We had plans to go camping this weekend with some friends on their land about an hour and half south of Rochester. It rained all day Friday and then Saturday was fairly cool and very windy, so everyone decided to wait a day before heading down. So instead on Saturday we visited Papa G who is laid up with a broken leg. Luckily, a broken leg does not hinder one's ability to read to one's grandchildren (or eat corn on the cob).
We arrived at the campsite around 1:00 on Saturday to windy day with lots of sun. Five dogs and five kids made it a pretty hectic campsite. Everyone had fun riding 4 wheelers, fishing (which I did not get any pictures of), and sitting by the campfire. They even have a little 4 wheeler for the kiddos which Parker loved. She slept all night through despite the very cold temps (not sure, maybe high 30s?). Camping is much easier with a kid who can walk and we look forward to going more this summer!
We had a fun weekend, which started out with a bike ride Saturday morning. Here is the route we took (almost 10 miles), most of the way is a bike path so it's not stressful to pull Parker in the trailer.
Parker fell asleep about halfway through and still took a nice long nap in the afternoon.
Some random videos of our goofball:
Playing with the box from her new fishing rod
Shoveling it in
And on Sunday we attended Parker's first birthday party for a friend from school. It was The Little Gym, another first. Parker took a few minutes to warm up and got a little scared by some things (which you will see here), but all in all, she loved it. Lots of videos...
I had a wonderful Mother's Day (kind of celebrated the whole weekend). On Saturday, Greg and Parker tagged along on my shoe shopping trip to DSW and then we had lunch. Saturday night we had a date night with our good friends (and Greg's cousin) Jason & Emily Nudds. Papa G came over to hang out with Parker and they had a great time playing and eating pizza and ice cream.
On Sunday we had a Skype date with Grandma & Grandpa Lang and Parker showed off all the new words she knows and played with her Little People. Then we walked up to the Lilac Festival and rode some rides. Parker's favorite was the big slide on the burlap bags (on my lap of course). Finally, we had dinner out that evening. The best gift Parker gave me were the three hour naps on both days!!
And here are some videos from the last few days. This one is three minutes long and includes a reprise of Wheels on the Bus. We have added a couple new verses (the last one is my favorite).
This one is just of us hanging out on the front porch. I was impressed that Parker was able to rock herself.
And finally cracking up at Daddy hitting himself in the face with a bag of cotton balls. Turns out Parker has a thing for slapstick comedy.
We hired our favorite photographer, Kristen Koppers, again to take some photos of Parker and the family for her 18 month milestone. We were very lucky with the weather and met Kristen at Highland Park on a Saturday evening. It took Parker a few minutes to warm up (you will see some pictures of her holding my wallet and with bubbles, from a bubble machine, floating by), but then she was great. As usual, Otis was a good boy and Kristen even got a good close up of him.
We invited about 25 friends and neighbors over to celebrate Cinco de Mayo on Sunday. Luckily, it was perfect weather, 75 and sunny, so we utilized the backyard to its full extent. With cooking for all these people and dealing with Parker's very messed up nap schedule that day, I did not take one picture or video. We had sombreros and little mustaches for people to wear. I also bought some Mardi Gras-esque beads with chili peppers on them, but Parker wore every single one of them the whole night. It was like a mini-Mexican Mister T.
We had some excitement later that night as well, with Parker's first (fingers crossed for only!) trip to the ER. We had a couple friends getting ready to leave around 8:30 and I was holding both Parker's hands and dancing/twirling her around. It was past her bedtime so she was a little fussy, but loved the dancing. We put her to bed and two hours later she woke up very upset. I could not calm her down and thought she was holding her arm funny. After some time spent trying to determine if something was really wrong or if she was just tired, we finally took the trip to the ER. We got right in and the triage nurse immediately said, it's probably Nursemaid's Elbow, basically a dislocated elbow. They put us in a room and 5 minutes later the doctor came in and popped it back in place. Parker had pretty much stopped crying as soon as we got in the car and was very calm the whole time at the hospital (except when the doctor was messing with her arm). Immediately after the fix, she was giving Daddy high-fives with that arm, instant pain relief. Parker could be more prone to this condition or it could never happen again, time will tell.
P.S. we found out yesterday that the ER doctor was the Mom of one of Parker's classmates!
We nothing specific to update on this time. We are enjoying the warmer weather and have the yard all cleaned up for summer. We bought this All Star Sports Climber for the backyard and koi for our pond this year. Parker is talking more and more every day but at the same time seems to get more frustrated when she can't communicate her wants or needs. We see more of the "throwing the body on the floor and laying there" move. Luckily this generally only happens in the privacy of our own home and not in public.
We put shorts on this weekend because it was warm out and then she wanted to wear the vest. Love that face
Trying to capture the way she says "cereal", she says it at the very beginning of the video
Carrying the koi fish food at Petco
Parker is still a great eater and sometimes really gets going (like at the end of this video)
Parker is doing great at school and they are starting to play outside almost every day. Here are some photos from past few weeks from her teachers.
She wore these sunglasses & the necklace in from the car and apparently for much of the morning.
Dance party with scarves
Indoor picnic
The skirt is from their dress-up bin; she wore it home that day
