This week we ended up moving Lorelei's car seat to forward facing position. We kept her rear-facing longer than necessary because it is so much safer that way. I had planned to keep her turned until she was two, but Wednesday we discovered our portable DVD player seemed to be broken. Now we all know how much Lorelei has hated the car since she was born, so the DVD player was a HUGE lifesaver. I knew I could not keep my sanity with no DVD to entertain her unless we turned her around, SO around she went. She does much better in the car now, and its fun to be able to point out things outside that she can actually see. The good news is, Brad discovered that the DVD player DOES work but she was already turned and there was no going back. Now we have it put away for long trips only. :)
We did a very quick garage sale run Saturday morning as well. We were in search of DVDs to entertain Lorelei, thinking of the possibility of a three day drive if we end up moving. We did luck out and found two dvds, but also ended up with some antique raccoon pull toy from the 70s. :) This was Lorelei's big find at the sale and we decided to splurge on the 50 cent purchase. She calls him "pup" because she apparently thinks he is a puppy. :)
Play kitchen for my birthday? Nah, I'll take my own steel drum. :) May starts many of the free entertainment on the oceanfront, including the Caribbean music festival! Brad and I love the steel drums so enjoyed going to this last year. At that point Lorelei was still crawling, so it was a bit easier. :) This year she enjoyed it for about 30 minutes (which included her running up by the stage several times) and then was antsy to go. We headed to the beach to enjoy the water for another 30 minutes (and could still hear the music, yay) and then headed home. All FREE! We even landed a free parking spot (impossible really) because they were doing construction on the sidewalk so the coin machine was gone! :) It was nice to add a fun event to our day.
After hearing the weather forecast that it would be in the low 90s on Thursday I decided it was time for a kiddie pool. :) This meant starting our morning with a trip to Walmart to get one. :) Each time I told Lorelei what we were going shopping for, she said "meow." :) Yeah, try explaining that one to a toddler. :) She was very excited for her pool and as soon as we got it all filled up she was ready to get in, clothes and all. I have now learned to get her in her suit BEFORE putting the water in because I then got to endure a 15 minute fit while attempting to get her changed. She had a fun time playing for a bit by herself, and then friends Chase and Kira came to play. That was when I could finally convince her to leave her slide in the pool. Chase LOVED that idea so then she went along with it. When I tried it before they got there she just said "no" like it did not belong in her pool. :) She had fun with her friends in the morning, and then after nap she even went back in. We even topped it off with her first Popsicle. :)
Got some great ultrasound pictures. :) This guy was not too cooperative today because he was determined to keep his arm right in front of the area they were trying to look at most! Everything looks good, but they are pretty sure it is a cleft lip AND palate, which means multiple surgeries. We are anxious to talk to the pediatric doctors next and find out many answers to our questions still unresolved. :) We are just relieved that everything else appears to be fine. That means its only "a bump in the road" and he should have a great life ahead of him. :)
We are going to have an echo-cardiogram June 4th just to check the heart more in depth. This is routine for this situation and they do not suspect anything is wrong. This will give them another chance to get a better face shot if he decides to cooperate. They did show us some of the ultrasound in 3D so that was pretty neat. The ultrasound tech from our hospital even called me this afternoon to see how the appt went and said they may do another ultrasound later as well.
We can't thank Sara and her mom enough for watching our girl today. :) Lorelei got to play at Lily's house all morning and part of the afternoon! The office was running very behind schedule and I just kept thinking "I'm so glad I'm not having to try and entertain Lorelei in this waiting room!" Not to mention the lengthy ultrasound with the tech trying to get this little guy to move his arm! :) Lorelei had a great time at her friends house and hopefully we can repay the favor soon!
It was finally time for the long anticipated visit to Sesame Place! The weather was wonderful. Saturday was a high of 90 and Sunday was supposed to get to 92. The weatherman said that the last time it was that warm this time of year was sometime in the 1940s! :) Guess we picked the right weekend to go!
Lorelei was excited of course, but didn't really realize what we were doing. Apparently so excited she couldn't go back to sleep when waking us up at 5am (my second day in a row) so we had plenty of time to get ready and have breakfast. She had a wonderful time. Our game plan was to do the dry rides in the morning and then hit the water rides after lunch...of course this seemed to be everyone else's plan as well, so we had a few long lines to deal with (try explaining that to a toddler, but she definitely was not alone) but she enjoyed the rides we went on, especially the teacups and carousel. :) We also went to three shows and the parade over both days. We actually ended up doing all but one show on Saturday. She loved the shows. That would probably have to be my favorite part of the park as well.
Okay well I will try and walk you through our weekend with the various pictures. :)
Our first stop when getting to the park was to visit the small recreation of the actual "street". Just a few cute pics from there, plus one of her trying to get Oscar to come out of his can. She was not too happy the lid wouldn't open. :)
She had a great time on all the rides as well. We did the teacups and carousel both days and thankfully didn't have any long lines the second day. The one of Brad pushing her is a little "train" in the Twiddle Bugs area...the kids are supposed to move the handle to make their own car go, but obviously she couldn't really do that. Brad ended up pushing about 5 kids around by the time he got around the track. :) Guess he got a good work out!
The water was WONDERFUL to cool off on the warm days we had. Lorelei wanted nothing to do with all of the water getting in her face though. Even on the lazy river Brad had to steer us away from any water that would get on our face, as Lorelei was clinging on for dear life. She much preferred the little wave pools where she could just splash around. Sunday we decided to try Count's Splash Castle first so it would be less crowded. We did take her up the stairs but it was basically a huge shower of water on her so she was very unhappy. Brad enjoyed going down the huge water-slides a few times while Lorelei and I watched from the sidelines. :) His face was hilarious each time he got to the bottom so I tried to catch a picture of it. :)
We enjoyed the parade on Saturday afternoon. As you can see we are almost sitting in front of Hooper's Store. :) It was a lot of fun to watch and Lorelei's first chance at seeing the characters up close.
One of my main concerns was what Lorelei would do nap-wise during this crazy weekend. It took quite a while and two towels covering while pushing to get her to sleep, but she finally took about a 45 minute nap in the stroller. We pushed her out of the park (you can come and go needed) so that there wouldn't be so many noises and distractions, so that seemed to finally do the trick.
The Shows! The three shows they have are Elmo's World Live, Abby Cadabby's Treasure Hunt and Elmo Rocks...all of them were a huge hit! Brad and I most enjoyed Elmo Rocks because they sang a lot of fun songs that grown ups would know, plus Lorelei could go up front. So much fun!
Heading into the park the second day...they had the hand prints on the way in so I guess she needed to look Hollywood. :) After Brad showed her to put her hands in the first one, she then ran up to each one to try them all out.
One of Lorelei's most favorite things to do by far...see her friends! Somehow we totally missed seeing them all on Saturday. Most of them are on the street during the main part of the day, but since we did the street first thing, we apparently didn't make our way back there when they were around. Realizing this when we were ready to leave, our main goal Sunday was to make sure she saw each character. :) She had no hesitation going up and giving them all hugs and kisses. Some of you may notice we do not have an Abby picture. :( Long story short we waited an extra 45 minutes when told she would be appearing for pictures and when we got there, she had apparently been there a while already and was about to take a break so we did not get to take a picture with her. Needless to say this made an already very tired toddler pretty upset, but worse things could happen right? :) Hopefully we can meet Abby another day. :) The characters were so great and Lorelei loved it!
Big thanks to Sara and Mike for their tips for the park!
We are so blessed that we were able to take this trip for our girl. :)
Lorelei was excited when we went to get her up to head out on our trip in the morning. :)
After a long drive we finally made it to The Crayola Factory!!! (Eh hem, running an hour late for various reasons...but we made it.) We were only able to be there for an hour, but Lorelei really enjoyed all of the activities she could try out. We felt bad having to rush her along, but they were definitely ready to kick everyone out at 3 pm. They even gave us those 15 and 10 minute announcements. :) There were so many different places to explore she probably could have easily stayed for three hours. We enjoyed what we could though! Her favorite would definitely have to be the "After Dark" section where she could write on a board with a special light pen. We were a little disappointed with the actual "Crayola making" section, but we did catch a few minutes of it where we heard he makes about 1,250 crayons at a time. We all enjoyed the time as much as we could while we were there. :)
Then the store stays open an hour later so we got to see The Worlds Largest Crayon.
Then we headed off to our hotel to rest for the night before the really big adventure coming up. Lorelei's favorite part of the hotel room was the phone. :)
Apparently we were a little slap happy on the drive up so I wrote down a couple of memorable moments. :) How thankful I am to have a wonderful husband to laugh with on these drives.
Brad, as we are driving into the sun: "At least we wont have to drive into the sun very much." GPS Lady: "Continue 93 miles." :)
Eliz: "Maybe these school buses are going on a field trip." Very grumpy by now because we were running late and made a wrong turn sarcastic Brad: "Yeah. To the Crayola Factory that closes at three."
Probably not as funny when you can't hear them, but we had fun anyway! Working on all the ways to organize the pics for Sesame Place. Plan to get the blog done during nap tomorrow!
This week we ended up moving Lorelei's car seat to forward facing position. We kept her rear-facing longer than necessary because it is so much safer that way. I had planned to keep her turned until she was two, but Wednesday we discovered our portable DVD player seemed to be broken. Now we all know how much Lorelei has hated the car since she was born, so the DVD player was a HUGE lifesaver. I knew I could not keep my sanity with no DVD to entertain her unless we turned her around, SO around she went. She does much better in the car now, and its fun to be able to point out things outside that she can actually see. The good news is, Brad discovered that the DVD player DOES work but she was already turned and there was no going back. Now we have it put away for long trips only. :)
