Gender reveal, sick week, and more toddler adventures :)

Welcome to spring! February to April was about the best weather we had in Fresno...warm enough for playing outside but cold enough to need a jacket in the morning...so this is more like the end of our spring going into summer, but it was fun!

On the second of April we had our ultrasound to determine that baby #2 is a boy! Olivia wasn't AT ALL thrilled with the ultrasound (we got up early, had breakfast in the car, got all dressed up for THIS?!) but once we stopped at the store for balloons she was appeased. We sent out a text to our family with one of these pictures, but absolutely no one read that the balloon said boy, so our creative announcement went out the window :)

It was a fun photo shoot anyway, and we had fun playing at the park for a little bit with Alex before he had to go to work.

Later that week (around the 4th), Olivia started acting funny. She was clingy, picky about food, and stopped sleeping through the night - well actually she still slept through the night she just woke up a couple times and needed rocked for a little bit. This is completely unusual for her, but a normal activity for a toddler, so I tried not to overreact. We are so used to having a mild tempered sweet girl, I just figured she was going through a phase, or hitting that wonderful "two" stage a little early.

However, as we progressed through the weekend, she started having digestion issues (as shown by numerous blowout diapers each day and major tummy troubles), and she stopped wanting to play for more than a few minutes at a time. I try not to let her watch too much TV, but we started watching more than our one show per day because all she wanted to do was sit in my lap.

We had some wonderful 'poop spread around the crib' moments, and took a lot of baths to stay clean...here is a bath with some blue coloring in it...not a hit the first time!

We also played a lot inside. Daddy made lots of forts and we just kept an eye on Olivia. I'll admit there were days when my patience wore thin and I just got tired of the clingy, whininess, but it took me about a week to realize this was definitely illness, not just a phase or teething.

Here are a couple pics of the best fort Alex made that week. He was quite proud of the block tower to hold up the highest point...right up until Olivia crawled in, knocked it over, and crawled right back out...

We have also been spending a lot more time talking about babies, and the addition that our family is going to have in a few months. Olivia seems to understand it more and more, and demonstrated this one night by giving the baby 'kisses'. She pulled up my shirt, buried her face in my stomach, and blew raspberries. At first she was shocked by the noise, but she only paused enough to bust up laughing before trying it again! It's now a nightly occurence, and the baby regularly kicks in response to the love from his sister. I'm so excited for these two to meet and later to play together :)

In the midst of this 'sick' week, we celebrated Easter! It was our first Easter on our own, so I wanted to make sure Olivia got the whole experience. We colored eggs...

Yes we only did one dozen...even that many was a lot for us to eat by ourselves. But the important part is that we did them :)

We also had lasagna dinner the night before Easter. Don't ask my why I gave my sick toddler lasagna...we'll just call it forgetfulness. In all honesty, she was acting normal enough that I just thought it was a short bug that she was getting over. Each time I thought this we would have one regular meal, then pay for it later. This process happened about three times before we resolved the issue...but Olivia loves lasagna, as you can tell by the way she is devouring her second piece!

We tried some apple juice popsicles,which Olivia loved. She didn't make very good progress on it, and made a huge mess, but her little faces were hilarious as she reacted to the cold on her tongue and teeth.

Easter morning! It was so fun to have a kid who understood enough to look for the eggs and get excited when she found them!

I included this picture because she is making a little turtle face, just like the one her cousin Maely sported for the first couple years of her life! This is just before discovering that if you open the eggs there is a treat inside...next year most will be filled with goldfish or something.

Trying to eat the one real egg that she found...while checking out her Easter basket on the table.

I thought she would love the Easter grass, but I was totally wrong. She picked out each little item, including some dress up necklaces and bracelets and some eggs, and cleaned off all the grass before leaving it be. I guess one less mess to clean up!

Easter was a total success, and a very relaxing day. We skyped with family and enjoyed seeing everyone, even though it was still going to be more than a month before we were actually with them.

That night, Olivia had a really bad night. She refused to lay down, and would only sleep if I was holding her upright while rocking in the rocking chair. I couldn't sit in the recliner or anywhere where I could sleep, and she wouldn't go to Alex. By this point I had a good idea that she had an ear infection, but had to wait until the morning to call the doctor. It was a really long night, but made me realize again how lucky I am that I have had so few sleepless nights in my year-and-a-half of motherhood.

The next morning we went to the doctor, who saw that she in fact had a pretty bad double ear infection. After one day of antibiotics Olivia was already 10 times better, and Tuesday morning we resumed normal activities, with just a little extra rest.

Here's a few pics of some minor adventures from that next week. Olivia loves the computer, and figured enough about how it works (including the mouse) that we had to move it into our bedroom where I could shut off her access to it.

The same afternoon she helped me clean the pantry by taste testing each of my onions and potatoes. The potatoes were a bigger hit, but I have to give her credit for taking a bite out of each onion before making a face, tossing it to the side, and grabbing the next one...She gets points for perserverence!

This next picture isn't very clear, but she 'drank' that entire cup of applesauce in about 30 seconds. She hasn't quite figured out that you have to drink from the bottom the whole time, so about 90% of the applesauce is in her bib, but she just kept looking over like she was going to get in trouble. Maybe because we have been working so hard on using the spoon? I thought it was hilarious, and proceeded to feed her applesauce out of her bib so it wasn't even a waste!

Olivia is constantly showing me that she's smarter than I give her credit for, and always keeps me on my toes. One of my favorite examples of this from April was one day in the gym parking lot when I was trying to teach Olivia about 'Stop, Look, and Listen'. I was telling her that parking lots are dangerous, and that she always needs to be holding the hand of a grown up when she goes into the parking lot. After this we walked to the edge of a parking spot and I told her to look both ways for cars. I didn't realize that I needed to specify that the moving cars were what we were loking for...Olivia started pointing at the dozens of cars in the lot...and we were back to square one with that lesson!

On the 12th Olivia and I attended our first 'Just Between Friends' sale! This is a huge consignment sale that allows anyone to sell and puts the stuff all in one place and organized well. It's only baby and maternity stuff, so it was perfect for us! I got a few things for the baby, including a bassinet, but my best purchase of the day (according to Olivia) was a pair of squeaky shoes. They are like light up shoes, but instead of lighting up, they squeak with every step. After a few steps of being terrified, Olivia quickly grew to love them, and I realized my mistake. They are the most annoying piece of clothing that I will ever buy, and I have since hid them. I do pull them out for a few minutes every once in a while, but Olivia brings them to me every time she sees them, and it quickly became more than I could take. **NOTE** I posted a video to facebook of these shoes, which will be added here eventually, when I finally get to organizing the videos!)

The 12th and 13th also marked some crazy rain in Fresno and all throughout the west. We were stuck inside for 3 or 4 days because this town just isn't prepared for rain, and nothing drains correctly. Here is a picture of the parking lot at Alex's work...

After our flooding weekend, the weather turned around, and it started getting nicer. It apparently isn't nice enough for Olivia, who refuses to go outside without a sweater, and even grabbed her arms and said 'brrrr' when I sent her to the car in a Tshirt and pants...in 70 degree weather. Apparently we have lived in CA a little too long!

That's all for now folks! Next up, our wonderful trip to Utah and Idaho at the end of April

Middle of June (6/18-23)

The end of June was crazy. We got all settled in and immediately started the adventures. 

Olivia has turned into quite a parrot. Luckily, she chooses to only parrot her Auntie Ashley, who teaches her all sorts of fun things. This day they were sporting matching headbands :) Love it!

We spent the third weekend in June in Philomath at my family's house. Olivia got to hang out with another fun aunt (thanks Jenaye!), and we all got caught up. It was a fun weekend (hence no pictures) full of games and playing with the 'kiiy kiiy'.

We also got our taste of Oregon wildlife this week. First, we all got to see a little family of raccoons (trust me they are much cuter as babies) every day for a week or so. Then, we saw three deer walking through the yard. Olivia watched them for fifteen minutes or so, just meandering through the trees.

Learning about some other 'wildlife' from some puppets I found at a garage sale...puppets bring out the crazy faces from both Olivia and Grandma.

She also found a pile of new books that I found while garage saling. I will never get over her love of reading, and I hope to fuel it for the remainder of her childhood. For now, I just keep finding new books for her to read and love. It's fun to see her get more and more into reading, now independently pointing at pictures and telling the 'story' of what the things are doing. This picture also shows the adorable way she holds her books up when they are bigger than her lap...cute extended legs!

We decided to hit up the Gilbert House Children's museum that morning, and learned that it is too much to do in one morning before nap! We were able to see most of the rooms, but will have to go back soon to fully explore and learn. What a fun place!

March Part 2

Yes I know, we are back to three months behind...life got in the way :) But we are officially back in Oregon, settled in at the Casqueiro house, and loving being back. I've used all the extra help to get plenty of time to organize and craft. I have made significant progress on my to-do list, but have been staring at the words "blog catch-up" for too long. So here is my attempt at appeasement while I get some picture organization done over the next few days.

The 17th of March marked Alex and my 6 month anniversary :). Now I'm not normally one to celebrate things more frequently than annually, but I did plan a special dinner and was pleasantly surprised when Alex came home from his baseball game with these beautiful flowers :)- I definitely got a good one! We were just finishing up the plans for our "honeymoon" trip in April so it was a fun relaxed evening.

 I know I just post adventure after adventure with Olivia, but she is constantly surprising me. One of her current favorite activities is to get in the fridge (or sneak up behind you when you open the fridge) and grab something to snack on. These snacks are usually closed containers that get set down pretty quickly, but this time she found something fun! I didn't have any specific plans for the lettuce, so I just let her eat it...she tried a little bite out of each piece then set it on the couch.

In her defense, she did help me put all the pieces into a bag when she was done, even finding the littlest pieces from the floor.

 Just a couple messes...this is pretty much a daily thing. At least once a day I get her room totally picked up, clothes in the right drawers (not always folded) and books on the shelf (not always organized by type and size). As soon as she finds her floor clean, Olivia is quick to "play" for about 20 minutes by pulling all the clothes out of her drawer, one at a time. Then she heads over to the bookshelf for about half an hour of reading time (pulling the books off, looking at a few pages - sometimes with narration - and moving on to the next book). To some it might seem crazy that I let her do this every day, but I do it for two reasons: 1. I love that she loves to play independently, especially reading. I hope to kindle this love of books and help it grow through her pre-school years and beyond. 2. These messes take up to an hour to make, and about 10 minutes to clean up. That's enough of a time difference to make it totally worth it to me!

Belly Shot...19 w 3 d. I haven't taken many of these, but here's one from about halfway.

Another example of our little reader. She likes to go for wagon rides, and they usually end in picking up the mail before heading home. Alex took her out this time, and snapped these pics of her reading the newspaper...totally on her own. He was just walking pulling her and he turned around to find her catching up on the stocks.

On March 23rd, just before she hit the 17 month mark, Olivia made her first official drawing! Unfortunately it was on a used Taco Bell wrapper, so I didn't save it. I did want to document the momentous occasion :).

I've posted this before, but here is another example of Olivia helping me unload the groceries! I was happy that she decided to snack on an apple this time, it was much less messy than the tomato from the time before :). I'll note that once she decides she wants something as a snack, especially fresh produce, she is VERY possessive of said snack and refuses to give it up until she has devoured it to her satisfaction.

This pic shows the line of apple that she managed to chew off. Her teeth are still small and chewing isn't her specialty, so I was very impressed :)

Juicy face :) and happy kid.

Just before March ended we had a fun play morning with Olivia's good friend Ellie. I was amused by the way they played around each other, and thought this example was cute. They sat on opposite sides of the room reading books exactly the same way. Open to random page, clumsily turn to end of book, discard book, pick another. All the while chatting to themselves about the stories. Love it!

Sunny days led to increased time at the tennis court! We try to get outside as often as possible, and the tennis court right by our apartment is the best way to avoid a car trip to the park. Olivia loves to chase balls and make new friends (by following any other person that comes in to play).

Last but certainly not least, here is Olivia's hint that her monkeys are ready for a snack! I find little surprises around the house quite regularly, and I don't want to forget how they always make me smile and wonder what she is thinking in her little creative mind.

Happy March!