I *Heart* My Bink Bink

My boys never attached themselves to anything. I remember thinking that wasn't normal and actually asking their pediatrician what I should do about it. ha! I am quite certain the pediatrician thought I had lost my mind. I tried blankets, lovies, pacifiers, teddy bears, you name it, I probably tried it. They just didn't care. In the end, Ethan soothed himself by snapping my fingernails, my ring finger or my pinkie preferably, and Owen soothed himself by running his fingers through my hair. A true testament to mama's boys, I suppose. Not this girl though. She loves her blanket, i.e. bink bink. When I am rocking her before nap time if I don't have it for her to snuggle she will grunt and reach for it. She pulls it up to her face and just holds it. It is the sweetest thing. You can bet no matter where we are or what we are doing, her bink bink is not far off.

As for our day, it was just another wonderful day in the life. I get it that I only have Eliza and things will really liven up when the boys come home, but I cannot possibly put into words how happy I am to be home. Chris gets home from work and I am so at ease; just relaxed. There's no throwing dinner together. There's no sense of rushing or anxiety. It just flows. When we were walking home from the park this morning, Eliza had fallen asleep and I was just thinking to myself how incredibly blessed I am to have a husband who is not only supportive but encouraging of this decision. The only question I have is why did it take me so long to get here?

1 Year Pictures

Eliza and I took off this afternoon to have 1 year pictures taken. She can be so smug now instead of all smiley. She is definitely starting to show signs of stranger anxiety. But overall, I think they turned out ok. Enjoy!

Thank you to my sweet friend, Lauren for letting us borrow the turquoise pettiskirt. Only a few short weeks til this baby girl is going to be 1! Hard to believe it is going by so quickly.

Not a Bad Start

We were up and at'em this morning and off for a morning walk by 7.15am. Sounds way too early, I know, but the temperature has been close to 100 degrees the past few days so I figured we should take advantage of 85 degrees while we could.

Snack ball - check.

Juice - check.

Water for mama - check.

Camera - check.

Let's roll baby!

We saw several bunnies along our walk and Eliza would get so excited; kicking her legs, flailing her arms. I would say bunny and bye bye bunny when we walked away and she would watch and listen so intently. She is starting to sound out words so well. Some things she is saying are: Hey there, What's that?, What's this?, Bye Bye, Dada, Mama, My, No No and Emma. I bet being home with me now her language is going to explode.

We made it to the park and she was more interested in pushing the stroller around than playing on the equipment. I think she is going to need a baby stroller for her birthday.

I did get her over to the slide but she was more interested in the mulch. :-)

We headed home after about 30 minutes for a snack.

We brought in some new toys from the garage this weekend for Eliza to discover.

See that black purse? It was mine when I was about 5 years old. :-)

And she loves it!

When Every Day is Saturday

What does one do when every day feels like Saturday? Well, tomorrow I am about to find out. I resigned from my job 3 weeks ago and tomorrow is my first day in my new profession. Stay at Home Mom, or SAHM, if you will. This is a decision I have struggled with for years. And about 2-3 years ago I resigned and our family was moving to Ohio for Chris to take a new job and for us to be somewhat closer to his family. Only I never could have peace about it and 3 days after he and I resigned, I asked for our jobs back. :-) And the world kept spinning.

Then Eliza was born. And the craziness of a newborn started all over. Only this time, I had one in kindergarten which made a huge difference in our home. I wanted so desperately to be a part of Ethan's class. To volunteer, go on field trips and show up for lunch. And I was able to do these things but not without a price. For the most part I was the one that paid that price with sleepless nights and longer work hours. But I managed to "tread water" as I called it for a year. And then he tracked out from kindergarten, heading into 1st grade and I was staring at Eliza turning 1 year old and I thought - I don't want to do "it" all anymore. I don't have to be super mom anymore. I want to just be mama. Plain and simple. No fancy title, no annual raise or bonus. No paid vacation or sick time. None of it. Just mama.

So tomorrow starts the first day of my new career. And we might just start it at the pool. Or maybe we will be dancing while we eat our breakfast. Or maybe we will wear tutu's and take pictures. Who knows? But I can promise you we aren't going to rush anymore. We are going to play in the sun and take walks in the rain. We are going dance and sing and giggle. We are going to smile and know we don't have anywhere we have to go. We are just going to sit back and see where the world takes us. Me and my girl. And when the boys get home, we will really shake it up a little.

Cheers to whole lot more laughter and happiness in the Bordman home.

Vacation Recap: The Last Day

Last Saturday was so much fun. We got up early and headed over to the Wild Horse Adventure Tours office. We debated over and over about whether or not we should do one of these tours. They aren't cheap and we didn't know if the boys would really enjoy it or not. But I am so glad we decided to go ahead. We drove as far as we could on the road and then the road just ends right there on the beach. That's when you have to switch to 4x4 and off on the beach we went.Our first horse

Sweet baby

It was just amazing to see these beautiful horses in a setting that you would think is not conducive to horses.

The horses originated from Spain and are the last of the Spanish Mustangs. Interestingly enough there are no longer any Spanish Mustangs from this lineage in Spain.

They have adapted to eating the sea oats and drinking part salt part fresh water. They wander throughout the neighborhoods in the area and the beach and pretty much just come and go as they please.

And the boys really enjoyed it.

Owen fussed at the end because he wanted Chris to buy our jeep. He thought the open top was really cool.

This is the old Coast Guard Station. A realtor on the island purchased it and has restored it to the original colors.

This group of horses were getting agitated. You can see the one in front kicking up his back leg. Right after that they charged toward our jeeps in a full on run. But the stopped abruptly and turned around. Maybe they were trying to tell us to back off.

It is a federal crime to be closer than 50 feet from the horses and there is a $500 fine that goes along with that.

As we were heading back home we came across this herd out on the beach. How beautiful is that?

I told Chris several times the same God that made all this beauty made us too. Amazing!

I am so glad we decided to do this tour and would highly recommend it to anyone.

For dinner we went to Fishbones Sunset Grill. It was the best meal we had the whole week.

I bought this dress for Eliza for her beach pictures and it is so pretty. It is one of those things that you want your child to wear all the time because you love it but you don't want them to wear it because you don't want it to get messed up.

The boys wanted a fancy drink so they got a Shirley Temple in these blow fish cups.

And well, he's just handsome. :-)

And finally we went in a gift shoppe and I thought this sign was just hilarious.

That's it for our beach vacation. It was just wonderful and I can't wait until our next one.