SeaWorld

We hit SeaWorld last Friday with my sister and her family. I haven't been since I was little and it was such a treat. The animals are amazing!...and all of the shows are so fun to watch! Out of the animals, my favorite is probably the walrus...I never realized how big a walrus actually is. Seriously, this walrus weighed as much as a couple of cars put together...he was HUGE! He would swim right up by the window...and seeing that big guy so close-up pretty much took my breath away. It was crazy!! The picture of the walrus in the slideshow doesn't do him justice!!

FYI, I'm pretty sure Robert or my sister took all of these shots. I was busy chasing Meredith around the whole time! :)

The Pumpkin Patch

We hit The Pumpkin Patch last Thursday night. I have been living in Huntington for 6 years and had never gone before, so it was fun to finally check it out. Meredith and the other kids, of course, loved it! Meredith (my little animal lover) was particularly excited about the petting farm and the pony rides!! She is my little cowgirl in the making...check out the pictures of her on the pony ride. She's a natural...

Sunny day at the beach

My sister and her family came to visit this past week. We had so much fun just hanging out. Meredith was so happy to have some cousins around to play with!

Ellie & Meredith diggin' a hole
cute little feet!

The Anderson's
Porter eating sand...yum

Spaghetti Eating 101

Grandma Holmes' Birthday!

October is a big month for the Holmes' family. I think there are 9 birthdays in the month of October...the most important being...Grandma Holmes! Happy birthday! We had grandma & grandpa over along with Mark, Marie, Lucy & little Thomas.

Mental health update...

So, I thought I'd share a quick update on M. She actually took a 2 1/2 hour nap the other day, which was seriously a miracle. However, she is continuing to fight her naps. Ugh!!! Everyone always says to just let them "cry it out"...which I totally get, but at this point I wonder how many thousands of times I have let her "cry it out"...without permanent success. It's getting old, but I'm trying to stay positive. It is just hard when she cries for 30 minutes straight...then starts crying about going "poo poo"! I had to get her up and change her diaper and now she has been crying for at least 20 minutes and she is still not asleep! I just hope that our next child is a good sleeper, or there may not be a #3!!

On a positive note, she is such a sweet girl and she has been so much better about sharing lately! Yeah! Now instead of beating up her friends when they play with her toys, she actually gets excited when friends come over and shows them all of her toys. So much better than hitting. :)

Here are some cute pics of M from my last photography class at the park:

Mentally unstable?

I don't normally go off in my posts, but I am so frustrated right now. I am just so tired...soooooo tired...and I've had it with Meredith's sleeping issues. You would think dealing with a baby getting up 3-4 times in the middle of the night until she was 14 months old, would be enough for one mom to bear...but NO! I feel so pathetic saying this, but it seems like EVERY time she actually starts to sleep better and nap better and I am feeling SOOOOOOoooooo truly grateful that I finally don't have to deal with the stress of trying to put her to sleep and the stress of wondering how long she is going to sleep...she relapses into her terrible sleep habits again!!! I really wish I didn't have to deal with this anymore!! It makes me wonder if she is ever going to be a "good sleeper"...

I realize that for some reason I have very little patience when dealing with this issue, but I am literally SO TIRED from the last 20 months that I don't think I will ever feel "normal" again. I look at so many of my friends whose kids sleep until 8 and take 2-3 hour naps every day and I feel like such a failure. I have the cutest little girl in the world and she is such a good girl when she is awake, but for some reason I have done something to ruin her whole sleeping thing. I spoiled her when she was little or something. Who knows??????

Right now as I'm writting this, she finally just fell asleep after 30-40 minutes of crying and the stupid dumptruck is here. She is going to wake up screaming any second and I can hardly think about it without feeling like I'm going to have a complete mental breakdown. You may laugh, but I'm not kidding...at all. I am so sick of this stupid garbage truck waking her up and so sick of my stupid neighbors that all have loud obnoxious trucks and anything or anyone else who has disturbed M's naps or sleep. Now that you have heard all of my pathetic ranting and raving, do you understand the title of my post?? I had all of these ideas in my head of what a great mom I would be before we actually had Meredith...and today as she kept screaming and crying and refusing to go to bed...I just wanted to smack her bum so hard. Ugh!! I didn't, but I was seriously angry. So much for the great mom dream.

By the way, she actually didn't wake up from the garbage truck, luckily it was one of the quiet recycling trucks...but unfortunately, I'm just sitting her feeling tons of anxiety waiting for the moment when something else will wake her up. With my recent luck, I'm sure this much needed nap will not even last an hour.

Sorry for the sob story. Promise I'll stop feeling sorry for myself now and try to cheer up. :) At least she is the cutest thing and sweetest thing about 95% of the time. It could be worse, right?

Surf City

At my photography class today we took pictures at the cool "Ice House" that has been around since 1945. I usually only take pics of people, so it was fun to try something new. There was also this really cool old car next door to the ice house...I snapped a few pics of that as well. Look at the hood ornament on the car, isn't that the hugest thing you've ever seen! We went to lake park and took a few pictures there, too!