Excursion day

My office paid for me to go on a cruise and found one where kids are free. We would need to pay for Steven, but we said HECK YES since we only had to pay for one and got 5 free! I started to blog while there, so here's a start. Hopefully I'll add more. I have SO many drafts here in blogger! 

Breakfast before our excursion, we didn't wake up early enough for the fancy breakfast. 

On the bus to the Myan ruins

In the gift shop where we were told not to buy anything, we were only there for a bathroom break and had to stay on schedule! I wanted to buy some of these for Julia. She loved the maraccas and they were like $2 American dollars for the set. We didn't have time after either. Sorry, baby :( 

Myan ruins

We walked into the Tulucan ruins in Tulum and our guide talked on head sets for us. 

It was so hot and was hard to push the stroller in the dead lumpy rocky grass. We could not touch the ruins, but they were so cool to see! 
We got to text my mom who could tell Grandma happy birthday from us since we missed her big 85th birthday. 
It was Uncle Bruce's birthday too.

We stayed in the shade where we could. It was really hot.


The boys weren't really in the mood to cooperate and look up and smile. It was just too hot!


But they're good kids and did anyway. It would be cool to spend some time to actually play at the beach and cool off here and explore around more. But we were rushed.


I was kind of wanting the new selfie stick for this picture. We finally got it. The water, the cliffs, the whole family looking, and the ruins! It's such a cool thing that we were really in Mexico, and in the ruins!



And, of course, the Maria Feger vacation pose.

Yikes, who's watching the baby!

And the Larry Feger vacation pose.


Back out of the city to see how much time we have for shopping and finding something cold to drink on that hot hot hot day.

Oh my goodness, this coconut water was my high. It was the oasis at the end of our walk back, the guy chopped the top off with his big machete and we stuck a straw in it. It was cold and so refreshing and so cool to have gotten it from a local b/c Steven speaks such good Spanish. I would love this picture if it didn't have the cars inthe background. I love Dylan's confusion at my excitement for takign a photo of him just getting a drink, Tyler's red hot sweaty face because he's not getting a turn, Isaac helping his baby sister who is drinking the heck out of that cooconut. We started out with just one but bought another. Then I asked the guy to cut it so we could have some "a comer." He sliced and diced with that machete and offered some lime or salt or chile powder but I had it plain. The kids liked trying it too.






I bought a big silly hat. I had wanted to buy it before that hot time in the ruins since it's basically an umbrella for my baby. At least I got it! Steven got it for half price for me.

How cool are these guys! One even held Julia!

We rushed back to the bus and went to the beach for lunch. 

Almuerzo y la Playa

We got to the beach. It was actually a single restaurant at the end of a side road off of the main road. It was like a location off of the Highway 1 in The Florida Keys. I was picturing a touristy beach with beach shops, but it only had one little shop and a closed dive office or something. Isaac found a coconut and wanted to keep it. The coconuts are cool. 

Lunch was delicious. It was included with our excursion and the place was ready for us w/ the buffet style set up. I tried to get seconds. I had initially thought it would be cool to get a table right on the sand so we could sort of set up shop there but we chose inside since the other location had been so hot. It was open air, so inside didn't have air conditioning, but it was close for getting seconds. 

I couldn't eat it that much since I was feeding Julia my food. But the boys were eager to get to that pretty water so I took my plate out there. It was a little windy, and with having to help get the kids changed and sunscreened and my plate being down on a lounge chair, my plate of food got sandy.


The sand is more gritty than ours here. I probably should've saved some. Julia started out really liking the beach.

A live band started, which was good since Julia started screaming.




I took her, screaming, into the bathroom to try to get some sand off of us. There were no showers, but we changed our clothes and walked around. She fell asleep. Finally.

Then we ran back to the ferry that would take us back to Cozumel and our cruise ship. Some girls were late getting to the bus so we pretty much ran to the fairy. We didn't get many souveniers but I did get myself and my mom a nativity like the one I have from my grandma Gille which was from Mexico. They still look the same! It's different colors but still w/ the gold accents.

Memorial Day 2015

(more photos to come...)
I talked to the kids about what Memorial Day is and why we remember the people who have died in war. Dylan's 1st grade teacher went to place flags at every grave where Steven's parents are buried. She and her fiance did it yesterday. I'd like to do that next year. Or even at a local cemetery. I'd love to do more traditions with each holiday. As it is, we like to have nothing scheduled. Our church has a picnic each year and friends are invited. I saw a lot of moms on Facebook ask what there was to do for toddlers or with out of town guests or with their family for the holiday and, if I had been planning on going, it would've been the perfect thing to mention. It was free, a pot luck breakfast w/ plenty of food even if friends go empty handed, and was at the park at the VA. How perfect!
But our day was perfect here. Steven went to Publix WITH Julia this morning. Dylan went too. It may have been the first time Steven volunteered to take her somewhere just because. Yay for her being 1!! She'll grow into a little daddy's girl more and more. I did send her with a little green hair bow, but Steven claims he never saw it. Oh well, with her strawberry dress, she probably didn't get mistaken for a boy. And Steven didn't put her in the primary colors cart cover seat thingy (which is not girly at all.)
Steven got us freezer waffles and orange juice to go along with the cantulope he had previously purchased. He got hot dogs, baked beans, a watermellon, and popsicles for our lunch by the pool. He also got the buns and a veggie tray for our dinner which was chicken patty sandwiches. I made garlic mashed potatoes to go with that. Tyler liked them, but Julia didn't. The other boys didn't complain about them, so perhaps they liked them. We were going to get corn on the cob, but it was sold out. Everybody likes that around here!
We went through Dylan and Isaac's entire closet and both dressers.

We cut their inventory about in half, boxing some 5T things up for Tyler, puting many things into a rags pile, and had a huge pile of give away items that they have never worn nor will ever wear. Steven had been wanting to dive into that project for some time. Dylan has been wanting to rearrange his room for a long time. He really dislikes it when Isaac climbs on his bed to get to his own. Boy am I glad he isn't asking for his own room yet and is happy with his bed being a couple of feet away from his little brother's. Seriously, we can accommodate this request, plus we got to vacuum under everything! Steven started sneezing so much w/ all of the vacuum dust in there. It would be awesome to have a rainbow, if only it self cleaned and was free - ha!
Julia took a nap in her freshly vacuumed room too. (I was busy while they were at Publix, fixing a photo frame and organizing and vacuuming.

When we were in the middle of moving their beds and dressers, Don called to invite us to a movie. Normally the kids would have loved to go, but they wanted to stay home to see their beds really be separated and wanted to go in the pool. Huh. They wanted to stay home too! Well it's a good thing we did. When the room was to their glee and forts were made in the new vacancy under Isaac's bed, we jumped in the pool while the hot dogs were grilling, then went back in for popsicles after lunch.

Let me add here that Julia loves the pile of rocks and basket of pool toys. She used to love to go into the pool, but now is content playing with the toys. She likes the pool okay, but isn't drawn to it as she was a month ago.

Steven, Julia, Tyler and I took an almost long enough nap then Steven took all of the kids to the pet store so he could see Julia's reaction to fish and birds. He said the pictures and videos didn't capture her giggles but that she did love it. I had planned on going for a jog while they were gone, but realized that I should be responsible and make dinner. Plus, it's my dream for Steven to go do something fun with the kids so I can get things done around here and it happened! So I sent an email and made mashed potatoes from scratch with the other half of the bag I had from a crock pot meal. Then I took Julia for a jog after dinner while the boys went for another swim and leafed the pool.
I want to read Hatchet aloud to the kids because I remember my mom reading it aloud to us as a kid. Plus, she just re-gave me the idea and told me that Steven would like it too. So instead of waiting for a chance to go to the library, I spent the $7 and bought the ibook. Now it's on my office iPad and my iPhone. We actually watched a movie that Steven had recorded for the boys, "Genie in a Bikini," and still had time to read Chapter 1 of Hatchet in their "new" bedroom. I read part then Steven read part while Dylan followed along. Tyler and Isaac didn't quite grip onto it yet, mostly because Julia loves Isaac and Tyler's toys so much. Steven and I watched the season premier of some random NBC reality show called "The Island." And that's our day! But now I know why people don't like Mondays. Tomorrow is Tuesday but it'll feel like a Monday b/c I don't have a day where the people go to work/school and I get a day to try to catch up and stay up late before work. I have a couple of photo projects waiting on me... But Barbie has been blogging so she's inspiring me to do the same. Priorities!! I need to be my kids' #1 teacher, so if I don't do it in person, then some day they can read back and see something or learn something or remember something. I love my babies. I still want to do actual traditions, but the non-committal, free-to-do-anything-or-nothing days are a nice bonus too.

Dear Julia, You're 1!

Dear Baby Julia,

You're 1 year old.

Here's the thank you card I sent out, The front, the inside left, the inside right where I wrote, then I used a random picture of you with your pinata for the back. (I was just going to do a flat card and would write in a section on the back, but then added another photo and went for a folded card.) The smash cake was not at all what I thought we were ordering. I had said "pink ombre with red on the bottom up to white on the top, or just a dark pink on the bottom." I thought the icing would be that color, not all white then airbrushed this odd pink color on a tiny asymmetric cake. Oh well, you're cute.
This cake would've been awesome.

or this 

 but I thought I was getting the outside to be this 

A couple of weeks ago you started standing on your own, taking steps, using spoons and forks, signing, and talking a tiny bit.

Your verbal words are mostly book and ball. You mostly say in a sort of question-like whine, the "b" sound with the start of the word, but only the vowel(s) sound blended with it, like "Boo_" for book, "B' " for Bird, "Ba' " for ball, and it seems like you have another.

Your signs are hitting your mouth for water, food, or pacifier,
Tucking your hands under your chin for baby,
Clapping your hands for book or ball,
Punching one hand into the open palm of your other for more,
Pinching your first finger and thumb for bird or outside,
and that's about it I think.
You pat the top of your head where there's often a hair bow for blanket. I think your intention is to drag your hand down your cheek, but you notice the bow and pat that area instead. I just figured out the sign after you had been doing it for a while.

You love books.

You intently watch us for learning new words and sounds.

Your hair gets a little curly when humid. 

You weigh 18lbs finally and had a well visit! You have had sick visits lately. So you're in the 5th percentile. (I just looked that up, not sure how accurate the babycenter.com is.)

You can sorta use a fork. You definitely do and do not want to eat certain things but it switches.

You love raisins, and prefer to eat them right from the mini box. I don't even need to cut them. If you don't like a food, you'll sometimes eat it from a different container (Think Green Eggs and Ham's logic of "would you eat them in my bowl? Would you eat them if I left them whole?" type of logic.)

You'll down a squeezy pouch when hungry. (I love that they make baby food come in pouches, That was awesome with Tyler too.)

You'll drink water from any sippy cup, my cup, with a straw, a sports bottle, whatever. You even drank it from a medicine dropper.

You like cereal bars and oatmeal and grits too, any time of day.

You leave hair bows in your hair.

5/20/15
You started officially walking instead of crawling for Corrie last Tuesday, May 19th. You were proud of yourself that evening. Now, you don't crawl at all. You had been doing a bear crawl to be fast b/c you were done with your knees. You would walk short distances then fall on purpose to get the job done more efficiently on all fours. You're a walker now though!

I love that you still nurse in the middle of the night. When you were sick, you were cluster feeding lots and you were so uncomfortable. You don't usually ask to nurse. You do sign for it or put your hand down my shirt (only like 4 times, but that was 4 too many times) when I pick you up from somewhere and missed me. You don't really want/need to in the day. Sometimes I try to nurse you before nap time or something to get you in a more calm happy mood. Eh, sometimes you agree. I LOVE to snuggle with you and to pet your hair and feel your feet and thighs and sometimes play with one another's nails when you nurse or cuddle. You're my baby girl and I'm so happy to have you.