Oak Island

The Beach House was a great time, but all great things have to come to an end. However, we have all decided we will be making it an annual occurrence. We spent the week at Oak Island, NC with our close friends, Katie and Jay. Holden had a blast, he sang the Beach Song "going to the beach, going to the beach" every morning running circles around the living room. It was truly a vacation for Holden, he got to watch movies all the time (The Incredibles were watched daily), had a menu of hot dogs, mac & cheese and PB&J pretty much every day and endless bike rides.

Holden loved the beach, its still amazing how much he likes the water compared to last year. He's a bit fearless so we had to go and buy a life jacket after the first day as he wanted go in deeper water with Dad. Jeremy took him into deeper water the first day (before we had the life jacket) and I freaked out. Not that Jeremy wasn't holding onto him tightly, or that I didn't trust him but I could just see a wave take out Jeremy and he lose his grip. Its been a while since I had a moment like that but that is why we now have a life jacket, and surprisingly Holden didn't mind wearing it to go out and swim with Dad. Good thing we are in swim lessons.

Holden would get to our spot on the beach, immediately take off his sandals and run towards the water. Fearless I tell you. I can envision visits to the ER in my future.

Jeremy burying Holden in the sand

We took a road trip one day to Fort Fisher, the NC Aquarium and the USS North Carolina Battleship. Holden took his first ferry ride and loved it. Jeremy obviously loved the battleship (see the photo with him shooting the guns). Katie and I also got to spend a day shopping in Southport and have a nice relaxing lunch.

Southport to Fort Fisher Ferry, being cool like Dad.

NC Aquarium, we currently really like Alligators

USS North Carolina deck

Our childhood friend, Nick, showed up on the last couple of days to join in the fun. It was his first time hanging out at the beach as he has only lived in the Charlotte area for little over a year. Needless to say, he made the classic rookie mistake and got really sun burnt. Although, the rest of us seemed to make the same mistake on the last day also, funny how that happened. I'm just glad the sunburns didn't occur on Day 1.
I had to add this last photo, which classically shows how cooperative Holden is for photos lately. We can't wait to do it all again next year.

Beach Week

This is where I am for the rest of the week. Its awesome. Been wanting to rent a house at the beach for the 6 years we have lived here, don't know why we waited so long. Holden and I went on a bike ride last night and I took a turn a bit too slow and toppled the bike. The end of the bike ride went a little like this
Me: "Holden you have a good time?"
Holden: "Yes, Mommy fall down"
Me: "Lets keep that our little secret and not tell daddy"
We come inside and Holden runs to Jeremy
Jeremy: "Holden, did you have a good time"
Holden: "Yea, Mommy fall down"

Just the beginning I suspect of my son tattling on me.

Family Visit

My mother-in-law came to visit over the last week along with Jeremy's 14 year old nephew. We took them to Myrtle Beach for a long weekend and my MIL got to spend some much needed quality time with Holden. Of course because we were having too much fun, I don't have many photos.

Holden loved the beach, we were really surprised how quickly he took to the ocean this time. Bodes well for the week long beach trip we have planned in July, which I will say I am stoked about. Grandma got him a ring floaty that was in the shape of a tiger and it definitely helped with his courage.

On a side note, we have been in summer heat for over a month now and Holden has taken to any type of water. We started swim lessons this week with Holden's best bud, Cameron. They are going to have a great summer.

Zoo Review

We took Holden to the NC Zoo Saturday and it was all he was expecting but Jeremy and I have high expectations growing up in Omaha with access to Henry Doorly. That being said, the NC Zoo is very well laid out and I did like that the large grazing animals looked like they had plenty of room to roam. Holden got to feed the giraffes which he loved. Also, Holden was so excited about the alligators. The biggest disappointment for me was the lack of big cats, they had one cougar but no lions, tigers etc. Big cats are my favorite at the zoo, so that was a bummer.

It was a beautiful day all be it a little hot and Jeremy had a great time people watching. All in all, we will definitely go back. Holden has been talking all about the animals he got to see for 2 days straight now, so it was obviously a hit.

Holden watching the elephant drinking.

I didn't get a good shot of Holden feeding the giraffe, but they came right up to the deck to eat out of the kid's hands.

All smiles after feeding the giraffes and spotting the zebra.

Pre-Vacation

Its been a while since I've updated everyone, because we have been having so much fun that I haven't taken a minute to write up a post. My sister came to visit a week before vacation to be my nanny for a week while daycare was closed. It was awesome, let me tell you. She and Holden had a great time and I came home to a clean dishwasher and vacuumed floors. Did I mention it was awesome. I also got to spend some much needed quality time with my baby sister, who is almost a college graduate.We had a great time, made a pilgrimage to the local Ikea and got Holden a new table and rug to play on. We got him some crayons and paper and let him have a great time. Only took about 2 hours for crayon to get all over the table and chairs, supposedly its washable.Holden has become the little imitator lately always wanting to help unless its putting toys away. He likes to sweep, mop, throw things in the trash. I might need to remind him of this time when he's 16.
We made some cookies the day before heading to Tennessee for a big family reunion, Holden was having a blast helping.He has picked up a few more signs "more" and "bath" and his favorite words seem to be "mama" and "no". Cute but gets old fast when he wanders all around the house wining "mama".

Outdoor Fun

Holden turned 14 months old today. Time is flying. We had a great weekend, great weather and got a lot accomplished and enjoyed some outdoor play time. Saturday we went to our friends Stacey and Cameron's for a lunchtime play date. Cameron has a very cool sand and water table that Holden enjoyed immensely. He was covered in sand and water by the time we left.

Sunday we had gorgeous weather so we decided to pull Holden's water table out for him to play with. He had a great time, I think we have a water baby on our hands. He was soaking wet by the time he was done.

The farmer's market is in full swing now, I got a little carried away Saturday morning. There are buckets and buckets of strawberries now and the first crop of sweet corn. It was very tasty for dinner tonight.
Lastly everyone was tuckered out from a big weekend.

Busy Weekend

well, what is new...every weekend is busy. I have been on the hunt for some outdoor toys for Holden as he LOVES being outside. Finally found something after hitting all of the kid's consignment stores in town. And it was a jackpot, Jeremy is already making plans for rigging up the lights to work.

Holden is now saying a few words, 'dat' means cat and he says Dada and Mama pretty consistently now. The other big development is his love of books. We read before nap time and bedtime and sometimes I have to read a story when we wake up. So, we hit the library this weekend to get a few new books to read. This is mostly for my sanity as I'm not sure how many more times I can read about Elmo's red shirt. We picked up some Eric Carle books and Sam McBratney, he has taken a liking to the Very Hungry Caterpillar.

We had made plans to go to the zoo on Sunday but the weather ruined that idea. So, instead I shaved Jeremy's head for him. He'd been talking about it for quite a while and finally did it. Not sure how much I like it yet, but I'm sure I just need to get use to it.