Dancing Queen

This is from this week...and I know if I wait until I'm current to write about it I'll forget.

Olivia and I go to the gym 3-4 times a week. That may seem like a bit much, but it truly is the best for both of us. She gets to play in a room with new toys and kids that sometimes play with her, other times tolerate her playing with them :). I get to workout (albeit at my slower and wider pace these days) in peace, and get my 45 minutes to myself each morning.

She has started really looking forward to our morning ritual, even crying yesterday when we drove past the gym to go to the grocery store on what normally would be a gym morning, this being said, the gym is the source of many learning experiences for both of us. I love that O gets experience with other kids that aren't always as willing to play with her as she'd like. She has been pushed, ignored, and has improved a lot in her skills playing with other kids. I have learned that if she is going to have a blow out diaper it will inevitably be on the day that I leave the diaper bag at home, and that she loves the gym teacher more than me on most mornings :).

This was a super long set up for this funny story, but on Tuesday we were at the gym, and we have to walk past the stretching area and all the weight machines to get to the kids room, so we were doing our standard hop from tile to tile, me calling out each color, and O refusing to move from the square until I have done so at an appropriate volume. I have been giving her more independence, and have stopped holding her hand while walking indoors, as long as she stays close. Imagine my surprise and delight when she suddenly bolted over to the stretching area, stood next to a 'grandma' who was diong hip extensions, and started dancing right next to her. The woman didn't seem to mind in the least, and even took O's hand when she offered it and they danced together for a minute while I nearly died laughing. What a sweet lady, and I'm constantly impressed by the things Olivia knows and picks up on.

Adventures of a toddler

This is basically the second half of February. The end of that month really warmed up and showed us what spring is like in Fresno (which we were very happy about!). The only bad thing is that every week or so it would snow in Oregon, reminding me of what I'm missing back home. I can't even express the anger I have about missing the snowiest year of my entire life. Oregon's weather better make it up to me when we make it back there.

So we start out with Valentine's Day. It's so funny to me to do all of the minor holidays with just our little family, especially with just one kid. I'm so used to the piles of candy and miscellaneous toys/gifts that it always seems silly buying just one little thing. In my house Valentine's Day was always a candy-centered holiday, but there are so many little toys and things that I want Olivia to have that I look for any opportunity to give them to her :). Thus the cleaning supplies. I'm sure there is a snarky comment in there somewhere about showing the girl in your life how much you love her with a broom and dustpan, but for this girl it totally did the trick. Olivia loves to help mommy, and this way she can still take my broom, but I at least have her half-sized one to do the trick!

Another new tradition in the making is holiday breakfast. I remember every holiday beginning with Cream of Wheat with a colored sugar design on top (red heart for Valentine's, green shamrock for St. Patrick's, etc). Some of my siblings will carry this tradition on I'm sure, but I won't be one of them. I happen to despise Cream of Wheat, and will probably never have it in my house, with the possible exception of using for baby food. I chose to do Jello hearts with nutella toast. Not especially healthy, but it works for me.

Couldn't help but post this extremely weird picture that I captured later in the day. I just told Olivia to say hi to Grandma, and this is what I got :)

Alex made a wonderful dinner (manicotti with salad and some other vegetable), but the real treat for us came after bedtime, when we had our official innauguration of the fondue pot. Yummy! We ate way morethan we could handle, and are about to pull it out again for a yummy treat date night soon.

During the end of January, Olivia transitioned from two naps each day to one. This has been wonderful for us, and allows us to do all sorts of things in the morning without rushing to be home by 10:30. It also means that I don't have to wake her up if she sleeps past her normal 8:30, and we don't have to go out between every nap for just one or two errand. However, one nap sometimes means a long morning, especially on tired days. One of these tired days came just a few days after Valentine's, on a Thursday. Just for reference, Thursday is 'song and dance' day at the library, where there is a lap sit infant/toddler time that we love. This goes until about 10:45, and on this particular day, Olivia sat on my lap, even declining to 'shake her silllies out' when the song came on.We had a couple more short errands to run before lunchtime, so i pulled out the mommy-daughter Great Harvest date as a last ditch effort to get some energy into her. This picture doesn't show anything, but it totally worked! During our time there (I get a fruit bar, she gets a free slice of bread), a woman came in with two dogs, and Olivia just perked right up and begged to play with them. After that she was super talkative, pointing out every animal she saw, from sides of trucks to packages at the grocery store. I'm not sure why this story stuck with me so much, except for the fact that I love Great Harvest, and I had a successful mommy moment :).

Olivia has turned into quite the shopping helper these last few weeks. She loves the grocery store (especially the donut that she gets to share with mom sometimes), and is always helpful when it's time to put the groceries away at home. I've had to strat being careful which bags I let her empty however, because she loves trying whatever she comes across. Most of the time it's a quick taste of a dirty potato (yuck!) or a lick of a kiwi (too fuzzy!), but this particular day she found something she loves...the tomatoes!

Guilty face...

Very protective of her new treat, she wouldn't even let me take the sticker off. P.S. I love the eyes in these pictures

 And what I was left with. The entire side is demolished, with most of the juice and seeds sucked out. I finally had to take it away because she was dripping and refused to sit still or go to her high chair, so I stripped her down and let her go play in the living room while I finished.

When I went to check on her, she was practicing her DJ skills! (Yes she really did this by herself, and no I don't normally let her run around naked...)

Discovered 'rossss' by our apartment, she loves to try to flip them over every time we leave the house.

First official corn on the cob (I think). Very successful, she loved it and chewed on it for a good ten minutes. It takes a lot to beat a hamburger, but corn apparently does the trick.

And we close out the post and the month of February with a little game of 'Oh, the places you shouldn't go'.

First, the toy buckets. She dumps them out to use as chairs regularly, especially her little people.

The sweep pile. This is my fault completely, because I've started telling her that if mom sweeps something up that she wants to keep she has to go get it before I finish. This totally worked the first two or three times, with her pulling out her fridge magnets or an animal or two before losing interest. Now, however, she goes into the pile and finds random old food from the corners of the kitchen and eats them...YUCK!

I honestly don't remember why or how this happened, or why she even tried sitting in this bowl, but it was super cute that she got all the way in. The cuteness ended a couple minutes later when she tipped over and hit her head on another metal bowl...oops!

Baby update :)

Well as usual, I am too far behind to get caught up before some major news happens :). Our second baby, due August 16, is officially half-baked this week, which meant today we got to have our 20 week ultrasound! Going in, Alex and I had a bet (loser makes dinner) about the gender, but Alex was silly to doubt my motherly instinct :). We are having a boy! We had picture proof within thirty seconds of starting the ultrasound...a very cooperative baby. The ultrasound went well (pictures to prove it below), with the exception of a yelling, pounding on the walls toddler the entire time. It was just after she woke up this morning, and apparently she had a lot of energy to burn off. She wasn't at all interested in the black and white 'movie' of the baby, and none of the toys I brought were doing the trick, so we just let her run around.

Our $60 printer doesn't have the most amazing scanner, but here are the ultrasound pictures (the G rated ones at least ;) ). First is the wonderful profile. #2 was playing with his face, sucking his thumb or picking his nose most of the time, but the U/S tech was able to get this one picture with his hands folded over his chest...falling in love already!

These next two are hands and feet...they didn't scan well at all, but he does have 10 fingers and 10 toes, and is very active all the time. Finally the tech just gave up on getting both hands or feet in one picture and did two for each instead. This little boy is practicing his football spins and soccer kicks already.

And finally, the creepy alien baby picture! This is with the 3D U/S, and I'll be the first to say I'm not a huge fan. There is something so sweet about ultrasounds, and watching the baby move, then they turn this on and it all looks like it's from Mars! But the tech insisted that we would want it in the future, so here we have forever proof that at 20 weeks, even the cutest baby can look like a zombie!

I wanted to do something a little different than sending out an ultrasound pic to announce to our family and friends, so we stopped by the grocery store and got a balloon to help with our mini photo shoot. Olivia was over the moon about the balloons, right up until she popped one, then her enthusiasm was curbed and she now will only play with the Mylar one.

First is the announcement picture. Apparently this isn't as clear a message as I thought, because about half of our recipients didn't get it, and just commented on how cute Olivia is, so I felt a little silly explaining it, but it was still a fun time getting the pictures :)

In the car on the way to the park...is she excited or what?

And finally, just reading with Daddy. He was able to go in to work late so he could be at the ultrasound and then help with taking pictures (a huge thank you to his boss!), and this was a sweet moment I couldn't help but capture.

Anyway, we are very excited about the news, and I know Alex is glad, even though it meant he had to make dinner tonight. The baby looks great, is measuring right on schedule, and I continue to grow outward, so we know all is good (sorry about the lack of me/belly in any of these pictures...just slipped my mind but hopefully we will take one soon :)). We are excited and anxious for a very eventful summer, and for this sweet new addition to our family in just over 4 months!

February...part 1

The first week of Febrary, Olivia and I packed up and headed to Oregon for a fun and family-filled vacation. We were sad to leave Alex behind, but he had to work and I wasn't passing up a $100 round trip ticket! Olivia was quite a help in packing, as you can see, but I wasn't smart and procrastinated packing until she was awake, so I just let her play in the suitcase and hoped she didn't take out anything crucial :).

Flight days are always a little funny for us, because we have to sit so much, but I also want Olivia to be in nice clothes, so this is the standard morning activity...pajama-clad walks and playing outside as much as we can handle.

We were in Oregon for 8 days, so we split the time and spent the first four with the Casqueiros, and the second four with the Johnsons. This worked out really well, and prevented a lot of driving back and forth between Salem and Corvallis. It was a little weird to call my mom to tell her that we landed in Portland and have to say 'I'll see you in a few days' though!

We had a blast staying busy throughout the week, and as usual, I was horrible about taking pictures. Here are a few from the park with Andy, Ashley, and Mary in Salem. We also went out to visit Great-grandparents in Silverton, and spent a day shopping in Woodburn. As usual, Olivia made out very well on the shopping trip :), baby clothes are just TOO cute! We also had a fun family get-together/pizza night where Olivia got to play with her cousins - Tyler and Aiden are so patient and slow down their playing enough to make her feel included every time we see them. Hopefuly she will be able to stay up to speed before too long!

On Saturday afternoon Andy drove us down to Philomath where I was surprised by the decor in my room! My dad and cousin Jared have been working very hard on the 'Wizard of Oz room', complete with a rainbow painted on the wall and full size cut-outs of some of the major characters. We had a lot of fun in our fairy tale for the week!

The girls (Emily, my mom, and I) had tickets to an a cappella concert in Eugene, so Olivia had her first non-family babysitting experience, which I understand to have been quite a fun night. My wonderful friend Bethany watched Olivia until my dad was able to pick her up, and he successfully put her to bed! Honestly, I wasn't at all surprised that Bethany and her mom Lisa were wonderful people to watch her, but my dad's bedtime was more of a surprise :). He is usually quite content to do the playing with grandchildren and leave the diapers and changing and bedtimes to grandma and the moms. He was a lifesaver, as we didn't get home until after 11, and I was very glad to have a sleeping baby.

The next morning we went to church with my parents. I was so glad to have an opportunity to put Olivia in this beautiful dress, and of course I took way too many pictures. All she wanted to do was play in the dirt, as any little lady would of course, but I still think a few pictures came out quite well :).

That evening, I was sitting on the couch, with Olivia playing behind me, when suddenly I hear her babbling away. I turned around and found her 'reading' this lego instruction book to the cat, who was sitting outside the door. It was the sweetest thing, but the video I got was a little too late.

We stayed busy during our time with my side of the family as well, with a trip through Corvallis to show Olivia off to a couple past employers, and most importantly, a trip to the Oregon Coast Aquarium. Major failure on my part to not take a SINGLE picture there, but it was a great time, and Olivia really liked exploring and finding all the animals. She was really into the touch pool, until she touched a sea urchin, then she wouldn't go near it again...I guess she learned fast about that one! If I'm remembering correctly, her favorie part was watching the penguins (alright some penguin relative that I have no idea what the name is). She would watch them waddle up, then duck down to watch under water to see them swimming...loved it.

We totally loved our whole trip, and are very sad that it will be four months (okay 2.5 now) until we get to see Oregon and our family again.

When we got home, I had a little help unloading and organizing my purse...at least with my little helper, I never get too much junk accumulated!

We also got a family cold. Sick little ones are very sad for me, I'm not looking forward to the days of having more than one little one sick, or too many to hold when they want held. Olivia is actually quite a trooper, and really enjoys that when she is sick she gets to watch TV and have her plug (what we call the pacifier) whenever she wants. Normally it stays in bed, and if she wants it, she has to either nap or go to bed. Here's a pic of my little sickies...

The last pics are just kind of weird. I'm not a pregnancy belly picture taker. I always think that I will be, but honestly I don't love taking pictures of myself, I'd rather take them of Olivia (can you tell?), so I don't have very many belly pics from either pregnancy this far. However, I always see cute pictures online and want to replicate them, so here is my 13 week (end of 1st trimester) picture, which shows that baby #2 is the size of a lemon :).

And of course my little goofball who chewed through the lemon peel and got quite a sour surprise!