Happy Easter + Vacation + New Foods!

So it's been a while since I've updated the blog, but we've been crazy busy!  We left for our annual Easter Arizona vacation on April 6 and just got back on Tuesday, so it's been nuts trying to get the house organized!

Quinn wasn't such a great traveler on the journey down to Phoenix, but it was a really long day for her.  She slept through the morning flight to Washington-Dulles, but then we had a 6 hour layover in Washington.  Through most of it she was pretty good - playing on the floor, napping a bit in her carrier...and then it all went downhill.  She started to fuss quite a bit before getting on the plane, so all I could think was "well, I'm pretty sure that the whole plane already hates us" (lol), and then on the plane, she did a lot more fussing before eventually falling asleep for the last 45 minutes of the 5 hour flight.  Didn't help that she was really backed up and that was definitely bothering her.  I thought that the guy sitting next to Steve was going to jump out of the plane.  Oh well!  We made it there safe and sound and Quinn slept through the night that night.  Truthfully, she slept through the night every night except for 1, which is nothing to complain about!  My Mom had bought a "sleep spa" that has music and a light projection on the ceiling that seemed to keep Q asleep as it played all night.  Golden!

Quinn's first Easter was a success!  The Easter Bunny found her all the way at Nanny and Pepere's house in Arizona and spoiled her rotten.  I'll post some photos soon once I get them downloaded from my camera.

Quinn had a lot of fun in Arizona!  It's so great to see her so interactive.  She met lots of new people and was good as gold for her babysitters when we had some different things going on later at night.  No troubles with her taking the bottle from them either!  We took Quinn in the pool and she is improving on her kicking skills, but only likes to paddle with one arm.  She also received 3 new bathing suits as gifts, including a bikini which is super cute! (Again, pictures to follow on my next post)  As usual, Quinn charmed everyone around her and is a big flirt!  I swear that if she had more hair that she'd actually flip it!  We were at this one restaurant and it was getting close to nap time, so Nanny was carrying Q around so that she'd fall asleep.  But every time that someone walked by, she'd pop her head up and give a great big gummy smile.  If it was a woman, they'd only get the smile...if it was a man, he'd get the smile and a happy sound to go with it.  What a nut! :)

Since we've been home, I've started making her some new foods to try.  We also started feeding her some oatmeal cereal in place of the rice, hoping that that will make a difference in her digestion.  Quinn's eating 3 meals of solids a day now that we're back and more on a schedule.  Here's the new food update:

• oatmeal cereal - loves it!!! Plus I love the smell of it in the morning.
• zucchini - big fan of this one too!  It's also so easy to make that I'm a big fan of it too.
• blueberry sauce - added this to her cereal this morning.  Quinn gobbled the purple cereal all up!
• cauliflower - going to try this one tonight for dinner.  Since she likes parsnips, I'm thinking that this one should be ok too!

The other foods that I'm going to be trying with her are apricots (already made and frozen) and turkey.  One of the baby food recipe books that I have recommends adding apples or pears to the turkey to help with the consistency and to add a familiar flavour.  Quinn's a huge fan of both apples and pears, so I'm suspecting that it should go OK!  There are so many recipes that I can't wait to try with her!