The long plane ride to Hawaii...

Whew! What a long day of travelling. Going on a trip with a 1 year old is not for the faint of heart.

We left yesterday morning for the border, hitting up a few American stores before heading to the airport. First of all let me just say how happy I was to be flying a family friendly airline like Alaska and not Allegiant. Allegiants line ups were insane and nobody seemed to know what they were suppose to be doing and were all stressed out. No thank you, we will pass on travels with them.

"Lets get on it momma!"

We were incredibly fortunate to have a friendly airline employee do some switching around so that Noah could go from being a lap child to getting his very own seat for FREE. What a lifesaver that was! We had brought his car seat just in case and were able to use it for the flight. Noah understands what his car seat is for, so he was perfectly content being strapped into it while we travelled.

Tired but content baby on our flight.

Let me just say how much God answered our prayers! Noah was an absolute angel on the 6 hour flight. We were in the air from 4pm-10pm and get this, he never slept. He was awake and happy the entire time. I didn't even need half of the toys I had packed for him because he spent a good hour or two of the flight playing with two plastic cups that the flight attendant had given him. That being said, Matt and I still had basically no time to do whatever we wanted, but such is life travelling with a toddler.
His favourite part was when we were landing. He watched out the window saying "Óooo!" and "Was dat?" He thought it was great! Then we packed him into the stroller, got our luggage and headed to our hotel.

Checking into our suite at the Hilton

By the time he got to sleep it was 11:00pm and had had a total of 40 minutes of shut eye since 6:30 that morning. It was truly unbelievable that he was still a happy camper. What a trooper!

When we arrived we were all given a lei. Noah has been obsessed with these things ever since - and was wearing ALL of them this morning.

This morning we woke up to an absolutely beautiful view from our balcony over looking the Hilton Hawaiian Village lagoon with the ocean just behind. It's hot, it's sunny and it smells wonderful! It's currently 9:30 Hawaii time and since we've been up since 5:00am (silly time change) Noah is already passed out in his crib. I'm considering taking a nap myself as the rest of the family is off getting groceries. This afternoon we plan to hit up one of the many pools at the resort. Noah is just dying to get his toes in that water...

The view we woke up to this morning! Blessed.

Currently

Copied from Janelles blog

Reading: The Secret Garden. Classic!

Watching: The View. Jennifer Morrison from ONCE is going to be on :)

Listening: to Noah babbling in his crib upstairs.

Drinking: Water. Exciting eh?

Dreaming: about our vacation to Hawaii. Can't wait to see Noah splashing in the ocean and playing in the sand.

Thinking: the plane rides gonna suck.

Planning: what to pack!

Feeling: Tuckered out, blah.

Wishing: that Noah and I could have made it to Noah's Ark at the school today. This Momma just didn't have the energy!

Creating: my packing list.

Hoping: that Noah will get his own seat on he plane, and that the turbulence keep to a minimum.

Smelling: laundry being washed.

Missing: my hubby. I love it when he's around.

Going: absolutely no where right now!

Discussing: what chore I should tackle next.

How about you? What are you currently up to? Paste your blog in the comments so I can read your 'Currently' too!

Overtime

Hubby has been working over time the last few days. I so appreciate how hard he works to support our little family and I love him for doing it. But boy do I miss him when he isn't here in the evenings.

Last night several girly friends came over and we watched a pre-Christmas movie, ate popcorn and painted our nails. I'm thankful for friends who at the last minute give up their evenings to keep me company.

Tonight, I'm cozied up on the couch with my favorite blanket made by my wonderful mother in law watching some X factor, all by my lonesome. After, I think I'll read some more of one of my favorite childhood stories, The Secret Garden. Oh, and of course take a few moments to stare at my adorable sleeping toddler. I am blessed.

Goodnight all!

Breaking a bad habit

I've been a nail biter for a long time. So long in fact that I can't even remember when I started. I do however, know where I got it from, or should I say whom.
Most people who bite their nails picked it up from a parent and in my case it was my father (thanks dad.)

I've successfully quit several times. The longest was a few months after I got engaged, since everyone was looking at my hands constantly to see the ring. I figured I'd better stick with it since short nails wouldn't look so nice in wedding pictures. I stopped for basically 2 years, even managing to resist the biting through my crazy wedding cancellation/re-plan at the last minute drama. That was pretty stressful so I was rather proud of myself.

Somewhere down the road I started biting again. It's not something I enjoy doing, despite what people think. It's really just a matter of me consciously thinking about it not doing it. I know it's ugly and unattractive but I just found it to be so much effort to stop.

About three weeks ago I quit again. My hubby keeps telling me I need to stop or else Noah will pick it up and this is something I definitely do not want to happen! So with that in mind I have been doing my best. One trick I've found is that if I keep some kind of polish on my nails it helps me to be aware of what I am doing. If I start bringing my fingers to my mouth and see something shiny or pink it triggers the 'oh yeah - don't' signal in my head.

I hate the effort of having to clean and polish my nails, but I must admit, it sure looks a lot prettier. Hubby once gave me the incentive that if I stop biting he will pay for me to go get my nails done every few weeks. That would be fun! I wonder if that offer still stands...

Insomnia.

Ugh, lack of sleep is the worst.

I've been having a hard time sleeping lately. Just can't seem to get comfortable and find myself tossing and turning all night long. I think this has made me overtired which makes it even harder to get into a good sleep pattern.

Last night I finally found myself drifting into a deep sleep only to be awoken by my toddler crying from his crib. By the time I got to his bed his cries had elevated to screams and he clung to me and I could feel his wet tears all over my shoulder. Poor dear was popping yet another molar.

He settled down after the Tylenol kicked in but he then decided that he didn't want to go back to bed. He kept pointing to go downstairs but that wasn't about to happen at 3:30 in the morning. Hubby and I felt so bad for him that we took turns walking the upstairs hallway and reading him stories before eventually putting him back in bed. Pretty sure we fell back asleep before he did.

The positive of this story is that I got to sleep in until 8:30 this morning. Hubby however, did not.

I am greatly looking forward to our vacation that is happening oh so soon. We are sharing a 2 bedroom suite with my family, which means Noah will get in lots of Nana, Papa and Uncle time. He loves his family. And I love a bit of a break :)

Ps - here is a video of Noah from yesterday. Right now he is REALLY into his singing puppy that he got from his Nana last Christmas.

The later nap transition

Noah really likes his sleep. It wasn't until he was 8 months old that he really started sleeping through the night though (...and I'm sorry - I just can't consider it through the night until I am getting 7 or 8 straight hours in a row.)

Even after getting a full 12 hours of sleep and waking up around 6:30am, he was zonked and ready for bed by 9:30am. Problem was, he would sleep until maybe 11:30ish and then that was it for the day. This lead to full on melt downs by 4:00 in the afternoon and made me watch the clock tick down til my husband arrived to help me with him.

So over the past month or two we have been in the process of pushing his nap back, half an hour at a time. I am very happy to say that on average he now goes to bed around 11:30, sometimes even 12:00! He then sleeps for anywhere between two and three hours - bliss! It's especially nice for me because by that time I feel like I need some quiet down time for myself, where as at 9:30 in the morning I was usually just getting going on things.

This has also allowed us to push his bedtime back a little later. Before he was exhausted by 6:30pm and would basically go to bed right after dinner. Now we usually have a bit of time to play, have a bath or go for a walk before he goes down at 7:30.

We are heading to Hawaii very soon and I am a little curious how the three hour time change will affect him, but I'm hoping he will just be able to take naps in his stroller whenever need be and that we can stick to somewhat of a normal morning/evening schedule. We shall see.

We have a walker!

You may be thinking, 'I thought Noah already was walking?"
Technically, he wasn't. He took his first steps at 11.5 months and continued to do three or four from time to time. But he had yet to actually get the confidence to walk everywhere, until about a week ago. He suddenly realized how much easier it was to simply walk on two feet and has been doing it ever since. Just in time for a nice long plane ride, yipee!

He loves to dance along with Ellen. No joke. He can't resist a good beat.

Alot of people told me that once he started walking it would be more difficult to watch him, but I would have to disagree. It doesn't seem any worse then crawling to me! Besides, the most annoying thing he does is go up our stairs, and that started looong before the walking. **Note to self... buy a second baby gate...** He has taken a few harder tumbles though as he has further to go. It really makes me realize how big my baby is seeing him on two feet instead of close to the ground.

Noah eats all big people food now! It is awesome!

With the help of my dad we installed childproof locks on all our downstairs cupboards and cabinets and that has definitely help with the 'oh no he has scissors' panic moments. We forgot to do them in the bathroom upstairs though and Noah has become very fond of both hubby and I's toothbrushes. And if anyone has an idea of how to keep a toddler from unrolling the toilet paper please send them my way.

Noah on Uncle Dougs bike. This scares me but it's still a cute shot.