Hola!

Josephine is still taking horrible naps. Well... I guess they aren't "horrible" because she'll sleep for like an hour or an hour and 20 minutes... but it's just nooooot enough! She needs to nap for an hour and 45 minutes or 2 hours in order to be okay for the rest of the day so yeah... she's not quite there. After many, many rough days with her being insanely cranky all day I have found that it really helps if I break up her day with different environments. Whether it's going for walks, going to the playground or shopping plaza, or just going upstairs or out back... she just needs her day to be broken up and she's been pretty good for the past 3 days.

Here are some pictures from the playground yesterday...

The geese in the baseball field next to the playground, look how cute!





Since Jo was wearing a Red Sox shirt, which you can hardly see in these pictures because of the sun, I decided to take some baseball themed pictures while she ran around the field...




I love this picture, it looks like she was just getting ready to play some ball but got lazy so just decided to sit down haha




I also love this picture because of the way her face is all smashed up against the face haha she's so silly...





Then as I pulled the stroller back into our driveway Lori and Ayden popped their head over the fence and told us to come on over, Jo loves playing with her little boyfriend...







Jo then proceeded to have a naked dinner because I had to take her clothes off in the garage because she got drenched next door haha and then she took a bath where she showed off saying her new word "Abby" the name of her cousin. Ofcourse she walks around all day saying it but then when I try to get her to say it on video I look like an idiot because it takes me like 5 minutes to get her to say it haha






It was too hot today to walk to the shopping plaza or playground so we took a short walk around here and spent some time in the back yard, Jo got to play in the water and got drenched again haha I can't believe how much her attitude towards water has changed lately.

VACA!

4 days till we leave for vacation! Back at Jo's 1 year appointment with the pediatrician he said it's not recommended that you use Dramamine for babies all the time but there is a special dose for them that you can use once and awhile. He told me to call him before we left to talk about it and even though lately I've been thinking about doing the 2 hour long drive without it I called him anyway to talk. Turns out, the American Academy of Pediatrics has changed their tune about the special dose of Dramamine for babies and doesn't recommend it at all now, which is fine because I was almost certain we weren't going to use it anyway. It's definitely going to take us awhile to get there planning around Jo's car sickness and what not. I'm planning on giving her breakfast at 8 and finishing no later than 8:30 so we can leave promptly at 10 am. Just to be safe we wait an hour and a half after she eats anything or drinks milk. So we're going to leave at 10 and Jo will probably fall asleep between 10:30-11 and that's when we're just going to try to get as far as we can while she's asleep. I'm hoping the nap sort of breaks up her ride so when she wakes up she'll be okay and not feel like she's been in the car forever, because she does get very impatient in the car after awhile. So I'm hoping she'll be okay when she wakes up and we can just keep going as far as we can before she needs to have her milk. Usually she has her sippy cup with milk at 11 and takes a nap at 11:30 but if we're in the car she'll definitely fall asleep earlier and I'm hoping to hold off on her sippy cup for as long as possibly because once she has that we have to hang out wherever we are for an hour and a half! I know we're not going to get all the way there before she has her sippy so we will have to stop but hey! I know we'll get there eventually haha check in is at 3 and I estimate we'll probably get there a little earlier than that. I don't know what we're going to do on the way home but I'm thinking maybe leave around bedtime so she sleeps the whole way home and we can do it in just one straight shot.

Speaking of sleeping... here is my little angel last night...



Then showing off her new Mickey Mouse Club House pajamas that I got at the Disney Store for $3.99! I'm kicking myself in the butt for not getting a bunch more!

Side Note...

If you're not doing anything tonight. I highly suggest you watch Prime Time on ABC at 10pm Eastern Time. It is a special on the late Professor Randy Pausch and if you want to learn about a truly amazing, and inspirational man then you should definitely tune in! Just have the tissues near by...

Chef Josephine...

Introducing... Chef Josephine!!!


Okay... I know I look like an absolute mad woman/vampire in that last picture. I don't know how my husband does it but he just always manages to capture the most unflattering second long facial expressions haha.

I made such a delicious dinner tonight. Chicken with salsa in the slow cooker, all it is is chicken with a bunch of salsa on top and then in the last 15 minutes you add red chili pepper, cumin, and lime juice... so easy and sooooo good. This is our 2nd time having it!

Then I made Pillsbury Crescent Rolls to go along with it... if you've never had these you have no idea what you are missing out on. They are DEVINE! They are seriously absolute heaven haha

I also made a bean salad which came out GREAT. I'm telling you right now, you must make this! That is, if you like bean salad, otherwise it'd just be a waste huh? I just put chickpeas, kidney beans, cannellini beans, green beans, celery, and onion. But here is what absolutely makes it!... the marinade that goes in it. I'm telling you, this is absolutely delicious! It's 1/3 cup apple cider vinegar, 1/3 cup sugar, 1/4 cup olive oil, 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt, and 1/4 teaspoon black pepper. I doubled the amount of all that because I made so much, it came out great, try it if you like bean salad!!! =)

Sandals!...

We didn't even get home until 1:30 in the morning! But we had a lot of fun, the show was great even if it started an hour and 15 minutes late!!!

Jo's Nana went to an outlet mall and they had a Children's Place outlet, which I'd LOVE to go to sometime! They also have a Carter's outlet there too! Need to go to this place... anyway, she got Jo a pair of sandals for like $2.99!!! Jo doesn't have sandals because I'm too cheap and we had to spend so much on her walking shoes I just figured... why not use them? haha so past the mid-point of summer, Jo gets her first pair of sandals!



When I first put them on her she started to fuss and I couldn't tell if she was just fussing because she was cranky or if it was the sandals so I took them off. Then she really started to freak out! I guess it wasn't the sandals because she started begging me to put them back on! She'd hold them up to me and be like "EH! EH! EH!" and then try to put them on her self, realizing she couldn't... then she'd come back to me holding it out for me hahaha
Here she is pushing open the door while Rob pees... I meant to take a picture of her waiting for him to come out but just as I was taking the picture she just pushed the door open!


And here is a tired baby. What!? You ask? Jo, TIRED!? I know... it's shocking right? .... yeah right...




Yesterday Rob got his new Sirius Satellite Radio in the mail, his old one broke so this was a replacement and I had to activate it and test it out. Well, when it was activated it automatically came on and 'Dancing Queen' by Abba came on... this is how Jo reacted...


I had to take her outside for awhile to take her mind off the fact that she refuses to nap....

Failed...

Jo ended up sleeping for 1 hour and 30 minutes exactly. I was SOOO excited and so proud of her! Until I realized, the nap did nothing. She was just as cranky and just as upset after the nap as she was before hand. This upset me very much. It is so frustrating to know what the problem is behind your baby being upset all the time and yet that problem can't be fixed no matter what! It just seems so simple to me, sleep enough = be happy. Why can't I get her to sleep enough!? Very frustrating...

So I needed to distract her. I really didn't want to take the 15 minute walk to the shopping plaza nearby because it was just sweltering hot out and if you know me, then you know I don't do heat. But, alas, I felt like I didn't have any other option. So off we went. I let Jo walk around the baby/toy sections of 2 department stores. I basically just used these stores as Jo's entertainment/playground. But hey! I ended up buying something in each store so I was indeed a valid customer! haha I wasn't just using them!... sort of...









We got this great Sesame Street 25 piece kitchen set for only $4.99!!! It's so cute and Jo loves kitchen stuff. Then it was off to the bath...




In other news, tomorrow night is going to be a rare occurrence. Rob and I are having a night out. We're going out to dinner and then seeing George Michael in concert (oh, yes). Jo will be fine on her own... just kidding! We're leaving her with Nana.