Bryce's First Day of Pre-K

On August 13th my baby boy became a student and had his first day of Pre-K!! HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE??!?

As we all know, this milestone is often harder on the parents than it is on the child! However, Bryce was so excited that we couldn't be anything but excited along with him. 

He absolutely loves school! There's total of 20 kids in his class and he knew a few of the kids from daycare, so I think it's helping this transition go quite smoothly. He does constantly ask when he gets to go to school all day, but that's not going to happen until Kindergarten. Since I only work a half-day on Fridays, I'm taking Bryce directly to school on those days instead of dropping him off at daycare first...I expected he'd let me walk him in to his class on those days but I've quickly been instructed by him to drop him off and let him walk in by himself! Seriously!?!
 
So now that we're a couple weeks into it, he's got the routine down and is constantly bringing home his work. Some of it seems to be pretty good, that I'm almost not convinced he did it by himself. He's also become familiar with their "ticket system" which advises the parents of when the child misbehaves. A week ago Bryce has his first "ticket pulled", thankfully it was green ticket, which isn't too bad but I was definitely alarmed when it had "Bryce hit his neighbor" written on the square for Thursday. It wasn't like Bryce to hit kids! So I asked Bryce what happened, prepared to dish out a punishment, and he said he was swinging his arms and accidentally hit a girl. I was definitely relieved that was all it was!

They had school pictures done also a week ago, and I'll share them as soon as I get them back. We had such a short notice on them that I had to call my sister on her day off to get his haircut!

9 months

Seriously, how is that we are more than 75% of the way to Blaire’s first birthday!! I just don’t want to accept it, especially with it being my last baby. I have less 3 more months to call her a baby! Eeek!!

And let me tell you, her 9^th month of life was a big one!

First let's go over her stats. 

Yesterday, we made it in for her 9 month checkup, only 10 days after her official 9 month birthday. At this visit she weighed 21 lbs on the dot, is 27 1/2 inches long/tall, and her head, if I remember correctly, is 46.5 cm around which puts her over the 97%.

She does have an umbilical hernia, which I started noticing about a month ago. Right now it's soft, which the doctor said is a good thing and may not require any kind of attention. However, if it is still there after her first birthday we'll most likely be referred to a specialist about getting it removed. 

 

So other major happenings...

She moved out of the infant carrier into a convertible seat.

She went on her first family vacation, where we spent some time at the beach in Destin, Fl. There's a separate post for the trip, but overall she did really well considering it was a 14-hour drive one-way.

We had barely made it to the condo, and she officially started crawling on us! Of course pulling up came along with her new found mobile ability.

She still only has two teeth, but I can feel the nubs for her two top teeth so I'm guessing they'll be in within the next month or so. Here's a great shot of her two teeth, and one of the 20 pictures it took for me to catch the official 9 month picture at the beginning of the post. 

She's literally ALL OVER THE PLACE!!!

She's started eating more chopped up foods, rather than purees. I know it's easier on me during dinner time when she can feed herself. 

She's saying a couple words, ma ma ma ma, ba ba ba ba, and hi/hey. The hi/hey is usually accompanied by her waving too! She's trying to mimic things we do and will watch our mouths very closely and work her tongue to try to figure out how to match the sound we're making.

She's still sleeping great! I'm gradually getting her to where she'll sleep closer to 6 or sometimes she'll sleep a little after 6am. She's going to sleep around 7:30pm still, sometimes earlier and sometimes later. 

Of course Mama is still her favorite person and she loves to crawl up in my lap anytime she pleases.

So there she is...Miss Ameri----wait! She's just my 9 month old blue eyed beauty!

Family Vacation: Destin

During the last week in July our family of four headed out for a 14-hour road trip to Destin, Florida. This will go down in the record books as Blaire's first family vacation

We have some wonderful friends that approached us several months ago about meeting them in Destin, and insisted that we stay in their parents' condo with them. They have a daughter that is Bryce's age and a son that just turned two.

So we decided on the last week in July. We planned the timing of the drive wisely and drove it overnight while both kids slept...most of the time. We left on Wednesday night right at Blaire's bedtime. We passed through Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, and nearly made it through Mississippi before Blaire woke up for her first bottle of the day.  Gave her her bottle and we proceeded on through Mississippi, Alabama, and finally into Florida. 

We arrived at the condo around 9:30am. An vacation officially started. Since Nic and I didn't get much sleep we had a low key day. 

The condo was located right on Choctawhatchee Bay and offered amazing views and even more amazing sunsets. Crab Island was very close and if we had kayak's we could have easily paddled over there.

Many mornings were spent either in the pool or on the beach.

 

 

 As much as I love to have everything in chronological order, it's just not feasible without making this post much longer than it already is. So, from here I'll just  just touch on the attractions and points of interest that we visited.

Harborwalk Village - This is a tourist's dream location. Contained within this area was Destin Harbor and marina, many restaurants, lots of shopping and even a few activities (zipline, anyone?). If you rent a boat in Destin or take a charter, this is very likely where you'll depart from. One thing though, is that parking is TERRIBLE!

 

Village of Baytowne Wharf - This is another location similar to the Harborwalk Village. It's located in the Sandestin Resort area. There were lots of restaurants, shopping, and also some activities. It didn't appear to have any type of marina associated with it, though. It's supposedly designed after Bourbon Street in New Orleans, though I saw more resemblance to the French Quarter.

 Miramar Beach - I wanted to have at least one true beach day, so my friend took us to Miramar Beach. We got there between 10am and 10:30am and soon found out that had we arrived any later, parking would have been hard to find. It's an extremely popular beach and I saw the white sand that everyone talks about. It's true, after being all over the Caribbean, that Destin has some of the whitest sand I have ever seen! We enjoyed the waves, me especially! I was really wishing we hadn't left Bryce's body board at home. Blaire even enjoyed the waves and would giggle as the waves came up on her chubby little legs.

 This is Bryce being clobbered by a wave!

Buccaneer Pirate Ship - Once Bryce saw the pirate ship sailing in the bay in front of the condo, he was persistent about riding it. So we chose a night, and sailed out of the Harborwalk Village Marina. We had a good time, even though Bryce decided to be shy rather than participate in the various activities the crews had for the kids...it's still one of his favorite moments of the trip.

Gulfarium - The Gulfarium is located in Ft. Walton beach. We watched the Dolphin show that was included with the expensive admission ticket. Other than that there was a small indoor aquarium area and some outdoor exhibits of sharks, stingrays, turtles, seals, penguins, otters, and alligators. One exhibit contained probably 50-100 baby alligators, which was probably my favorite. Other than that I was a disappointed in the quality of the exhibits and quantity.

We didn't see as much as I wanted to see, but when you're traveling with kids you have to take a lot of time out of the trip for nap time. ;)

Of course we indulged in some great food! Below are the places we tried:

Dewey Destin's - This was the first meal we had in Destin and since we were tired from our drive in, we sent the men out to pick it up and bring it back to the condo. Nic and I both had the Mate's Platter which consisted of fried fish, shrimp, and scallops. It was delicious and was accompanied by the BEST hush puppies I HAVE EVER HAD! Definitely goes on the "Favorites List"!

Mellow Mushroom - Pizza is pizza! Though we weren't disappointed. 

Crab Trap (Ft. Walton Beach) - After our visit to the Gulfarium we stopped at the Crab Trap for lunch. I had crab legs and grilled shrimp, which both were delicious but nothing extraordinary.

La Famiglia - This is an Italian restaurant located on the edge of Harborwalk Village. Nic had something with lamb chops and I had Shrimp Fettuccine Alfredo. We both were not impressed and didn't feel the quality of the food was close to the cost. We probably won't return here when we return to Destin.

 Pompano Joes - This restaurant is located on Miramar Beach and is probably my favorite place of all the restaurants we tried in Destin. Here we had Coral Reef Nachos for an appetizer. Then I ordered Coconut Shrimp, which I should have known better since I usually find that is not my favorite shrimp dish, but it was still good. The shrimp was served with Caribbean Rice & Beans, which was AMAZING! Then my friend had the Tuna & Strawberry Fields Salad. She let me try a bite and I had wished I had ordered it. I'm craving it and cannot wait to return to have it!

Acme Oyster House (Sandestin) - This restaurant was located within The Baytowne Wharf. I ordered the Fried Crab Platter. The food was decent, but it was far from being my favorite. 

McGuire's Irish Pub - This restaurant is located just across from Harborwalk Village. It's probably my 2nd favorite. Here I had an Irish Wake to drink, which tasted like a Screwdriver. Then I ordered the Grilled Prime Rib steak, which makes my mouth water just thinking about it! It was fantastic!

All in all, we had a wonderful trip, not only did we spend time as a family but we were fortunate to spend time with such wonderful friends. The night before we drove home, we enjoyed one last beautiful sunset which was a perfect ending to our time in Destin.

 The day we left, we left earlier in the day since Nic wanted to be home by 7am the next morning. So to break this long drive up a little, we decided to stop at the USS Alabama Battleship in Mobile, AL. Bryce doesn't quite understand the history of this battleship and the USS Drum submarine, but one day he will.