Life lately

I was almost done with this post and the app shut off grrrrrr. Well life lately has had its ups and downs. Emma seems to have really great days and then she comes down with something. We finally recovered from her ear infection and tubes surgery then teething of molars hit HARD. Now she's having a wheezy cough so we spent the morning at the pediatrician here at the beach. I came with my mom and nana for a few days to join my brother and of course she gets sick. Can't seem to be well for long at all. She got a breathing treatment this morning and is on steroids for a few days to help the cough. We now own a nebulizer and hoping we are on the road to recovery. This is the first doc appt in a long time though where her ears were good. Praying this is it for the rest of the summer. Emma is napping so I'm sitting out in the backyard catching up on blogging. Here's some pictures of what we've been up to the past two weeks or so. 

 Lots of days with lunch by the pool

 Spending time on the deck with our water table (thanks Willi family!) 

 

A welcome back dinner for my friend Elizabeth who has been living in Puerto Rico the past year! The view from the rooftop of Ponce Coty Market is so beautiful. 

 

 Tommy and his dad played in the member/guest tournament at Indian Hills Country Club and they came in third place! Such a fun afternoon/evening watching them play in the shootout. 

 

 

 

 Finally made it out for our anniversary a few days late once Tommy wasn't sick anymore. Went to No. 246 in Decatur. It was delicious! 

 Lazy mornings in our pjs watching Mickey Mouse clubhouse. 

 

We like walking down to our neighborhood park with daddy when he gets home from work. 

 

 She really loves her puzzles lately. She's better at her large knob Melissa and Doug ones but she enjoyed puzzles. 

 Making everything into a jungle gym!

 Park days with friends! (Finn and Langley here)

 

 

 I made a ball pit for the playroom for rainy days (which we've had a lot recently in Atlanta)

 Friday night cookouts by the pool with the Hartmans 

 

Engagement party for our close family friend, Derek, and his fiancé, Catherine. 

 

My best friend, Ansley, had her baby boy, Gavin, on June 10th at 1:25am weighing in at 8 lbs 11oz. She had a really rough labor which ended in a c section. Mom and baby are doing well! I went early Sunday morning to meet him before hitting the road to the beach. I had to go see them before I left town. He's just the sweetest! 

 

 Beach day one!

 

 

 Being a goofball

 Beach day 2!

 Dinner at Quigleys (she realized her bow was on 🙄)

 Truly the only time she was actually happy all day wAs at dinner shockingly. 

 

Patio playtime this morning before the doctor

 

Beach day 3!

 

And that's it for now. She's waking up from her nap. Hoping she's happy the rest of our beach trip! 

Summer Bucket List

I'm posting it here to try and keep myself more accountable to check things off the list. I wanted to make a bucket list for us for the Summer so we don't just let the days pass us by. I want to take advantage of this time I have with Emma and not having to work! 

- Georgia Aquarium

- Catch Air

- Zoo

- Music Class

- Botanical Gardens

- Splash Pad in Roswell

- Try out a few new parks: Brookrun, Ashford park, and Hammond 

- Pool days (can already check this off a few times)

- picnic lunch with Cooper in Piedmont Park then walk the perimeter of the park

- Brookhaven Food Trucks

- Maybe kid-napping Collier for the day (with Mimi's help!) for a cousin fun in the sun day (If Bonnie lets us ;))

- Beach!

I think that's a good goal for now. We shall see how much we can get done in the next two months. Yay for being SUMMER!

Life Lately

I haven't done a blog update in awhile so here's a little snapshot on what has been going on with us the past few weeks. 

This is the 5th grade walk on the last day of school. Can't believe how fast this school year went. I had to leave around 12 that day because I managed to get into the pediatric ENT with Emma because they had a cancelation. Well after that visit our weekend was really thrown for a loop. We were just going in for a consulatation about tubes and her ears were so bad and she was on her THIRD antibiotic for the current ear infection (7th for the past 6 months) so the doctor managed to find one of his colleagues who had an opening on Friday for her to get tubes. Not ideal timing as it was my post planning day, tommy was already gone on a bachelor party, my parents were already at the beach (which Emma and I were supposed to be joining them), and my sister was in Mexico. Thankfully my in-laws live here too so they joined me on Friday for her surgery. Thanks Tom and Courtney for the moral support! 

So with the situation above Thursday ended up being Emma's last day of daycare for the year. We are so thankful for the care she's gotten this past year from her teachers. She (and me!) are going to miss them this Summer. She will go back in the infant room for a week or so as they transition her to the toddler room once I go back to work at the end of July. I am SO excited about the next two months at home with Emma! (Can you believe how much she has changed since August 2016!)

On Friday morning, Emma and I took some donuts to her teachers (I had planned on doing this all along but again was abruptly done with daycare) to keep us busy and her distracted from the fact that she couldn't eat before her surgery (which we checked in at 10:30am and her surgery was right around 12:00pm). 

 Trying to keep her entertained as we waited in our room for them to take her back to the OR room. 

She fell asleep while we were waiting. That double whammy of motrin and tylenol from the nurses knocked this little lady out. 

 She really did so well. I could tell she felt almost instant relief from the fluid being drained from her ears with the current infection. I pray that she has a much easier time when it comes to fighting off any infections that might come her way now that she's gotten the tubes put in. This was her on Friday afternoon.

 We spent most of our weekend poolside with friends while Tommy was away. Fortunately babies don't really swim with their heads submerged under water so she didn't really have any restrictions as far as the surgery went this weekend (minus not being able to have a bath and have water come above her shoulders for a few days).

 Monday was our neighborhood cookout at the pool and Tommy was home so we went up there for lunch for a bit. There is too much action going on for her to look at me! She was pretty cranky this weekend and clingy to me but she also has her molars trying to poke through. Poor thing has just not been herself lately.

 Love her little stars and stripes outfit for memorial day (and she wore a bow for a solid 30 minutes. That is BIG for lately!)

 Her new thing is to force a laugh when she hears someone else laughing. This is mid-laugh at lunch today with Ansley and Elizabeth. We are getting while the getting is good before Gavin makes his debut. Gavin is due this Thursday so any day now he could be making his grand entrance. We hope sooner rather than later! We are so ready to meet you little guy!

Everyone except maybe Emma ha! She knows she is about to be second place to the newest addition to our framily. Really happy Summer break is here!

Show and Tell Tuesday: Vacations

Twice a month, momfessionals, hosts Show and Tell Tuesday so I wanted to link up today to talk about best/worst vacations! 

South Africa 2013

My best vacations usually revolve around trips with my family to visit family. A very special trip to South Africa to visit family was 4 years ago (to the day pretty much) where Tommy came with me for the first time. He got to meet my granny (who is not doing very well right now. My dad is in SA currently) and my uncles as well as see what we talk about all the time. SA is a special place and always holds a special place in my heart. I usually make a trip around every 5 years so that means we are due Tommy ;) 

If you can even say "worst" vacation but maybe just "worst" part of a vacation is when you get sick. Well at the very end of this SA trip I must have gotten some kind of bacterial infection in my stomach. I was veryyyyy sick and ended up getting so dehydrated by the time I got home that I ended up in the ER in Atlanta upon my return. They did a CT scan, chest xray, and so many blood tests because my head was in excrutiating pain and I had just been in Africa. Well a few bags of saline and a lot of morphine later I was like new. Not a good feeling but I still look back so fondly of this trip. 

Pacific Northwest 2015

When it comes to vacations with just me and Tommy I think my favorite trip was our trip to the Pacific Northwest. It was not a good time for us (I had just finished physically recovering from a miscarriage and emotionally we were working through everything) and it was a much needed vacation for us to get away. We had been looking forward to this trip so much because neither of us had been to this part of the country. We ate and drank our way through Seattle and Portland. We laughed a LOT and loved exploring a new place just the two of us. It was such a healing trip for us both. You can read about our trip here, here, and here. 

Thanks for reading! I love to travel and we are getting the itch to plan something different for us for next year some time.