Footprints in the Sand

I was so good those first few days of vacation..at the end, I got too busy vacationing to blog. The week was so blissfully relaxing, I just want to go back.

Blaine created this little play area for Logan under the umbrella, where she was perfectly content to sit for hours.

He filled the pink bucket with water and buried it so she couldn't spill it. She played with about eight shells and that bucket of water for most of the morning. The shells went in the water bucket and out and in and out, in and out...

We forgot a cooler, so made good use of the ice bucket. The water bottle is a little big, but we made sure our beer stayed chilled :-). Just looking at this makes me wish I were laying on the beach with an icy Corona in hand. I also have a cool washcloth in the bag there to wipe Logan's sandy eyes. Don't cool cloths just feel wonderful when you have a sandy, salty, sunscreeny face?

One of my brilliant finds prior to vacation was this cool "Sandy Feet" craft. Basically it is a bucket with plaster mix, which you use to pour into a footprint in the sand and it makes a sandy footprint mold. My genius idea is to create one of the footprints each year as little LE's feet grow, and to eventually have a second Christmas tree, one with a coastal theme; (it must be a 2nd tree since you always have to have the Christmas tree with your classic keepsake/homemade ornaments). First of all, Logan HATED this idea. She pretty much thought we were trying to torture her by placing her foot in the sand to get a good footprint. At one point, Blaine called me "Boo" as I obsessively tried to get the screaming angel to make the perfect footprint. (Sorry mom, but I came by my perfectionism pretty honestly :-). In the end, it was a success and Logan's tears were quickly forgotten. This photo doesn't really do the whole craft justice. This is the back of the footprint....the front is a beautiful mold of Logan's precious foot. It is all sandy, even has a little shell stuck in it which conveys this beach so well. Maybe I will grab a quick photo of the finished product in the next few days to share.

We had some left over plaster, so Blaine made his own craft. Needless to say, this isn't going on my Coastal Christmas tree!

Logan decided to try out a lemon at lunch.

What is that?!?

I don't like it! Logan has decided if she doesn't like something, all she has to do is shake her head and spit it out. While funny, it is not her most ladylike feature. We are working on "no thank you mommy."

This picture just makes me laugh. Her eyes look like they are going to pop out of her head. We are at the resort ice cream shop here, "Scoops and Slices." Logan had a blast in the 50's style diner, running all over.

Lollipops as big as her head. During our visit in Tampa, A. Nancy told me about how Marsha used to tell the boys "one finger, one finger" instead of "don't touch." The concept here is that kids are able to explore what they are looking at, but by only using one finger, they are gentle and don't knock things down/break them/pick them up. I have started to try this little tactic, and while it doesn't always work just yet (a pretty hard concept for a 15 month old), it might be effective. Thank you, A. Nancy, for sharing a piece of Marsha's motherly wisdom with me. I'd like to think if she were here, this would be advice she would have shared.

Logan likes ice cream. She found another little boyfriend in the candy shop. I wasn't fast enough with my camera to catch it, but she rushed over to him in his stoller, leaned over and I hear "mmmcchhh" (that is the kissing noise in case you can't interpret). It was really, really funny.