Oh hey, Remember us?

It's been awhile, but I'm not going to try to go backwards... that seems overwhelming. So here goes just trying to pretend like I didn't abandon this blog for over a year. Glad we're on the same page...

This week started off great with a day off school on Monday for MLK Jr. Day which Clint and I spent on a date to the new Star Wars movie! I sure love me a date with my hubby. :) 

Isn't he just the cutest?

Then, Tuesday I decided to just get a little crazy and chop off my hair. Ya know, wintertime just needs something to spice it up occasionally. 

In other news, Olivia had a really rough time the first time we tried potty training and we're all afraid to do that again... so the little froggy potty has been neglected in the bathroom for awhile and I worried that my child would be the only one in kindergarten that just never got potty trained. How embarrassing! For both of us really.

Then, randomly this past week she has been asking to sit on the froggy potty. Clint and I looked at each other like "is this Olivia?" then promptly said "uh, sure" and she loved it so I gave her one of the mints that was in my purse because these behaviors should really be rewarded but alas, I was unprepared 

and lets be honest, she wasn't getting my secret stash of lindor truffles for just sitting there

but she was happy with the mint and this request happened on a daily basis every night before bedtime. 

On Thursday morning however, Olivia switched it up and wanted to sit on the froggy potty in the morning after breakfast and so Ruby and I sat in the bathroom with her and we all just chatted 

and wondered how long to sit there until we could leave without crushing this good thing we had going, but really just getting kind of bored.

when Olivia asked for a drink of juice, and you all know what happened next! She peed!! And then kind of freaked out a little bit... I don't think she meant to do it. So it was seriously a drop. But we cheered and partied and high fived and made a REALLY big deal out of that drop and then she got a sucker!

She hasn't sat on the froggy potty since, so I don't know what happened... but small victories are all we need around here! Maybe someday she'll  be out of diapers afterall...

On Friday, Clint had a snow day! So hooray for 3 day work weeks! The weather forecasted 4-8 inches of snow and lots of ice... and we woke up to about a 1/2 inch that didn't really cover up the grass on our lawn... but here in the south, any snow is snow and I was able to run errands without anybody else on the roads or at the store, plus Clint got to hang out with us so I will never complain about a snow day. Even if there is no snow...

And lucky for us that is exactly the kind of snow day we had snow gear for! So Olivia loved playing in the puddle on our back porch!

And lest we forget that since our last post on this blog, I did actually have a second baby, here is a little update on Ruby!

She has been SUPER into real table food lately, basically to the point that I only buy baby food for when our food really requires a good set of teeth, because she does not have many of those yet. But based on the amount of drool and chewing on everything she has been doing, maybe that will change in the next week or two.

She is a happy, easy going girl though. She is totally content pulling our DVDs off the shelf and sliding them all over the floor. That is her kind of party!

I wish I had a picture of that, but I don't... but look at that smile!

Cutie patootie.

So all in all, we're doing well!

 It's good to be back. 

These are a few of our favorite things

Life around here has been changing! 

I finally feel good enough to get off the couch, 

remind me next time I get baby hungry that morning sickness is seriously not fun

the weather is finally cooling down enough to walk out of the house, 

 and I'm trying to keep up with my baby who turned into a toddler overnight!

 I just wanted to document a few of our favorite things right now.

BOOKS
Olivia loves reading books! She loves being read to or just plopping down and reading by herself for a few minutes. I love watching her flip through the pages like she knows what she's doing. 

SMOOTHIES

side note: I think my love of smoothies came when I lived with my college roommate Dana who made awesome smoothies everyday. She told me once that smoothies should be served in beautiful cups. I don't have any cool fancy smoothie cups like she did, but I always use my bright green Hawaiian print ones and hope I'm not disgracing the beautiful cup rule.

So, Olivia and I shared a smoothie everyday for a while in these fantastic green cups. It was one of the only things that sounded good to me when I had morning sickness these last 10 weeks and she was not about to let a brightly colored cup and a yummy smoothie be had by mom only.

BATHROOMS
Olivia loves playing in the bathroom. Since she knows she isn't supposed to play in there, she tells herself "no, no, no, no, no" over and over as she walks closer and closer...
and then goes in to play anyways.
At least she knows the rule right? One day she might decide to follow it.

One of my 'favorite' things about Olivia playing in the bathroom involves her not machine washable stuffed animals.You see, she loves her stuffed animals and she takes good care of them. In fact, there have been a few times when she has decided they needed baths just like her.

 And what? 

There is an always-filled, just-their-size bath tub in the bathroom? 

excellent.

SNUGGLES 
This girl LOVES to snuggle with mom. If she is really tired or sad, she'll snuggle dad too, but we snuggle before every nap and bedtime and when we watch shows on TV.

JUST BEING SILLY

 Olivia cracks me up. She went through a few weeks of eating her meals with one foot up on her high chair. Doesn't look comfortable to me, but whatever floats your boat darling.

THE LIBRARY 
We recently discovered how fun the walking trail is behind the library. There is a waterfall, a pond, a park, and there are always tons of these Canadian Geese for her to chase around. They are probably about as big as Olivia, so it makes me a little nervous, but dad was with us this trip and told me he'd keep her safe :)

STUFFED ANIMALS
This is how Olivia sleeps every night. She loves her stuffed animals and needs two to snuggle with. It usually doesn't matter which two, although she really prefers that pig these days, but she needs one in each arm.

FLOWERS 
Now that it is cooling off in the evenings, after dinner Clint and I sometimes take Olivia out to the backyard to play. We have a pretty steep hill making up half of the yard, and she huffs and puffs and stumbles up and down that hill over and over again. She is one determined little girl who does not mind a challenge.

One night Clint taught her to pick the flowers in the lawn and she gave me this one. It about melted my heart. I brought it inside and saved it. 

She hasn't stopped picking flowers since. We go on walks in the mornings and she can't pass by a flower without picking off the little head and smelling it and insisting I smell too. Hopefully the neighbors don't mind us taking care of their dandelion problems. ;)

I sure love this sweet, thoughtful, silly, wonderful girl! Being a mom can be a hard job, but she helps make it so much easier for me. I can't wait to see her be a big sister in March!

Round two!!

We can't wait to add another cute face to our family March 2015!

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!