4.30.2017

olivia turns 3!

My baby is THREE! This is especially weird, because Jillian was 3 when Olivia was born, and now Charlotte is almost here and Olivia is 3! Where is the time going?

 Also, can you believe that little toe-head started out with a head full of black hair!?

 We started out the day with traditional birthday sprinkle pancakes. Olivia insisted we light the candle and sing to her 4 times, which we did of course.

 That night we had our family over for a birthday dinner. She was so excited about it all day! She especially loved the play makeup from Tia Cynthia. (Her eyebrows are still purple).

 I love doing big, all-out birthday parties, but this year there was just too much going on to take on the extra planning! It actually was kind of nice not worrying about anything except making a cake..hah! And Olivia had just as much fun. Maybe I should take note...



Some of Olivia's favorite things:
Elsa (and princesses in general)
Doing anything Jillian is doing
Jumping/running- she's never still
Yogurt
Balloons
The Bounce House (a warehouse with a ton of large bounce houses)
The soundtrack from Trolls
The show The Lion Guard
Peanut butter sandwiches 
Playing in the dirt

Some of Olivia's least favorite things:
Getting buckled in her car seat 
Waking up (she's not a morning person)
Putting on clothes
Keeping her shoes on
Chicken




The term "threenager" couldn't fit her better- she is both sweet and (at times) sassy! She is a big time cuddler and always makes sure you give her hugs and kisses before walking out the door. She loves playing and pretending with Jillian, especially with dolls, games where one of them is the mom and one is the baby, or both of them pretend to be kitties. Her laugh is infectious (and she snorts a lot!). Sometimes she talks just to hear herself talk- she will go off telling me the most random, unrelated things, which usually end up being pretty funny. She is so full of life and love and I couldn't imagine our little family without her! 

When we put her to bed after her party, she excitedly asked, "Can we do this again when I'm four?!" 
We love you so much Livvy-loo! 

easter

Some of my favorite things about Easter this year:

Jillian got a little confused with the whole Easter basket thing and stockings on Christmas. We had to have a talk to seriously lower her expectations (we do Christmas a lot bigger than Easter, which I think most people do...haha!). She still wanted to leave a note for the Easter bunny (we usually leave a note for Santa at Christmas), which she decided to hide last minute because she thought that might be a dumb idea after all. She's growing up too fast!

We leave our kids' basket's in their rooms so they can see them when they wake up, and when Jillian woke up she bolted out of bed and ran downstairs to ask us first if she was allowed to look at it. Oddly considerate of her! 

When Olivia woke up and came down to see us she exclaimed, "Happy Easter Egg!" 

Both of them went through most of their candy stash before lunch time. Meh. I figure it goes with the territory. (I mean...we DID leave a basket of candy in their bedroom that morning...so I couldn't really expect anything too different).

I wasn't planning on it, but because we made "bunny bum pancakes" last year (you know, with the whip cream tail and sliced strawberries for feet?), Jillian insisted we had to do the same thing this year. I suppose that will be an Easter morning tradition now!

 ^Dying Easter eggs! They were surprisingly (and thankfully) not very messy this year. 

 ^Jillian helped me make the dessert for our family dinner. She loves baking! It was a fresh strawberry cake with lemonade marshmallow frosting- sooooo delicious! The recipe for the cake is here and the frosting here



 ^Hunting for eggs! Where did that tradition start? Does the Easter bunny technically leave the eggs? In which case...why isn't there an Easter chicken? These are legitimate questions...



^The day after. Busted.
#sugarcoma


4.26.2017

ramblings from a ticking time bomb

(Me...I'm the ticking time bomb.)

I've started like 3 blog posts in the last month, eventually abandoning all of them. But sometimes senseless word vomit and rambling is good for the soul. Okay, my soul. (I mean I DID read the Chicken Soup for the Soul books when I was a teenager. And when they came out with a Chicken Soup for the Teenager journal!? Game over.) 

(Also complete with some unrelated pictures).

 
Here we are in my 8th month of pregnancy. We've lived in our new house for approximately 6 weeks. Nearly every box is unpacked and just about everything has a place (*cough..James's office..*cough..). We have a list of things we (okay..I..) want to get done before the little miss makes her grand appearance and I go into mombie mode for a solid month or two. The biggest project is trying to get our front landscaping under control. When we came to see the house there was snow on the ground and we didn't realize just how much love it would need! I think I nearly started having contractions the other day when I decided it would be a good idea to start ripping out plants and bushes solo. The other things on the to-do list are smaller- organize and decorate the girls' rooms, install some cabinet hardware- very doable (that is, if I could muster the energy to do something at night besides binge watch Netflix). Hypothetically it's doable.

Oh wait. Did I say the biggest project was landscaping? Ha. Let me rewind. So we're in the middle of this thang. Our home inspection came back fairly normal, with just some normal maintenance things to address. Fast forward to a week or two ago when we got a LOT of rain and a LOT of wind- like, I thought our house might actually blow over all Three Little Pigs style. Water started coming in not one, or two, but THREE of our windows all on the same side of the house. It was so wet near the top of the window I was literally just wiping away caulk and bits of dry wall. We had a contractor come evaluate the lovely little situation and found out basically because the wall wasn't initially built to drain properly and is on the side of the house that is in shade all day long preventing it from ever really drying out, the entire thing needs to be replaced to properly drain. 
Like, the entire wall. 
Needs to be replaced.
So essentially the inspection company missed a big FAT problem that in the opinion of the contractor is one they "definitely shouldn't have missed." 
Anyway, we're in the middle of that process going back and forth with the inspection company (working to get them to fork out the funds for the repair). 
Meanwhile, it's been a really wet spring in Utah. Fun combo.

But things show absolutely zero signs of slowing down.  

^Playing "princess camp out"

We decided to keep Jillian in her same school (about 20 minutes away) until the end of the year for stability's sake. I know that doesn't sound far, but when kindergarten is only three hours long it's a lot of back and forth! It was the right decision for her, but there are many days when I feel like we're living out of our car. Proof: I found a slice of pizza in the back seat today. Not really sure from when...
Olivia found a half-eaten gummy worm in the bottom of her car seat (which I admit is a pretty normal occurrence...except the actual food item is exchangeable by any number of snacks). She was so excited by it, I didn't have the heart to tell her not to eat it. We were both okay with it.

^While I was getting out of the shower she perched herself there and said, "Mom. I'm going to sit here...and think."

There is an upside to all of the crazy, however. All of the life-y-ness of life has made my third trimester of baby growing F-L-Y by. There isn't much time to focus on the aches and pains that start showing up in months 8 and 9 of pregnancy. And thinking of everything we need to do before she comes on out makes me think maybe I wouldn't mind if time actually slowed down a little? I know...said no pregnant woman ever. But I'm SAYIN' IT. (see entire wall needs to be replaced). 

As far as being ready for her, I think we're just about there. There are a couple of things left to buy, clothes to be washed, and a bassinet to be assembled, but other than that by this point I figure having a newborn is like riding a bike- it just comes back to ya. Right? (If not, just let me live in my denial for the time being. My sanity may require it.)

Cheers!