Beach Week 2013

If you've been reading this blog for any period of time, this annual beach trip will be nothing new to you. And if you are a new reader (I'm flattering myself by pretending that random people actually stumble on my blog and follow it... Humor me), you can check out my 2011 and 2012 recaps. This year, not surprisingly, was a little different from years past since we had a two-month old to deal with, but it was still a wonderful vacation (we never actually got more than our feet in the ocean, but it was totally a worthwhile sacrifice). And if we thought this year was different from previous years, I'm sure we'll be even more blown away by the differences when this crew of boys is another year older!

From left to right: Dayton (4 months), John (4 1/2 years), Evan (14 months), and William (2 months)

Not surprisingly, we have lots of photos, so rather than bore you with mindless jabber I'll let the pictures (and a few random entertaining captions) do the talking. 

First family photo at the beach! William's shirt says "Beach Bound"--totally couldn't pass that up when I found it at a garage sale!

Silly faces

William's first dip in the ocean! He wasn't too impressed

Grandmom also brought an inflatable pool so the little ones would have something to play in without having to be out in the sun. William seemed to enjoy it much more than we thought he would.

Those eyes! Swoon.

Just lounging by the pool. No big deal.

John was such a good cousin. He was always excited about holding his little cousins...

Would pat them on the back to calm them down when they got fussy...

And even read them a few stories! (Of course, he may have done all of those things just to get people to take his picture, but whatever)

Who would guess these two are two months apart? (You can say it, William is a chunk. We're well aware.)

Four Generation Picture--Love it!

How cute are the boys in their matching shirts?!? Aunt Kim is super creative and crafty!

The siblings and their spouses

With their kids

Grandmom and Granddad with their boys

The whole family! (As you can see, William was done with pictures by this point)

The week went by way too fast and it's hard to believe we won't see this whole crew again until Christmas--it'll be shocking to see how much all the boys will have changed!

#LifeHack

What's one to do when on vacation with an infant but without a baby monitor?

Use cell phones to make one, of course!

Darrell and I didn't have a baby monitor with us when we went to the beach with Darrell's family, and since William was sleeping in a room upstairs there were a few times we were worried we wouldn't be able to hear him if he cried (or at least not until he got to a full-blown scream). So, we improvised with our cell phones; Darrell called me via FaceTime, and I propped my phone up in the room so it looked into the crib. Then Darrell turned his phone on mute so no sound would be transmitted to William (but we would still be able to hear him), and viola! Instant baby monitor. You can bet this won't be the last time we try this trick. Life hack for the win!

Light on Snow

So this is another book that I read way back during William's first weeks home from the hospital. And like The Deep End of the Ocean, I read it mostly during the middle of the night. So my review on this probably won't be the most accurate/reliable, but I'm going to share it anyway because this is my blog and I can do what I want  :-)

My biggest issue with this book (and it's something that has happened with other books as well--Suite Francaise comes to mind) was that I formed a preconceived notion of what I thought the book would be and it ended up not being that way. Which, for whatever reason, when that I happens I have a hard time getting into the book because I keep waiting for it to do what I'm expecting it to do. Obviously this isn't a flaw of the book itself, but just my understanding of the book and how I interpreted the synopsis.

In short, the book is about a father and young daughter who discover a newborn abandoned in the woods. And while there is plenty of excitement and anticipation with that discovery and the immediate resolution of it, things more or less fizzle out on that front pretty quickly. Instead, the focus seems to shift to how this discovery impacts the relationship between the father and daughter--a relationship that is developed through periodic flashbacks (flashbacks that seem, at times, random and disconnected from the development of the story).

Like I concluded with Suite Francaise, I think I would enjoy this book much more the second time through because I would have a better understanding of what to expect and wouldn't be waiting for something that was never going to happen. But even with my false perception of the book it was still enjoyable the first time through--the daughter was an entertaining character, the narrative style was easy to follow (aside from a few somewhat random flashbacks), and the plot was certainly interesting and unique.

Wasted

I'm not talking about being wasted, but it does have to do with alcohol. More specifically, alcohol abuse.

While dining in the Minneapolis airport earlier this week, the patron at the table next to us left these two swallows of wine in the bottom of her glass. Now, regardless of the circumstance, I think it's a total waste to not finish your wine (or any drink for that matter). But when you are dining in an airport, where prices are even more ridiculous than at a normal restaurant, it should be a crime to not finish your drink. I mean, given what she probably paid for the glass and the small amount that came in the glass we're talking one to two dollars worth of wine left behind! I don't care how close you are to missing your flight--popping that last bit of wine in your mouth and swallowing it doesn't take any time at all!


Disclaimer: I fully understand that wine (and most drinks) are meant to be sipped, not gulped. But special circumstances call for special measures. And, you know, maybe if she hadn't spent twenty minutes on the phone she would have been able to finish her wine (and meal! I swear it looked like she only took two bites of her salad) before dashing off to catch her plane. It's a shame this wine had to be wasted because of one woman's poor time management.

William: Two Months!

Okay, I promise I'm not going to be one of those mothers who is constantly "OMG my kid is growing up so fast", but for reals... Two months? (Two months plus since I'm a little late getting this posted!) Yikes. Maybe once our lives get less crazy time with him will seem to slow down. But realistically--will things ever get less busy now that we have a kid? I doubt not.

As far as basic stats go, William is up to a whopping 13 lbs 5 oz and 23 inches. He is subsequently out of most 0-3 month clothes and has moved up to 3-6 month outfits (albeit some are still a little big), in addition to a recent move to size 2 diapers. As of these past few days, he's started sleeping some longer stretches at night (usually from around 9 pm to 2 am), but I'm not holding my breath that he'll keep it up (only because once I start to expect that he'll do something and he doesn't it totally breaks me down). Aside from that, still not much of a routine, at least not one that we've figured out. Which we're okay with; month three is looking pretty busy for us and William (already!), so we're afraid that even if he did get into a routine we wouldn't be able to keep it up with the traveling and whatnot that we'll be doing.

Speaking of traveling, one of the biggest highlights from month two was William taking his first vacation to North Carolina!

He was a champ during all the traveling, which made us super proud (and happy--it's not like we're about to stop traveling on account of him). More details on that trip later, though; it's enough for its own post (or two!).

William has definitely become much more alert this month. He's starting to prefer being carried facing out so that he can "see" what is going on, although he doesn't really seem to be focusing too much on anything yet. And, much to Mom's enjoyment, he will actually be content lying on his back (or sitting in his chair) for a (short) period of time. Usually just long enough for Mom to get her teeth brushed, brush her hair, get dressed, and/or eat--it sure beats trying to do any of that holding William. Oh, and as you can (kind of) see in his two month picture, we're starting to get smiles! I'm convinced he gives them when he hears Dad's voice more often than when he hears mine, but I'm usually around to see those so that's good enough for me.

One of the best things I started doing this month was watching the clock when he started getting fussy. I discovered that if I'm not paying attention to the clock, one minute of fussing can seem like ten minutes, and I would start to feel horrible that I couldn't console my son. Once I realized that he wasn't actually fussing for as long as I thought he was, though, I was a lot more relaxed (mind you, I'm almost always holding him during these bouts of crying. I haven't quite gotten to the point where I'm able to put him down and let him cry). This has been most helpful when William is fighting sleep; my instinct when he is crying is to move him around until I find a position that calms him down, but when he's trying not to fall asleep, moving him around just keeps him awake. So even though he may cry for a few minutes in the position I have him in, he'll usually settle down and fall asleep as long as I'm holding him still. And even though the three minutes may seem like an eternity, watching the clock and knowing that he's only been crying for three minutes makes me feel a whole lot less like a mean mother.

We're excited to see what month three will bring--and hopefully it goes by a little slower than month two did!

Nursery Addition

As soon as we found out William was a boy, we knew there was one more purchase we had to make for the nursery:

Of course, I think it would be totally appropriate to hang something like that in a girl's room as well, but since William was a boy it was a definite must. Isn't it awesome? Gives me further reason to smile every time I walk into the nursery.

Rainbow Cupcakes

One of the most time-consuming projects I undertook for my sister's bridal shower was these rainbow cupcakes. I knew they'd be perfect for the event, but they took a little more work than I was anticipating. Thankfully I had Macy and my mom to help--both with the cupcakes and watching over William. Here's the final product:

And on the inside:

Totally worth all the effort. And really, making them was quite simple--just tedious. Having a glass (or two....or three) of wine while working on this project is totally advisable.

All you need for this project is a basic white cake mix and food coloring. Divide the batter equally into six bowls and color each bowl to the desired shade. Then layer the colors into a cupcake tin, being sure to spread the batter out to the edge (of course, if you don't care about trying to create even lines, you probably wouldn't have to spread the batter). That's it!

As I mentioned though, in spite of the directions being very simple, the actual process is quite time consuming. The cake recipe we used was fairly sticky, which made it hard to spread (although maybe all cake batters are a little sticky? I don't make cake very often). Plus the whole process of divvying up and coloring the batter takes a little bit of time. But are they worth it? Totally.