Beach Day

Yesterday, Nick had the day off of work so we decided to spend our afternoon and evening at the beach. Some of my friends mentioned that baby beach in Dana Point would be a great spot to take Nicole. They were right! It was on the other side of Ortega Highway (The good thing about that: No 91 freeway traffic!!! The bad thing about that: Nicole got VERY carsick....Yuck!!!) so the drive was very pretty and traffic free. The area has free parking, a grassy area for picnics with a TON of shade trees, and there are no waves. It was the perfect spot for our afternoon.

She loved feeling the sand around her toes!

Nick was given a little peddleboat, so he took it out for a test ride. It worked well at splashing him when he peddled.

After losing her lunch on the ride over, Nicole ate chips and watermelon the entire time (oh, and she ate my turkey sandwich for dinner, so I got to eat a pb&j...)

She LOVED the water! She also loved being able to chase birds.

Thankfully, she slept the entire drive home. :)

The Heart of a Servant

Last night, my sister Hannah spent the night at our house to cut down on the drive to San Diego where she would be joining a group to do medical missions in Tijuana for the weekend. This also gave Nicole plenty of time to play with her.

For part of the morning, Nicole carried Hannah's car keys and Diet Coke around everywhere:

 Even on the morning walk:

After Hannah left, Nicole was very sad. She played with her watertable (which soaked her outfit, so this was taken after I took of said outfit and before I put a new one on. If you look at this post, she is in 3 different outfits all in one day...) and then came in and waited for Hannah:

After her nap, we tried a few activities: bag fingerpainting was not a hit. Okay, she pretty much just wanted to play with the tape. I wasn't overly impressed, but I am thinking if I try this again I will use the thicker ziploc bags (the freezer ones) and see if this works better.

Stacking: This was a spur of the moment impulsive activity. While cleaning out my teaching supplies, I found a container of beans. I filled two baby food jars and one mason jar and she had a blast stacking and knocking them down and carrying them around the house. I will be on the lookout for more plastic jars with screw on lids. The glass makes me nervous. *I do not normally keep boxes of toilet paper in the living room, but that has become her new favorite place to color, so there it sits*

Shaving Cream Slide

Today we had a fun playdate with some church friends. We decided to play with shaving cream on the slide as a sensory play activity that I found here on Pinterest.

At first, neither of them wanted to play with the shaving cream, but after a while Mason liked my idea of sliding toys down the slide. Soon enough, he was having so much fun going down that he didn't want to stop and kept saying, "more shaving cream!". Unfortunately, Nicole never did get interested in the activity, but she had a blast watching, playing with the water table, playing with baby Megan, and eating crackers!

After all the fun, we headed inside to play with Nicole's toys. Mainly the Chevron cars. Eventually, Nicole was so worn out that we put in the Baby Einstein Numbers DVD for them to watch.

Look at Nicole's tired eyes!

Mason was counting with the little train on the movie and Nicole was fascinated.

She's catching on to how to hold up fingers when counting....yes, she counted to 2 even though they were at 3.

Can I just say that playdates are the BEST THING EVER?!?! We love having friends over to join in our day! It's also a great way for Nicole to learn how to interact with other kiddos instead of just playing with mom and dad.

Dad and Nicole

Nick and Nicole have had some fun bonding moments this week:

Yesterday, they were looking at some bullets that Nick had purchased for an upcoming tactical shoot.

This afternoon, I wanted Nick to knock down an old wasp nest thing in the hose roll and after knocking it down (it was no longer the home to any flying creatures, I promise), we found frogs!!! I have learned something interesting about Nicole: if I want her to get her hands dirty (finger painting, shaving cream, dirt, etc...) she will not touch that activity, BUT if there is a bee (yes, she wanted to touch one on Monday), bug, or frog she is more than willing to investigate. Nicole was trying to catch a frog and Nick was helping:

Here the frog is on Nick's hand and Nicole is giving him a back rub.