First time in a pool!

Happy Father's Day a day late! I hope all you dads out there had a wonderful weekend. We had a nice one out here in hot Arizona. The temp has started creaping up for the season and we are all disappointed about it, but we were able to spend a little time outdoors on Saturday at another 1st birthday party. O's friend, Emma, had her party (John and Shawn, Emma's dad, work together and they were at O's party too). They have a pool so I tried taking O in. It was her first time in a pool and she was NOT a fan. I slowly got her further and further in but she didn't want much to do with it at all. We'll try again another time. John and I realized that we should have put her in the swim lessons we've been talking about much earlier. Before she developed fears of anything. Our neighbors have a pool so we'll try there too. She'll get it.
Olivia also got a great gift from the Olsen's. Can you believe that we had not gotten her a glove before this?! She now has one and she really enjoys the ball that came with it. It's softer than a baseball or softball so it bounces really well and she just cracks up at that. Now we just have to wait to find out if she is in fact right-handed.

She's not quite walking on her own yet. I tried to get her to take some steps by herself this weekend and we only got 1/2 a step, but she did stand on her own for a bit so that's a move in the right direction.

First birthday celebrations!

Olivia had a couple of very nice celebrations. Yes, we celebrated Olivia's birthday twice. The first was on her actual birthday with just John and I. She got a chocolate cupcake with cookies 'n cream icing on her actual birthday. It took me having to dip my finger in the icing and stick it in her mouth to get her going, but once she did she didn't stop. The before, during, and after pictures are below.

Olivia also visited the doctor and got her 12 month check-up and shots. I know, I know, on her birthday. Yes, but she reacted poorly to her 6 month shots and I didn't want her not feeling well for her party the following weekend. She ended up being fine, but you never know. She weighed in at 25 lbs 2.5 oz, 30.5" tall, with a head circumference of 18.5". She is in the 95th percentile for weight, 90th for height, and I don't know about her head.

She got some awesome gifts! You have seen the ball hut already, but she got some really neat books, a singing baseball bear (from Aunt Barb), and a great educational light up singing bear from her Granny. Of course she got a ton of clothes (thank you everyone - I can't name you all, there isn't enough room - they will be well used). We really tried to get her to open her gifts but she'd pull the wrapping paper off at about 2 square inches at a time and hand it to John, so we helped her out a bit.With her "Olivia" book, from her daddy

And her singing bear from Aunt Barb (it sings "Take Me Out to the Ballgame")

My mom, sister and brother were able to make it in for Olivia's party on the 13th. It was great that all of them could make it. My brother hadn't seen her since Christmas! My dad, unfortunately, wasn't able to make it. He was flying all over the globe the weeks before and wasn't scheduled to arrive home until June 14th. Seriously, the man was all over - London, Manila (where he called from on O's actual birthday - though it was still the afternoon of June 4th here - he wanted to be the first), Cairo (how cool! - his first time to the continent of Africa), Riyadh, and Bahrain. We just told him he'd have to come out at another time.

My mom took this at bath time. Sorry Olivia! It's just too cute, and it's right before she peed all over the floor. Oh well.

The party was really great. We had a lot of fun. Thank you to everyone that was able to attend. We do appreciate all of you being there for Olivia and for us. We had a nice spread of food and an adorable Curious George cake which I, of course, forgot to get a picture of. We had to sing Happy Birthday 3 times because we forgot the video camera and then Erin messed something up and didn't record the second time, but we got it done. I made the cake that we let Olivia dive into. She was hesitant at first but after I cut off a hunk of it for her she really got into it. Once again, before and afters below. It's hard to tell because it was a yellow cake with cream cheese icing, but it is all over her, including in her hair. She had to take a bath in the middle of her party if that tells you anything.

Here are some more party shots.

Bobcat showing her the ribbon

With her friend Emma (who is 2 weeks younger)

John said she would never wear this shirt (thank you Danny!)

Mom, seriously?

Say a little prayer!

Hey everyone, just wanted to put a little prayer wish out there. This week the Coyotes had their relocation hearing in bankruptcy court, and while no decision has been made we're trying to keep a positive attitude regarding the outcome. But it is hard to do. We don't know what will happen when a decision comes down - whether the team will move to Canada or stay in Phoenix, whether John will have a job or not, etc. Needless to say it's a scary and anxious time for us. Add to the fact that the State budget hasn't been passed yet and I'm doubly nervous. There could be further cuts at my agency but we don't know that yet either. It's a bit nervewracking! So any positive thoughts and prayers you could throw out there into the universe would be greatly appreciated!

On a happier note, congrats to my cousin Mary Beth who got engaged this week! We are very excited to meet her fiance and christen him into this crazy family of ours.

And I can't believe that I haven't posted about this yet, but my sister is engaged too! Woohoo! Ryan proposed while they were on vacation in the Virgin Islands (a trip they are starting to take every year with my parents and, this year, with Uncle Larry and Aunt Laurie). No date has been set but they are both very excited. As are all of us. The ring is beautiful and Olivia has already been asked to be the flower girl. Her first wedding! =) Best Wishes and we love you Erin and Ryan.

Our baby is 1 year old!

Yes, Olivia has made it to 1 year. More surprisingly, John and I have made it 1 year as parents. And I have to say I am very sad. I was looking through pictures today and having a hard time believing that it has been a year since I had her. I can remember almost everything about that day (well, I can remember everything that wasn't fogged out by Stadol). The first year has really been fun, but it has also been extremely difficult, in more ways than one. But we made it, and I think that, as Olivia gets older, parts of parenting will get easier, but we'll have new things pop up that will get harder. Olivia is almost walking, almost talking, eating almost entirely table food, and is communicating much better. I was saying last night that it is so nice that she is able to get herself around places almost entirely on her own. Gone are the days of having to pick her up, help her sit up, and moving her from one room to the other. She is a very happy child and for that we are extremely grateful. John and I have been very lucky and we look forward to seeing her grow into a wonderful little girl.

I love this last picture! =)

Almost a year old!

I am so totally, terribly behind and I don't have time to write much, but here are some pictures. Olivia turns one on Friday! I can't believe it. She's our little ham as you can tell. Jenn, Rian and Cameron got her a ball hut for her birthday and she loves it. She also enjoys going to D-Backs games and seeing the mascot Baxter. I will try to write more at a later date. Hopefully she'll be walking soon so I can update that. She is a great "cruiser" though!

Mother's Day

I had my first Mother's Day on Sunday and it was nice. I hope all you other moms out there had a great day. John and Olivia gave me some flowers, very nice cards, and a gift certificate for a massage, manicure and pedicure. I'm very excited for that! On Friday, when I went to pick Olivia up from day care, they had a gift for me too. It is now on our fridge. Pictures are below. Last week our little scooter decided she wanted to crawl as well. I don't know what did it but she now crawls at times, though she is not nearly as fast as when she scoots. She is getting really good at sitting up from laying down and we find her sitting in her crib looking through the slats all the time. It's like she's a little jailbird. I really do need to get a picture of it. As her hair gets longer it gets more and more crazy. I just couldn't pass up the chance to get some pictures of her crazy hair after a nap one day.

Olivia loves to be my little helper and one day I'm sure I will pass off many duties to her (I can't wait!). Below are pictures of her helping me "sort" the laundry. Apparently I don't do it right so she is redoing it for me.

Unfortunately O got sick over the weekend. I don't know if it's from the new day care or the water fountain/playground a friend and I took her to on Friday, but I'm thinking it's the day care. I'm not really surprised that she got sick since it's a new place with kids she'd never been around before. She kind of felt warm Friday night and Saturday, but then she woke up Saturday night at about 12:15 a.m. and when I took her temperature it was about 100 degrees. This continued through Sunday and she also had a sore throat (she would cry every time she coughed - poor thing) and something in my gut told me I should take her to the doctor. So I worked a little bit from home on Monday and took her to the doctor where they told me she has strep. Strep! Usually kids don't get that until they are at least past 1 year of age. She's on antibiotics once again. I stayed home again on Tuesday and it was an extremely rough day. O was very fussy, and though she isn't having a problem sleeping, she still doesn't seem to get enough time in bed, but when you try to put her down she screams. It was not a good day. Poor John came home to two people crying.

I'm busy planning O's 1st birthday party on June 13th. We were going to do it on June 6th but we're not sure if my dad is going to be in town. We figured there is a better likelihood he'll be in the country on the 13th, so we're doing it then. It's going to be a ball party because she loves any type of ball - soft, baseball, koosh - it doesn't matter. I'm going to make her a smash cake and I hope she really gets into it. It's going to be great! I can't believe she is almost 1 already!

Teeth!

Olivia cut her first teeth this weekend! Well, actually, I don't know that it happened this weekend, but Saturday was when I felt them for the first time. They are her two front bottom teeth. It only took her 10 1/2 months. =) We took her to the Diamondbacks game on Saturday and while she was sitting on my lap she grabbed my finger and stuck it in her mouth like she always does, and there they were! You can barely see them so I don't have any pictures, but as soon as they come in a bit more I'll make sure to try to get some good shots.

Not much else going on so this will be short and sweet. O starts at her new day care on Monday. My friend Andi is going to watch her for half a day on Friday. Andi is due with her first child on May 30 so this will be good practice for her. Hopefully O won't change her mind on wanting to have a baby, though she really has no choice at this point. Thanks Andi!

Belated Las Vegas

I realized this week that I had not put a post up about our trip to Vegas for my friend Jenn's 30th birthday at the end of February. I also realized that I told Jenn I would send her the pictures I took and I have yet to do that as well. Sorry Jenn! In lieu of rewriting the whole post over again check out the post that I put on our Traveling Friends blog.


This weekend we are taking O to a D-Backs game. She went to one when she was about 6 or 8 weeks old and was very good, but this time will be fun because she'll pay attention to all the people and noise and lights.


My sister just got in to town today to sit with O today and tomorrow. My mom was here Monday through this morning to help out. She'll be back next Monday to do the same thing next week. Then we start at the new day care on May 4. We'll see how that goes.

Easter

I hope everyone had a very nice Easter. We had a quiet one, though we did manage to get up and out of the house for 8:00 a.m. mass in about 20 minutes after O woke up at 7. We didn't want to be at church during her nap time at 10 so we pushed it to get to the 8:00, but we made it. She did awesome! We sat in the cry room but probably didn't need to. She didn't cry, though she did babble a bit. We did have to leave early though because an hour and 5 minutes into it, when we still hadn't had Communion yet, she was getting antsy. So John walked outside with her while I went and got Communion. She looked absolutely adorable in her beautiful pink dress and ruffled socks and ballet slipper shoes. You can really get an idea of all the hair she now has in these pictures. Her skirt was so poofy that we had a hard time getting her into her car seat. I had to take some pictures of once we had her in. Luckily her dress didn't wrinkle because of all the tulle!The Easter Bunny did bring her an Easter basket. She got some cool little Koosh balls, some squishy sports balls, a bunny, a flower, a hat and a pen with some feathers on it. She doesn't really get to play with the pen much though because we don't want her to eat the feathers, but it's so funny to watch her face when the feathers tickle her nose. She also got one of those collapsible bunny toys. The ones where you push the bottom up and the elastic relaxes and the bunny collapses then stands up again when you release the bottom (does that make any sense?).

I had to take the next picture because when I walked in to check on her before I went to bed last night she was asleep like this. She is on top of her blanket and monkey, which is not out of the ordinary, but I loved that she was out with her foot through the slats of the crib. I don't know how this is comfortable.
We took O to the Coyotes final home game last Saturday and she did awesome. She had a lot of fun looking around at all the people and waving to the two boys in the seats behind us. Tomorrow is her last day at her current day care facility. I am so sad about it. She loves her teacher there, and while all the teachers have been placed at other locations, her favorite is not going to the one she will be attending (though there will be one of the other teachers there). She doesn't know that she won't see this woman again. She won't understand what is happening when she goes to a new day care and doesn't know anyone there and I feel terrible about it. And she'll have to do this twice! Our new facilities infant room is not scheduled to open until the end of May so we are going to put her at a temporary place for a few weeks starting May 4. My mom and sister are going to come out the two weeks in between and help out for a few days each watching her so John and I don't have to take any time off work. It just totally sucks!

I still very much want to stay at home with O so I have started looking into work from home opportunities that I can do on a part-time basis so that John and I can get some supplemental income to help make additional payments on some debts in order to get them paid off sooner. This will allow me to stay at home permanently. One day! I did start my own work from home business marketing for an international wellness company. I do two things. I introduce people to the company and their products and help them set up their accounts (no selling involved!) and I help other people set up their own home-based business. It's great because the products are really impressive - all-natural everyday necessity products that you buy anyway but that are healthier for your family and home - and it allows me to set my own hours and only work as much as I want to or have time for. It's really up to me how much I want to make. It's not a bad gig.