It's been a busy 3 weeks of October but our fun month of visitors isn't over yet! We had a couple quiet days alone before our house was filled with family again. You would think that at this point it would be great having our space to ourselves again but instead I just couldn't wait for our house to be filled up again.
love those cuddles
Just keep on smilin'
Max wrote this note to give to his dad to tell him where I was taking Maxwell for lunch... "We are getting Mcdonalds now. To Dad".
Playing at the park
Painting his pumpkin
This little stinker reached into her diaper and played with her poop during her nap. So that bought her a trip straight to the bathtub.
Emmalyn is now 18 months old!!! Emmalyn will say "excuse me" when either you or her burp or fart. She is starting to say "poopy" when she's poopy. She is talking a ton. She did really great navigating the little steps at dads without sitting down. She loves her brother and wants to be by him. She loves puppies and will make dog, cat, and monkey sounds. She tries to count but doesn't have it down yet. She is now noticing letters and will point to them (not correctly) and say A, O, B Y. Etc. She loves to sing..."Row, Row, Row your Boat" is her favorite and she will demand that both Peter and I sing with her in the car,. She will say "momma" until I start singing and "daddy" until he starts singing too. Her hair is a mess. She's getting better at a spoon. The few days that I was away from Emmalyn in Vegas, I still pumped. I got one oz of milk between a couple pumpings and that was soooo frustrating. I think I'm done pumping. I've passed the point that I stopped nursing with Maxwell and that makes me happy. We'll see...
When we got back from the Grand Canyon we had fun hanging with Grandpa (Nana had headed to SLC).
Sheba is such a sweet, mild dog that even Maxwell likes her (and he does NOT like dogs). She's very popular with my kids. :)
Emmalyn watching Grandpa through the glass table
That night I figured we could go down to the Freemont Street Experience. I've never been there and thought it would be a fun way for Maxwell to experience "vegas". Boy, was I wrong!!! Maybe it would be an okay place to go in the daytime but at night? Not a place for kids. There were multiple times we distracted Maxwell so he wouldn't notice something/someone we didn't want him to see. I quickly realized this was a bad choice and we decided to just drive down part of the strip and look at the lights instead and then go back and go night swimming.
The minion was one thing that we let Max look at. Ha!
Walking back to the car with his buddy
Happily swimming again. He had a great time swimming
Max's selfie.
The next morning was our last little bit of time in Vegas. We made the most of it!
Grandpa got out the karaoke machine. Maxwell loved it. He rocked "let it go" from Frozen. :)
Grandpa introduced him to "Puff the Magic Dragon" and he caught on quickly. It was special because I remember my dad singing that song to me as a child.
Video - Maxwell karaoke'n "puff the magic dragon"
Enjoying a little snack
Last round of golf
I think Sheba will be happy to have her house back to herself
Max caught his dad napping
Playing the piano
Hanging out listening to Grandpa play the piano
Emmalyn ticklin' the ivories with her Grandpa
More Karaoke
Grandpa taking Emmalyn with him to go get stuff for lunch
Video - My dad is really great at getting his grandkids involved in helping. Here, he's got Emmalyn helping him make lunch.
The glass table is very cool to this toddler
We've been spoiled to spend the last 10 days with Grandpa and Nana. It will be hard to not be around them tomorrow when we wake up.
I've enjoyed the late night talks, the family time, and watching my kids with their Grandparents.
It was a smooth flight home. Gotta love it when the baby sleeps during the flight.
Baymax came home with us. We weren't sure we would be able to get him through security but we did! He rode in the overhead luggage bin. :) He got a badge sticker from the TSA Security guys just like Maxwell did.
It was late when we landed (like 10 pm) and Maxwell was wound up. He would run ahead of us in the airport and then drop and do some pushups. It sure brought smiles to the faces of travelers around us.
Video - airport pushups
jumping over the lines while we waited for baggage
It was so great to see Peter and Emmalyn when we picked them up at the airport. I really enjoyed my time just with Maxwell. It felt weird knowing the family was split up and was good to be back together again.
Kimber and my new sweet baby nephew Hunter
Nana bought Maxwell this Baymax (from Big Hero 6) balloon. He loves it.
Playing "pool" with Grandpa
Video - Emmalyn was determined to walk down the stairs in the family room (made me so nervous with the marble floors) and LOVED LOVED LOVED Sheba. I was grateful Sheba is so tolerant of children. Poor Sheba is going to be ready for us to go home in a few days.
Heather, Hunter, and little mr. attitude - Aaron
Look at that sweet face! It sure is fun to hold a baby.
It is so fun to see Maxwell develop a relationship with his cousin.
Max hanging out with other cousins - Kaitlyn and Tyler
We all played heads up. Maxwell didn't fully get it but had fun playing (Mostly he would read the answer out loud if it was something he recognized).
Re-watching the video from one of the rounds
Sleeping in her sleepsack, no pjs.
I left packing for Emmalyn up to Peter and he forgot PJs. Whoops.
The next morning we got up "early" and headed out to go to the Grand Canyon. We've never been to the Grand Canyon despite going to Vegas countless times. Dad and Marriann had sold their house and were going to be moving out in January so this was likely the last time we'd ever stay in their house and who knew when we'd go back to Vegas.
The drive was so gorgeous!!! It's so nice to be around these gorgeous mountains after being in flat Dallas. It took us a little more than 2 1/2 hours to get there (after a couple detours from wrong turns) and the kids did great in the car - once we stopped and changed Emmalyn's poopy diaper on the side of the road.
We drove through part of the Joshua Tree National Forest to get there. It was so neat! I have never seen anything like it. They are fascinating trees. They are so unique, it almost felt like we were driving through some science fiction movie.
Stunning landscapes
We drove to the Havasupai Indian Tribe Reservation. We wanted to go on their "Skywalk" over the grand canyon and it was the quickest drive to get to the Grand Canyon. It's on the Grand Canyon National Park South Rim. They have the area set up as a total tourist stop with multiple places you can visit. As part of our package, we first visited the western town and had lunch.
Whoops - Peter and I found ourselves in jail.
The lighting is bad but here are the kiddos.
Cuties
So, fun story... As we were about to get on the bus to go to the next stop, I smelled poop and figured out that Emmalyn had gone poop. Well, I was holding her on the bus and Peter looks down and tells me that I have poop on my shorts. Nice. So for the rest of the bus ride, which felt like it took forever, I saw there scrunched into a packed bus...painfully aware that my daughter smelled like pooped...trying to carefully hold her so that the poop didn't leak further out of her diaper. It was awesome.
Finally, we get off the bus, and beeline for the area the staff pointed to when we asked about a bathroom. I go inside what is basically a trailer with bathrooms in it looking for a changing table and they have one BUT the stall is so small that you can't fully pull down the changing table beyond a 45 degree angle. Worthless.
Plan B! I laid paper towels down on the floor and got Emmalyn all cleaned up. Luckily she leaked mainly on me and her legs and not her dress. After she was cleaned up, I did the best I could to clean the poop off my shorts and we continued on with our day. Gotta love the poop drama.
Next stop - wandering through the different types of homes Indians lived in.
After we saw a few different types of dwellings, we saw the nice fancy building below. What was in this building? Oh...just nice restrooms. I didn't go inside because I knew I'd find big, spacious restrooms with a lovely changing area for babies. Grrrr....why did the staff point us to the other one?!?!
Yeah! The center with the skywalk.
We had to put everything in lockers. EVERYTHING. Diaper bags, purses, wallets, phones, cameras, change. Nothing could be left in our pockets.
Then we all put little booties on our feet. Max didn't dig them but Emmalyn loved them.
There were photographers there to take your picture on the skywalk (which they tried to sell to you later, of course)
It was interesting because the sensation of walking out on the skywalk with a glass bottom allowing you to see straight down to the bottom of the skywalk is unlike anything else. I wondered how the kids would do with it. Maxwell was a little hesitant at first but got over it fairly quickly and Emmalyn was great from the very first minute. She walked right out...later sat down and laid down as well.
The Grand Canyon was just breathtaking.
After the skywalk we walked over towards the edge for some pictures and I look up and Peter and Maxwell are way too close to the edge for my liking taking pics! ARGHHHHHHH
This was the picture.
Here's them right after the picture. It's much too close for my comfort. I've never felt anything like that in my life. My stomach dropped and I had genuine concern and panic until they moved away. I was like BEGGING Peter to move away from the edge. Sure they weren't RIGHT on the edge but what if something happened and a big gust of wind caused Peter to lose his balance? WAY TO CLOSE, right?!?!
My nutso husband took this pic over the edge looking down. I couldn't even look while he took it.
Isn't this just stunning? Even the clouds seem more picturesque here.
You can see the horseshoe shaped skywalk on the left
We then took another bus ride to a different spot to view the canyon
Again, this dude felt like he had to stand right on the edge. I think I might have literally been yelling at him to come back... it wasn't worth it.
He made me do it. I hated it. I thought about laying down on my stomach and inching out to this point. I don't need the thrill of looking over the edge. (Funny how this made me so much more nervous than the skywalk.)
We felt a couple random drops, plus needed to be heading back for plans we had back at Dad's, so we lined up to get back on the bus for our car.
Those clouds out there look quite threatening.
While we were walking back to the car the winds were kicking up and as we were buckling the kids in, big fat drops started coming down.
By the time we got to the exit from the parking lot, it was a freakin' monsoon. My windshield wipers couldn't go fast enough, I could barely see, and I felt like this was the type of place where flash floods happen and wash you off the road. Plus there was lightening and thunder. It was scary but on the plus side, the kids took a nap! :)
Even though it was raining and the kids were sleeping, we stopped to take a picture next to a joshua tree on our way out.
Wife, Mom, and Career Woman. Trying to succeed at all three. Enjoy cruising, time with friends and family, and sleeping. Busy life doesn't leave time for as much fun as in the past but that's okay, it's still a good life.
