Beachin' It

So, it's no secret that we live, maybe, 8 minutes from the beach - and that's if we hit all red lights and the bridge is up. We try to go once a week, if the weather is good and we don't have too much to get done that day. But there's something about going away to a different beach for a little vacay. So we packed up the VDub and headed north up to Crescent Beach, just south of St. Augustine. (And don't worry about squished little Scout. She only spent a short time in the car before we dropped her off at the grandparents' where she was spoiled to no end, I'm sure.)

We love Crescent Beach! The beaches are wide and perfect for a wandering toddler who loves to walk, walk, and walk some more. 

We went up to Crescent last summer, when the kid was just about 5 months old. She was a little afraid of the waves, so we spent most of our beach-going time relaxing in the shade of our little tent.

But this year... well, so much has changed!

Obviously, we spent the majority of our time on the beach. But, the pool was nice, too!

Typical for Florida summer weather, the storms rolled in every afternoon...

which made for some spectacular sunsets!

One of the best parts of the trip was seeing Zoey get along so well with my cousin's girls. Lots of reading and parallel play going on with these three!

On the last night of our visit, the whole family, all four of my cousins, two of their wives, three kiddos under five, my aunt and uncle, the Hubs, and my mom headed in to St. Augustine to enjoy dinner on the patio at OC White's. Zoey really dug the live music...

After dinner, the three of us went for a little walk around the park at the end of St. George Street. A perfect end to our vacation. I'm already dreaming of next year's trip!

Eight Month Update

I can't believe Baby Tuna is now eight months old! (Her birthday was last week and I'm a total blogging slacker) That means that in just four short months we will be chasing a one year old around. And that four months ago, we were sitting in the hospital as Z healed from her surgery. Seems like ages ago, and now she is growing and hitting all of her milestones like a champ!

Weight: about 18 pounds (no doctor appt this month, so I had to measure myself)
Height: about 26.5 inches (tough to get since the kid is always in motion)
Sizes: Baby Tuna is wearing a little of everything. She still fits in her summery rompers that are 3-6 month size, but also fits in 6-9 and 6-12 month items, too, although they are a wee bit big on her. It's tough to shop the sales and buy clothes for next year. Who knows how big (or not-so-big) she'll be next summer!


Sleep: It's been tough this month. Z is super inconsistent, sleeping from 8pm-7am one night, then waking up 4 or 5 times the next, then waking up at 3am another night and staying awake until 5. The Hubs and I have a deal - he takes care of bedtime and any wake-ups before 3 am. I get everything after and nap times. We. are. exhausted. Naps aren't much better. Most are her typical 30 minutes, but then she'll throw a couple 2 hour naps in once in a while just to get momma excited that things may be changing. We've tried a couple of different sleep training methods, unsuccessfully, and have just started the Ferber (which always makes me think of Meet the Fockers) progressive waiting method. Last night was the first night, so if it's successful, I'll probably post all about it. It was tough, but I've heard from many mommas that it works. Hope so!

Diet: We have yet to find a food that this kid won't eat. Ok...that's not completely true. Although she loves green bean puree from a pouch, she will not eat homemade green bean puree. I don't blame her. It has a funny gritty texture. She's old enough now, though, that this month, we may start giving her bites of real green beans. She lives for mashed bananas, mashed mangos, homemade cinnamon applesauce, homemade sweet potatoes with cinnamon, and a blend of kale, pear, and greek yogurt. Pumpkin and banana is another favorite that I may try making myself. Lots of yummy sounds while she eats and sometimes, when it's one of her favorites, Z will even close her eyes a little bit. We may have a foodie on our hands. She also love loves her puffs, and has even started to pick them up between her index finger and thumb instead of using her whole hand to shove them in her mouth!
Z is drinking water from her sippy throughout the day (although she enjoys chewing on the handles more than anything), but probably only gets an ounce or two. She also gets a 6 oz bottle four times a day, but doesn't usually finish it. I guess that's normal?

Milestones: Yowza! This month has been exciting! 

Crawling: We now have a full-fledged crawler in the house! Though she's been scooting around (mostly backwards for the first few weeks, then army crawling like she's in boot camp for another few weeks), the babe just recently started moving on all fours. She gets around so quickly in her army crawl, she usually goes that way, especially on the tile. Z giggles and chirps when she starts crawling like a speed demon, usually headed around the corner to her bathroom or across the living room to hang out under the jumperoo. 

"Talking": This chatterbox babbles all day long. Her most common "words" are "ya-ya", which she usually says while nodding, and "mamamam", which the Hubs swears is her way of saying mama. Who knows! 

Pulling Up: This month, Baby Tuna started pulling up on everything! It started with pulling up on us if we were sitting or laying on the floor, then she moved to the coffee table and crib rail. For the longest time, she could only get to her knees, but after her eight month birthday, started making it to her feet! 

That mean mug is so intimidating! 

I took about a zillion pics this last month, as usual, so here are a few more...

For Z's eight month birthday, we were in Ellijay, GA at my parents' cabin. If you've been following this blog for a while, you may remember that we went there last October for our babymoon. It's one of our favorite places, lots of hiking, close to Atlanta (although we only stopped for lunch this year on our way through), and a great place to relax. 

We left in the wee hours of the morning, about 4am, so that Z would sleep for the first half of the trip. (That way we both got a few hours of sleep before hitting the road.) She was an awesome traveller! We really didn't have to stop any more often than we would have anyways, and we rented an SUV so that I could easily climb from front to back when she needed company. Other than lousy weather when we reached Atlanta foiling our plans for eating Willy's in Piedmont Park on the way up, the trip went very smoothly. 

I wasn't great about taking pictures, and most of them haven't been edited yet, but here are a few from our trip.

The view from the front of the cabin. The view from the back porch is the same. Like being in a little treehouse!

Someone loves the chilly weather! 

How we spent our nights...s'mores and Uno. Good times! 

 On the last day of our trip, we went to our favorite spot in the area, Amicalola Falls. The little creek in the first pic actually feeds the falls. We took the 425 stairs down to the viewing deck, but Z was the only one who was amped to climb back up.

I'm not sure what this face is, but it's super cute!!

The rest are from Z's actual 8 month birthday. I'm so into polka dots lately, and the babe's polka dot corduroy romper is seriously my favorite!

I've been slacking so much on my blogging duties lately. It's tough business trying to work, blog, and chase around a curious 8 month old! Look for 8 month favorites just around the corner! 

Babymoon in Georgia

For the week of Halloween, the Hubs and I headed north for a much needed vacation… a Babymoon, if you will. We spent the week at my parents’ cabin in Ellijay, Georgia, a small town in the Appalachian foothills between Atlanta and the Tennessee line. The county is the apple capital of the south, and the southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail, Springer Mountain, is nearby. Much to my chagrin, we wouldn’t be doing any hiking like usual (I was all for it, but the Hubs thought differently. Boo!) .

We love how the cabin feels like a treehouse.

Actually, the whole point of the trip, besides rest and relaxation (and a little outlet shopping for the babino) was to check out the fall color. But thanks to that bitch of a storm Sandy, most of the color that was on the trees the week before, blew off in gale force winds on our first couple of days. By the end of the trip, the trees that hadn’t changed yet started in the wonderful cool weather (the average high was about 55!). Either way, we got to see a little color in all those trees.

 

We also saw a ton of deer (Ok so they might have been the same deer family over and over each day, but still) in the neighborhood.

Damon barely had to zoom in for this pic. This guy was about 10 feet from our car! 

On the second day of our trip, we headed up to Amicalola Falls. We had been before in the summertime a few years ago and it was beautiful. You can start at the bottom of the falls and “climb” your way up a zillion steps, or you can do it the preggo way and just drive to the top on a beautiful winding mountain road. This year, we opted for the drive. 

 At the top, you get an amazing view from the top of the falls of the valley below. In the summer, everything is green and lush, but in the fall, I've heard the colors are amazing. Too bad we missed the best colors, but you get the idea.

We weren’t able to spend a lot of time at the top of the falls due to a freezing wind blowing around up there. So we started down the mountain and pulled off at a parking area a little ways down. We saw a trailhead (don’t worry, it was the kind of trail that is wheelchair accessible, so even a preggo lady can manage) and headed down. 

The sky cleared and became a brilliant blue!

A little ways down the trail, we noticed that someone found a much better parking spot than we did!

Look carefully... there's an old truck in that tangle of trees.

This trail path lead to a spot about halfway down the falls, so we had to get a couple of pics.

We managed to take one of the two of us, too.

The next day, we met my college roommate, Allison, and her two boys (you can check out her hilarious blog here.) at the Flying Biscuit in Atlanta. Her boys are both under the age of 4 and are two of the cutest guys ever! And although I felt like they were pretty well behaved, I think it was an eye opening experience for the Hubs. Dining out is about to drastically change for us FOREVER!

Lunch was followed by some serious outlet shopping in Dawsonville, just outside the ATL. This outlet mall is huge, in the middle of nowhere, and has some pretty great stores (I'm looking forward to going back next year so I can do some shopping in the Lucky Brand store). We spent more than we should have at the Carters, Baby Gap, and Gymboree stores. The Baby Tuna will be one very well dressed muchacha!

The great thing about Ellijay is how close it is to so many different types of places. If you ever make it up to that area, you must head over to Blue Ridge. This is the kind of cute little mountain town that has a main street (incredibly named Main Street, of all things!) with a ton of tiny shops and restaurants. Since I was starving immediately upon arrival (Blue Ridge is only 20 minutes from our cabin, so obviously the drive took a lot out of me!! Haha!), we ate at this great pizza joint that was the kind of place the locals go. Best pizza I've had in a long time! I just wish I could remember the name. If you go looking for it, it's just past the feed store with all the chickens and ducks on the front porch. Gotta love small town America!

There is one spot in Blue Ridge that you absolutely CAN NOT miss... The Sweet Shoppe.

The women who own this super cute bakery were winners on Cupcake Wars. And as many know, I love cake and cupcakes, so, big DUH, this place pretty much rocked my world! The Hubs and I each ordered our own cupcakes. I went for the Hot Fudge Sundae, and he couldn't pass on the PB & J.

Ohmigosh! I still dream about that cupcake! Mine was filled with the lightest vanilla buttercream I have ever tasted. I thought I made awesome buttercream, but I would kill to know how these ladies got theirs so light and fluffy. The Hubs' PB & J was filled with sweet, gooey strawberry jam. Unfortunately, our cupcakes were too good to share, even one little bite, but the Hubs tells me it tasted just like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Yum-o! 

We also couldn't pass on the truffles. We got two of each so sharing wouldn't be an issue! They were each sooo delish! 

Cookies n Cream, Cookie Dough, Peanut Butter, and Thin Mint

We had such a relaxing week, enjoying the cold weather, warming up by the fire and making s'mores for dessert every night. (I'm choosing to forget the stress of the whole baby registry debacle!) It was the perfect way to say good bye to our family of two before we head back next year as a family of three. Can't wait to take the Baby Tuna on a couple of hikes, too!