Daddy+Pool = Fun!

It is always nice to take a vacation to visit Robert when he has to be away, but it is so much nicer to have him home and enjoy our time together! Elena especially loves playing in the pool with her Daddy! They definitely have a blast together!

I enjoy being in the pool with my two favorite people too! :)

Future Chemist?

The other night Elena was "helping" my parents test out the chemicals in the pool. Then she decided to do her own experimenting as well.


Look at the concentration! We were cracking up at how serious she was being! Hmmm, a future chemist like her Aunt Nettie perhaps? We will see!

Hanging out.

A couple weekends ago Marie's parents were in town visiting with her nephew so we invited them all over to swim and BBQ. I even did the grilling!! Surprising, right?



It is just too hot outside to not be in the pool!


Marie's nephew Jaime was amazing with Elena! He is such a good kid! I don't know too many 11 year old's that will play with a 2.5 year old for hours and not complain! She even had him playing princess dominoes at one point! :)


It was a fun evening with great friends and family!

Obsessed.

So I mentioned in a previous post about my daughter's obsession with Disney's movie Tangled. I thought I would share some of the reasons I believe that she is officially obsessed with it.
1. She asks to watch the movie at least twice every day.
2. She is continually quoting lines from the movie~
~at breakfast the other day she exclaimed, "They just can't get my nose right!"
(Flynn Rider talking about his nose being drawn wrong on the wanted poster)
~she grabbed my Mom's face and said "Grandma, don't ever ask to leave this
tower AGAIN!"
~"Let's get you home and call it a day" (another Flynn quote)
~"Best Day Ever!" (Rapunzel says this in the movie and Elena will say this at
least once a day)
~"Flower gleam and glow..." she sings the first part of the song that makes
Rapunzel's hair glow in the movie.
~ "Woah mama, I have got to get me one of these!" (Flynn talking about a frying pan)
3. If she puts a dress on she wants to know if it is a long one, like Rapunzel's.
4. She grabbed the water hose and put it up to her head and said - look at my long hair!
5. Has Tangled sheets (Ok, maybe I am feeding her obsession a little there but hey, whatever keeps her in her big girl bed works for me)
6. Asks to brush my hair all the time. (and usually gives me the "never leave this tower again" speech too.
7. Not only sits and watches the entire movie all the way through, but also the credits - yes you heard me correctly. She will be very upset if we turn it off before all the credits have ran through the screen!
8. Yesterday she grabbed a blanket, climbed up in her bed, threw the blanket over the edge while holding it up to her head and asked me if I wanted to climb her hair up to the tower. (That one was pretty creative!)
9. Never wants to wear shoes because Rapunzel has "naked feet" in the movie.
10. On the 4th of July every time we saw some of those sky lanterns floating in the air (just like the ones in the lantern scene from the movie) she would start singing the song that goes with that scene in the movie! "At last I see the light..." :) Hilarious!

Hot, Hot, Hot!

There have been 21 days this summer where the temperature has reached over 100! In other words, it is HOT! I mean unbearably hot, unless of course you are surrounded by water - which is exactly how Elena has been keeping cool this summer! This was her first time on a slip n slide ~

She preferred sliding down on her bottom or her knees instead of her tummy!

But what she liked most was the puddle at the end of the slide.

We occasionally get to go to toddler time at the YMCA water park. This is fantastic - for an hour and 1/2 there are only kids there under age 6. It makes it so much easier to keep track of my little adventurer!

Elena has been doing fantastic at swimming lessons and now loves diving to the bottom of the pool for toys! Pretty impressive! She is already moving up to the next level in her swim class! I am so proud of her!

She is absolutely loving Poppo and Mommo's pool this summer. She would spend the whole day in there if we would let her!

This is her "ballerina move" as she likes to call it! Jump up and spin around - pretty stinkin cute.

Dora mermaid has been her constant companion this summer!

Good thing she likes the water as much as Elena does! ;)

There you have it - how to beat the heat, courtesy of Elena! :)

Orbeez.

A long time ago my friend Rachel blogged about Orbeez. I thought they sounded pretty cool but never got around to picking any up for Elena to play with. Then the other day I was checking out the clearance aisle at Target and there were some packs of Orbeez! So I decided to grab some and figured they would be an entertaining activity she could do inside - (especially since it is like a million degrees outside!) Here is E before we even went to Target - she has a new love of asking me to take pictures of her on our porch - guess I have made her pose there for me a few too many times! :)

Back to the Orbeez - they start out as these tiny little balls. You put them in water and let them soak for a few hours.

What better way to kill some time than an ice cream cone?

and watering our poor thirsty lawn!

Then the little balls turned into these --

Squishy, bouncy, slippery orbes of fun! ;) Elena definitely enjoyed playing with them.


She also managed to squeeze a few of them a little too hard (see last picture - you think she has an ornery side?) so we found out what the inside of an Orbee looks like. Very weird!

She was a happy little camper and has been randomly playing with these for almost a week now! I do have to admit they are pretty fun to play with! :)

Last day of Vacay.

On our last day of vacation we decided to head to Venice Beach. The car ride there started out just fine until we hit the traffic that was all trying to get to Venice - unbelievable! Then from the back seat I hear, "Mommy, my tummy hurts!"... you know this can not be a good thing when we are stuck in slow moving traffic. My poor baby was so upset and kept saying "Mommy, it hurts! Kiss it!" Then about 2 minutes later - you guessed it - she threw up all over the back seat! Man oh man - apparently the milk in her cereal did not settle well with her. Ewww, it was so nasty (to be honest, I am shocked that Robert didn't throw up right after that because he usually just can't handle that!) We had to pull over at a gas station and hose her, the car and car seat down. Thank goodness I had brought extra clothes with us! After she was all cleaned up she was good to go and was acting totally fine. So we jumped back in traffic and inched our way to the beach. All I can say about this place is WOW! What a difference in this beach compared to any of the others we had been to. First off there were people everywhere! Part of this was the holiday weekend, but still, it was crazy!

Everywhere you look, someone is trying to make money. Rappers are trying to sell their new CD and ask you to listen to their songs on headphones (of course Robert bought a CD!). Store after store of random knick knacks and souvenirs. Groups of street performers trying to get tips; these guys were pretty darn good though, after a show you want to give them money because they are so entertaining!

This is also where Muscle Beach is so there are body builders walking around in speedos and tennis shoes all baby-oiled up! Oh, and medical marijuana is legal here so every 20 feet or so there is a medical marijuana doctor's office doing "evaluations" for prescriptions! And during all of this chaos there are cops that are constantly walking around the crowd! It was sooo bizarre!!

We walked around for a bit and decided to grab a bite at this little sidewalk cafe. We had some really yummy pizza. While we were eating there was this guy dressed as a sock standing by the fence (bottom right picture). He kept jumping out and scaring people or messing with them as they would walk by. Then he took off the sock thing and started following people and imitating them. It was one of the funniest things I have seen. Everybody in the restaurant was laughing so hard. He definitely earned the $5 we decided to give him! Then when we were getting ready to leave a magician came up to us and started doing tricks for Elena! Seriously, everyone here is constantly hustling and trying to make money. It gets a little old real quick!

Elena got to try her first churro - it was a hit and she stole all of it from Daddy!

The weather was so cool with the breeze off the ocean that we had to get Elena a little sweatshirt because she was getting cold! Not exactly the souvenir we were going for but oh well.

After we left the beach I finally talked Robert into talking me to Sprinkles for some unbelievably yummy cupcakes. Ever since this incident last time, I was determined to get some this time! When we arrived there was a line out the door, but I knew it would be worth the wait! :)

Cupcake heaven.

:) It's ok, pretty much everyone in line was taking pictures like this! :)

Here are the delicious cupcakes we decided to try. My favorite was absolutely the red velvet, followed closely by good ol' vanilla. Robert's was key lime pie and Elena liked key lime too and also vanilla. There were about 10 others we wanted to try too - guess we will have to make a trip another time! And I saw on their website that a Sprinkles is coming to KC!! Yay!!

Sprinkles just happens to be 2 blocks away from Rodeo Drive so I talked Robert into driving down it to check it out and see if we would see any celebs! (we didn't see any this time though, boo)

We headed back to the hotel and later got one last fix that you can not find very many places - In N Out Burger, and let me tell you it was pretty tasty! Then we crashed and prepared for the long trip home.

What a wonderful vacation! We had a great time and enjoyed every minute of it!