Just a cute picture of our silly little monkey
On Wednesday the west side gals got together for a fun pool date. The girls had so much together as usual and just continue to amaze us on how fun their interactions have gotten. Cristiana and Ava were chasing each other (or should I say Ava was chasing Cristiana) and Amelia was full of hugs and kisses. The girls enjoyed large pieces of watermelon and LOTS of them (Cristiana had about 3 of them). Cristiana really loved the pool and again continued to try and swim out of my arms (crazy girl!). She also loved hanging out in the kiddie pool, which is a good thing since that's all we have at home.
Thanks for having us over Kristin and Ava! You're awesome hostesses as usual!
So yes, I am admitting to a huge mommy mistake here on our family blog. As we arrived at Tracy's house for our first pool/playdate, I packed all my stuff in the bag so I could grab Cristiana out of the car and walk up the front door. I decided to lock my car while my door was open just to be able to put my keys away, but I'm sure most of you have guessed by now what happened, yes, I closed my door and locked my bag with my keys in the car. Where was Cristiana you ask, of course, she was locked in the car as well. The past few days the heat index has been quite high and the high on this day was suppose to be around 97. So Cristiana locked in my car out in the sun and keys no where in sight, I tried not to panic. Mommy switched to survival mode and to make a long story short Tracy jumped out of her pool and called the fire dept. It seemed like forever before they arrived. I had 3 firemen and 1 sheriff working on my car for about 10 min or so and unfortunately, as the sheriff said, many new cars are made so theft proof that even they have trouble getting into them. SO, all that man power and unfortunately they ended up having to break my window to get poor little sweaty Cristiana out. She was a trooper as usual though, she didn't cry or scream while she was in the car, only complained a few times, I'm sure because she was hot and was wondering why she was still in the car while I was outside. I thought this would never happen to me, but I guess I was wrong. This was a very humbling experience and I thank GOD my little monkey was OK.
(by the way, the next day I locked Cristiana, Rusty, and I out of our house. But luckily our neighbor had our spare. I was on a roll and it was only Wednesday! Yikes!)
Keys in hand ALWAYS from now on!
On Tuesday, Cristiana and I went over to Tracy and Grace's house for a lunch/pool play date. This was Cristiana's 1st time in a pool and she really enjoyed it. She kept trying to swim out of my arms, hence why she's in a floaty in the picture. It was nice to catch up w/ Tracy, Leslie, and their girls since we have not seen them in a while.
Thanks for the fun pool/playdate gals!
This past week, my mom came to visit. My mom hasn't seen Cristiana since Feb., so she was very emotional to see her little granddaughter walking, running, talking, and with so much hair. Cristiana warmed up to grandma after a few min. of being in the car. So much so that my mom and I couldn't maintain our conversation because Cristiana was being extra loud in order to get her attention. They had a great time together and Cristiana was very excited to receive some of my old dolls that my mom had kept for so many years. When daddy got home, she introduced him to every doll my mom had given her (it was really cute).
Can't wait till grandma's next visit.
Tia Jackie gave Cristiana a bouncy zebra for Christmas and it has been a big hit ever since. She LOVES this thing and will bounce on it several times throughout the day. She sometimes bounces on it so hard that we're afraid that she's either going to break it or bounce right off of it. Here's a short video that we took about a month or 2 ago of her bouncing on her zebra (we had forgotten to post it).
Don't forget to pause the music at the bottom of the blog before playing the video.
Don't forget to pause the music at the bottom of the blog before playing the video.
On Monday Cristiana and I met up with Kristin, Ava, Monica, Amelia, and Amelia's awesome grandma at magic Kingdom.It was Ava, Amelia, and Amelia's grandma 1st visit to Disney, and Cristiana and I were very happy to be part of their special day. The girls enjoyed their time playing in their playground, in the Ariel Splash area, as well as riding the carousel. Unfortunately we were not able to do much more due to huge wait times (summer time is awful in the parks) and then the rain (which we actually appreciated since it was steamy hot while we were there) but hopefully the girls did have fun playing with each other (Amelia kept hugging Cristiana while they were at the playground, it was really cute). As soon as the crowds die down (kids go back to school) and the summer heat calms down a bit, the west side girls will be back.
On Saturday, we headed to the beach for the first time this year. We of course visited our favorite beach in St. Pete, Honeymoon Island State Park, and were pleasantly surprised that those painful rocks we encountered all last year were actually no where to be found. Cristiana's last trip to the beach was about a year ago, and since she was so little back then, we had no idea if she enjoyed it or not, so we were pretty excited to see how she would react this time. She was a bit hesitant at first (very evident in the video below) but after a bit, she was ready to go. She even started pulling daddy into the water. She had a great time playing with her toys and the sand and of course LOVED chasing the seagulls.
Don't forget to pause the music at the bottom of the blog before playing the video.
On Wed. we met up w/Kristin and Ava @ the Hannibal Square splash pad. It was a hot day and we had no rain which made it a perfect day for the splash pad. The girls had fun running around both at the pad and the park itself (mommy got water sprayed up her nose this time). Ava tried to feed Cristiana again today (see the picture below) and of course she was a
trooper for the m
ost part, except when she already had a m
outh full.
This is one of my favorite recent pictures of Cristiana. It really shows her sassy personality. I bought her this cute pull-out sofa a week or so before I took this picture and she absolutely loves it! She will sit in it to eat her snacks or watch a few min. of TV or she'll pull it out and just play in it. This picture was taken after we went to visit daddy at work one day. She grabbed her cell phone and her sun glasses and decided to just hanging out in it. Such a sassy little girl!
Here's one of her "making a call" while on her couch.
On Saturday, we decided to take Cristiana out after her afternoon nap for a little bit of summer fun. My mom's group has been going to this splash pad in Winter Park for some time now, but Cristiana is on a different napping schedule than everyone else, so unfortunately we have not been able to join them, so we decided to do it on the weekend so daddy could also join in on the fun. If you've been a faithful reader of our blog, you would know that Cristiana tends to be somewhat hesitant in splash parks or even her own splash mat we have at home. She's always liked to touch the water but never really goes in and gets wet. Well, I don't know it the water at this splash pad was warm enough or if she's gotten over her fear, but she was all over the place, going in and out of the fountain and getting soaked. Except for having to run after her a few times when she ran off, I was able to sit back and watch her enjoy the water. Here are some great pics Jaime took of her running around. We'll definitely be spending a lot more time here in the future.
On Friday, Cristiana and I went over to Kristin and Ava's for an impromptu play date (since Cristiana has been completely off schedule since we got back from Chicago everything is usually last min.) It had been a while since we hung out with the Grant girls so we drove over to their house for a little visit. Ava was so excited to see Cristiana, which was SUPER cute and then throughout our visit she kept trying to feed her as well as give her a sippy cup to drink. Like a trooper Cristi
ana drank most of the time Ava gave her the sippy cup but one time Cristiana would not open her mouth and Ava proceeded to pry her mouth open. It was TOO funny! Kristin says that she's been doing this with her dolls, so maybe she thought Cristiana was a life sized doll??? :) The girls were chasing each other around and they seemed to have such a great time together. It's crazy how much these little ones have changed. I included a picture of these two from this ti
me (June) a year ago when they still were unable to sit up on their own and look at them now. Time flies when they're so small.
