Thanksgiving!

This thanksgiving was VERY hard. The first one either Alex or I has spent without family, and our first holiday down in Fresno. I think it was harder than Olivia's birthday, just because there are so many thanksgiving traditions!

That being said, we really did have a great day. We started out slow, just relaxing in the morning looking through Black Friday ads and playing with Olivia. We decided to see a movie in the afternoon, and what better movie than the new Muppet Movie? It was AWESOME, and I strongly recommend it to anyone and everyone who hasn't seen it. I was singing the songs for days, and can't wait for the soundtrack so I can sing them every day. Olivia did surprisingly well during the movie. She had her own chair, and enjoyed letting the front come up to squish her legs. She actually sat quietly for about 2/3 of the movie. After that Alex and I took turns walking around with her, but neither one of us wanted to leave the theater, so we tried to be as quiet as possible in the wings.

After the movie, we headed home and I got to work on dinner. As you can see by the picture below, I was very organized on my phone, and had a timeline of what had to happen when in order to have dinner on the table by 6:15. I'm proud to say that I succeeded in every aspect of my plan, and was even a little early on the finalized dinner. We had a pretty simple menu, consisting of: honey smoked glazed ham, sour cream potatoes (my fave), green bean casserole, baked carrots, stuffing, salad, and dipping bread. Everything turned out perfectly, with the exception of the carrots. I just picked up one of those "ready to bake" things because I thought it would be easier, and I wanted another vegetable. I was wrong, It didn't bake right, and didn't taste good at all. But everything that I made was a success, and I felt extremely accomplished :)

Olivia and Alex both seemed to enjoy their food...

And then dessert...I'll let you guess which one belongs to each of us, but I'll say that I served myself a LITTLE too much :) not to worry, it didn't go to waste!

San Francisco (and then some)

The third week in November Alex got his Christmas present a little early when we took a weekend trip to San Francisco and attended the 49er game! It was the first NFL game for all three of us, and it was a very fun weekend.

Before we get to the trip, we have a few days of playing at the park and other activities

First, Olivia enjoying herself just a little too much on the swing :)

'Those stairs are pretty far away...yup I'll just go up this slide'

Olivia was so happy to meet someone her size, but was confused at why he didn't respond when se pushed him against the wall...

Storytime with Daddy :). I just can't get enough of these pictures...Are you my mother is one of her favorite books. She will go to her bookshelf and either pull off Pat the Bunny, one of her Aladdin board books, or Are You My Mother. She regularly ditches me in the living room to go read books (or throw them :)) in her room.

This picture surprised me, but this is a regular occurence when Alex takes Olivia in the morning and lets me sleep in. He creates this little throne for her to watch Jake and the Neverland Pirates while he makes breakfast. Alex is a genius for creating this, because it's the only way I know of to keep Olivia out of the kitchen while you are cooking, and it only works for him :)

And early Saturday morning we headed to San Fransisco. It's about a 3 hour drive with no stops, and since this is the longest Olivia has sat in a car in a few months, we made a couple stops to get her exercised. We got to San Mateo (south of SF) around lunch time, and decided to go to CuriOdyssey, a children's discover museum/mini zoo. Overall, I would recommend this as an activity with young kids. Quite plainly, it was a poor man's discovery paired with a poor man's zoo that made for a fun couple hours :).

Olivia's favorite thing in the discovery center was the fog machine. She climbed up onto the stool and played with it until we took her down to let some other kids see. She also loved the bird area in the zoo, where she was able to chase a few birds that were either very slow or being generous by allowing her to get within inches before waddling a few more steps.

After CuriOdyssey we got checked into our hotel, and after learning that Olivia wasn't going to take a nap, we headed back to the same park, but to the actual park they had outside. It was "Magic Mountain Playground", and I absolutely loved it. Here is Olivia and Alex sitting on the dragons head

There were two dragons, one on each side of the castle. The back of each dragon was all formed out of that new squishy playground material, and had two racing slides on it

Between the two dragons was this awesome three story castle that had slides and rock climbing walls and bridges and other fun things. The huge tunnel slide at the top says for ages 7-12 only, so Olivia and I averaged our ages and got 12, so we rode down together. Alex, on the other hand, went by himself, totally breaking all the rules.

Olivia really enjoyed the park, but it was very cold and she was having a hard day (multiple faceplants, including one off the bottom of a slide that was totally my fault and one off the hotel bed that was totally Alex's fault), so this was the closest to a smile I got from her.

We decided to stay in San Mateo, with the furthest north being Candlestick Stadium for the game. This worked really well for an overnight trip to the Bay area because we ended up driving a lot less. Our hotel was right next to the airport (thank you free parking) and the park was about a block away. We drove around a little bit trying to find places to eat, but we had a lot of time to play instead of sending the whole weekend in the car.

After a long, sleepless night (O does really well on trips, but she takes a few days to adjust anywhere, so an overnight trip is really hard on the parents), we got up Sunday morning rearing and ready to go to the 49er game. Here is Olivia and I ready in the hotel. I'll note that yes, I did buy her a 49er shirt for the occasion and I wore purple, but in all fairness, we both ended up wearing jackets and wrapping up in blankets so it didn't really matter.

Our view from our seats. They were at the endzone on the sideline, but they were great seats. Under cover, set back enough that we didn't feel a lot of the wind. We had a great view of the field, and had a good enough view of the not-so-jumbo-tron that Olivia was entertained. She always watches the TV at all sporting events. I guess her experience has told her that that's where the real action is :).

In our seats. Yes we took some pictures with Alex, but they are all on his phone, so they aren't included today. Olivia was very tired from a lack of nap and lack of sleep the night before, and ended up sleeping the entire second half and most of the 1/2 hour walk back to the car. She also slept most of the way home, and still had a successful nights sleep, so I think she got around 16 hours, which was good to catch her up.

This post is feeling about a mile long (not to mention has taken three different nights to complete, so I'm not going to ramble about these pictures. They are from the few days before Thanksgiving. Olivia discovered that the onions and potatoes are in the bottom of the pantry, and apparently likes the taste of both. I wish I had a onion picture, but I have cooked both onions and potatoes with full on bites out of them...maybe we should put the brocolli and carrots down there so she could get her vegetables for the day!

She stared at these bikeriders for a long time, I'm sure she was trying to figure out how she could get her legs to go around like that :)

Waving hi backwards in the swing :) Loved this

Whew! You can give yourself a pat on the back from me if you made it to the end of this and read at least half the words (I'll admit it, I picture-read too).

Days of Play

November has been really fun for our family because Olivia is so fun to play with, and does hilarious things on a daily basis. Some days it's just the things she laughs at or the faces she makes, but she's just at a really fun stage, so I have a hard time not taking a million pictures and posting them for you all to see :) These pictures come from November 6th through the 15th.

First we have a little jegging bum. I wish this picture was better, but I put her in these jeggings at least twice a week because I love how her diaper bum and skinny little legs look :)

'Look how long my hair is!' This is one of the rare occurences of her hair not in a ponytail because it's just too long and goes everywhere now.

Before I was the mom of a toddler I kind of thought that the process from crawling to walking took two weeks or so. a few days of wobbliness, and then they were good to go. I was totally wrong. It seems every week I am surprised at how much more stable Olivia's walking is, and this process began in the middle of September. She's now at the determined walk-almost-run stage, especially when we go to the park or anywhere with other kids that she can follow. This has meant that going to the park has reached a new level of fun, as I get to be one of those moms who stands by the light pole watching my kid push others and get pushed right back, follow the big kids until they turn around and pet her head, and struggle trying to go up the slide the wrong way. We go to the park a couple times each week (because it's not rainy, and a sweatshirt is the only cold protection needed). Here's some park pictures from the 12th.

Awkward sitting positions :) These always remind me of O's cousin Elli, who is 3 and still sits in ways that make me grimace just thinking of what my knees would be feeling.

That afternoon - notice the change in clothes from park clothes (which we wear a couple times regardless of how dirty/mismatched they are) to grocery shopping clothes - Olivia had one of her book play sessions. Our family has almost 200 children's books (I have a bit of a problem) and they are on a bookshelf in her room. She often goes up to them, but I usually try to distract her by pulling one and reading it to her in hopes that she won't figure out how fun it is to empty the shelf. As usual, she outsmarted me, and made this mess one afternoon while I was making lunch. She was really enjoying herself, and afterward helped me put all the books in stacks to reshelve (by height, type, and title).

On Sundays we get to go to the park with Daddy. Olivia loves this, and is always anxious, as shown by this picture of her pulling on Dad's hand with all her might.

 I love that they are both growling at each other in this one :)

This is another park trip, a quicker one to a park closer to our house. This park doesn't have a toddler area, so Olivia still needs a grown up with her all the time, but she loves the big slides and rock climbing wall. We had a mini photo shoot when she discovered leaves, but I couldn't figure out the focus on my phone camera (that's all I had with me) so they didn't turn out the way I wanted
.

The other place we frequent for a quick play time is the tennis/basketball court across the parking lot from our apartment. It's basically just a fenced in area, but O can run around and likes to play with the net and the leaves that are growing through the fence.

I know I shouldn't take so many pictures of her behind, but it's just really cute and I can't help it :). This is her standing method...

And the last thing that happened on the 15th was that I went to a salon and donated my hair. I cut off 12 inches to donate and then a couple more as she styled it, and I absolutely love my new hair. It's super easy and can go from wet to decently done in about 10 minutes. I can also take a few more minutes and make it look better, but it's not necessary on a daily basis. Also, for working out it will still go into a half pony or a full pony with some stragglers :).

(Please excuse the no-makeup face...this was the next morning when I did my hair *all by myself!!*)

November: Week 1

November started with a bang in the Casqueiro household. Olivia has been trying her newfound strength, and combining it with her already practiced stealth and wit, and has come up with the wonderful idea of giving her mother a heart attack. Honestly, every time I leave the room she climbs on something else, and this pink bin was just the biggest thing she could find at the moment I'm sure.

At dinner that night we had an impromptu photo shoot because Olivia was making some crazy faces. She has a new skill (video at the bottom of this post), and was showing it off in response to any question or noise we would make :).

On Friday of that week we met Alex at work so we could go to lunch together. His job allows for a lot of flexibility about what time he goes to lunch, so when I was running errands I just stopped by to see if he wanted to eat out. I really appreciate his ability to go to lunch at whatever time because it means he can always come home when Livvy isn't sleeping so he can play with her (and do lunch cleanup :)). Anyway, I was just laughing because this was the third time in a row that we went to his office in OSU getup (what can I say, orange is an awesome color), so I decided to document our slight mistake. Also please note the AWESOME clownfish shoes that Auntie Amber gave us, we love them!

Here is the video I promised of Olivia showing off her new skill. I honestly don't know what to call it, except the reason that I always keep her sleeves rolled up!

Faker

I have learned recently that Olivia is a very good faker. When she was less than two months old she began fake coughing, and it has only escalated from there. About a month after that she discovered sneezing, and her faking has been unstoppable from there. Sneezing is one of her favorite activities, and she fake sneezes all the time. Next she learned aboiut fake laughing. She will now fake laugh whenever Alex or I laughs, just to humor us I'm sure.

All of those faking skills have been in Livvy's repertoire for many months, but I'll admit that the newest one surprised even me. Olivia has started fake burping. I guess it's my fault, I gave her the juice that made her belch in the first place, but the last couple days she has been fake burping regularly...

Just a small sample of the fun things that we will experience as we move into toddler-hood :).