Making Cupcakes

CR loves to help in the kitchen, so we decided to make homemade cupcakes. It doesn't help that I am in "baking nesting zone" right now.

CR shows his love of his cupcakes with sprinkles!
Admiring his creations!
YUMMY!

Another Summer Favorite!

Another summer favorite of mine is juicy peaches, and one of my favorite places to get them is on the way back from the beach. My mind has gone blank about the place name, but it starts with Mac and is in McBee. You can't miss it as you head to or from the beach. They sell all sorts of neat stuff and the best fresh fruit , veggies, and ice cream. We got corn on the cob, baking potatoes, strawberries, and of course peaches! CR is enjoying them too!

Beach Days!

The week of my birthday, CR, my roommate from college, and myself got to take a trip to Myrtle Beach to enjoy a little fun in the sun! I had a conference down there for work, so I decided that I would like to take CR with me, since this may be the only beach trip he gets this summer. Thankfully Diane was coming to visit (my roommate from college) that weekend, and she wanted to go along with us to the beach that week. They got to enjoy more sun than I did, but we had a great trip. Below are some of our doings and sites!

The sun and fun has worn him out! Bless his heart! The only way he would sleep during the day was in the car. He was too afraid he was going to miss something to nap. Imagine that!

CR catches a catnap in the car on the way to Broadway.

Look out! A shark! This was at the aquarium of course! CR was a little nervous through this part.

Checking out the fish at aquarium.

This is the coolest thing we saw while waiting in line for the boat ferry! It is 2 inflated plastic balls that you can get in and play in on the water. They reminded us a lot of hamster balls. They look like a good workout, as it was not easy (so I am guessing from what I saw) to stand up. I want to try this sometime! The things they come up with for fun!

CR and mommy on the boat: a free"ferry ride" at Broadway. This was awesome. We jumped on here after dinner and headed to the other side of Broadway to the aquarium! This sure beats walking that far or having to search forever for another parking spot!

Happy Birthday to me! We got a banana foster after a wonderful seafood dinner at Landry's at Broadway!

The crew at Broadway! We went there to celebrate my birthday. Yes, CR had taken in all the fun the could stand for one day. Bless his heart, he was a trooper though.

CR's footprint in the sand. He marked the beach up a lot that night with his feet, as he ran the entire time we were down there. Needless to say, he slept very good every night since he was too busy to take naps and went full blast all day! Too much to see mommy!

Mommy and CR having fun by the pool. See I did get to enjoy the sun some! We had awesome weather the entire time!

CR loved splashing in the tide pools on the beach. His clothes were soaking wet when we got back to the room.

More sandpit fun!

CR and Diane having fun in the sun! Thanks Miss Diane for playing with me all week!

CR covering Diane's feet in the sand.

CR's favorite "pool". It was a shallow wading pool with with a waterfall and sandpit. This is the first pool I have ever seen with a sand pit in it. The course sand was really nice for getting the dead skin off your feet.

Alligator man chilling on the beach!

Evening stroll at the beach. CR loved playing in the sand and at the ocean more this year than he has before.

CR enjoyed looking out at all the sites from the balcony.

CR is enjoying our stay in the hotel. Although he missed his dada, he had a blast at the beach.

The nice relaxing view from our room/balcony. This place was awesome (Hilton Myrtle Beach Resort). There was plenty to keep them busy while I was in conference sessions.

Hopefully we will get to take another beach trip as a family this year, but this was fun! Thanks Diane for going with us! It was great to hang out with you and get caught up on your life in Hawaii and move back to the mainland (yippee!). Hopefully CR didn't scare you away from having kids!

2nd Doctor Visit!

I took CR back (well to a different ENT Dr.). K&I had made up our minds that we were going to wait until CR was a little older and then revisit the need of taking his tonsils out. However, a few weeks ago, CR had a sleep apnea episode during a nap where he stopped breathing, but quickly woke himself (of course startled and out of sorts). This explains his restless sleep at times! I immediately got on the phone and called a friend/neighbor to find out who she took her 2 kids to last summer to get their tonsils out. She quickly gave me the name and number of Dr. Blumer (Charlotte ENT in actual Charlotte...same as RH office but oh so different). I called and made an appointment...it was yesterday.


What a difference in Doctors and offices! The office was in front of South Park and I really was not looking forward to making the trip to Charlotte today. However, I am so glad I did! Upon arriving, I noticed that the building was 3-4 stories with a parking garage, versus the RH office being stuffed into a "complex" of Dr. offices. We proceeded to the 2nd floor (office) where everything is so kid friendly (also unlike the RH office). We get there and CR wants to play in the kid area immediately. I make him wait patiently while I get signed in and give them our new insurance info. (Yippee...we now have great insurance through K's work). Bless CR's heart, he didn't even get to visit the room. Once we were signed in, someone came and got us and took us back. The nurse was SO friendly with CR and asked a lot of questions. The room was so kid friendly too! The nurse exited after her questions, and CR and I only had a few minutes to read the books in the room before Dr. Blumer came in. Before he came in though, I did recognize a plaque on the wall that he was chosen as a #1 physician in America (I think). I immediately felt even better about my decision to take the trip to Charlotte. Dr. Blumer was very nice and personable. He did a great job with CR and CR was a champ! He didn't make a peep through the entire evaluation! He even opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue enough so the Dr. could see his tonsils without the "hated stick" (we had been practicing).


And we have good news...CR doesn't need tonsils out at this time. He does have something blocking breathing in his nose (Dr. thinks it happened in womb), but we are going to monitor it. As for his adenoids, we are to use a nasal spray each night before bed in hopes to reduce them. We go back in 4 weeks for a x-ray of his adenoids to see if the spray has reduced the swelling. If so, no surgery is needed! I am so pleased, as you can imagine I was not looking forward to my baby boy having to have this surgery and stay overnight in the hospital.

So, sometimes even though things are a pain, it turns out best in the long run. I am so glad we decided to take the trip to Charlotte. Thanks Beth for the recommendation! We traveled to Charlotte, visited the Dr., visited the x-ray scheduler, let CR visit the play waiting area, and traveled home in the time it took us at the RH office. Wow...what a difference a put together office and Dr. are!

Small World

For those of you that are not keeping up with the news, Senator Ted Kennedy had surgery yesterday to remove a malignant brain tumor. Where did he have it done??...Duke University! Not only that, his surgery was performed by the same physician as I had...Chief of Neurology...Alan Freidman.

I thought that was too neat that it doesn't matter whether you are a common person or a wealthy/wellknown person, at a time you need great medical care, it doesn't matter...you seek who you think will do the best job. It is just a reminder that it is a small world.

Lazy 5 Ranch

Aunt R, thanks for the invite to the Lazy 5 Ranch on Saturday! We had so much fun! It is going to be hard to return to Riverbanks after this trip. Check out the pictures at:


*Warning: Sorry for the huge amount of pictures...you will see I got carried away. I was just in such amazement at all these neat animals that close!

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We had a wonderful day that went like this:

-Arrived at the Lazy 5 around 11.

-Quickly ate a fast lunch at the nice picnic area (someone in the group switched our tour time...supposed to be at 2...but changed to 12:30...not fun trying to get lunch done in a hurry when CR wants to play too...as you can see from the first pics).

-Tour on wagon (over an hour): got to feed tons of animals with a big food bucket (first pics). It is so cool...they come right up to the wagon.

-Went to the petting zoo and fish ponds.

-Took a snack and playtime break.

-Visited the gift shop. Thanks Aunt R for CR's cool Tiger bookbag!

-Took the same tour as before on wagon, in my van (another hour). Totally awesome (last half of pics)!

-Left the ranch at 5 PM with CR begging to stay. I think he wanted to stay and sleep with the animals.

CR kept saying over and over that he had fun! He has talked about it all week!

Thanks again Aunt R for a wonderful time! It was a great place and so nice to get to hang out with you!

Memorial Day Weekend

For the most part, we had a relaxing weekend of R&R and quality time as a family. Below, we finally got to have Mother's Day for K's mom and Auntie K's birthday (K's mom was out of town on Mother's Day and K was out of town the following weekend).

We decided to do a low key cookout at the field in our neighborhood...yummy! K cooked cheeseburgers, baked beans, and we had chips/dip, watermelon, muffins, and strawberry shortcake. This was definately the ticket...very relaxing, little prep, and no mess to clean up.

The kids were able to play on the field and at the pool.

CR and Peyt's filling up water balloons! K and the kids have fun playing football and wrestling in the pool!
CR was loving the muffins...poor thing he was starving. He ate an entire cheeseberger, beans, chips/dip and 2-3 muffins!
P&M play volleyball and later decide to turn the court into a giant sandbox.
Pop is loving the strawberry shortcake! He scrapped the bowl for me! Thanks Pop...I had little to clean up!
CR is pooped from the day and decides to take a rest by the pool at the end of the evening!

Thanks for a great time guys! We will have to do it again soon!

Our Little Slugger

CR up to bat!
Running the bases!
He loves to yell..." Safe...Home Run"
Concentrating hard on Da Da's pitch!
" Swing batta batta" is another favorite saying as he plays!

CR's cousin is playing baseball now for the ROAR team in our area. CR now thinks he can play too. So, everytime we are outside he wants to play baseball...prefering that K or I pitch the ball to him (like Peyt's does at his games) instead of hit it off the tee.

Surprisingly, he does a really good job at 2-1/2 years old. He hits at least 1 out of 4 balls! He is even pretending now that he is running the bases...even though he runs around the yard in no certain order. He will get it! My little boy is growing up way too fast! Next year he will be able to play on a team at church!