Family Time - Boat time

Lately, we've been trying to get in as much family time as possible due to what we all went through with Tyler a few weeks ago. In case you missed it, HERE is my post about his open heart surgery!

This past weekend, Brian, Julianna, Tyler & I spent both days on our boat. On Saturday, we stopped at a favorite restaurant for lunch ... then anchored out in a quiet cove on the lake for the rest of the day. We hung out... listened to music... snacked... and swam in the lake. We have a nice bimini top, so Tyler stays in the shade the whole time. Perfect. We got home around 8:30pm.... but would have gladly stayed out longer, except it was past Julianna's bedtime!

As for swimming; OK, I will admit, I didn't go in. The lake water is still too chilly for my liking at 74 degrees (air temp was about 85), but I did sit with Julianna on the edge of the swim platform & put my feet in! She was climbing up and down the ladder into the water and loved it. She fell in at one point and got really scared, but she had her life jacket on, so she was just fine! She went right back in on Sunday. That's how she has to learn. She also loves going in the water and swimming with daddy. I think she'll be swimming on her own soon.

Once the sun started to set, we fed Tyler and had him laying down on the lounge with us... he loved it. He was looking around all and we relaxed for quite a while. It was perfect family time yesterday. (minus Julianna's massive meltdown after lunch when she wanted to play mini-golf and we told her no) ... It was times like this weekend that we bought a boat for. Quality family time.

(Don't worry - he was in the shade!) 

On Sunday, we got up early and headed over to the marina for breakfast... it was a nice morning and we took a nice ride on the lake, and then swam for a little while... then back to the marina by lunch time in order to get to Julianna's friend's (Jake) birthday party! Jake is the same age as Julianna and they play so well together... I love watching them interact.

Sunday morning Breakfast

Julianna holding Tyler... She's a little nervous but she liked it. 

Julianna & Jake playing at Jake's birthday party. 

I think this will be them in about 16 years in his real car! haha! 

This past week, we took a sunset cruise; we danced and had fun .... Julianna loved it!
(My fun ended when my good sunglasses fell into the water! Grrrrrr!! Bummer!) 

It's been a rough few weeks and going to be rough for a while - we are busy with 2 kids now all day long... it's tiring to say the least. So when we can have this quality family time, I soak in every minute of it.

Julianna is 3 years old !! Very Belated

Happy 3rd Birthday to my Julianna Belle! 
I feel like we totally missed Julianna's birthday this year. It was bad enough that Tyler was scheduled to be born a week before Julianna's 3rd birthday (in May), but then he had to go into the hospital for open heart surgery and we were forced to (obviously) cancel her birthday party. Poor girl. In case you missed Tyler's story of heart surgery- Click HERE.  (More on his surgery in a later post)

We came home from the hospital early one night and opened presents with her and had birthday cake. Luckily at 3 years old, she won't remember her canceled birthday party. Her birthday was going to be an "Ocotnauts" theme - which is one of her favorite shows on Disney Channel. For her birthday, we got her all the Octonaut characters and other things that go with them. She loved everything!

Preschool 
We enrolled Julianna in Preschool for the fall, at a small Preschool in a church close to home. I can't believe my baby girl is going to be in Preschool. I'm so excited for her, but also sad she is growing up so fast! Total mixed emotions. She is going to love preschool - I just know it! She loves to learn & I'm looking forward to her making friends her age.

Potty Training
We were making some progress with Potty Training before Tyler was born. She sat on the potty and even peed a couple times. We bought pretty pink underwear for her and talked about starting to wear them too! But we knew it would revert back a little bit once Tyler was born. But with Tyler's surgery & hospital stay (and us being gone for 6 days essentially), forget it. Julianna is totally set back weeks now. Not much we can do except wait it out and keep asking (begging) her and taking to her about the potty. We can't force her to use the potty ... I guess she will just be trained later than some kids. Whatever. It's not the worst thing in the world. We have bigger fish to fry right now anyway.

Big Sister
She just loves being a big sister, and so far, is handling it better than we could have expected. We try very hard to include her always. That's not to say she hasn't had her fair share of meltdowns or told us a few times to "Put Tyler somewhere else" when she needs our attention, but overall, she's been a great big sister! She likes to help with his binky (or "pinky" as she calls it) and I give her small jobs to do like bringing diapers into the other room for me. She also likes to watch us change him or feed him.

Julianna's Favorite things
Julianna is really becoming very crafty lately and loves making things with play dough, clay, paper cutouts, and anything with a glue stick! She loves construction equipment and can name most of the construction equipment we see on the roads now! She also loves tractors and any machine Daddy brings home from work (he works for John Deere). She'll make some man very happy one day!
Julianna loves (LOVES!) her flip flops because she can be just like Mommy now. Who knew she wanted to be like me?! She also wants to get her toe-nails painted like Mommy too... so I'm going to take her to get her first pedicure when I go one time this summer. I think she'll like it!
She has discovered the Ipad at our babysitter's house! She loves playing the educational games on there ... we might just have to get one soon.
I should mention Henry Hugglemonster. She LOVES this show on the Disney Channel. She even calls herself "Covey", one of the monsters on there. (Hmmm... monster? You think she knows she is a monster sometimes for real?!)

Here are some birthday pictures ... I didn't get to take too many unfortunately.

(p.s. let me add I will be catching up on my blog reading soon enough ... I've been far behind with that to say the least!)