Hadlee's checkup

We took Hadlee in for her 2 month checkup on August 9th (a little late since we were on vacaton so it was almost 10 weeks). She was perfectly healthy and growing well! She got 3 shots and 1 oral vaccine and cried a little but quickly recovered.
Here's her stats: 12 lb 5 oz, 90% (a pound more than her sister at this age)
24 1/4" long, 97% (about the same as sis)
15" head, 50% (same as sis)

So Hadlee looks chunkier than Maddox did for a reason--she is! She coos and squeaks a lot now, smiles and sort of laughs if we make funny faces at her, and is nursing every 2 to 3 hours now. Enough space is between feedings that I called the vet and said I'd come back to work in September. Hadlee is even starting to sleep longer at night. Most nights now she'll have her last feeding about 10:30 to 11 and not again until 6 or after. Once in a while she still wakes up for a 4:30 feeding, but not very often. She's a very happy and easy baby!

Cute video of some very successful tummy time! She's never held her head that high before today!

OBX Aug. 2010 Part 1

We took our summer vacation this year to the NC Outer Banks. I'm pretty sure it's the first real family vacation we've taken that hasn't involved my parents going with us or going to visit one of our relatives. We had such a good time making memories with our two girls. I wish I could vacation all the time! Our first stop was to Nag's Head for 3 nights. Maddox was immediately ready to go to the beach and wanted to wear all her paraphenalia. Once she got there the water wings came off. Maddox was a little nervous about the beach. It's loud on this coast, there are lots of waves that crash about 5 times before they come ashore, it's daunting! She would walk in the surf only holding our hands and pick up shells and put them in her bucket. By the end of the week she wouldn't hold our hands in the surf, she was running up and down the beach, and even wanted to sit in the surf. But the rougher the ocean was on various days and places she knew she should stay farther away and hold hands more. In the places where the ocean was calmer she was much braver and independent. She and I would walk for 30 minutes down the beach and she would get upset when I told her it was time to turn around, knowing that the 30 minutes back wouldn't be quite as much fun. If only a car could pick us up when were done, we both could walk forever on the beach exploring shells and critters and people.

I love this huge sports tent. Provides lots of shade and SPF 50 for Hadlee. Unfortunately it does not provide a block from the wind very well if the wind and the sun are coming from different directions. The second day on the beach her face got wind burned. It didn't even cross our minds to think of the wind coming off the water. She was fine though, not a big deal.

One day was kind of overcast and off and on sprinkles so we went up to the Wright Brothers Memorial, Kitty Hawk Kites to buy a kite, and miniature golfing.

It was still overcast and chilly that night but we went to the beach anyway to walk and fly our new kite. On the Nag's Head beach there were tons and tons of jelly fish in the surf and washing up on the shore. Maddox though they were icky and freaked out if she got near one while walking. I kept poking them with my toes to show her they were okay, just squishy. We bought her Jenny Jellyfish by Suzanne Tate (an children's author the biology and shore loving side of me loves) in the hopes that reading about the jellyfish would help Maddox be braver around them. It didn't work, but she likes the book anyway.

Maddox picked out a fairy kite that's pretty cool. The fairy's dress and feet are the tail. Now that we're home it hasn't been windy one day and we haven't gotten to fly it again. She keeps asking though. It's so windy on the beach that it takes no effort to get it in the air. Just let a little string out and there it goes and goes and goes. Maddox and the fairy tried to touch toes with Daddy's help.

A little early morning sisterly love.

We went up to Jockey's Ridge State Park which has 100 foot sand dunes and looks like a desert in North Carolina. It sort of strange to climb the dunes, like nothing I've ever seen before. It made me feel like I was in some desert in Africa you only see in the movies. Until you get to the top and see the ocean and bay all around you.

This picture doesn't make it look like they're climbing a huge hill, but really, it was huge. Maddox had a hard time getting up and going down she was a bit nervous.

Jeremy's leaping to his death off a sandy cliff! Okay, so the sandy hill was right below him, but it looks like he's jumping off a cliff, doesn't it? Especially if I could photoshop out that kid below him.

I tried to get Maddox to make a sand angel with me. She wasn't too keen on getting all dirty. Hadlee apparently wasn't either, she cried while I made my angel.

Fine, if you're going to whine, Maddox, about laying in the sand then I'll just tickle you to death and make you laugh!!

That's the hill we were up on, jumping off of and climbing up. See? Big!

We went to have pizza at this place on the bay. Of course we wanted to eat outside on the deck but the you could see through the deck to the grass about 12 feet below. Maddox refused to walk on it. She'd sort of tiny step along, sure that she was going to fall through, and finally just stopped and made me come get her. It was pretty funny. I'd put her down off the picnic table and tell her to go to Daddy's side and we'd laugh and how long it took her walking like a 90 year old woman. Then he'd send her back to me. With all that she never did get used to it.

OBX Aug.2010 Part 2

We went swimming just about every day. Maddox was swimming all over the pool in her ring and wings without anyone touching her. Always nearby though! She's finally figured out how kicking can get her places. No, we didn't make her go into the pool with her ring AND wings, she wanted them all on because they were new to her. Poor Hadlee didn't get to swim at all. I took a swimming suit for her but found it was just easier to not mess with it. She was usually camped out in the shade in her carseat. She didn't know what she was missing. I'll probably let Hads swim in Cleveland next month or in FL if we go after Christmas. Two months was a little young anyway and still a little wobbly head. At that age she would only have been in up to her waist probably. Our afternoon at Nag's Head we had to build a proper sandcastle.

We left Nag's Head to drive down Highway 12, down Hatteras Island to spend the night in Hatteras Village. On the way we stopped at beaches and lighthouses. The beaches along Hatteras were so great! You could drive out on them but we brought Jeremy's Sonata and not my Escape so we didn't. They're also not commercialized. Just beaches and people that have driven out on them. No hotels, houses, stores, nothing. It was so nice. And it was Jeremy's favorite beach with high tide and huge waves. Maddox and I? Not so much. This is Bodie (pronounced body) Lighthouse, under renovation.

This one is Hatteras Lighthouse, the one you can pay to go up to the top. We talked it up with Maddox, got her so excited about going up. She kept saying "I want to climb the lighthouse!" (And still says that now that we're home.) We found out when we got there that no one under 42" could go up and you can't carry anyway. So neither kid could go so we couldn't go at all. It was a real bummer. This is my absolute favorite lighthouse. It is SO gorgeous and had the perfect blue sky behind it. I took a ton of pictures which I have no use for now. There's a little tiny group of people in the grass posing in front of it . . . that's us. The only family picture on the vacation we're the size of smurfs.

The next day we got up early to take the 40 min. ferry ride to Ocracoke and spend a little time there.

We stopped to look at the wild ponies on Ocracoke which are now gathered and penned up. Not so wild anymore I guess? Then we went to the beach for a couple of hours. This was my favorite beach. A much calmer surf, low tide, and nothing to see but sand and water for miles. Again, no houses or hotels, just beach. This is actually the only place I got in the ocean further than my knees. I got all the way in up to my chest and even got my hair wet jumping a wave! That's impressive for me. There's critters in there. Sharks, sting rays, fish! I don't tell Maddox that though. If she's going to be afraid of the ocean it won't be because of me. I went for a walk for about an hour and when I came back I couldn't find Jeremy's legs anymore!

While I walked Daddy buried Maddox's legs too, but I guess she wanted to do it again herself in the shade.

This is Ocracoke Lighthouse in the village. There's not much to Ocracoke Village except shops and more shops. After exploring we caught our ferry back to the mainland to head to our last three nights in Atlantic Beach, NC.

The first morning in Atlantic Beach we went to the NC Aquarium in Pine Knoll Shores just down the road from the hotel. Maddox ran all over looking at everything.

My creature loving Maddox would not touch anything in the touch tanks. She was scared when I'd try to put her fingers near the water. Not even the horseshoe crabs shells of mollusks (the sting rays and skates were not so surprising). This is the same child who, the day before, was carrying a dead horseshoe crab around on the beach. I thought being a creature lover like me she'd be willing to at least try, but I guess not yet.

Just about every afternoon we were able to fit in a nap time for Maddox (and sometimes us). It's not hard to get her to sleep on a busy vacation where we spend most of our time outdoors!

Usually after naps we'd go to the beach or pool (and first thing in the morning) so we wouldn't be there in the heat of the day. Maddox and I dug a hole for her to get in. Or, in the next picture, lay across like a bridge.

What a hot guy! Who IS that? Oh yeah, my husband.

Our last night on vacation we went up the road to see Fort Macon which is an old pentagonal shaped brick fort built into the ground on the tip of the island. It's pretty cool looking. The thing Maddox is sitting on is actually where a cannon would sit and rotate on that metal track in the background. We told her it was a sit n spin and she kept saying "Mommy, it's broken." hee hee

We're attempting to learn how to play red light, green light.
Somewhere there's a picture of me sitting on a cannon on some vacation when I was a little older than Maddox is, so I wanted to take on of her doing it too. She's a lot cuter than I was. Especially on this rare night of lots of smiles. Maddox is usually so camera shy and gets a very serious face when you get the camera out.I also knew there was a free live concert there that night so after we wandered around and saw the sites we had a picnic dinner and enjoyed a live band outside. The stage was inside the pentagonal fort and people were sitting all over the grass and up above on the upper level of the fort. Some kids on the upper level started blowing big bubbles which made for lots of fun for the little girls below. It was a fun way to spend our last night. Maddox made a friend, Mckenzie, who danced with her all night and played Ring Around the Rosie with her.

Outside, listening to music . . . what else to do but take pictures of cute Hadlee on my lap. Really, this is only a few.

Time for Maddox to dance with her little sis!

We had such a nice vacation and made such great memories with our kids. I know, I didn't write much about Hadlee, but what did she do but tag along? Both girls were good sports about being on the go, slept well at nap time and night, and were great travellers. I enjoy, so much, showing my girls new places and things and making these memories with Jeremy. Now that I've explored the Outer Banks I just have to talk the rest of the Garrison clan that we need to rent a house out there for our next big family vacation! Are you reading this Lowes and Griggs? ;) Someday, someday . . .