Memorial Day 2010

Today was Olivia's last, first holiday :) haha. I know this sounds funny but it really did kind of make me sad. Today was such a great relaxing day for our family. We slept in late... 7:30 :), took naps, did a little shopping, and went to JR's parents to eat a wonderful dinner! Olivia and I were both so glad that JR was home today and we really enjoyed getting to spend lots of quality time with him!

Swimming in the pool with her Big John (JR's dad)

This is Olivia's new outfit that I made her this week :)

She loves her ball machine at her grandparents house, but....

She likes to bang the balls together much more!

11 Months

Only 1 more month until Olivia's big 1st Birthday :) I just can't believe that my sweet little girl is 11 months old today. :) I wanted to post a few things that she is doing right now so that I won't forget. She changes so much month to month that I want to keep track of it! :) She still loves her blankie, taking 2 naps a day, and sleeps between 11 - 12 hours a night. We love the 12 hour nights. :) She will still eat her baby food sometimes but would much rather feed herself finger food. We have a hard time getting her to eat anything pureed, except green beans and peas.

She is army crawling in a circle and backwards :), walking while we hold her hands, and cruising up and down furniture. She also is almost sitting up from laying down. :) All Olivia wants to do all day is walk around the house! She loves it and wants to explore everything. :) One of her favorite things to do is to walk to the tv in the sewing room and try to push the button to make it turn on so that she can watch her favorite movie, Praise Baby! She smiles soooo big when it comes on. Starting today we are down to 2 bottles a day, morning and night, and she drinks formula out of a sippy cup in the afternoon. She is really developing her own little independent personality and it so much fun to watch her develop into a little person. :)

We love our sweet bundle of joy!!! Happy 11 months baby girl :)

On a side note, I had a funny picture to share below. Olivia loves our dog and her latest thing is to go up to Charlie and take his bone away from him. He will follow her around and try to get it back and so she will hold it for him while he chews it. :) Haha

Rainy Days

Yesterday morning was VERY rainy and so that can lead to a very long morning with a little girl that loves to be outside. So in an attempt to keep her entertained we decided to think outside the box. :) Please don't think that we are too reneck but we have an extra matress at our house that we haven't quite figured out what to do with, so we decided to do this with it.....

I never knew how much fun it would be to jump on a mattress in the middle of your living room!! :) Olivia loved it and had a great time jumping with us. Oh the lengths that you go to to entertain your child. :)

Luckily we had some entertainment last night. My best friend and her family came over last night and we had such a great time!!! The girls were absolutely precious and it was so much fun getting to see them interact with each other. When the sun came out, we decided to take the girls out for a little stroll in the wagon.

Olivia kept reaching out for Mary Lee and wanted to grab her. I don't think that Mary Lee knew what to think about this :)

After a long wagon ride, we decided to get the girls ready for bed so that the adults could actually sit down and talk and the dads could watch a little basketball. So here is our FUN bathtime. :) They were adorable!!

Sharing toys..... or I guess it is more like Olivia taking toys!

Fun, Fun, Fun

Mary Lee having fun while Olivia splashes water everywhere!

New Talents

I will have to start this post off by talking about our first family trip to the playground. We had big plans of going to dog daze this past Saturday, so we got all ready to go, only to realize that it closed at four. :( And I figured this out at about 3:45. So.... we decided to go to the park. We had great intentions of taking a lot of pictures but unfortunately the camera died so this is all we have. Olivia loved the swing and the bouncy toys that you sit on. She really loved it when her daddy would swing her VERY high!! These are all the pictures we managed to get...

After our playground time, we headed to Trussville Springs and walked along the Cahaba river. It is just beautiful back there and Olivia enjoyed the fresh air and walking in the river. Such a nice, relaxing night. :)

I also wanted to post some updates about what all Olivia is doing these days. She is 10 1/2 months old and is learning all sorts of new things (minus crawling...Ahhhhh!!!!!) We are still working on crawling and today she made alittle bit of progress. She is still army crawling in a circle and today she Finally moved forward a little bit. I have tried to entice her with everything that I can think of to get her to go forward and today I finally found something that works. I don't know if this is a good sign for the future or not but here is what she was just dying to have.... my diamond rings!! Haha. She is a girl after mommies own heart :)

Olivia's walking has really picked up as well. Today she cruised down the couch and then went around and around the coffee table. Yesterday she took a few steps down the couch by herself but she just really took off today. Here is a short clip :)

Other things Olivia is doing :)

~Saying dada, mama, baba

~Loves to bite me instead of kisses

~Played peekaboo for the first time today with me. She covered her eyes with the back of her hands and would then look out at me. Melted my heart :)

~Loves to walk everywhere!!!! Most times that is the only thing that will make her happy

~Still likes my homemade baby food and but is starting to get a little tired of baby food in general. She loves finger foods! She ate her first cheese sandwich yesterday and loved it!!!

~Cannot get enough of her sippy cup with ice cold water.

~Drinking 3 bottles a day, taking 2 naps, and sleeps about 11 hours at night.

~Still loves her konkie (lovey). She sucks on the tag of it like its a pacifier :) Cracks me up

~Loves playing kickball around the house, rolling the ball, banging on things, and laughing at our dog.

I know there are many more things to add to this list but my mind is going blank. Time is just flying by so quickly and want to be able to remember as much as I can before these times are gone. My little girl is growing up so quickly!!

Fussy!!

We have had a fussy little girl on our hands here lately!! I know when it hits about 4:30 that she is going go be fussy until she goes to bed! Well we finally have a reason for it now. When I went to pick Olivia up from my mom's house today she told me that Olivia's top 3 teeth have come in!! YAY!! I felt like a horrible mom for not even noticing but after she bit me last time for trying to feel, I have given it up! :) So we officially have 4 teeth now at 10 1/2 months. I know that J.R. will be so proud when he gets home. I will post pics as soon as you can see them.

Livi loved to play in the bed at the beach!

Happy Mother's Day

This was my first Mother's Day and I could not have had a better one. We made it back from the beach without too much fussing :) and I was able to spend some time at home with J.R. and O and also go and visit my mom for a little while. I am so blessed to be able to finally celebrate this day as a mother. Our road to parenthood was not without many tears and struggles but it has been so worth it in the end. Olivia has brought more joy and happiness to our lives than I think I could have ever imagined. I can't wait until I will be able to hear those precious words.... ma ma. I hope we are getting close. :)

The day I became a mommy, June 30, 2009

I am also so blessed to be able to have my mother with me as well on this mother's day. She has been such a blessing in my life and has given me so much love and joy in my life! I hope that one day I will turn out to be half of the mom that she has been to me. My mom has always been so supportive of things that I have done in my life and she has always been my support when times were not so great. I tend to be a 'worry wart' and she is always just the person that I need to talk to in order to calm me down. She is a wonderful grandmother as well and I know that Olivia already loves her Wisa sooo much!! I hope that you had a wonderful mother's day and I love you sooo much!!

I am also additionally blessed because of my wonderful mother - in - law! I could not have asked for a better one :) Betsy is such a giving, self-less, and caring mom. She has welcomed me into their family so unconditionally and I am so grateful for that. She has basically been like my second mom, since J.R. and I have been dating since 16 :) She is also a wonderful grandmom to my sweet little one and Olivia smiles everytime she sees her B. Thank you so much for being such a wonderful mother in law!! We love you!!

First Beach Trip

This past weekend J.R. , Olivia, and I went down to Gulf Shores for a friend's wedding. We had a great time and it was so nice to get away and have a relaxing long weekend! J.R.'s mom and aunt joined us on Friday to watch Olivia for us so that we could have a little free time and really get to enjoy the wedding and stay out a little bit later than our usual 7:00 pm. :) We were sooo thankful that she was able to come and we really enjoyed getting to all spend some time together. On another note, this was Olivia's very first beach trip. I didn't know how well she would do, since I have her on such a strict schedule but to my surprise she did AMAZING! She slept a good 12 hours most nights and her two naps each day lasted about 2 hours each. I am sure it helped that her room was pitch black, even during the day. So, needless to say we are going to get some black out shades for our house asap. :) She also was great in the car! She slept the entire way down there and most the way back!! Yay!! We took O down to the beach and she loved loved loved the sand! She never really tried to eat it, but she just wanted to let it run through her hands and she wanted to play with the sand stuck to her hands and feet. However, she did not like ocean!! She just wanted her daddy to pick her up. :) So sweet! She did really well laying out by the pool and liked watching all the other kids swim.

Playing with all the sand on her hands :)

Yay, I'm at the beach!!!!

Loving her seashell

Daddy is sooo funny!!

The sand is so neat!!

Look at me Daddy

This was her very first experience with the sand

She was not to sure about those waves coming up to her. She just wanted J.R. to pick her up :)
Our new swimmy suit! You will be seeing this one again for her upcoming birthday party! Yay!

Playing with her B by the pool

All in all, it was a great weekend and a wonderful way to celebrate mothers day!! Olivia (and daddy) got me a spa gift card and I cannot wait to get to use it!! I am ready for yet another relaxing day... haha. You can't have too many of those :)

Fun with Grandparents!

Livi got to spend her morning on Monday with Wisa and Grumps! She loves loves loves her sippy cup and takes it everywhere with her. The colder the water you put in it, the better it is. :) This is O just hanging out with Wisa on the porch :)

Livi must also really like jewelry because she spent the morning on Tuesday getting to play dress up in her Aunt Heather's closet and it looks like she had a blast :) We are going to have to work on not wearing too much jewelry at one time. haha.

Bubbles

Olivia had a fun day yesterday on her 10 month birthday :) with her new bubble machine!!! If you don't have one of these and you have a little one, you definitely need to get one. Olivia loved it and it blew out so many bubbles, even I was amazed :) Hopefully we will have lots of fun with this over the summer!