Las Vegas

Mike had a week of vacation in February and we decided to take full advantage of his week off and go on a week long vacation.

Vacation Mike was in full force, you know how I feel about vacation Mike.

We started our vacation by heading to Las Vegas for a couple of days. Mike's sister Jamie and her family so graciously allowed us to stay in their home for a couple of days. We loved seeing them and spending time with the Ericksons.

Mike surprised me for Valentine's day and got us tickets to see The Lion King. Jamie was so kind to watch Charlotte so we could have a night to ourselves. I'll be honest, it was the perfect way to spend Valentine's Day.

The show was incredible. INCREDIBLE. Music was fabulous, costumes were so creative and the entire production was unlike anything I had ever seen. Put it on your list of shows to see.

Other than our big night out, we kept our time in Las Vegas pretty low key. All we wanted to do was kick it with the Ericksons and we did. Charlotte seriously loved being around her cousins, Aunt Jamie and Uncle Paul.

Jamie's kids were so good with Charlotte. They totally entertained her and let her follow them around. We sure wish Katie lived close by, because she is the best baby sitter.

Ethan who is in fifth grade was absolutely darling with Charlotte. He read her stories, played peek a boo, and tag with her. Adam who is in second grade was quite patient with Charlotte. She often wanted to play with his toys and he was very good about reminding her nicely they were his toys. Quote of the week was by Adam, you Walkers will appreciate this, "I just kinda think babies are annoying, but she's cute." Sums up Adam perfectly.

The weather was warm and the sun shone the whole time while we were there. It was the perfect beginning to our vacation.
Thank you Ericksons for being such great hosts! You were so good to us. We love you guys.

Table Manners

I know I still need to post about our vacation. I just haven't had the energy to do a long post. Hopefully soon.

For now this post will have to do.

So we just started introducing eating off plates to Charlotte, as in today. (No idea when you start introducing this kind of thing, so I thought today is just as good as any.) She was doing well eating off her plate, enjoying her green beans and quesadilla when I looked over and saw Charlotte full on licking her plate. Yes licking her plate.

Yes I snapped a picture with my phone. I couldn't resist. This was too funny.

Please note, it's not like Mike or I do this.

Really I've never licked a plate, well at least not in front of Charlotte, and not for a long time.

It must be some innate desire that comes when the food your mom makes is sooooo good.

Haha, not really. Green beans? Quesadilla? Not that appetizing.

So now we will work on eating off plates AND keeping the plate on our tray rather than licking it.

Swift kick to the face

Keeping it real my friends. I'm totally complaining on this post. Feel free to skip it.

We were out of town all last week and I must say it was a dream. Mike, Charlotte and I went to Las Vegas and San Diego. It was heaven to be in warmer weather, have Mike all to ourselves and not worry about a thing. Aren't vacations the best? So therapeutic and rejuvenating. But vacations can't last forever and our vacation was over all too quickly. As we were making the drive home from St. George to Salt Lake we hit snow and I knew coming home would be hard. It's always hard to come home from vacation but this time was especially hard. Reality sucks.

First swift kick to the face:

We had enjoyed 60-70 degree weather for a week, then like I said the ride home we hit snow and for the next couple of days we had continuous snow. Not a ton of snow but it's no fun to have to wear big coats and scarves again. Uh where was all of this snow in January? Enough already. I'm ready for spring.

Second swift kick to the face:

We got home from our lovely vaca and less than 24 hours Mike was headed on a plane to Cincinnati. What can I say, I'm a sucker for Mikey and like having him around. Charlotte and I loved spending every minute with him last week. You know how I feel about vacation Mike. We got so used to seeing him and playing with him and then he's up and gone for a few days. Back to reality, back to Mike's busy schedule, and back to having to share Mike with the hospital. Bummer.

Third swift kick to the face:

Second night home from vacation, Mike is gone. I had only been asleep a couple of hours when I hear Charlotte whimper at 1:15 a.m. Weird. She's doesn't usually wake up in the middle of the night and if she does she goes right back to sleep. She cries off and on for a bit and I figure I better go see what's going on. The minute I open the door to go into her room, I got hit by the deathly smell of throw up. Yup. Vomit. First time Charlotte's really been sick, she's had a couple minor colds, but nothing serious. She's never thrown up before and this was miserable. Poor girl. I go into the room and vomit is everywhere, EVERYWHERE! I'll spare you the details but the next couple of hours are spent cleaning up her room, calming Charlotte down, giving her a bath, getting her to bed, falling asleep myself, only to wake up 45 minutes to an hour later to repeat the routine all over again ALONE. Yes I can handle a late night with a sick baby, I just wish I could have had Mike there for advice and support with this being the first time Charlotte's been that sick. Yay for motherhood! Yay for husbands being out of town! Not....

The good news, I got to watch the Bachelor, the sun was out all day yesterday, Charlotte hasn't thrown up again since Monday morning and Mike will be home soon.

However just for a moment I'm going to dream about last week, watching Charlotte for the first time in the ocean, hearing her squeal at the birds and walking with Mike along the beach.

Take me back please. I'm ready for another week of vacation.

VIP for a night

Aside from Mike's busy medical residency, Mike has a "second job" where he works a few times a month to earn a little extra cash and gain more experience working as an Internal Medicine physician. I'll be honest, first hearing about this opportunity I wasn't too stoked about Mike picking up extra work with his already busy schedule. There are some months I feel like I never see the guy and he was going to work more? However, it really hasn't been too bad and there have been some good perks. Mike has loved being able to have this second job and it's been a great learning experience for him. Luckily it doesn't take him away too much and for the most part he gets to choose the days/times he works. But I must say the best part about this second job came Christmas time when Mike received his bonus, TWO third row VIP tickets to a Jazz game, let me clarify that the VIP part included dinner and treats for us all evening. Not sure if we were more excited for the free fancy food, or the third row seats. Now for us small people who have tried to live on a somewhat tight budget for the past 5.5 years, who would never dream of spending that kind of money on tickets for anything, this came as VERY EXCITING news to us. We have been counting down the days until the big game. Do we live sad lives or what? I reserved a baby sitter a month in advance, we were not going to miss out! Let me tell you it was quite nice to live as a VIP for a night. We had great parking, fantastic food and awesome seats.

Yes that was the view from our seats. Not bad eh?

We were lucky to go the first Jazz game with Coach Tyrone Corbin as the coach. For those of you out of state readers this was a VERY BIG DEAL. The previous coach, Jerry Sloan coached the Jazz for 20+ years. But I couldn't tell you whether Coach Corbin did a good job or not, let's be honest I grew up in a house full of girls, I don't know what makes a good coach, especially a good basketball coach. I am good however at cheering really loud and getting into the game. Lucky Mike. :)

The Jazz ended up losing the game and I couldn't have cared less. Mike and I had the best night. I don't think it will be anytime soon that we have a VIP night again, but for one night it sure was nice to live like one!

OBSESSED.

Mike and I have always said we don't want to get cell phones for our kids until they are

AT LEAST

16 years old.

Well purchasing cell phones for our kids may come sooner than we want.

Currently Charlotte is obsessed with cell phones.

She loves pushing the buttons and holding it up to her ear pretending to talk.

She's such a girl.

We are in trouble.

Sticky Rice

A few thoughts for a Tuesday night:

Whoever thought it was a good idea to give Charlotte sticky rice for dinner was

DEAD WRONG.

(And the mom of the year award goes to...yeah that wouldn't be me.)

Poor quality due to using the camera on my phone

It got everywhere, and when I say everywhere I mean

up under her chin stuck in the folds,

behind her ears,

and we even found some when we took her diaper off for a tub.

She did however LOVE IT and couldn't get enough of it.

For the first time in a long time I quit in the beginning of my run. I honestly don't mind the cold, if you dress properly it's not too bad and running in the cold can be quite refreshing. But when I layered up today and headed outside for a run, the wind was whipping me around all over the place with below freezing temps. I was over it. I lasted a mile and headed home. BOO. I did make up for it by riding our spin bike but I still felt a little disappointed in myself for just throwing in the towel. Cold is fine, wind SUCKS.

It's finally February! Hip, hip hooray. January is always a killer and although this January really wasn't bad this year it did seem to last forever. The closer we get to spring and warmer weather, THE BETTER!

On the up side I noticed tonight just after 6 p.m. the sun had still not completely set! The days are slowly but surly getting longer. YES!

Let's hear it:

Big Valentine's Plans?

Do you hate the wind as much as I do?

Counting down the days until spring?

Have you ever tried to get sticky rice out of hair?

Please share!