It's Been a While

     Ok so I have not posted in a while. I have a lot to post about. We have had many adventures! but I have been so busy that I have not had a chance to post. Our time in Las Vegas has come to an end and I am taking the month of May off of work (just working PRN at Jackson Hospital in Montgomery, AL with my girls) so I am planning on catching up on my posts. I also have many activities planned for Baby Girl next month. We do not have our next assignment yet but we are thinking either one of the Carolinas or Texas! Any suggestions on where we should go after that?
     Kierstin has grown so much since I have posted last. She has mastered crawling, pulling up, and walking with assistance (furniture, push toy, or hand held). She has recently started letting go of whatever she is holding onto for a few seconds. Soon she will be walking! She is growing up so fast. PS I am already planning her birthday party (been planning for a couple months now). This will be the first themed party I have ever thrown. She won't care either way how it turns out, but I just hope it is picture worthy.
    On another note, I got a sewing machine as a gift for Christmas but I have not been able to use it yet. We left to come here shortly after Christmas and we did not bring it because we did not think we would have enough room...and we didn't. I have been pinning things like crazy on Pinterest so now I need to make some of it. I will post my creations as I make them. Hopefully everything will turn out. I am one of those people who start fifteen projects before I actually finish one...I am going to try not to do that.
     One more thing to hopefully make it to the blog is new recipes. While I was nursing I could not have milk or cheese or anything with cows milk because Kierstin was sensitive to a protein in cows milk. So, of course, I pinned ten thousand recipes that had cheese and I could not eat. Torturous right?!  Now I can! So I will let you know how they turn out.
     Wow, this is a lot of stuff I want to do and blog about. This month is going to be busy, but hopefully also relaxing since I won't be working as much. Wish me luck on getting all this out there! I hope to expand my readers as well. Any suggestions on that?

Aliante Nature Discovery Park

     In our exploration of parks in Las Vegas, we happened upon another cool park worth visiting if you ever happen to be in Las Vegas. Aliante Nature Discovery Park is in North Las Vegas. It has a pond and waterfall with a lot of different kinds of ducks and geese. We forgot to take bread to feed them this time so we just walked around and looked at all of them.

Throughout the play area they had a couple different little dinosaurs and eggs. These made cute little pictures and Kierstin loved exploring them. They also had a "sandbox" but it was not sand, more like little bitty rocks. Kierstin wasn't really impressed with that. She wasn't sure what to do. She just sat there and looked at it. She would touch it and then pull her hand up like saying"that felt weird." 

Isn't she so adorable?!

     

Of course her favorite part was the swing. 

This is the awesome looking play tower. Kierstin, of course, isn't old enough to play in this but it looks really cool. 

We had a great time at this park and plan on going back before we leave. It is a great place to take your children. They will have a blast.

Family Workouts

     In an effort to become healthier, I have forced Nathan to workout with me a few times. I need the motivation of someone else working out with me. Kierstin joined in on the fun!

This is Kierstin helping Daddy do situps! 

Kierstin and Daddy doing squats.

Here is Kierstin holding Daddy up during the wall sits. 

     Kierstin also did some pushups with Daddy and rode his back for a few but the pics didn't turn out for those. 

     Hopefully Kierstin will help us keep up an active lifestyle and adopt it herself as well. She has been doing some exercises of her own. She can now go from laying down to sitting on her own. She has not mastered crawling yet but she can crawl 3-4 steps before she lays down on her tummy. 

     Any suggestions on baby "exercises"? 

Shark Reef Aquarium

     For my birthday, I wanted to do something with all of us that we have not been able to do since we have gotten here to Las Vegas. We Went to the Shark Reef Aquarium at the Mandalay Bay. It cost $36 for both Nathan and I. Kierstin had a great time looking at all the different kinds of fish and sharks and, of course, all the other people. I told her some of the highlights about the animals.

This is Kierstin at the sting ray petting area. She did not pet any because she could not reach them but this one stopped right under her and stayed there for a while before swimming off. 

Kierstin liked the jelly fish. She was growling at it. She really likes to growl now. I think these may have been her favorite. 

We got her a stuffed sting ray at the gift shop. We (I) named him "Pokey" because he has pokadots. She likes it a lot. 

     I definitely recommend going to the Shark Reef Aquarium. They also had piranhas. It would have been really cool if they would have been feeding them while we were there. FYI they feed them in the morning but they do not have a specific time....I asked. 

Baby Activities

     In an effort to stimulate Kierstin a little more, I looked online at some infant activities. Most of them don't really cost anything because you usually have the things laying around, but because we are moving around so much we don't really have some stuff that most people have in their home. So I just had to work with what we got. 

     I gave her an extra long bath where I named parts of her body as I washed it. We have Munchkin Ten Squirtin' Sea Buddies ($9.99 at Target). I got them as a shower gift. We also have various rubber duckies (one of my baby showers was rubber duckie themed). Every time she picked up a toy I told her the color and what it was called. At the end of her bath as I was putting them away, I picked up each one and told her what color it was and what color. She had a blast! And worked on her hand-eye coordination while chasing the toys around the bath tub. 

     After her nap, I wanted to let her explore some things that she normally wouldn't so I put some pots and a plastic container in the floor with a spoon. I let her explore everything first to see what she would do which was mostly just chew on the spoon. After a few minutes, Nathan went over and tapped on a couple of the pots and then she started to tap on the pots and the floor with the spoon and her hands. 

     With this activity, we worked on hand-eye coordination, motor skills, grip strength and learned some different sounds. This kept her attention for about half an hour. I am looking for more things to do with her and will post what I do and how well it went. Please leave any suggestions in comments.

     In another note, she still isn't crawling yet but Kierstin now has a fourth tooth! And she has started growling. Super cute! I love my little girl!

Sunset Park

     To anyone visiting Las Vegas, I would recommend you go to Sunset Park. It was not like any park I have been to in Alabama. It had 3 different play areas, a lake with tons of ducks, multiple walking/running trails, beach volleyball courts, multiple open areas for frisbee or whatever you want, a dog park, and some softball fields. Kierstin had never been to a park before so I was eager to take her somewhere where I could put her in a swing.

     She loved the swing, as you can tell. She was so content. Nathan and I loved pushing her in the swing. If we stopped she would kick her little legs. It was adorable.

     Next up was the slide. These things produce a lot of static. I'm just going to say that. Kierstin and I were shocking each other left and right and both our hair was standing straight up. Kierstin liked the slide alright, but I'm not sure she was quite ready for it yet. We will try again soon. 

     After the swing and the slide, we decided to check out the ducks. I took some bread with us. There were a lot of ducks and geese. Kierstin loved it. I think we will definitely be going back. I want to see all the walking trails. I can't wait for it to get a little warmer. You can take boats out on the lake....I wonder if you can rent some and take out there. 

Adventures of Parenting

     As any of you know if you have children, everyday with a child is an adventure. Kierstin (7 months) is constantly growing and learning new things and definitely getting more curious. Although she is not crawling yet, she is very mobile. She has mastered the art of combining both rolling and scooting on her belly to get where she needs to go....into mischief. It is very fun to watch and play with her. She has learned to put her hand over her mouth and make the Indian noise (not really sure what that is called) and it is so adorable. Of course she does it with the back of her hand which just makes it that much cuter. One of my most favorite things that she is doing right now is sleeping with her little bootie up in the air.

Cute huh?!?

     A not so desirable thing that she does is bite. When are babies old enough to know that certain actions are undesirable and they should not do them? 

     On another note, I would like to start doing little activities with/for her. Any suggestions?! Nathan and I are currently doing her footprints on a board every month. I know there is not much that I can do with her now but soon I can!

Please leave comments and suggestions!

Las Vegas Strip

     So I haven't posted in a few days, but now I have lots of adventures and pictures for you. We finally made a trip to the strip. Everything we did was FREE (except for the monorail trip). I love free stuff. Our first stop, the famous Las Vegas sign.

Doesn't our little family look adorable! Here is some info about this sign for any of you that are interested. This sign was created in 1959 and cost $4,000. In 2009 it became a part of the National Register of Historic Places.
     Next we took the monorail to the Flamingo Hotel and Casino and checked out their wildlife habitat. It consisted of flamingos (of course) and other birds and fish.

So after the flamingo exhibit we went to Caesar's Palace. This hotel/casino was huge! And apparently it is not frowned upon to have infants on the casino floor. We would have avoided it if we could though. You could smell smoke and cigars. Yuck! This hotel had sculptures and fountains throughout. It was beautiful! In Caesar's Palace we saw their aquarium which was small but pretty cool. Then we watched The Fall of Atlantis show. That was one of my favorite things for the whole day. I recommend it to anyone who goes to Las Vegas. It is free and pretty cool. 

We then walked to the Bellagio hotel and casino where we went to their conservatory. It was very pretty as well. The real attraction at the Bellagio, however, were the fountains. This was probably the very best attraction. The fountains are set to play every 15 or 30 minutes (depending on what time you go) to Frank Sinatra. It was pretty great. If you go, I definitely suggest that you go at night because they are lit up. It was pretty great. We will probably go see it again while we are out here. 

     Kierstin had a good time! It was a long day (really only a few hours to do all that) and a lot of walking (riding for her). But she was tuckered out. This was on the monorail on the way back to the hotel. 

     We have plenty more that we want to do here and some of it is still free. Does anyone have any suggestions on what we should do or where we should go while we are here? 

First Day of Work

     Today was my first day at my new job. It was a pretty boring day. All I did was sit in a room and listen to people talk and watch videos and do computer assignments. Not very fun at all. My profession involves me constantly on my feet for 12+ hours a day. Can you imagine how crazy it makes me to sit in a chair for 8 hours? Tomorrow I will learn the new charting system and spend another 8 hours in front of a computer screen. Sound exciting? Sounds like a headache to me. But I am ready to get this ball rolling!

     On another note, Kierstin has not mastered crawling yet. Or at least it isn't what you normally think of as crawling. She somehow manages to make it from one side of a room to another moving predominantly backwards on her belly. It will happen soon though. She is getting on her hands and knees more and more often but isn't quite coordinated yet.

     Kierstin has also developed a bad habit. She now likes to grind her teeth. I do not know how to get her to stop. I am afraid she will chip or break one of her teeth. She only has three so far. Is this just a phase that she will grow out of? Or is there something we can do to get her to stop? It makes my teeth hurt when I hear her doing it. Please leave some comments/advice. I want to save her cute little teeth.

Las Vegas Day 2

     Las Vegas, so far, is pretty cool. Someone once told me there was nothing to Las Vegas except the strip. That is completely wrong. We have not been on the strip yet but Las Vegas is huge (at least compared to any other place I have lived). There are so many things that we want to do here I do not know where to start. We visited the Boulevard Mall yesterday. It was pretty big. We will have to go back and visit again. It had a carousel and a little play area for kids. Kierstin is not quite old enough for that yet.
     Yesterday I drove to the hospital where I will be working, 1.8 miles from the hotel. That drive compared to the 50 miles I was driving to Jackson Hospital is a breeze.

This hospital is a 730 bed hospital. I will be working on the ortho/trauma unit. Orientation starts tomorrow and I am very excited.
     Dinner last night was Italian at Battista's Hole in the Wall. You could make reservations but we did not. We waited for an hour before we were seated. It was rather expensive too ($70 for 2 meals). They did have all you can drink wine included and cappuccinos for dessert that were yummy. Kierstin was a little fussy so it was hard to enjoy but the food was really good.
     Today we are just going to hang out at the hotel mostly. Maybe we will go for a walk. We are going to finish unpacking and have some quality family time. I love my little family!

Las Vegas Bound!

        We made it to Vegas! Yesterday morning Kierstin and I took an early flight from Atlanta to Las Vegas. I was impressed at how she did. 4 and a half hours of sitting in the middle of two people and we met Daddy! Kierstin smiled and laughed when she saw her daddy. Boy does she love him. We missed him for the three days that he was driving out here. He definitely had the hard job. Never the less, here we are!

Of course food is the first thing on my mind when we get off the plane. So where is our first stop? Oh but the wonderful Quiznos. I was sad when Quiznos closed in Auburn. It was one of my favorite places to eat. It is still as yummy as I remember!

So we haven't done anything super fancy so far, just unpacking and organizing and catching up on some much needed sleep. But our adventure is just getting started!