maybe not, but it was soooo much fun. We all sang. Including Dad!! He had no idea what the song was that he was singing, but he did it. Nikki, Jacki and I sang and danced. We could all use a little practice on the dancing front. Singing... we're rock stars!!! hehehe I'd post a video of the various stars, but I might be disowned. And that wouldn't be good. :P
During our trip to FL we also made a visit to see our friend Marie. We had breakfast with her and her husband Jerry and Katherine got some good Aunt ReRee bonding time in. :) Well, good, prior to her nap. She was so sleepy that she rested her head on my hand and went to sleep. Poor girl had been worn out from the weeks events.
On Saturday we packed up and headed home. We arrived home at around 8pm that night. We were all tuckered and starting to get sick. Ick. Well, Stephen & I were. Katherine, fortunately, was good to go. The trip home started a 3 week illness for poor Stephen that landed us in the doctors office twice and at the pharmacy three times. Poor guy still isn't feeling 100%. This illness however can not be blamed on "patient zero". She didn't get sick at all!!! And daycare wasn't involved either!!
The following week was new years... I'll save those stories for the next installment. There isn't a whole lot to tell from the week since we were all holed up at home hoping that Stephen would feel better soon. But surely I can regale you with something!!! :)
Pictures from Christmas #1 (2008):
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