Gardens and Tornados

So Clint and I have been on a roll doing date nights every weekend. Sometimes our little bug gets to come with us :) This weekend Olivia and I picked up Clint from his last day of classes (YAY!! First year almost done! Just to make it through finals...) and we all went to a little BBQ shop in Memphis then to the Botanical Gardens. It was fun to take a stroll outside and chat and be together.

Olivia was wearing her Jellies that finally fit her! I seriously love these. I got them as a gift before she was born and I have been waiting forever for her to fit them! And bonus. She can't get them off. 

Love this cute smile. We don't capture it very often, but she smiles more than you might think... since all her pictures are just her staring at the camera haha

Hanging with mom and dad. I've made a new goal to get in more pictures with her. I feel like I am always taking pictures, but I need to give the camera to someone else more often I think. I want to remember being there too ya know?

So now we are on to finals week. Clint took two tests today and has another 5 to go before he is done on Friday. Man, I feel like this first year went by so so quickly! 

Today's adventure consisted of tornado crazy-ness! I know there are probably a bunch of seasoned Southerners laughing at me right now (if any of them read my blog haha) but I was a little totally freaked out by the tornado warnings last night and today.  The sky looked scary and the rain was coming down so hard last night! This morning I turned on the radio and heard about the tornado that touched down in Arkansas and killed 17 people and I got all our 72 hour kits out of the closet and located all of our flashlights and candles and I was ready to hide out in the bathroom all day.

 Luckily, we just got a lot of rain and some cool thunder storms. 

Easter Weekend

I love holidays. I love traditions and being together with my cute little family and I just love it. We had a great Easter weekend. Saturday we went to our ward Easter party. We had a big potluck and egg hunt for the kids and the adults. It was actually kind of funny because there were a group of us optometry students who hadn't gotten started in the adult hunt because we were all watching our babies and the bishop came over and said there was a $100 bill in one of the hidden eggs. You should have seen everyone run! ahh. student loans life...
Just so you know. There was no $100 bill. He's a tricky one, that bishop... ;)
We got our picture taken....
and I swear one day my child will smile on cue, but that day is not last Saturday. or today.
And Olivia got a little farmers tan. I am so glad she got her daddy's skin. I totally spaced putting sun block on her and all the other moms had lathered their kids and Olivia just got a little tan. :)

We came home and did our egg hunt. I hid all the eggs and Clint found them all... next year I'm going to have him hide half. I just didn't think about finding them myself haha and we rolled Olivia's eggs filled with puffs and freeze dried yogurt (yum...) all over the rug. She looked at us like we were crazy until  I opened one egg and she saw the contents and then she was ALL over this easter egg finding business.

That evening we went to a Redbirds baseball game with some friends for a birthday celebration.

Olivia loved the mascot. Can you tell? 

I was nervous because they do fireworks at the stadium every Saturday and we've never taken Olivia to the fireworks before, but she loved them. She was mesmerized from the time they started until they were done. While we were there someone also told me that they do baby crawling races at the baseball games sometimes. Yes. We are going to enter Olivia. Be excited because you know I am!

Sunday morning I made breakfast for us and gave Olivia her Easter basket. Remember how excited I knew she would be? She delivered. She was clapping her hands and loving it.

We went to church and invited some friends over for a little Easter dinner and watched MoTab's Messiah performance which was amazing. ok, I'll be honest, I didn't watch all of it. But I liked what I did watch. :) 

Happy belated Easter everyone! 

woah... slow down turbo...

Ooook. So can I submit that my baby is growing up WAY too fast? Let us recount the past week. 

She started...

*Sleeping without being swaddled
*Sleeping from 7pm-6am

 Which is amazing by the way
*Crawling for real
*Getting from crawling to sitting up again 

That one took a little while, but last night she got it and we clapped for her and now every time she sits up she expects some praise. It's pretty funny. 
*Pulling herself up onto her knees
*And then this morning she pulled herself to STANDING next to the couch. 

She was pretty proud of herself. She clapped and laughed and then she looked bored. Or maybe scared because she realized she didn't know how to lower herself... because a few seconds later she did this interesting spin thing and landed on her butt. Then she got herself up again and then ate it trying to get down the second time and that was the end of trying to get up to standing.

But really. I don't know what happened. One week she was sick and sad and just cuddling all the time and she feels the need to make up for lost time I suppose. Or, it could be the last round of vaccinations she got. Some people think vaccines hurt their babies. 

I think they gave my baby super powers. 

It's amazing. 

I am going to have to sweep and vacuum everyday now though because she eats anything that is on the ground. And I also can't throw all the little things I didn't want her to get to onto the couch anymore.

 Lame.

Also, I was putting together Easter baskets last night and I had a big "wow, I'm a mom" moment. I thought shopping for Christmas would be that way, but not so much Easter. It was though. I found a little stuffed duck and a bubble guppies coloring book with stickers (cause let's be honest, she can't color yet, but she does love stickers) and stuffed her eggs with puffs and yogurt melts and I just thought how much she was going to love it and then it hit me. 

I am her mom.

 And it's the best!

 I like knowing what she is going to get excited about and watching her reactions to things. 

Man, I'm lucky to be this smart girl's mom. 

9 Months Old!

So I know I jumped from 4 months to 9 months... but here is the run down of Olivia's life...






5 months

• Close to rolling over
• ...that was the only bullet point I made on my phone. Apparently 5 months wasn't that exciting...

6 months

• Rolls over
• Talks to herself while falling asleep
• LOVES mirrors and kissing herself
• Found her bows on her head
• First swing ride. Not scared, just not impressed. 

7 months

• Loves food
• Can get her knees under her
• Rolling expert = we started to baby proof
• Met her cousin Leon (Who was 3 months old and about 4 pounds heavier- apparently Olivia is a lightweight...)

8 months

• Crawling army style/planking - it was pretty entertaining
• says baba, mama dada
• loves loves loves food
• Flying expert (14 flights during her short little life so far)
• down to 2 naps
• LOVES bubble guppies (its a cartoon on Nickelodeon)
• Mommy and baby loving the spring weather so we went on lots of walks with Pandora :) 
• way attached
• gives high fives and kisses
• sticks her tongue out 
• sticks out her bottom jaw to show off her two bottom teeth

Ok, now that we are caught up, here we go with 9 months and pictures :) 

Getting 4 more teeth across the top- grand total of 6!!

First ear infection :( SOO sad. Then she got a head to toe rash from the high fever... This momma really doesn't like her baby being sick...

So we took her to the doctor and got some antibiotics to give her for 10 days. Once the medicine was gone her fever came back and we took her in again and the doctor said teh antibiotic didn't do anything! So she had to get two shots of antibiotic in her thighs. It was this awful, thick, painful medicine. For the following few days her little legs were sore so she didn't want to drag them around and VIOLA! she started to crawl for real. It's been fun. She is getting pretty quick. 

Lifts herself onto the bottom shelf of our bookcase and other low but lifted platforms

Loves bike rides in her trailer.

First night no swaddle!!! 

Grabs our faces to give us a kiss

Loves nursery rhymes book

Loves smiling for her daddy, but loves cuddling with her mommy

Puffs Addict

Making new friends all the time

Pulls out all of our doorstops to bang them around on the hard floor 

Getting sick of oatmeal

Loves music, especially when mom or dad plays the piano.

We sure love our little Bug! It is so fun watching her learn new things, grow a little bigger and show that fun personality of hers!