18 months and a beach trip

Paigey girl is 18 months old and into everything, as are most 18 month olds.  She weighed in at 19 pounds, 9 ounces (10th percentile) and 31 inches long (25th percentile).  Only 1 shot, so she wasn't too upset with the nurse!

She really is a funny kid.  Her expressions and words keep us laughing.  She and Olivia are getting to the point where they "fight."  I say fight, but it's actually Paige emitting a high pitched scream until Olivia gives her what she's playing with/eating/reading/etc.  Which results in Olivia getting upset.  We've been telling Olivia that Paige will get easier and be more fun for her to play with "soon" for around 17 months now.  Ha!

They do love each other most of the time:

Right before the girls and I moved, we decided to take a short beach trip.  When I started looking at prices, we almost cancelled!  Then I remembered the trip to Wilderness at the Smokies from last year.  We rented from a Wyndham timeshare owner and I still had her email.  I contacted her to see if she had anything available on the gulf coast of Florida.  She responded right away and had a 2 bedroom condo in Panama City.  The price she quoted was less than half of what we were finding online, so we weren't expecting much.
So, you can imagine our surprise when we check in and they make a huge deal about us being in the "Presidential Suite."  We got the keys and rode to the 24th floor (the elevator button said "Penthouse" beside the number, ha!).  It was awesome.  Much bigger and nicer than our current apartment!  Granite everywhere, tile floors, 2 balconies (one in the master, one in the living area). 

Olivia was a little excited:

We saw a school of manatee's from our balcony:

Love the clear water!  Mamaw and Papaw met us down there, so we had extra eyes on the girls!  Good thing, because they both love the water:

I think the highlight of the trip for all of us was a sunset dolphin cruise.  Right before we left:

Aboard the "Sea Screamer:"

The boat was big enough to make a fairly big wake.  Apparently, dolphins love to swim and jump in waves:

They followed us for a long time!  It was really neat.  The workers then pulled up some crabs from a trap and let the kids hold them.  Olivia wanted nothing to do with them, but Paige was all about it:

The next day, we went to Shell Island, which is a small island right beside Panama City that has been left undeveloped.  It was quite a journey to get there!  A bus ride, followed by a ferry ride, then a long walk.  It was very pretty, though.  Michael and I even got to snorkel.

Naturally, I wanted to take pictures of the girls on the beach.  Unfortunately, people stay on the beach until it's dark, so all the pictures have people in the background.  They didn't turn out as good as I hoped, although my kids are always cute:

We stayed 4 nights, which is usually long enough for us at the beach.  However, this trip we could have stayed a few more days!
We've had several people look at our house in Dayton lately, so we're hoping to be house hunting in Nashville in the near future!

Settling in...

Blog hiatus, because we didn't have internet at the apartment until this week!  Also, most of my photos have been taken from my phone, lately.  It's rather difficult to live in 2 different places 2.5 hours apart!  I'll think of something I need and realize it's at the house or vice versa.  Fun times! 

The girls and I are living in Nashville with Michael for the most part and enjoying what the area has to offer- like the splash pad at Charlie Daniels Park:

The last 2 pictures are at Nashville Shores, a waterpark 5 miles from the apartment.  We got a membership and the girls love it!  We were surprised Olivia would go down that slide by herself.


We do travel to check on the house occasionally, but Olivia's schedule is keeping us busy here!  She has swim lessons or gymnastics every week day, although swim lessons end soon.  She is SO excited about gymnastics- she starts competing in August at Level 2.  This entails 7 HOURS of practice (3 days a week), a pricey leotard, a pricey warm-up, meet competition entry fees- I will stop, but I could go on.  We told her if she wants to do this, it is the only sport she can participate in and she agreed right away.  She loves it!

Poor Paige has been struggling with allergies since we moved:

The pediatrician put her on a daily dose of Zyrtec.  It's helping some, but she has a continuous runny nose.  Chicken legs seem to help:

She cracks me up.  She has started throwing her arms up with a confused look if you ask her where someone is (usually Daddy):

We came to the Tri-Cities for a couple of days last weekend, because I was helping host a baby shower for my friend Mary Ellen:

She got us these cute hats for hosting:

Seems like I won't be getting to wear it much, though:

Unfortunately, Paige is not cut out to live in an apartment.  She's at the screaming stage- she screams when she's happy, sad, mad, etc.  We are continuously saying "Shhhhh" to her.  Even Olivia gets in on it- she tells her to "be quiet before you get us kicked out of here!"  Wonder where she heard that?  So, I basically let her do whatever she wants to keep her from screaming when we're in the apartment. 

I'm sure that will not bode well for me in the future.

I mentioned Olivia's swim lessons.  I didn't mention the free entertainment.  She is taking at the YMCA and there is a water zumba class that is going on at the same time.  This instructor has some self confidence!  The other parents and I were laughing so hard, but he didn't care.  I think it helped him, ha! 

 

The best part?  He keeps Paige entertained for 45 minutes: