Tuesday, August 14, 2012

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. :)

Friday, August 10, 2012

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*