Livy Loving and General Skinner Awesomeness

HOPPY HALLOWEEN...

2011-11-03T16:56:00.015-04:00

... Is what I *thought* I would name this post because I was more than certain Olivia would refuse to wear the costume we (yes, we, even *I* contributed this year) slaved over for days in favor of the ever popular amphibian attire. I'd link blog posts on the frog, but let's be honest, they are far too frequent... just scroll a little and you'll see what I'm talking about.

BUT! I was wrong!

Not even Princess McDiva pants could resist the magic that is Halloween.

But more on that later!

First. The Pumpkins:

hmmmmm??

Olivia was *SUPER* serious about pumpkining. We bought some stickers to avoid a knife accident and subsequent child protective services situation and what not and Olivia was all over it. We discovered a couple things. Olivia apparently thinks animals should not have tails and zebras don't need legs. With every sticker she would decide which appendages were unnecessary and place them accordingly:

Notice the dismembered and mangled wildlife?

The final product.

Meanwhile, the pumpkin master got to work:

He's so handsome!

The final products:

I'll let you decide which is mine and which belongs to Pants.

Hint: Mine took less than three minutes

And next came Halloween!

This is going to sound odd, but I've always wanted to have a daughter and dress her up as Rainbow Brite for Halloween. I know, weird, right? I was born in 1987 AND I grew up overseas, Rainbow Brite has never, ever, ever been in my life in the slightest. Minus a couple hand-me-down board books from an older sister who actually *did* grow up (adolescently speaking) in the height of 80's pop culture.

But whatever, I thought it would be adorable. And I was totally right.

Olivia's costume wasn't actually finished until the actual afternoon of the actual Halloween so there was no chance for us to talk/bribe/beg her into liking it. And here's the hard work break down: I did the tutu, Kyle did the crochet work and we got too lazy to sew the top so we just tied it. It was skanky, yes, but she had on a onesie on the actual night of all hallow's eve or whatever the spooky name is:

This picture, from the day before is a big fat lie. If you could see her from a different angle you'd see a 100% naked nudie behind because I didn't buy enough toole. OOOOppps! An early morning trip to Joanne's and all was fixed.

But whatever, we finished it and much to our surprise, she actually LOVED it.

The arm warmers took some convincing, but when the temperature dropped, she decided to go with it.
And even better, she LOVED trick or treating.
Jimmy, I mean Elmo, decided to join us. And so Rainbow Brite and Elmo headed out on their very first trick-or-treating extravaganza (and Hatsumi's, too), with four parents in tow. Yes, there were four parents and two teeny tiny toddlers. At one door the woman looked like she was about to murder something when she saw Corey and Kyle before I shouted out, "they're down there!" She had apparently not seen the three feet of the most adorable babies ever crowding her doorstep.

The first couple of doors I didn't think this whole trick-or-treating thing would last long. Olivia just didn't get it, but eventually:

She got SO into it. I wish I had better pictures, but Olivia wasn't messing around. She was really down to candy business. She was literally running between the houses yelling out, "MORE CANDY!" and "LET'S GO!" if the crowd wasn't moving along fast enough.
I do have to say, she was such a polite girl, saying "thanky" to every one and making sure Jimmy had at least two pieces of candy in his bucket. Jimmy must have come home with a haul because at every door she would take one for him, one for her, then another one for him.

Olivia probably demanded, "MORE CANDY" hundreds of times in two hours. Yes, they last two hours! But when we got home, all she wanted was the bag of chips...

Okay one last picture so you don't always remember her with that CRAZY stuff we call hair:

Let Her Eat Cake

2011-10-28T13:36:00.008-04:00

I think 21 months must be the best age ever. I thought that at the one month, and two and three and every single month between then and 21 but I seriously think 21 is the best. Olivia is the best-worst little helper in the universe. Every day she will tell me crazy things like, "I NEEEEEEDDD TO SWEEP!" or "I NEEEEEDDDD TO WASH THAT!" I wish I could get some of that Holly homemaker NEEEED. So what if when she NEEEDDSS to pick up the toys it usually entails something along the lines of she cleans up one and conveniently puts it away under the blankets in her crib for later and it's my responsibility to get the rest into the *appropriate* bins...

Olivia has been a little bit sick which means we've been a lot a bit homebound so yesterday I decided to introduce Olivia to some "real" kitchen time. We started simple: a cake mix and ended a little more complex: stirring and measuring cups of water. And I know what you're thinking, sick people should NOT be in the kitchen. Hands were washed and we gluttonously didn't share it with a single soul. And doesn't everyone need a little treat when they're sick??

Olivia LOVED IT:

We finished up just before nap time and Olivia was super confused wondering when we were going to *eat* the cake. I told her it had to cook and it would be ready when she woke up from her nap. As I was getting her changed into a new set of cow pajamas, because she NEEEEEDed to wear a cow and I was fresh out of cow suits, she kept telling me, "I nap, then cake, okay?"

And then I had a moral dilemma. Half way through her nap I had the biggest craving for fake cake anyone in the history of the world has ever had. She wouldn't notice if I picked at the corner with a fork, right?? I even solicited advice from my mom and friends. And despite mixed reviews... I waited. And I was SO glad I did:

Olivia's frosting skills were a lot more like eat half the frosting and stab the cake with a knife, but eventually we got the job done.

Olivia was so proud of her cake this morning she kept telling us, "I NEEEEEED TO COOK!" So this morning Kyle let Olivia help him make breakfast:

When they were done with their Dutch pancakes (side note: it is GREAT to have a non eater in the kitchen, she didn't even attempt to taste the salmonella soaked eggs) Olivia settled for scooping water into the bowl. She would dump her measuring cup, stir a little and then ask me, since I was the one doing the dishes, for "MORE DRINK PLEASE!"

She's so cute, right?!
Snot and all.

Kangaroo Zoo

2011-10-27T15:09:00.011-04:00

Kangaroo Zoo. It isn't what you think. There were no marsupials. No cleverly Australian themed drinks or party rooms. In fact, there wasn't even a single inflatable kangaroo in the entire joint. But there was:

A giant room full of inflatables! Slides, bounce houses and obstacle courses, OH MY!

When we first got there I was pretty sure I had the lamest child in the world since all she wanted to do was this:
Arrange and rearrange a bunch of Ikea chairs. Yes, an ode to Sweden. I really think they need to rename this place. I mean, I get the jumping metaphor and all but seriously, can we think of nothing else that jumps??

After a few minutes of chair time Olivia finally realized we were in a room full of oversized pool toys and ran around like a caffeinated Mexican jumping bean until she found... THE WHALE:

The whale was in the darkest of all corners, hidden in the back and covered in patches and holes. There was a bounce house IDENTICAL to the whale in the very front, even with a whale. But Olivia insisted that we jump on THIS whale. "THE WHALE, THE WHALE!" Even though she says it a lot like "wheel."

And let's blame the poor lighting and creepy vibe of being in the back for these terrible pictures. Once Olivia found the whale she literally left this universe and headed straight to some alternate reality known as crazy town. She did probably ninety million cycles through the whale:

Jump and scream like something *other* than a kangaroo...

And then SLIDE:

Jimmy wasn't having the best time in the world at first. In fact Hatsumi was literally shoving him into the whale as he shoved himself back out. But, eventually he warmed up:

At one point I forced Olivia to venture away from the whale:

But after a quick water break:

Olivia couldn't resist going back:

Olivia and Kyle had a conversation that night that went something like this:

Kyle: Olivia, tell me what you did today?

Olivia: I JUMPED! AND I WEEEEE!

Kyle: Oh yeah, where'd you jump?

Olivia: Oh, THE WHALE! With JIM!

And this morning she even asked me to go back-- "We go jump the whale, okay?"

Winter is coming. We'll probably go back a lot...

UPDATED

2011-10-25T15:33:00.003-04:00

MY BLOG, which had been left to rot for about a month, is now here-to-for and henceforth and thereof and other colonial legal terms, UPDATED.

And incase you're incapable of scrolling, here are the links:

It won't happen again. Probably. But maybe. For sure.

Oh and I don't read any posts without pictures, so in complete fairness:

Olivia telling Jimmy not to touch the light in the emptied fountain as Olivia touches the light in the emptied fountain.

Olivia's FIRST Movie

2011-10-25T15:22:00.004-04:00

There is a dollar theater here in Provo which is a bit of a misnomer since it's actually a buck fitty for a show, but WHATEVER. I've been wanting to take Olivia to the movies for awhile now and I figured a kid flick at the buck theater would do the trick. I figured everyone would be loud and if she didn't make it through, we wouldn't be set back a pretty penny. The only cartoony movie was Kung Fu Panda dos, so bonus! Kung Fu Panda might be a guilty pleasure of one Kyle Pants Skinner.

Olivia's favorite part was by far the giant popcorn and drink:

Oh, and sitting by Jimmy:
Both babies did great during the movie. Well great if you don't count Olivia screaming out things like "A SNAKE!" or "OH NO!" or "I SCARED!" or Olivia insisting on loudly passing Jimmy some of her candy, "HERE JIM, IT CANDY EAT!"

Or Olivia lap bouncing the last half hour. She may have been in Hatsumi's lap at one point. But the point is. They had a blast. And Olivia is still talking about the scary bear and snake. So she didn't really get who the good guys and bad guys were...

Oh, and yes, I was the dorky mom who brought the camera to the movies...

THE Pumpkin Patch

2011-10-25T14:36:00.015-04:00

It's fall! And Olivia has quite the collection of leaves. I've been trying to explain to her what "fall" is for awhile but I quickly had to switch it to "autumn" because she thinks it is some sort of strange pain inflicting self torment type of game. But that's beside the point. Fall means you have to do FALL things, like going to the pumpkin patch or burning your tongue on hot cocoa even though it really isn't cold enough for hot cocoa.

The pumpkin patch is both dusty and awesome. Olivia calls pumpkins "punk-ins" and I think it is adorable.

It has these hokey (as in lame, not as in hokie the mascot of Virginia Tech as you might assume I would reference since I am in fact from the greatest state of them all: VIRGINIA) little cut outs all around that the kids are a little obsessed with:

Aren't they so cute poking their heads in the wrong way??

AND...
A rope to keep kids OUT of the perils of the patch. Olivia and Jimmy seriously spent 93% of our trip bouncing the rope up and down. Seriously. The entire trip.

And a mini fun house:

And a park:

And lollipops that are so huge you can't get them out of your mouth once you get them in:

And so naturally we had to take the frog back there:

Olivia super wanted to wear her costume to the pumpkin patch. She was the only child in a costume, minus a strawberry shortcake.

And the frog met some other animals.

Olivia was so excited to meet the animals, for instance the bunny. "HI BUNNY! I FROG!"

But even the FROG gets hot sometimes.

And then even hotter:

So despite the wardrobe change after she demanded to wear the frog, whatever, she still had a blast showing Kyle the patch. Can you call it just the patch? Is that a thing? Or does it make no sense?

On Saturdays they have inflatable fun. Olivia was dying to go down the slide but adults weren't allowed. We reluctantly let her venture over to the slide thinking there was NO way she could climb it by herself. She was EASILY the smallest child there. See for yourself:

And guess what? We didn't even end up with a pumpkin! We had to rush to get to Olivia's very first... well you'll see in the next post. I guess we'll have to go back!

Do you believe in LOVE at first sight??

2011-10-25T13:33:00.008-04:00

It's been awhile since there was a Jimmy+Olivia=LOVE edition of this blog. There was even a rumor, started by my sister, going around that Jimmy and Olivia were breaking up. I'm here to officially put that rumor to rest. Jimmy and Olivia are still going strong. Mina, the mini harlot has been trying to move in on Olivia's man, but only because her mom just had a baby and she is acting out. Either that or Hatsumi's been babysitting her while Mina's mom went into fake labor and then actual labor. I've only seen pictures, but the new baby looks BEAUTIFUL!

If you haven't caught on quite yet: I've been TERRIBLE with my camera, so all of these are stolen from Hatsumi, who is a worthy camera owner.

It has officially been one year that the love birds have been smitten with one another. On their very first date they trashed the Petersen's apartment by playing with the weekly ads. SO, we decided, in sentimental memory, that we would have an "Ads Party" to commemorate their year-milestone:
Looks like fun, huh? That's Mina, the cutest little man-stealing baby of all time.
They have apparently outgrown the ads party... it lasted at best a minute.
And Mina seriously had the most fun. I guess it was new to her.
The playmat was a must have at the party since it was a fixture of their FIRST ads party.

The highlight of the party had to be this:
In case you didn't know, Olivia has an intense love of cribs. I'm not sure what it means in the long term, you know the love of being behind bars, but she SUPER loves Jimmy's crib and often demands that she get in it. And then demands that Jimmy get in it. And on this day, that Mina get in it, too. And then they JUMP. WILDLY.
At first Mina didn't know what to do with these two crazy kids, but eventually she warmed up to the idea.

A few weeks ago Hatsumi introduced us to an awesome little pumpkin patch that embarrassingly enough, Olivia and I have returned to on several occasions. You'll see. I have an entire blog planned on it. Jimmy doesn't get enough face time on this blog for being my future son-in-law so here you go:

We've been having the nicest weather lately. Last year I was shivering by mid-September so I don't know if I've just gotten accustomed to this freaky climate or what, but it has seriously been duck feeding weather. We love going to the park with Jimmy:

Here Olivia and Jimmy fight over who gets control of the bubble wand. Did you know it is almost impossible to find bubbles in stock in October???
Lovebirds. Too bad there is a trash can in the background of the cutest picture ever. Oh, and yes, Olivia has been able to fit in that tutu for OVER A YEAR.
Olivia can actually blow bubbles now. Not just eat vast quantities of soap and get diarrhea.

Olivia has gotten far too brave at the duck pond. She is seriously going to land IN it one of these days.

And if you think Olivia stealing Jimmy's bubble wand is enough to keep these two apart:
Holding hands. The best pair ever. Screw you, Romeo and Juliet, Cleopatra and Marky Poo, Sarah Palin and Todd...

Oh and this is from FOREVER ago, but once when Hatsumi and Corey babysat one day took the kids to Costco.

Olivia will still tell me she went there with Jimmy and they "EAT."

The end. The moral: LOVE conquers all.

HALF a month ago...

2011-10-25T12:04:00.004-04:00

We headed up to the best place in the universe: Idaho. And we had our camera with us. And we took zero pictures. I need that camera purse, I tell you. But anyway, lucky for you I came home with some souvenirs:

I know, right, I'm super talented! OR those were the super easiest things to make ever in the history of ever and I can teach you if you're interested.

I wish I had more pictures. Olivia loves my aunt Kristine, or as she likes to call her aunt B. Which is not an inappropriate slang term for the B word, but yet another stage in the evolution of a decades long nick name, Beaney. If this blog makes it to posterity without blogger deleting it or turning it into straight up non sensical Chinese characters, let it be known that Olivia adored her great aunt B. And so did we! Oh, and that Olivia devoured the entire apple supply of the south east region of the state in a single weekend.

Actually I do have a hilarious story or two.

Olivia and Kristine found five dead snakes in the middle of the road and Olivia was obsessed with trying to touch them. Okay, not hilarious, disgusting.

Olivia did touch her very first horse and she will not quit reminding me about it. Mom, I touch a horse. Mom, I did. The horse may or may not have had pink eye. It is yet to be confirmed. Hands were washed in a timely fashion.

And then there is this:

My basically cousin Meg is the state Tennis champion. That is not entirely pertinent information to the story. This is her little brother Josh. She made him sit in a cardboard box in some guy's living room just to POP out when he came home to ask him to the Sadie's dance with Meg. Meg was willing to leave him there for three hours. This is not a joke. He said yes.

Almost a month ago...

2011-10-25T11:30:00.008-04:00

MY SISTER and CO. CAME TO TOWN!! And we had a blast. We literally did every single child approved activity Provo has to offer. And let's be honest, it's Provo. What isn't child approved? We did it ALL! Literally. I mean seriously, the most jam packed, exhaustingly awesome weekend of all time. It was in one word: EPIC. My sister has a much better two part tribute to the trip on her blog if you're going to insist on knowing what the most extreme weekend of all time entails, so you can go read it over there: PART I and PART II. Okay, but seriously pause for a moment to consider the fact that a single weekend had to be broken into two parts just to begin to touch its awesomeness. Your worn out just thinking about it, huh??

Okay and now the good part! Pictures (in no apparent order... this was a lazy blog):

The most epic playground of all time that involves a very specific route across a webbed netting that isn't the best for the knees, just fyi.

The most epic cookie jar of all time at color me mine... see the Y for the cougars??

THe most epic homecoming parade of all time.

THe most epic strike in MINI bowling of all time.

THE most epic PRE-ropes-course face of all time

THe most epic father-son duo on the ropes course... it literally brought tears to our eyes... seriously, go read my sister's blog. none of this is making sense to you, I promise

THe most epically cute baby girl at the Bean Museum, ever.

THe most epic January Girls Club artifact ever

The most epic dancer in the homecoming parade

THe most epic Family cheering section of all time

The most epic post-ropes-course hug of all time

The most epic game of indoor mini croquet of all time

The most epic cheerleader in the homecoming parade

THe most epic hiking of the Y ever

THe most epic toss in an arcade game ever

the most epically beautiful girl to ever step foot in color me min ever

THe most epic carousel rider of all time

The most epic form ever to be seen in mini bowling ever

The most epically cougared out family ever

THe most epic strike in regular sized bowling celebration ever

THe most epic club ever

The most epically Ute fan at a cougar homecoming parade ever

The most epic non loss of any helium balloons ever

THe most epically cute little duo ever

The most epically cute mother-dauther pair ever to be seen on the BYU campus

The most epic excitement at the Bean Museum ever

The most epic BYU football game of all time

Not pictured: The most epic cow ever to be drawn on a magna-doodle ever.

That's an inside joke, but seriously, I drew it. And it was awesome.

See, your worn out just LOOKING at the pictures with zero explanation. It was fun, people. Serious fun. Go read my sister's blog. I mean it.

One month ago...

2011-10-25T11:07:00.007-04:00

My mom, now referred to lovingly by Olivia as "THAT!" and dad, he just got the plain old "grandpa" despite his numerous attempts throughout his lifetime to go by such priceless gems as boo pa pa... came for a visit!And I know what you're thinking, how nice that they came to see, love, and adore you! It was just a convenient excuse. They really came to see her:
"Her" is actually my parents' best friend from our years in Korea. And I know what you're thinking, Olivia has an Asian boyfriend and you spent most of your growing up years on the continent and you can't spot an Asian to save your life?? No, she's not Korean, she's from New Zealand, people! My parents hadn't seen her in a decade or almost two so when she flew in for general conference they breezed into Utah for some QT with their favorite Kiwi.

But, have no fear, we still lived it up while they were here. Although you wouldn't know it because I've gotten painfully awful with my camera. But here is the single event I *do* have pictures of... I really *need* that cute camera purse for Christmas, Santa, PLEASE!

I'm about to go on a massive blog update extravaganza extraordinaire, so it would be best if you got accustomed to this park. We go there, well, frequently would be an understatement.
Olivia is obsessed with what ducks eat: bread. She will talk about it for HOURS at a time. "DUCKS, they EAT BREAD! ONLY BREAD!" And she honestly wants to go feed them every. single. day. And sometimes, when our bread supply allows, we do.
Olivia is also obsessed with their method of locomotion. She tells me every day that ducks fly AND walk. CAN YOU EVEN WRAP YOUR HEAD AROUND THAT ONE??

This is how Olivia insists on swinging after her accident. Whatever, right?
My parents also bought Olivia doughnuts where they discovered her table manners are not up to par. Hilarious, but ravenous at best.

Having my parents here was a much needed surprise! It's been a month but Olivia will still talk about THAT and Grandpa and requests to "chat" with them on the "compy-puter." That girl is a riot, seriously.

Pics

2011-09-26T11:05:00.004-04:00

Olivia calls pigs "pics," which is both adorable and infuriating because she is perfectly capable of making a "g" sound.

But that's beyond the point.

Have you ever seen A Christmas Story? Of course you have, this is America not the Soviet Block and we have amazing inventions like TBS 24 hour marathons. Well then, you probably already know the scene I'm about to reference: the one where the mom tricks the kid into eating like the "piggies." And if you don't know what I'm talking about: SHAME ON YOU, go back to Czechoslovakia you anti-democratic fools. And yes, I know Czechoslovakia no longer exists. The questions is, DID YOU?

Red Rider BB Gun.

Well, that mom is officially brilliant:

Okay, fine she eats strawberries with absolutely zero coaxing whatsoever and this is something she's come up with to goof off just a little more at the dinner table and distract us from the fact that she STILL doesn't eat.

It'sdrivingmenuts.

And to prove my point, Olivia's diet:

1. Cheese

2. Hummus

3. Bread

4. Milk and Cereal/Yogurt on occasion

5. Cheese Pizza

6. Fruit of any kind minus peaches

7. Goldfish/Cheese-its/any cheese related snack

8. Pretzels/popcorn

9. Candy/chocolate/soda...

10. Fruit snacks

11. Smoothies

And that about covers it.

And I know what you're thinking: ELEVEN WHOLE FOODS, that's plenty. But she eats the same. things. every. day. with. no. variety. Every day I wake up with a pit in my stomach thinking today will be the day she gets sick of any and all of these here ELEVEN foods. And yes, I grouped foods together to make it look like a little less, but it's a pretty pathetic diet, won't you agree?

And everyone suggests the same thing: what about a cheese quesadilla or mac and cheese or a grilled cheese sandwich or jumping on the "let's put any kind of dinner onto a pizza" train but believe me: I'VE TRIED. She eats cheese, she eats bread: she'll eat grilled cheese, right? WRONG! Very, very wrong. She'll pout and eat nothing!! If she would try it, she'd like it...

Rumor has it my nephew fed her a frozen waffle at the beach. I don't believe it.

ANY IDEAS PEOPLE? I'm thinking about feeding her blind-folded. I'm desperate.

Firsts

2011-09-18T11:00:00.005-04:00

I'm the worst at recording Olivia's "firsts." I didn't start out that way, I promise. In fact I took a video of Olivia's first hiccups and sent it to everyone in creation. No one was quite as impressed as I was. But when it came time for Olivia to roll over I caught the first one on camera and she just happened to have a massive blown out diaper at the time. And that memory is scarred for life.

But I'm trying to be better, you know, for posterity.

For instance:

The first (and last) time we got to cheer for BYU football in the Holy War last night. BYU-10, Utah-54. OUCH! Shame! blaaaaahhhh!

Okay, but seriously. What you don't know when you look at that super cute picture:

1. Olivia picked out her leg warmers all on her own, especially for this outfit

2. AND (try not to die):

Olivia is wearing her first set of braids!!

Did you die?

Olivia has a wicked mullet. And by wicked I don't mean "cool," I'm not from New England, people. By wicked I mean, wicked like the musical. Okay, so I've never seen the musical and that may have made no sense, but it's cool to reference popular culture, right?!

Olivia's mullet is curly. And that means I have to tame it (just until it finally freaking grows out) with pigtails. BUUUT, one day I realized, if I bribed Olivia with a Care Bear movie I could get her to sit still long enough that I could throw together one braid and then if I could bribe her with fruit I could get her to sit still long enough to quickly get the other braid in! So, I'm not sure if the process is quite worth it in the timely sense of it all, but I can't believe how fast my baby is growing up!

She's in braids, people!

Can you see the curls in her braids? I think they're a-dor-able.

I'm the Worst Blogger EVER.

2011-09-16T15:09:00.010-04:00

96% of these pictures are from a camera phone. Sorry. But the good news is: I STILL have the world's cutest baby:

Despite this:

Olivia fell off a swing while trying to stand up :( It was pretty devastating. Her top lip stuck out a good half inch past her bottom lip and her face wound up bruising into a poster child for battery and child abuse black eye. It's been over a week and her cheek is still a light shade of blurple. But it's starting to look better. Kyle and I may or may not have repeated this conversation several times:

Me: Olivia looks like a monster.

Kyle: No she doesn't.

Me: The only thing Olivia had going for her was her looks.

Kyle: She's super smart and funny, too.

Me: SHE'S A GIRL, NOBODY CARES ABOUT THAT STUFF! THEY ONLY CARE ABOUT LOOKS!

Kyle: Yeah, and she is ridiculously good looking.

Me:WAS.

Everyone at church kept asking if she had colored her face with marker. No. She disfigured herself with pain, not crayola.

And since last week gave me a good excuse to see beyond Olivia's beauty, here is a snapshot of some of Olivia's quirky antics:

1. Olivia's version of cooking: shove every man, woman, child and zoo animal into a microwave: "EAT! EAT!"

2. Olivia's version of justice: death by railroad: "A chooooo comin"

3. Olivia's version of appropriate relationships: paper dolls shacking up: "SHHHHHH! ASEEP!"

This girl seriously cracks me up.

And since I've been the world's worst blogger, here are some of the fun things we've been up to:

1. Thanksgiving Point:

My sister-in-law, Kerilynn, introduced me to $2 Tuesdays in August and Olivia and I got semi obsessed. The Children's Garden has a little Noah's Ark splash pool that Olivia and I may have gotten 6 wristbands in a row for at one point...

2. The Eastern Idaho State Fair:

The fair is something I did with my grandparents so it will always be special to me, no matter how much diarhea it may induce. This year Kyle and Olivia made it double the fun.

1.Kyle was a good sport and got into a giant inflatable ball and flopped and flailed around a pool for a while because Olivia asked him to.

2. Olivia pet a goat

3. The Olivia fed a goat

4. Olivia spent a good hour driving around at the Cozy Coupe booth. She tried out every make and model. We outlasted every single child there.

5. Olivia pretended to feed a horse.

6. Olivia found the cow's water. BARF!

3. IDAHO.

My grandparent's house is heaven on earth. If you don't believe me, you're invited for a visit, I welcome the chance to prove you're wrong.

1. Olivia forced us to read the "Iddy biddy pider" book one trillion times. Kristine obliged.

2. Wheelchair riding with my cousin Hannah, who is not in a wheelchair.

3. Walking the lawn mower all over creation in only a diaper.

4. Braving a giant slide.

5. Playing in the irrigation water.

6. Four wheeling went something like this:

Kyle: Are you having fun?

Olivia: NO!

And those are the highlights. I promise I'll use my real, actual, non dinky camera in the future. But this should make up for my heinous blogging offenses:

I DIE

2011-08-04T17:03:00.006-04:00

And so will you... when you see these pictures of the world's cutest baby:

Olivia's been wearing pigtails a lot lately, mainly to tame the ever so girly mullet, but this day I *might* have overdone them in the height department...

Yes, she's soaking herself in a puddle... sometimes I can be a fun mom... it gets worse.

Olivia waiting at the window for DADDY to come home.

Olivia picks me a lovely bouquet of weeds daily.

Olivia taking a full on bath in a puddle.

Olivia has mastered mowing the curbs.

I think my last post may have been a *teensy* bit depressing. So this was one just to lighten the mood. Olivia loves her new neighborhood *just* fine.

CHANGES

2011-08-03T17:23:00.009-04:00

We moved... 5 minutes away. It may be cheaper (or free since it's chez Kyle's grandma), air conditioned (squeaaaaallll!), AND have a washer AND dryer (quadruple squeaaaaaal!) but all of our stuff is in boxes and it's missing one very important thing:

And by thing I mean person and by person I mean Jimmy. And by "our stuff in boxes" I mean ghetto-ace trash bags since we were far too lazy to even pick up boxes.

And waaaahh, poor me, they're only five minutes away but we're already missing all our friends who made our Wymount days, nights and late, late nights so much fun.

But, cue the world's teensiest little orchestra, I'm really missing Hatsumi (aka mom of Jimmy) who spent hours talking the day away with me while all this happened:

THIS little thing sure does miss her buddy:

And despite what the awkward camera angle on this picture may imply, Olivia is not in fact a little person and has completely proportionate, if not above average thanks to her monkey-like father, limbs.

I-Spy

2011-07-20T20:53:00.006-04:00

Did you know my sister is actually a slave driver? Today *I* was uploading pictures to *her* facebook (since I deleted mine: WAAAAAHHH!) and look at what I found hiding in the background of some random vacation memory:

The rare, but valuable, double-genetic-Rogers-mad-wink-eye! I just *had* to crop it and blow it up, sacrificing quality for pixelation in the process to preserve this memory for clan Rogers. You're welcome, sister!

And because no one can get enough of these GORGEOUS children, here is another installment of the Rogers wink eye 2011:

Olivia: Meet Floor

2011-07-18T15:05:00.003-04:00

I love having my baby on a schedule, and my baby loves being on a schedule. But sometimes it's just not possible! For instance when your layovers land you smack dab in the middle of the Lone Star State during nap time and your baby serrrrriously wants to stretch out like a giraffe in a drought while she snoozes.

And that's how Olivia met the floor of the Dallas airport...

...Twice...

Sandbridge 2011

2011-07-17T17:29:00.029-04:00

Aaaaaaaannnnnddd... We're back. But. Strangely enough, none of you actually missed us since a large portion of my readership was in fact *on* vacation with us.

And by vacation I mean: 8 days in Virginia heaven! And yes, despite being on the beach I soaked in every last pine needle on those green, green Virginia trees, and took every possible chance I could get to frolic in Virginia grass. And smiled at every last gutsy Virginia squirrel that came my way when I ventured from the beach house. And yes, I DID SEE HARRY POTTER! (And ate Rita's water ice maybe one billion times)

If you'll recall Beach week 2009 was, to put it mildly, a series of unfortunate events. But I can assure you that this year, no bones were broken, no one had any desire to go parasailing minus Kyle who had a bizarrely strong desire to go parasailing, no go-karts were raced and we had AC the *entire* week, which apparently we felt the need to put on super drive after the last house got us all paranoid about it going out of style. In fact there was only ONE trip to the emergency room for sliver removal, and it *may* have just been an urgent care center.

The bad news about nothing horrible happening is that I have nothing awesome to blog about. Minus the beach. And how awesome it was. And Harry Potter and how horrible it was. Another post for another day. But I can I just say I'm semi mad they killed off my favorite character of all time: SPOILER ALERT!!!!! Lavender Brown :(

There are over 1,000 pictures of this vacation. And I went through and flagged 102. Obviously, I won't do that to you. But here's a taste of how we spent our week:

Beaching:

A preview of a certain future BYU roommate situation

Mitigating trouble:

And by trouble I mean the three cutest babies on the planet.

Paying (out the nose) the ice cream truck a visit:

Beaching some more:

Surf lessons for the three oldest grandkids:

(on the only day with polar bear club initiation temperature waters)

Loving the blondes:

Ooga Boogaing:

If you don't feel it, I just CAN'T explain it.

Food Feuding:

True Color winners and possible lushes

Green Machine winners of the JAZZ HANDS award

Party in my tummy winners

Fancy Nancy award for the yellow team. YELLOW TEAM STINS. And no, that isn't a typo. They seriously stin.

The big winners... Everyone... (GREEN TEAM RULES! YELLOW TEAM STINS!)

The cutest grandparents a kid could ever ask for:

Pool time:

This picture is a little misleading, since it was actually Luke and ME who set the world record for number of consecutive jumps into a pool. Olivia was very supportive and cheered Luke on. She loved the pool, but she REALLY loved throwing stuff into the pool.

This was an odd game that involved a bit of blood, but it was fun...?!

Hot tubbing:

We minute-to-won-it:

Olivia spent a loooooooot of time jumping on this couch cushion:

We beached some more:

We sibling loved:

We cousin loved:

We just plain LOVED:

We beached some more:

We made an awesome sand couch:

And we spent the day in one of the best places on earth: Williamsburg! And Olivia LOVED the city of her birth:

AND I even got to hold Ruth's brand new baby Frankie Doodle Dandy. It was wonderful!

Leaving on a Jet Plane

2011-07-08T15:34:00.005-04:00

In less than 24 hours we're OFF! To the beach! For one glorious week!

And while the moderate to advanced stages of airplane with Olivia ANXIETY have definitely set in, tomorrow evening we'll be doing something along the lines of THIS:

Or this:

And it's going to be AWESOME.

See you when we're BACK!

From the BEST. VACATION. EVER.

(photos courtesy of beach week 2009)

P.S. My apologies in advanced for giving you no updated pictures of the world's cutest baby for the next week.

George Washington

2011-07-07T14:54:00.007-04:00

Did you know my nephew is a recovering cross dresser??

Did you know my daughter shares this unfortunate socially unacceptable behavioral issue??

I present to you; George Washington:
But let's be honest: tights, barrel curled wigs and very heavy handed brush strokes with the blush. Maybe it's the founding fathers who had the problem. Let's not forget the earliest rendition of the wedge heel.

Olivia, how do you feel about being a colonial cross dresser?

She was, after all, born in the Colonial Capital of these United States... thanks to the very modern euphoric invention of that wonderful thing we call an epidural.

Olivia LOVES to help out around the house:

Olivia sweeping the floor

Olivia stealing Jimmy's shoes so she can put them away at *OUR* house

Olivia taking the baby for a stroll on the couch wearing her favorite outfit ever: naked with blankey

Olivia cleaning up the mess she made with water with her toothbrushes that she has stolen from various house guests: she is also a conservationist

Olivia prowling the house for something to sponge

Olivia deciding we didn't get the squash out of her neck rolls

Olivia giving the floor a sponge bath

You get the point.

And since she loves to help out I decided to move the diapers to a place where she could actually reach them. Only too bad for me: when I ask for "a" diaper I get *ALL* the diapers she can get those tiny, pudgy hands on. But bonus: I also get the world's cutest George Washington impersonator.

Summer, summer, summer time!

2011-07-06T15:27:00.006-04:00

Summer. Hot. Swimming. Need I say more?

And water gun fight.

Kyle thought it would be fun to buy squirt guns. But I destroy him every single day.

Summer.

Babies are Disgusting

2011-07-04T21:43:00.004-04:00

Olivia has a bizarre obsession with Jimmy's high chair. And no, she doesn't eat in there either. But she does lounge in it, bounce around in it, and on occasion, make up a really nasty way of drinking her water in it... Olivia and Jimmy get a real kick out of each other...
Which is a good thing... Until it's a really BAD thing!
Jimmy drinking water off the floor. P.S. Jimmy can fold himself in half!

Parenting FAIL

2011-07-03T14:14:00.005-04:00

9:00 Last night:
Olivia is sick :( And last night... SHE LET US KNOW! Olivia did not go to sleep. In her defense breathing was a difficult task at the time. By 9:00 our poor little heart strings were being tugged SO hard by hearing repeated cries of "DADDY! and MAMA!" That we sprung (sprang? spronged?) her from that joint. Fail number one.

Fail number two: We popped her some pop corn.

Fail number three: And let her watch the Care Bears Big Wish movie on Netflix, which was quite the sacrifice on the part of one Skinner, Kyle T.

Fail number four: And then we decided since she was already up (bashful bashing, bashful bashing)... we walked her across the apartment complex to watch the Stadium of Fire fireworks show... at 10:30 at night. She LOVED it. She pointed, she clapped, she "WOWed." She ran away and promised to "Come back." Add that to her ridiculously over-used list of pre school SAT vocabulary words. She gave us one thousand hugs and snotty kisses. She got us numerous snotty looks from people wondering why our teeny baby was walking around without shoes, awake at 10:30 in the PM.

Fail number five: And then we let her finish her movie. Surprise twist ending believe it or not.

It's all about love and memories, RIGHT???

Words

2011-07-01T14:35:00.004-04:00

Olivia has a super vocabulary, or so I'm told! To me it sounds like jibberish, with a little whining, a lot of over the top excitement and real actual words with meaning here and there. And not to forget a lot of anxious pauses as I try to decipher the meanings of these long, unintelligible ramblings.

But seriously. She has a lot of words. Her two most recent are: stuck and broke. And not broke as in, she's penniless, although it actually is true minus a dime she keeps running and hiding every time I try to steal it from her. Broke as in she breaks everything. But cutely.

Back to the words.

Lately everything is either broke(n) or stuck. But only in appropriate situations! We've come a long way from labeling everything, including barnyard animals "MOM" and "DAD!" For instance if you pop the balloon animal the nice circus freak made you it's "BROKE!" or if you are precariously balanced on the ledge of the bathtub you're "STUCK!" The word is also applied to being sandwiched between the couch and the wall, under the toilet, yes under the toilet, or cowering in fear of a particularly terrifying toy poodle.

The flu is going around our house so it's a disaster but I got a few quick clips of Olivia showcasing her new words this morning:

broke (intentionally)

stuck

She's also started putting her words together and is making total and complete sense some of the time with VERBS and NOUNS!

For instance, this morning she was pushing her little toy car and across the kitchen I hear: "CAR! SHOE! STUCK!" Sure enough, her car was stuck on my flip flop!

And then at lunch time this happened:

Me: Olivia, are you read for lunch?

Olivia: Yeah.

Me: Okay go get in your chair.

Olivia: CHEESE, Yeah, CHEESE!

Me: Okay do you want cheese for lunch?

Olivia: YEAH! BREAD! JUICE! CHEESE!

And I know that's not the best example of her new found sentence loving due to the over use of nouns, but still! Olivia had, in theory, a lunch of bread, cheese and juice. Meaning one piece of each and an entire bottle of Pediasure for dessert. But let's think about this. She *requested* a solid diet (minus the juice, but that's been a battle, too). OLIVIA. That's progress, right?

Unpredictable

2011-06-30T15:47:00.008-04:00

There was a party at Kyle's work today. It involved this guy:

The ferociously lovable and carnivorously cuddly Leo the Lion, mascot of the REAL Salt Lake soccer team. And I know you're all wondering why on earth you should be impressed considering they can't even land the likes of hottie McHot Cleats David Beckham, but the truth is you really shouldn't.

And neither was Olivia. In fact she was down right petrified. The kind of fear that paralyzes you into gripping your mom's leg SO tight she wonders if your nail marks actually are harmlessly temporary or if she'll end up with reparative plastic surgery in the near future.

Olivia is SO unpredictable. I NEVER know how she is going to react to any given situation. And I know you're thinking you might be terrified of a cat walking upright instead of in a classic four pronged approach, but I honestly thought she'd love the beast.

And I know I probably shouldn't have judged her reaction to all wildlife ever by her love for ducks, but seriously. She loves those things:

Sunday we took a walk down to the little duck pond at BYU. But. We forgot bread. BUT that didn't stop Olivia from feeding them frosted flakes, goldfish crackers and an occasional fruit snack here and there.

And then she chased them.
And chased and chased and chased.
And Jimmy got chased, too:
And then Olivia started this new wackadoodle thing she does in the grass where she purposely falls over, perhaps to condition her ab muscles:
And then she chased stuff:

And seriously, I get that a furry, soccer playing feline does in no way equate to a waddling midget fowl. But for real. Aren't ducks like infamously dirty and protective over their icky gicky young? Side note, I HAD one of those disease-lings for a while.

I just have NO idea how her mind works sometimes. She loves fruit and loves water: shouldn't she love watermelon?? I mean, you get the point.

BUBBLES

2011-06-29T18:42:00.005-04:00

Olivia's been able to scream "BUBBLES" at me from a very teenty tiny age...

...Because they are one of her very favorite things.

Adaptive evolution.

Every morning Olivia demands two {or three} things: tooth brushes, YES PLURAL, and bubbles, YES SUPER PLURAL. And also to wear her Hello Kitty shirt, more on that later: it gets washed on occasion.

Olivia's hair has a nice soapy comb over crust. Permanently. And her teeth look like an albino on Christmas morning: from a combination of both over brushing AND chronic food refusal.

Love this girl.

Feelin' hot, hot, HOT!

2011-06-27T14:50:00.006-04:00

We don't have air conditioning. But at least it's BLAZING HOT! It's the kind of hot where your toothpaste melts into a gelatinous gak as it's coming out of the tube. Or your hair gets plastered to the side of your face and suddenly you feel like even your ears have sprung sweat glands. Or you lay flat on your back in bed begging for forgiveness of all your minor sins including sometimes picking your nose while babysitting and THEN flicking it. It's hot.

We're headed to the beach in a couple weeks, so Olivia and I went on the hunt for swimming suits. Olivia, diva of the century, decided to pick out her very own swimsuit: a sweet little Hello Kitty number:

And she LOVES wearing it. And she loves SOAKING Jimmy in it. And she LOVES "plish plashing" in it. Success.

The other day we went on a scavenger hunt through the bushes outside our apartments looking for any sort of water outlet with which to fill a baby pool. After coming up empty handed we filled it with a trash can and Olivia's easter basket and several thousands trips up and down the stairs for water. Oh, and our childless downstairs neighbors were kind enough to let us filter in and out of their apartment to speed the process along. Pretty ghetto, but still fun.

Next step: The Beach. In two weeks. BLAH! We can't wait.

My Very Favorite Person...

2011-06-25T14:32:00.004-04:00

(Kyle with 28 balloons)

... HAD A BIRTHDAY!!

Kyle is now 2 years from 30. Gasp! Gasp! Shock and Awe! But he looks so young when he actually shaves?! But it's true, he's now 28, and now I'm living with an OLD MAN! He can't even put Olivia down for a nap without falling asleep himself. That seriously just happened. And I sometimes have to butter his roll for him. And he drools sometimes at night. And he uses words like "skipper" and "hot diggity dog."

But anyway, he had a birthday! And not just any birthday, last night he told me it was his "BEST BIRTHDAY EVER!!" In all honesty, we set the bar pretty low last year when we moved out of our apartment in 105 degree heat, 100% humidity and made it to my parents at around 3AM when Kyle had to drive across the country beginning at 5AM the next morning. With my dad who insisted a pick-up truck could draft off a sedan. But the summer before that I did make him his favorite breakfast food with a side of fruit snacks, so I guess there was some pretty stiff competition. And the summer before that I actually ditched him on his birthday. Time flies.

We had planned on camping this weekend, but at the last moment Olivia got the runs instead so we opted out of a wilderness adventure sponsored by Pampers. That meant I had NOTHING planned for his big day. He'd even hand-picked every single one of his presents. That meant I had to think up something on the fly: cue 28 balloons, aka toddler heaven.

When Kyle got home from work he requested that we "do nothing," and that is EXACTLY what we did. Until we ditched Olivia, went to dinner and saw the most bad ace X-Men movie ever. It was boss. Seriously, that is a word Kyle uses. I bet he thinks parks still have swings, or maybe even merry-go-rounds. He's so old.

So happy birthday to my handsome, talented, smarty pants, hilarious, Pants!

Filtering Myself

2011-06-23T16:46:00.006-04:00

If I didn't have a filter on my mouth this post would be a lot more graphic. In fact it actually is fairly graphic regardless. If I had to think of one word to describe the past 24 hours it would be SHIZ, and not of the angry variety, of the yucky blucky brown and runny variety: diarrhea. Olivia has it. To the tune of 7 blown out diapers before nap time! And one of them while wearing a white dress. That one boils down to pure stupidity on my part, but still! SEVEN DIAPERS BEFORE NOON!

When I went to rescue Olivia from her crib this morning there was a stinker smile on her face. I know that smile, because I make that smile! Not when I paint the walls with my poop, that would be far too juvenile/animalistic/pure hard evidence for evolution but whenever I've done something specifically to make someone want to run to the Hair Cuttery and shave off every last inch of their hair, even the tiny hairs on the tongue rendering them incapable of taste and/or comfortable French kissing. Like continually inform Kyle that the Beatles are the world's first boy band. She stole that look from me, little butthead.

And if you didn't catch the point in that convoluted run-on: THAT GIRL WEASELED OUT HER PAJAMAS, FORSOOK HER DIAPER AND PAINTED ANYTHING WITHIN HER TINY 2 FOOT SOMETHING RADIUS WITH POOP. I have no idea how tall Olivia is, nor how tall two feet might be, this measurement is quite possibly a gross over estimate or under estimate. I really couldn't tell you.

So I made her clean it up herself:

Sucks to be me. She LOVED it:

She's got the crazy eyes going on only because she's SO excited to use a sponge.

YUCK.

Oh, and here's a picture from yesterday:

See all the happy neighborhood kids coming in for snack time. See Olivia running away so fast she trips on her own feet and falls flat on her face. The girl hates eating. And now I have proof.

I think we'll keep her:

Lucky Girls!

2011-06-21T15:16:00.007-04:00

One of the very first times I met Kyle he was wearing this exact same shirt:

"In Spain no means no."

And that same shirt sparked one of our very first conversations that lead me to forming my very first opinion of him: J-E-R-K! Whenever people ask us how we met I just have to laugh. I sometimes can't believe we're married with a baby when it truly was LOATHE at first sight.

But I have to say: how wrong I was! I love that Pants more than anything. I think we've all heard the quotable quote of last general conference, "Choose your love, love your choice." And I have to say, now more than ever, I love, love, LOVE my choice.

This might be bordering on the TMI/far too personal, but last, last month we went through the painful experience of miscarriage. That was one of those moments when life is in such sharp focus and you realize how truly lucky you are to be married to the person crying along side you.

I love June because I get to celebrate Kyle not once but TWICE (!) but I really love celebrating Kyle this June because he really is wonderful, amazing, insert all other synonyms for fantabulous and he deserves all the love and praise and partying this world can drop on him!

Kyle is the best dad and the best husband any two girls could ever ask for. And before you get all psycho defensive here is a little disclaimer: I absolutely *HATE* it when people comment and say no THEY are married to the best ever, because guess what: write it on your own blog, suckaaas! I'll silently disagree with you because Kyle really IS the best.

But this is honestly getting far too mushy for my style.

But before I end this love-sick tangent and end up ralphing out of the side of a moving vehicle, I have to say, one of the (many) greatest things about Kyle is how supportive he is of my talents. But let's be honest, Kyle is the one who fell out of the talent tree and hit every branch on the way down. We all know he sews and crochets and cooks like a five star chef (he even made his own father's day dinner!) and it's all well and good to send a little jab his way at a cocktail party, which he would never attend, but seriously in the end you have to admit he's talented.

Something I honestly admire about Kyle is how he can pick anything and everything up and be REALLY BOSS in the time it takes to flick a booger. Exhibit A:

Kyle's brand new amateur photography businesses! Kylie boo bear has started taking engagement pictures on the side and I have to say, so far: he's a hit! After like thirty point seven seconds of practice he's already perfect.

And he's half the gene pool on this exquisite beauty:

Olivia adores her "DADDY," and vice versa. They are a daddy-daughter match made in heaven (literally & figuratively) and I'm so lucky they're mine!

I could go on and on and on and on and on... Did you think that would ever end... all day about Kylie boo bear and his literal awesomeness, but if you know him, you're lucky enough to already be privy to this not at all classified information. So all I have left to say is: HAPPY FATHER'S DAY, PANTS! We love you way, way, way too much!

"It's Not Easy Being Green!" said Kermit the Frog, the LIAR

2011-06-18T08:49:00.009-04:00

Having a sister is the best. I love mine. To bits and pieces.

There is A LOT of text in this post. Fell free to skip down to the pictures now that you know I love my sister. But if you want to know why this particular incident merits such a wordy post, continue on:

But having a BIG sister (as in age, not in stature: my sister weighs less than you did in the sixth grade and could krav maga your butt into a trillion tiny but very sore pieces) is even better. Why? You have someone to teach you the realities of a menstrual cycle before those mandatory classes kick in at school sending you into a tailspened panicked frenzy a decade before yours actually shows up, you always have the "cool" factor at your birthday parties, there is someone else your mom will convince to get a boy hair cut before you have to go through that, there is someone on the planet that you can naturally look up to because they really do rock at life and last but not least: HAND-ME-DOWNS.

Why?

First: Hand-me-downs mean there are 4 tiny little people (no, none of them are clinically diagnosed as the PC version of "midget" but they are all shorter than me for the time being despite having a giant for a father. No, he's not an actual giant, he just appears so in most pictures and if you get within 5 feet of him) sleeping away in their beds in Arizona for you to LOVE forever and ever.

Second: A sentimental wardrobe that sometimes makes your motherly hormones shoot through your entire body and straight out of your eye balls in the form of free flowing tears every time you think about the two great girls who've been buttoned, zipped and sometimes full on squeezed into those exact same clothes before yours.

Third: Boxes upon boxes of marked "BOY" lounging around your house years before you're even thinking about trying to hope for a mixed chromosome to come screaming through your home.

As soon as my sister decided she was DONE, she (lovingly) packed up every single article of baby anything and shipped it to my front door. I love it. This included, toys, clothes and even the bedding on which Olivia is currently sleeping that everyone adores.

While I was hanging out with our neighbor yesterday (if time heals all wounds, it took her less than a day to forgive me for the puke-cedent, puke and incident smashed together, actually it took her less than three hours, we hung out that same night we got home) we were discussing weekend plans. Mine included spending as much time in my pajamas as humanly possible which is not surprising to anyone who knows me well, or even knows me at all, or has even heard anything about me. But hers included a wedding and Jimmy didn't have anything to wear. Cue my boy boxes! We got them down and in a half second Jimmy had a brand spanking old, but new to him navy blue polo.

And the kids found these:

Old Halloween costumes!

Olivia insisted she wear the frog costume for the remainder of the day. In June, in non-air-conditioned housing. Luckily we were having a 60 degree cold spell. Utah weather is bizarre.
We could not stop laughing as they walked around the house sporting the animal kingdom.

At points I was wiping tears from my cheeks and clutching my sides we were laughing SO hard.

They even ate their snacks off a plate like any well mannered animal would.

This picture needs no description: the tail says it all.

Olivia love, loves looking at pictures of herself on the camera. Olivia LOVE, LOVE, LOVED cracking up at herself as a frog on the camera.

We tried switching it up so Olivia could be the cheetah and Jimmy the frog, but Olivia was determined that she would make Pants proud. Have I ever mentioned Kylie Boo Bear's frog obsession? Well he has one, and he loved it. And he encouraged the frogly afternoon. It isn't at all original but as we get in bed we always say our highs and lows for the day. Kyle's: When Olivia was the frog for the high, and when Olivia had to get out of the frog costume for the low.

So there you have it. Thank you, Scuttlebutt for providing a fun afternoon! Thank you Utah for not fully embracing your desert climate, as of yet. Keep up the good work.

PS this is my EIGHTH post for June, when previously I had 12 for the entire rest of the months... Go me?

Who Would Have Known???

2011-06-17T10:26:00.005-04:00

... in a few hours, SHE:

.... would be PUKING all over the babysitter. SO SO SO SO SO SO SORRY to our wonderful neighbor (which I literally saw spelled NAYBORE yesterday) who had to preform a late night pajama change and chunk removal mission!

I owe her BIG time!

17 Months Going on 17

2011-06-15T16:50:00.001-04:00

Pants goes to work at 5 AM. But don't feel too sorry for us because he's home by 2:30. Some mornings when he sleeps in a half a second the trash doesn't end up making it to the dumpster until us girls get up and going for the day (if only we had Luke Wilkerson living with us). It really hasn't been an issue until Olivia decided that plastic bags were actually her purses.

This is a terrible picture, but I had to capture Olivia toting her TRASH around the house.

This is a disgusting habit. But also hilarious. She goes (rotten) BANANAS when she sees Kyle has left her such delectable and pungent treasure. She tosses those fine Wal*Mart brand handles over her shoulder, runs to me for a goodbye kiss straight on the pecker, waves, gives me a token, "buh bye, mom!" and heads for the door. She literally bids me farewell whenever she has appropriately pursed herself.

I feel like I'm living in some kind of flash-forward twilight zone where Olivia is a teenager who steals my car. Let's just hope her purse fetish evolves into something less revolting.

Olivia is a smart cookie and knows exactly where we keep our recycled plastic bags, today she insisted I allow her to pack her very OWN purse:

I have to give her points on practicality: an umbrella, sunglasses AND a thermometer. You just never know what you might get when you step out into the big, big world. Olivia was beyond giddy when I let her tote it around the neighborhood on our daily jaunt around. She had to show each passerby her SACK filled with goodies.

My child is so weird. Why is she SO cute??

A Weekend in Idaho

2011-06-14T15:53:00.008-04:00

Kyle:
Why so blue? It's Kyle's month: father's day and birthday plus early preparations for my half birthday AND pioneer day. What a whirlwind. And so, for his Royal June-ness, I surprised him with a brand spanking new camera lens, and by surprise I mean I had to give it to him two weeks early because I couldn't actually keep the surprise in that long. When Kyle got home he was through the roof excited to open his box, to find: ABSA-FREAKING-LOOTLEY NOTHING! Since I went all early and lame I thought I could make it up by taking him on a little scavenger hunt. Kyle was less than enthused. Until it was over. And then he admitted that scavenger hunts are the best ever. And he was right.

Here is Kyle on a journey around our ten foot by ten foot apartment:

And to celebrate we took a road trip up to heaven, aka Idaho:

And because me ditching Facebook means that I have lost the convenience of posting entire albums at once here comes a picture overload for the sake of my mother, the adorning grandmom:
THE greatest part about Idaho has to be my aunt Kristine. I'd say everyone has that fun aunt, but trust me, your fun aunt doesn't even compare to mine. She is literally the best human alive. I give her an A++++++ on an A+ scale. She's Olivia's favorite thing on the planet. Yes, even better than Care Bears and squash.

We even had an early birthday celebration for the one and only, Pants. Complete with Kristine attempting to light the cake with those things you light bunsen burners with, technical terms just drop out of my mouth:
It didn't work. And then, and I won't name names, someone gave us a lecture on how candles work.
And then we decided to light the cake with expired matches. Did you know matches could expire?? The things you'll find in my grandma's cupboard! Remind me to tell you about the time I was actually poisoned.
We took a short day trip out to Soda Springs. This is how Olivia felt about hiking up a very miniature mountain:

Ecstasy.
After we watched the Soda Spring geyser erupt/geyze (seriously I don't know the words for things) Olivia stomped around on top of it for awhile.

The bigger the puddle the better.

And if the ground bubbles at the same time, even better.

And to dry Olivia off we sat on these awesome swings that I desperately covet for awhile.

And then to the springs... where Olivia drank SO much soda water she turned into a belching machine.

Olivia refilling her glass
Olivia chugging.
Seriously, Olivia refilling her glass AGAIN.
Let me make sure you don't fall in...
Olivia took a break from drinking to explore.
And then went back to drinking...
Seriously, she loved that stuff...

Olivia needed a private place to go pass some gas...
On the way back we sang approximately 7 million and 1 rounds of the "Bidda bidda bidda bidda pider," aka the Itsy Bitsy Spider.

And when we got home we relaxed and played with Kristine...
And said lots of prayers. Olivia takes praying very seriously. If you want to come play with her, be prepared with a dozen or so things you're thankful for!

The Hunger Games

2011-06-09T16:59:00.005-04:00

I literally JUST finished The Hunger Games trilogy. Like seriously three minutes ago. If you're not completely hooked yet, go to Barnes & Noble and/or the hot mess that is Borders Book and pick them up, the library wait list just won't do. But before you go, feel free to absorb the incredible cuteness that is Olivia:

And seriously, if you haven't read the books yet: STOP READING THIS BLOG NOW.

And if you have:

Gale vs. Peeta?? I'm just not okay with how it ended. I literally cannot stand Peeta. I Literally need to get a word to replace the word "literally" as it literally drops out of my mouth literally every other sentence. And sometimes thrice in one, you're welcome. Or was it four? My vocabulary is literally lacking in synonyms.

But back to Peeta, he's a whiny love struck puppy dog that has no skill except manipulating people and in my head (but apparently not agreed upon by imdb.com) is super fat. I almost created a make-shift bonfire out of two chopsticks and the pages of book one when I had to sit through all their drawn out petty love scenes in book one. Oh my gosh, when she rescued him out of the mud, I literally wanted to reach into the book and strangle her. And then I wanted to slap Haymitch one thousand times across both sides of his face when he prolonged Peeta's sissy fest in the cave. SO BORING. And ew, ew, ew. I can't even think of a word to describe those cave scene except for: SILLY. And silly doesn't even begin to communicate the pure RAGE even thinking about the waste of twenties of pages conjures.

From that moment on I flat out hated that boy. And kind of hated the book to be completely honest. But I kept reading for one reason and one reason alone: Gale.

He's a stud, full of skill, protected her family over and over again and had much hotter kissing scenes.

I have a massive book crush on Gale. It might even rival my book crush on Ronald Weasley which some of you may know even included a giant poster hung on my wall throughout both high school and college, well until Kylie Pants came around.

I was slightly upset when he ran off to his cushy desk job in district 2, but let's be honest, Catnip (he even had a cute name for her, and we all know I'm a sucker for nicknames) DID just execute the Revolution's first President, really not one of her finer moments. That girl went nutso. And that can be my only explanation for why in the world anybody would ever, ever, ever choose the world's most annoying person to shack up with in the victor's village.

Okay, maybe not my only explanation. I can see they are the only two people who can possibly imagine what horrors they witnessed in the arena(s) BUT isn't this book written for middle schoolers?? Let's just give the people the ending they wanted: heart throb Gale Hawthorne.

My hate for Peeta literally oozes from my pores. This could be a serious tactic of the gamemakers, making hate ooze from the tribute's flesh.

WHICH, brings me to another point, that I unfortunately have to admit slightly redeems Peety Mc Sissy Pants, cake decorator extraordinaire: the vote on the second version of the Hunger Games. WHAT. THE. FLIP! I'm so angry at that girl. And before anyone goes on about this dystopian need for wounded characters who, in reality, have more baggage than could fit on a fleet of 747's, I don't care! Every character I liked became unlikable and every character I hated I hated because they became likable. And I don't care what that says about human nature or what point the author was trying to prove. YES, everything is FUBAR, even in the epilog (which I did appreciate) but I guess I did, foolishly, expect a more uplifting ending, whether or not it was unnecessary.

But I guess I probably would have been fine with everything if Gale ended up being the world's most bad ace father and Peeta was off somewhere as a politician.

Well, whatever. They were a good read and made some great points that I refuse to accept at this precise moment in time because I'm so upset about the way that whole love triangle thing shook down. If you're a Peeta lover, I stick my tongue out at you.

(Kyle is a Peeta lover, EW)

*PS Kyle argues that Katniss' choice was made for her since Gale ran away like a wussy loser, but all I have to say to that is: Peeta would have run away too if he were't completely wackadoodle himself!

Peeta is SOOOOOO neeeeeedy. BARF, barf, barf.

A BIG Day! (x2)

2011-06-04T16:23:00.006-04:00

It's not a secret: I L-O-V-E, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE making collages. In fact, I can see myself listing it as a "skill" on a resume in the future. Remember these?

Made for my sister on her "Hungarian Name Day" which was a very important holiday for her for one year and one year only

Part of an epic Girl's Night Out that involved a grown woman named Meredith McGuire Simpson peeing on my sister's carpet, this is NOT in fact Meredith to set the record straight, this is her sister Molly who has a picture of incontinence on this very collage

Collages are even part of my all time favorite scrubs quote:

JD: Oh! Can we cut words out of magazines that represent how we feel about each other and glue them into a "Friends Forever" collage?

Turk: He** No!

JD: Oh. Well, can we drink beers and reminisce?

Turk: He** YES!

JD: That's all I wanted to do anyway.

IN HEAD: Plus, I already made the collage.

That being said, it shouldn't surprise anyone that I've been sitting around waiting for the day Olivia was old enough to collage with me. Yes, it's a verb now.

We had a useless magazine sitting around that was only good for a free Harley Davidson T-shirt and an 89 dolla meal at some steak house for rich people, and since those things hold very little appeal for me (GASP!), I decided it was time for Olivia to be introduced to one of my very most favorite things ever.

And now I present to you THE finished product:

I know what you're thinking, and I should have prefaced this by reminding you that she is a 16 month old who cannot be trusted with either scissors OR glue. SO yes, that is an extremely well secured collage with vast quantities of tape covering it, two entire rolls! Worth it! Especially since no sniffing, licking or dismembering was involved. I think she's got a real gift!

I kept reminding Olivia that this was for Daddy, but she kept insisting on adding bits of torn, shredded and chewed on nonsense. Luckily her anything but nibble fingers had issues connecting these treasures with tape AND getting them onto the page.

AND on another completely different BIG DAY note, Olivia got her first pet!

Okay, so it's less of a real, breathing pet and more of an on-sale, fake, automated pet, but she loves it and we didn't have to break the Wymount housing agreement. BYU, you win this one and my inability to search for swimsuits on the internet because you've blocked all swimsuit sites for adult content, but I feel like in the end we're the REAL winners since we don't have to clean the tank or feed the thing. PLUS it comes with a slide and two itsy bitsy friends that I've rescued from the mouth of our neighbor on SEVERAL occasions.

And if you're totally confused because you're not LUCKY enough to know what a fin-fin is, click here.

It was on SUPER de DOOPER sale at wal*mart and it has been worth every. single. penny. It keeps her entertained the entire time I deep clean the house and or shower/do my hair/make myself up. I'm pretty lucky my child eats NOTHING, including all too appealing brightly colored microscopic "fushes," as Olivia calls it.

And there you have it, Olivia's big day!

If you're wondering...

2011-06-03T16:34:00.004-04:00

... How Olivia feels about bubbles:

SO pro-bubble. And if you're wondering how she feels about pig tails: SO con. She yanks on them constantly. I'm seriously considering taking my sister's advice and chopping off her hands. Thoughts?

Oh, and I buh-leted my Facebook account. I was wasting far too much time on that thing. And now, I'm the most productive human being ever. I'm writing a book and starting my own business. I'm probably going to get rich, so get on my good side while you can. PLUS my house is totally the cleanest ever. Facebook sucks... sorta.

Blue Eyes See Pretty Skies/ Care Bears/Grandma

2011-06-02T19:18:00.002-04:00

It's a Joachim curse-- we smile with our eyes closed. Like literally, as soon as the slightest chortle escapes from our usually wide open mouths (another curse) some weird tick starts in our brains and makes its way down to our eyes in mili-miliseconds until our eyes completely close. I've always been a tad on the sensitive side about it. In fact my entire family let me know before our wedding that I needed to spend some quality time in front of the mirror practicing my smile before my parents shelled out some serious wedding photographer cash. And I did, and my pictures were beautiful, but maybe they were a fluke, because I've lost my skills and now I have squinty snake eyes again. Suffice it to say, I hate my eyes.

With that being said, I'm always amazed when I look down and see this:

The most gorgeous blue eyes in the world! And seriously, who doesn't love a blue eyed girl? Maybe she hit the genetic jack pot or something, but I can't get over what a lucky mom I am... who does this thing belong to?

On a completely different note: I'm a winner. Not only because I literally have the world's cutest baby but also because I won my very first ebay auction. With a grand total of one bidder (me, myself and I) I scored an "amazing" deal on one million Care Bears, Olivia's most favorite "baby" ever. And yes "amazing" gets the quotation marks because let's be honest, now what are we going to do with one million Care Bears? And if you want to see for yourself what such a large quantity of anything looks like, here you go:

Okay. So it's not a million, but it is a bajillion. And I know that might be bigger than a million, but seriously does "bajillion" even actually exist? We bought in bulk, to say the least. We were so excited for the package to arrive that Kyle would obsessively check the USPS tracker online only to find out that it was out for delivery straight from the warehouse in... wait for it... MINNESOTA. We waited and waited. And then it came. While I was in the shower. And Kyle forced me to get out. I was literally dripping with excitement over the very sight of the box.

Olivia was napping and that may have been the first time in the history of this world and any other worlds that a mother was anxiously awaiting and praying for a premature baby wake up.

(this is not from THAT nap, but isn't she SUCH a cute sleeper?)

BUT. She woke up, and YAY is the word of the day:

Did I mention my wonderful, amazing, selfless and beautiful mom came for a visit? She taught Olivia how to laugh with her mouth covered. It. Is. ADORABLE.
Oh and Olivia witnessed a murder:
Okay. Not really, but what on earth IS that face?

JUMP ON IT

2011-05-30T16:13:00.011-04:00

Jump On It is is *literally* one of my all time favorite songs. It might never win a grammy, but let's be honest it takes the show in my heart. Our house is never as clean as the days Sir-Mix-A-Lot blasts over my iTunes on shuffle. And thanks to the epic rap movement of the mid-90s I now have a second generation JUMP ON IT lover living right in my very home:

THIS:Is my most favorite face in the world.

THIS:
Is what you get when a little booger learns to say "Cheese" when you get out them camera.

THIS:

Is what "jumping" looks like... and:

IT is SO fun.

THIS:
Is what it looks like when you sucker your grandma into buying you YET another baby doll...

And it is SO much fun.

THIS:
Is more jumping...

BUT:
Seriously, isn't she the cutest EVER?

I know, this post was picture overload and all I have to say to that is: YOU'RE WELCOME!

Waiting for Dad

2011-05-16T21:28:00.006-04:00

A typical afternoon.

"Olivia, guess who is almost home???"

"DAAAAAAAADDDDD!!!"

SPRINT TO THE WINDOW

WAIT PATIENTLY

RUN TO MEET DAD AT THE DOOR

"And guess where he is going to take us???"

"PAAAARRRRKKKKK!!!"

HAVE TOO MUCH FUN

CONCENTRATE TOO HARD

LOVE THE SUNSHINE

Olivia Hugs

2011-05-16T01:12:00.007-04:00

Olivia just loves giving our neighbor/main squeeze Jimmy hugs. It really is one of those bizarre obsessions like candy corn or french fries dipped in chocolate milk shakes-- she can't get enough. The only problem is, the hugs go something like this: 1. I could die of sweetness, that darling girl is giving such a loving hug

2. Oh my gosh, she just took him down like a rabid predator

3. Holy sweet and sour chicken, does she have him in a head lock?

*Bashful, Yes*

And then Jimmy has to be rescued:

But not for long:
She's *very* persistent:We're sorry, Jimmy, she just loves you *SO* much.

And if you're wondering how Olivia falls asleep after a long day of WWF wrestling:

Like an angel.

Livy Loving

2011-05-13T21:24:00.007-04:00

OKAY, thanks to Armenoush, the blog is BACK! But the comments are gone. I'm such a loser.

I keep threatening to delete my blog. It is a lot of pressure, and the chronic acne on my face lets the entire world know, I don't deal well with pressure. But my sister assures me that these will be priceless memories. And I know I have a lot to catch up on, but that is stressful, so I'm not going to catch up, at all. I'm just going to start now!

And since mother's day just peaced out, you get a full-fledged gaggy post about how much I love being Olivia's mom.

Before Olivia was born I would doodle her name on the side of my class notes in bubbly, cursive, curly-qued, sparkly gel pen. Once or twice I got the icky feeling that nosey neighbors might think I had taken a lesbian lover, but then I remembered the 10 pound tumor on the front of me *probably* indicated otherwise. Plus, I made sure to wear my wedding ring until the day my gestational obesity made it impossible.

But that's off topic. The point is, I would just write it over and over again, "Olivia Madelyn, Olivia Madelyn, Olivia Madelyn Skinner." But I had no idea, sitting there, ditching the history of Native American Indians how much LOVE that little girl would bring into our home.

Before I birthed our teeny princess someone gave me the advice, "just so you know, you're about to fall in love all over agin." And they were right.

There are tiny mis-matched shoes sprawled all over my house, a half eaten PBJ on the counter, sticky fingerprints on my window from waving goodbye to Kyle Pants and a little stinker singing at the top of her lungs instead of napping in her crib but 479 days later we love Olivia Madelyn Skinner more than ever.

Some days I have to pinch myself to make sure I'm lucky enough to be HER mom. Side bar: I actually had a dream about pinching myself the other night, so I find the entire theory a little questionable but I did pop a zit this morning and it got on the mirror so that seems like far too complex an action to *not* be real, right?

Olivia will come up to me and press her head against mine and then laugh hysterically. It might be a little masochistic game she plays, but boo ya to her, I love it. Every single time I grab those infamously chubby cheeks, squeeze them together and tell her, "I love you, Olivia Madelyn!"

I have this crazy little image that I replay in my head all the time. Olivia is a teenager and we're sitting on her bed, and I still have icky blonde-brown muddy hair, still best buddies, and she asks me what she was like as a baby. I pause and then tell her, "You were absolutely nuts."

Olivia has all these little quirks, that always make me wonder, "is this normal?"

First it started with the scooting instead of crawling and then the hippo teeth popped out instead of the two middle teeth. And then! The walking. Blindfolded. Olivia began walking only when blindfolded. I know this is way old news, but it's one of those OLIVIA memories I'd want if I ever suffered from a stroke.

At almost 16 months Olivia LOVES:

* Playing hide and go seek

* Being wild and crazy ALL.THE. TIME.

* Baby Dolls

* Shoes

* SQUASH, SQUASH, SQUASH

* Bubbles

* Going outside

* Giving hugs

* Jumping

* Pillow Fights

* Going down the big slide by herself

* Coloring in circles but only when I have drawn a smiley face inside them

* Pushing her doll stroller everywhere

* Climbing on and off things

* Blowing kisses

* Telling everyone to "shhhhh"

* TALKING all the time

* Stealing toothbrushes

* DANCING

Olivia HATES:

* Eating

Olivia hates eating so much we had her evaluated by a nutritionist and actually things are starting to improve. It's standard procedure for the nutritionist to preform developmental screening on every child she sees so we now have confirmed what we'd always thought, that Olivia is in fact genius child. She scored in the 99th+ percentile in every category, minus eating :(

I don't think they tested her on sharing though... Olivia is terrible at sharing. I expressed my concerns to Pants about this to which he replied, "She's pretty, pretty people just get what they want." And it's true. I guess the moral of this entire blog is, she's gorgeous, brilliant, hilarious and MINE!

Here are some pictures of my favorite thing in the entire world: Olivia.

I wrote a blog like two days ago...

2011-05-13T16:09:00.001-04:00

... WHERE DID IT GO??

I'm trying not to freak out.

Loyal Heart Dog

2011-02-27T18:27:00.005-05:00

Baby dolls reign supreme in our house. Olivia wanders the house with a doll tucked under her arms at all times.

It got to the point that we were contemplating investing moolah into a crow bar just to pry stuffed animals out of her arms at nap time and bed time before I finally let her take a "baby" to bed with her. I know it sounds heartless, but Olivia will play with baby dolls for hours on end and I wanted her to actually *sleep* in her crib instead of telling jokes and trying to breast feed teeny forest creatures. But finally I caved.

Olivia had always had a bizarre attachment to her boyfriend Jimmy's Care Bear Cousin Loyal Heart dog and one day his mom let Olivia borrow it. Olivia cuddles that thing for hours on end. SO when I tried to yank it from her and replace it with a doll we *actually* owned, Olivia pitched a fit that would make Mike Tyson proud, yes that DOES mean the biting stage has officially begun! So I let her take it to bed, and not surprisingly her Care Bear devotion has since skyrocketed.

The problems:

1. We don't own this Care Bear Cousin

2. This Care Bear Cousin is no longer being manufactured

3. This Care Bear Cousin is not only blue, but not even one bit girly

4. Olivia now believes we are push overs and that she can take anything to bed with her- including a tube of lipstick

Our wonderful neighbors have assured us that since Olivia's love for Loyal Heart Dog is so true, she can just keep him. But we are on the hunt for a suitable replacement.

We've tried pulling switcheroos on her with our own expansive stuffed animal collection but all this has done is produced a new attachment to her Olivia doll. Olivia must now sleep with the Pig/Dog combo twins at all time.

And now I give you, Olivia and her babies:

Loyal Heart and Olivia the Pig eating breakfast

Olivia proud of her mothering abilities

Olivia pretending to sleep with her babies

Olivia cracking up that she tricked me into thinking they were asleep

Olivia and a random baby

A very typical view of Olivia

Olivia picked these outfits out for her babies

Olivia also picked out her own fancy outfit

The Ear Infection that NEVER Ends

2011-02-25T13:21:00.004-05:00

Ear infections. I've had them a time or two. Most recently after riding a roller coaster in the dead of winter and in the dead of night. I guess I was asking for it. And I knew, with motherhood, it wouldn't be the end of my run-ins with the combination of those two simple words, but little did I know my winter would come to be defined by them.

Back in January we caught Olivia's first ear infection. After a round of antibiotics it seemed to be Over with a capital O. Until her well-check when they caught the second ear infection, in the same ear, that was later decided to be the first ear infection rearing it's ugly head, again. Flash forward to the end of February and we've been on and off with the same ding dang ear infection in the same ding dang ear for two months now.

Today we made a trip to the ENT. I opened the window to show Olivia the freshly falling winter wonderland outside our window. If there is one thing Olivia loves *almost* as much as me it's fresh snow. If you know me, you know I hate snow, so it serves me right that I get a crazy head thrill seeking baby who loves danger and loves snow. By the time I was ready to head out the door Olivia was insistent on the snow suit so I plopped her in the sled and we went down the street on an off roading adventure to the doctor.

And when we got home, Olivia was introduced to her very first mug of luke warm cocoa!

Well, the ENT has decided we're not headed for tubes, yet. So we're on our very last round of antibiotics. Fingers, toes and nose hairs crossed that we won't have the diarrhea issue of antibiotic number three which involved an overnight poo that ended up soaking through a diaper, her pajamas, a sheet and a mattress and was puddled up on the floor when I went into get her one morning.

I have to say, for a girl who has had the ear infection that never ends, she's been a little trooper. She's sleeping great and playing like a champ. We even made a weekend trip up to Idaho where we were spoiled and spoiled by the world's best aunt.

And because a post isn't complete without some pictures, here's some recent pictures from our photobooth:

OH, and in other news: Olivia can walk! The doctor said the ear infection has been throwing her balance off, but she's conquered it on her own and she is killing it!

There's Still So Much To Do...

2011-02-19T12:58:00.011-05:00

Have you ever met Olivia the pig?
We read our collection of Olivia books from start to finish at least two times a day. Partly because Olivia the human loves to turn pages and partly because we can't get enough of that sassy little pig. It actually gets really confusing during the Olivia(s) hour when we read Olivia to Olivia who is holding her Olivia that she sleeps with. Well, Olivia the doll and the loyal heart care bear cousin dog she stole from her boyfriend make it into the crib, but more on that later.

I'm always telling Kyle I hope our Olivia is just like Olivia the pig. She's well read, cultured, has the world's biggest imagination and hates cats. Kyle on the other hand, will never forgive her for making her mother slave away at the sewing machine on a brand new soccer jersey all day to not even thank her or try it on. I guess he just identifies with the unappreciated seamstress.

My aunt got our Olivia a little pig Olivia to-do list notepad that reads, "There's Still So Much To Do..." Every time I see it I can't help but crack up thinking about what might be on Olivia's notepad: Ride a camel, Drive my mom nuts, Try on every single thing in my entire closet, you get the point.

Today when I was putting Olivia down for her first nap I realized how hard it must be for Olivia to take a forced rest when, really, there is still so much to do...

Like:

Build a fort that makes a crazy baby say, "WHOA! WOW!"

notice the mad-wink eye, it's genetic

Create Art Masterpieces and hang them in the gallery known as the coffee table:

Olivia will "draw" for a few seconds, sometimes she might even press hard enough to make a mark, tear the paper off and then hangs it on the coffee table.

Brew a "Wutch" stew full of zoo animals:

This is one of Olivia's favorite things to do. She gathers the zoo animals and throws them into her drum, stirs them with a wisk and cackles wildly. Whenever she wants to play she comes up to me pointing and says, "wutch, wutch, wutch!"

Read one thousand books:

Olivia will read entire books herself, laughing at all the appropriate parts even if the book is upside down and backwards

Tend to a well dressed, well fed and well salted baby doll:

Olivia is such a little mommy. She always makes sure her baby has breakfast, lunch and dinner as well as socks to keep her feet warm and a hair bow for extra beauty. She also loves to burp the baby, which is odd because I haven't burped Olivia in months.

Do a couple silly dances in a silly outfit your dad absolutely HATES:

Kyle is so happy these pants are getting short on those scrumptious little leggies

Turn the witch's brew into a train:

Olivia, we love that imagination!

All before a 10:00 nap!

Feeling the LOVE

2011-02-18T13:29:00.012-05:00

Olivia's had an eternal ear infection and so we've all spent a lot of time feeling like this: In fact, on this particular day she was so feverish and clammy that we've contemplated burning these particular pajamas because they are completely and totally SOAKED in SICK.

On top of that, Kyle ran a fever of 105* for five days straight, and I decided to re-read the Harry Potter series which is more than a little dark-- I'm definitely feeling a little bit of a winter slump.

But then Valentine's Day hit and I realized, that I really do have so much LOVE in my life right now.

For instance:

The most beautiful baby who wakes up from naps feeling like this:

The best husband and dad a girl could ever ask for:

The best family ever:

A funny girl who can and does play with her babies all day:

(even if she does feed them contact lens solution)

Or who really likes to get jiggy with it:

And MIGHT, one day walk somewhere besides in her crib:

And the most amazing neighbors:

And fattening snack food that MUST be kept in the house for Olivia's high calorie diet

That wound up being pretty sappy, and not at all tooting hilarious. I fail. But I do feel a little less blue, so that's good, right?!

Cooped Up

2011-02-01T14:30:00.004-05:00

Winter. Blah. End already. Once my birthday is over, January is useless to me. In fact all of winter can just go eat worms, or do something more obscene that is totally not blog appropriate. This year, I held on exactly one week for Olivia's birthday but now I make an official declaration that after the 17th of January, winter blows and no good can or will come of it. Okay, I'll keep January 18th, because it's my sweet and spunky niece, Sadie's birthday and we have a January Girls Club complete with a secret booty shake. But seriously. THAT IS IT.

So here's what we've been up to despite my frostbitten bad-ittude:

1. Dreaming of Summer.

I'm running out of indoor activities so today we declared it water day. Olivia has been splashing around in water, drinking water, even of the flavored variety and painting the walls with my cooking brush.

2. Loving chairs.
Nobody really understands it, but Olivia has an intense love of chairs. Any chairs, all chairs, she doesn't really discriminate, but she goes APE whenever she sees a chair. My parent's got her the little rocking chair for her birthday and she's become little miss lazy bones. She makes me bring her cookies and lotion her all day long.

3. No handsing.
Olivia is a bit of a wimp and hates to let go of things, so we always scream NO HANDS at her. She has become quite accustomed to the impromptu parties we throw every time she graces us with steps and so she will do NO HANDS whenever possible, even if she is sitting!

4. Playing with "babies."
Olivia is such a little mommy. Some days she just plays with her "babies," as she calls them, all day. She feeds them, sings to them, shows them her toys and will sing and rock them to sleep. She also cooks them eggs in her little kitchen.

5. Hanging out with Olivia's boyfriend.
This is Olivia's main squeeze, Jimmy. He conveniently lives next door and Olivia just adores him. Sometimes she will just go to the door and start saying, "I love you," to let me know she wants to go play with Jimmy. And by play I mean, she will sit on his lap, push him over to crawl all over him, steal his toys and use him as a stepping stool to get wherever she needs to be. But seriously, it's true love. I guess she's just a feminist.

6. Growing crazy hair.
Olivia's hair is getting curly! She has two complete ringlets on each side of her hair and I am seriously freaking out because every single evil child I ever babysat had curly hair. But seriously, doesn't that little ringlet break your heart? It is SO precious!

7. Being a true digital native.
Olivia loves technology. She's figured out any and all digital equipment and loves to have music to boogie down with. The girl loves to dance and she will find any means to play that funky music, white girl.

8. Playing, playing, playing.
Clockwise from the upper left: Chocolate melts, so try not to use it as a distraction while you cut fingernails. My aunt Beaney is here, Olivia's favorite person. It's been so cold I haven't gone to do laundry so Olivia is living in onesies and leg warmers. Babies and a chair = Olivia's perfect combo. Finger paint with a one year old is never a good idea, apparently it is very tasty, as approved by Kyle Pants.

9. Reading lots and lots of books.
Olivia gets realllly into books.

10. Stepping on Daddy's head
Isn't physical humor the best?

11. A Birthday Treat.On Olivia's birthday we took Ashley to the Creamery. Olivia's special treat, try not to barf: French Fries dipped in Ice Cream.

And now it has to be asked, WHY IS MY BABY SO CUTE?

Ham Biscuit

2011-01-28T16:35:00.005-05:00

THIS GIRL is a ham. Our neighbor commented that she's never seen a baby with such a strong personality before Little Miss Queen Diva, as we lovingly refer to Olivia in our house.

Enjoying a roll for Breakfast with her patented "I Got a Roll," dance

THIS WEEK: Olivia is a neat freak, and not in a good way. Her obsession with the vacuum cleaner would be much cuter if it didn't mean she spent a majority of the day purposely smashing crackers into the carpet and then demanding I let her push the dyson around the floor at the rate of one half an hour for one singular, shattered, saltine mess.

THIS GIRL never fails to put a smile on my face.

Blah, Blah, Blah I Never Blog Anymore...

2011-01-27T19:11:00.004-05:00

... But I want to!

The thought of catching up has given me the following clinically diagnosed symptoms:

1. Severe knots in my back from sitting down at a very uncomfortable chair/desk combo to get all non-commitmenty with this blog and never, ever hit publish.

2. Anxiety zits, primarily on the chin and inner nose region. Also one or two on the sexy upper lip, or maxillary as I learned in my brief stint in anatomy.

3. Minor heart palpitations with a few close calls thrown in there. No hospitalizations, mainly because I can't find my driver's license. Shhhh, don't freak out, dad, I'll find it, I'll find it!

4. Pee shivers, which is both disgusting and far too much information, also a condition more people suffer from than are willing to admit to.

5. Conjured up images of what happens if you take a chicken's skin off while the chicken is still living.

So, I'm just not going to catch you up.

Here comes picture diarrhea:

1. We shed clothing in Arizona:

2. We did not become Jewish:
3. My very best birthday present: not having to pose in pictures:
4. Kyle did not implode, despite having my clone on our floor for a week:
5. The world's cutest baby turned one:

The end.

I hereby proclaim that I will make a valiant and honest effort to blog at least biweekly, so long as circumstance permits. Worthy exemptions include but are not limited to: unforeseen fatal illnesses, uncharacteristically lengthy power outages, mass calamities, alien abductions or pure and simple laziness.

Sincerely, an Apologetic Kathleen who begs your loyal readership

World's Cutest Baby: In Action

2010-11-21T23:51:00.005-05:00

Much to the dismay of Kyle Pants, I came back from Arizona a Radio Disney addict. It all started when I realized I would have a heart attack if Olivia started picking up anything from the music I was listening to. Think:Boyz in the Hood or any and all country. Clearly a love, only a mother would know.

So I've been blasting the sweet rhythms of Selena Gomez and the Jonas brothers non stop for a couple weeks now. One night I was jamming out to Soul Sister which I'm skeptical about because I think it might be about a one-sided, creepy, online relationship, but in between trying to crack that code, there was a line, "I don't want to miss a single thing you do." And with little miss queen diva, I really don't!

So here come way too many videos of what we like to call, Olivia's Party tricks. Feel free to watch all, or none, but I promise, you won't be sorry! If your name is grandma, or grandpa or aunt, you're actually legally obligated to ooooh and ahhh over every single one. Sorry.

(apologies for the terrible quality, they are all off our cell phones, we do have a video camera we might charge one of these days.)

1. Olivia's locomotion and love of destruction. The floor is a disaster in most of these videos because Olivia is a tornado these days. Olivia can now officially crawl, but she much prefers the scoot. We get a lot of compliments on it.

2. Bedtime ritual. Being awesome.

3. Playing Peekaboo. Olivia literally started doing this all by herself one day and now does it constantly. I will find her with a piece of junk mail, playing with herself in the window.

4. Car seat. Olivia will literally laugh at anything.

5. Being Scared. My knees are sore from doing this all day.

6. Scaring people. Olivia apparently caught the Halloween bug.

7. Growling for supper. If you only watch one video, watch two, and watch these.

8. Saying "tickle, tickle" to inanimate objects.

9. Olivia loves to collect these tiny acorns at the park. She will hold onto them for hours on end. As soon as we get inside she plays with them in her little giraffe toy meant for balls. Again with the horrific floor, it's the aftermath of tower building.

10. The toothbrush game. Another nightly ritual.

11. Destroying the blinds.

12. Kissing and tickling the wall.

13. Okay, ignore me in this one, I was in desperate need of a shower. Olivia really loves it when we shoot things at her. I have no clue why. She's weird.

And if you made it through all those videos and can pass a simple quiz I will actually send a handcrafted something to your home. Seriously. Try me.

Happy Halloween!

2010-11-08T22:32:00.004-05:00

The best day of my life is the day Olivia learned how to growl. That day was not Halloween.

Although her growl would have been a handy trick to have at the time, considering her Halloween costume terrified her... And yes, she was a cheerleader.

Which, it has been brought to my attention, might actually offend you. And not just because BYU is the suxor this year, the costume was on serious mark down, okay not really, that was a lie... but apparently cheerleader is not an age-appropriate costume for a 9 month old. Witness a very real conversation I had with a Wal*Mart employee just hours before Halloween festivities began:

Over zealous busy body Wal*Mart employee: What is this little beauty going to be fore Halloween?

Me: A cheerleader!

OZBBW*ME: Isn't she a little young for that?

And that is the story of how my child skanked up her very first Halloween costume. Let's pray this isn't a foreshadowing of bunny ears, hooker heels and teeny tiny bushy tales to come.

In other news, Halloween also showed us that Olivia grasps the very abstract concept of disembodied limbs. Kyle poked his finger through a teeny tiny hole and started wiggling it. Olivia turned around to see the jiggling lifeless limb and let out a bone chilling scream heard throughout the valley. The poor little thing was stuck in her nightmare costume and hyperventilating over her father's amputation. We preformed this trick several times to test whether or not she truly couldn't stomach the sight, and really truly it freaked her out.

If I had to sum up Halloween in one sentence: Olivia is the world's cutest fraidy cat.

I'm so glad you're my baby!

2010-11-06T21:59:00.010-04:00

And now a rant.

Olivia *still* doesn't sleep through the night. I'm craving sleep like a moonlighting cruise ship entertainer. And it might be coming from a very warped perspective, but I'm about 99.9% sure she's the only baby in the history of the universe who is still waking up once a night to nurse. Well minus our next door neighbor's newborn "baby" who we're half convinced is actually a cat shrieking in heat. But you get the point. Actually while we're off on that little tangent, I might as well throw in the other two babies we're encircled by since I had a surround sound wake up call from all three of the infants/kittens 45 minutes before my *actual* baby rang in the morning bells.

But the point is, I've been frustrated. It doesn't help that everyone who has ever had a baby or plans to have a baby likes to brag about their child's (and or cat's) or future child's (and or future cat's) sleeping habits. I can't log into facebook without hearing glorious tall tales of 12 hour stretches, the proud and well rested make me sick. I will punch you in the face. I will.

In the wee hours of the morning I found myself pulling a bachelor-reject and sobbing my eye balls clear out of their sockets. I was right in the middle of explaining to Kyle that, for the sake of survival, we need to pull some sort of clandestine baby switcheroo with an obese counterpart so we could trade our snack by nighter with a milk coma-ed baby that was too lazy to cry out for milk when the midnight munchies strike.

And now a gush.

And in the midst of this nonsensical hysteria I started to feel guilty and weepy about my original weep fest. Plus cat baby was meowing a meow to end all meows, and I felt sorrier for our mystery neighbors who never leave their house.

Olivia is incredible. She is bursting with personality, literally a firecracker, that's why I have to change her diaper so much. A flight attendant once asked me how relieved I was to know that when people tell me I have the world's most adorable baby they weren't just being polite. It's true! She's gorgeous, hilarious, nothing short of a genius and I may never have another baby because nobody will ever compare to this little stinker.

For instance. Today she is suppose to be napping. I keep hearing uproarious cackles, giggles and shrieks coming from her room. She's shouting, "TADA, gigglegigglegiggle TADA gigglegigglegiggle, TADA..." I turn on the video monitor to find her pants-less, sitting straight up turning the pages of her favorite book. How she managed to sneak a book IN and finagle her way OUT of her pants is beyond me. But there she is, NOT sleeping, AND being awesome. Skills.

She may not sleep, but I'm so lucky to spend my days, and my nights, with her. I could go on, but I'll, save that for my journal. If you are the grandmother of Olivia, feel free to request a copy. All other readers (if there are any left after my slight blogging hiatus) I'll truncate this thing for your sake(s).

Dear Olivia-

You're a mess, you're the world's worst sleeper and your poo smells like all the planets went rotten and got tossed into the same garbage.

But, I'm so glad you're my baby! Of all the babies we could have gotten, I'm glad we got you.

Love, Mom

She may not sleep, but she's awesome.

P.S. Yes, Olivia is 100% naked in that picture. Two blogs in a row. Shall we go three?

Diaper Free and Here to Stay

2010-11-03T13:28:00.004-04:00

So $$$Bags Rogers, aka Scuttlebutt, aka Linda as she so desperately wanted to be referred to in her youth, aka Madelyn Elizabeth is having me turn her blog into a book for cold, hard cash so recently I've been ROFLMAO over all her ollld posts. It just so happened that I stumbled upon this little gem, entitled A Bath Heals All Wounds, the very day it would come in handy.

Cliff's Notes version: Toddler Ellie, having a rough day, draws herself a frigid bath to make herself perkier because she's not allowed to touch the hot water handle. Her evil mother forces her to sit in the iceberg habitat and cackles are heard throughout the land.

And just like the REAL Cliff's Notes, part of that didn't actually happen. I'll let you decide.

So anyway. Ever since Olivia came down with the stomach flu she'd been on some sort of organized sleeping strike. And since Olivia is one to spread the love around, she's been protesting both day time napping and night time rejuvenating. I was going nutso. At one point I may have even penned an advertisement for craig's list: 100% WHITE BABY IN NEED OF HOME.

And then I realized no one would willingly purchase an insomniac. Something had to be done. So I went on a crusade to find the best sleeping books, toyed with the idea of using herbal remedies and begged a leading sleep expert to come to my tiny Provo apartment. No such luck. Instead I began the process of intensely scheduling Little Miss Queen Diva.

I won't go into the boring details, but the first few days were miserable. Many similar craig's list/ebay and flea market ads were written. I even signed myself up for a good sleeper next baby around. Fingers crosses someone upstairs deems this baby wish list legitimate. At one point Olivia Madelyn Skinner and I were engaged in a nap time stare down, seniorita whiny pants was in town. And that's when a light bulb magically clunked itself right down on my head: A Bath Heals All Wounds.

True story.

Olivia is a water baby. She loves it in all forms: kicking her scrumptious baby legs across swimming pools, splashing so much at bath time the sink is bone dry, trying to drink out of puddles, drinking piping hot water straight from the tub, chugging her sippy cup, whatever. If it's water, she's down. One of these days she's going to sprout a seashell bra and a tail, I swear.

We've even trademarked a bath time song in her behalf: You are the splashing queen. Young and sweet, your name's Livy Bean. Splashing queen, soaking us all you are getting clean, OH YEAH. You can splash, you can dive, having the time of your life. OOOOOH See that girl, watch her glean, she is the splashing queen.

And it worked. Senorita whiny pants high tailed back to her dark cave where she belongs and my girl came right back. The only problem: she then went on a diaper strike.

Is it weird that I would rather clean up the aftermath of hours sans diaper than deal with whining?

The girl loves being naked:

100% naked that is.

There are some priceless shots of this nudist scooter ride, but I'm keeping this blog PG.

Title In Progress

2010-10-30T21:37:00.008-04:00

I straight up blog-napped this picture idea from Stacey Wilkerson... But you get the point:
I've often wondered what my life would be like if I weren't Mormon. Kyle claims he'd have full on tattoo sleeves, but I think that's a lot of talking the talk for a walk he's never going to have to walk. On a day like today, I'd probably be settling in for a nice glass of wine, but instead I'm polishing off the last of the cold water and squeezing my nostrils together as tight as humanly possible to avoid the stench of Olivia's latest blow out wafting through the house.

And today, Olivia was awesome. She napped like a champ, smiled like a colgate model, and may have even solved world peace, or at least several domestic disputes in the neighborhood with her winning smile.

But...

Let me tell you, this is the face of Trouble:

1. At some point Olivia was roaming around the house with a roll of toilet paper. I didn't think much of it, because lately she's been pulling herself up on the garbage can and toting messy diapers around the house so I felt this was a drastic improvement*. And then I went to the bathroom. No toilet paper. Anywhere. Zero rolls, zippo, nada, nuthin. I've torn the house apart but I have no idea where the little stinker has them stashed.

2. While I was doing my hair, Olivia got herself wedged behind the toilet. When I went to rescue her, I found her contentedly playing with one of my flip flops and an ice scraper.

3. While doing the dishes, Olivia managed to empty a bottom drawer in the kitchen and climb inside it. I look down to find her dangling off the edge like a beached whale licking the floor.

4. While I was vacuuming, Olivia somehow managed to hoist herself onto the second shelf of our dvd stand. I rushed over to find her knocking on the wall on the other end. This made me very proud since we have been working on knocking all week. This did not make the neighbors who have a new born baby right exactly on the opposite side of the wall proud.

5. This last one didn't happen today, but who makes a list of 4,? We had to round it out a little. At church on Sunday, Olivia scooched over to a baby quite a bit younger than her, and quite a bit bigger, stole his toy and scooched away. Then she scooched right back to yank his pacifier out and scooched as fast as she possibly could to get under a row of chairs so I couldn't reach her. This girl is a bully. A teeny tiny bully. She has it coming once those kids can get around.

But we'll keep her.

Stay tuned: Halloween to come!

* I am serious, Olivia's favorite toy is a diaper and she knows exactly where we keep them. We even wrapped up a clean diaper to make it look dirty and have written CLEAN across it so she can play with it. She loves it.*

The Princess and the Pea

2010-10-25T19:16:00.012-04:00

We're in the middle of a marathon move that is about to get picked up by the slow bus, but I vowed to be a better blogger, so here's the 411 on the Skinner clan:

1. The stomach flu made it's way through town. It was seriously the capital of puke over here for a couple days and Olivia was Commander In Chief, or Commander In Chuck, whatever. We're now happily in post vomit mode, but Olivia has decided sleep is not only optional but should be met with high pitched protests.

2. But we still lover her.

3. I chopped all my hair off.

4. And it got super cold. I like to title this picture: OH MY FREAKING WORD IT IS FREEZING, NO I WILL NOT WEAR THAT HAT AND WHY AM I ON A SLIDE? Watch your mouth, Olivia!
And that's about it. A cross town move sounds so easy, but nothing is easy smack dab in the middle of midterms, is it?

And since Vomit-ville has now switched over to Bores-ville I'll leave you with a gem from my trip to Arizona.

Picture this thing:

... Shoving produce up her nose...

So we're sitting around the dinner table, having a very educational and spiritual round of dinner-time FHE with the bishop and his wife. Maddy is teaching us all about the Three Nephites when out of the corner of her eye she spots little miss queen diva, Sadie Michelle Rogers shoving peas up her nose.

A fit of outrage overtakes the bishop's wife and she turns into someone who might possibly look like this:

(Maddy doesn't think she looks "crazed" enough in this picture. But I think she looks just crazy enough, very prone to spaz outs...)

But with a lot more anger in her eyes, and just as animated, "SADIE! WE DO NOT PUT PEAS UP OUR NOSES. WE DO NOT PUT ANYTHING UP OUR NOSES, OR IN OUR EARS. IT WILL GET STUCK UP THERE AND WE WILL HAVE TO TAKE YOU TO THE DOCTOR AND THE DOCTOR WILL HAVE TO CUT OFF YOUR NOSE OR YOUR EAR AND HE WILL SAY, 'SADIE WHY DID YOU PUT A PEA UP YOUR NOSE?' AND YOU WILL NOT HAVE AN EAR OR A NOSE FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE... (you get the gist...)"

To which Sadie replies, "AUNT LOLA WHY DID YOU PUT A PEA UP MY NOSE??"

Excusemewhat? How on earth did I get blamed for this?

So dinner continues on as if no one had threatened amputation and facial reconstruction, we're back in with the Three Nephites when Nate, rather politely...

... raises his hand. Madelyn, the washed up school teacher grants him permission to speak, "Um, well Jackson put a ball in his ear, but he still has his ear, and they didn't have to cut it off."

Thank you, Nate. Thanks for bringing us back down to reality.

Let the pea shoving begin!

A Haunted Fall Break

2010-10-19T12:09:00.005-04:00

The Bishop's family invited me down to Arizona for a haunted fall break at my time share in Chez Rogers. I, of course, gladly accepted and headed south for the very early winter.

Despite the 4 AM wake up call, Olivia was wonderful on the plane. An exact opposite foreshadowing of the later teething nightmare that would befall upon us. It's still befalling, if you're wondering.

We rolled into town just in time to start our week of shopping fun. It was not planned that so much cold, hard cash would pass hands, but if you read my sister's very thorough rendition of the week in review, you'll see we shopped a lot, neigh a ton. On day one we got trapped in the tailspin of an Arizona tornado and spent a little too much time in Wal*Mart. We came home with these:

No, not a Halloween freak show, complete with contortionists, a neckless dwarf child, and yet another Rogers boy obsessed with baby hair. Blow the picture up, you'll see what I mean. The freak show came free, the awesome matching pajamas on the other hand, there's an ABBA song regarding the subject and it's called, Money,Money, Money.

I kept asking everyone if Olivia looked like a boy in her striped pajamas and no bow on her head. Now that I think about it there isn't a single picture of her in AZ WITH a bow on her head, even though she wore one daily. Fear not, I haven't lost my mind. So here's a bonus picture so you don't forget her signature awesomeness:

Later in the week, after soiling every single pair of pajamas either packed or purchased on our rampant shopping sprees, Olivia had to wear some Lukers originals to bed. Still concerned about her boyish bowless appearance, Nate informs me, "Aunt Lola, baby Olivia looks beautiful in Lukers' blue jammas."

Thanks, Nate. Thanks. And just so you know, the Rogers boys are still as handsome as ever:

There is a mile high waiting list for their arranged marriages, but if you'd like to add your daughter to the list, just let me know. In fact, we love the Rogers boys so much, we had an early birthday party for the one and only Nathan James Rogers. Scratch that, it seems like it'd be a pretty common name. According to howmanyofme.com there's 313 Nathan Rogers in the US. Yikes.

The birthday party was a success. Choclatey monster brownies, a conversation on sticking peas up your nose and having to get it cut off (okay, that was another night, but it was awesome) and a spooky story about eating a pumpkin and then pooping it out so it can take revenge on the world. I'm not going to name names on who was the author of the last little tidbit, but it was Dustin, Dustin Robin Rogers, Bishop extraordinare.

We also cured my friendlessness with an epic Girls Night out. It started out with Meredith debuting in her tranny make up, showcased a smattering of insulting a waiter, legendary collage making, Madelyn having a near death experience at the hands of an unruly trashcan, a jilted ex-girlfriend, and ended with make overs and a grown woman peeing her pants from sheer laughter. I know what happens at GNO stays at GNO so again, I won't name names, but it was Meredith McGuire Simpson.
The next day the kids were so jealous of the makeovers we went in for round two. Do you know how to get make up on your ex-tutu wearing, ALL BOY brother? Convince him it's cool to look like you have a black eye. Hello, purple eyeshadow.

On Sunday afternoon, while waiting for his royal bishopness to return we decided to give Maddy an early death by panic attack and decorated a Haunted gingerbread house.
As Maddy has noted, you can't tell there was a mess. But there was a mess and it's name was PURPLE, ORANGE and GREEN food coloring eh-vu-re-where and children in church clothes that have to last through hand-me-downs. But ti was fun and it resulted in an all-time favorite Nate moment, "There was a Haunted House... and outside... there was an R...I...P!!" DOOM, I tell ya.

And when we weren't shopping and being awesome in general we were hanging out in awesomeness:
One of my favorite trip moments was playing Guess Who. Above Livy is shown as a Ute with shape of an L on her forehead.

Another favorite trip moment is Luke's growing obsession with his kissing cousin. By the end of the trip he couldn't get enough of Olivia. He wanted to be holding her at all times. Lots of hugs, lots of kisses, lots of smothering, lots of near death experiences.

Oh, and Madelyn almost pooped behind a post office, that was a good one too.

And here's a picture that pretty much sums up our fantastic shopping week:

You don't want to know how much those bears cost.

Movin and Groovin

2010-08-30T22:22:00.003-04:00

Olivia has less than zero interest in crawling. Putting her on her tummy is equivalent to the death march in The Bridge Over the River Kwai. I've been there. She's pulling up on everything, attempting walking, but crawling is apparently a real tear jerker. I've actually given up hope of it ever happening.

She has, however, managed to come up with her own version of getting around. I like to call it the patented Livy Scootch Method. Exhibit A:

*side note: it is freezing today, so Olivia is in winter clothes that do not fit her. Socks were indeed part of the original ensemble but they proved to be too much of a delectable temptation and wound up in her mouth, repeatedly*

Step 1: Visually locate a destination.

Step 2: Reach out for an object completely unrelated to your destination.

Step 3: Look adorable.

Step 4: Admire said object, by both sight and taste.

Step 5: THROW said object out in front of you.

Step 6: Reach out for said object pulling your entire body across the floor until you reach it.

Step 7: Rinse and repeat until you reach your original destination.

She does it all over the house to get to where she wants to go. The requirement is that she have an object keep her attention until she gets to her set destination. Why she doesn't just scootch her way over or heaven forbid *crawl* is beyond me, but I watch her spot something she wants, look around for something else to manipulate into coming over with her and off she goes.

Maybe she's just far too materialistic or maybe she's just a hoarder. Whatever works, girly poo!

Pulling the Plug...

2010-08-27T20:15:00.003-04:00

... the butt plug that is. I only know this because we talked extensively about it in AP Bio, on hour long tangents (can you imagine ME on a tangent??), once a week and not for any *actual* educational value, but bears have a butt plug they lose at the end of hibernation. It's made of grass and berries and all sorts of marketable goodies to keep them asleep all winter. I wish Olivia had one of those at nap time. Little stinker is on strike. But anyway, I have good intentions for this blog, I swear I do but it has been in hibernation for far too long and I suppose it's time to finally pull the butt plug.

P.S. I saw a mama bear and her three cubs at Yellowstone Park, I'm guessing sans butt plug. It inspired me.

P.P.S. This started out really strong and tanked toward the end, my apologies in advance.

But (butt?) where to begin?

How about the source of the blogging problem: FULL TERM pregnancy.

In December I went completely psychotic. After graduation I decided I was done being pregnant. Unfortunately for me, Olivia and the entire staff of Womancare of Williamsburg didn't jump on the bandwagon. When I wasn't moping on the couch I went wild on the internet researching ways to get the baby OUT of me. I became an Old Wives' Tale addict and stooped so low as to eat multiple pineapples in one sitting. My tongue burned for days. Olivia stayed put for weeks.

At one point we had to put a ban on all board games because on one dark and dreary evening the Game of Life (TM?) brought me to tears when I didn't land on the baby girl spot. And if that torture weren't enough, every single person on the planet decided to go into labor before me. The nerve. We spent the entire end of December holding OTHER PEOPLE'S BABY GIRLS, going on long walks and cursing any Old Wife we could think of.

And if that agony weren't enough, my mom came to stay for a week anticipating an early delivery and for the first time in the history of her grandmotherdom, she finished the baby blanket BEFORE the baby was born. Many tears were shed.

And then, five days after her due date, voila: Baby!

But I already blogged about that. And then I blogged again. And then I quit blogging. So here's a crash course in life since January 17.

Aunt Maddy visited. Twice. I promised Maddy it wouldn't snow while she was here, and what do you know? It dumped on us. We even got snowed in, in our teeny tiny apartment with only the sound of chirping frogs to keep us occupied. Either that's true or Maddy made us brave the sub zero climate to go to the outlets to supply her vacationing wardrobe for Hawaii. Size zeros fell right off her body, my two weeks post pregnancy hormones were not too keen on the entire trip. Strangely, no tears were shed. We also took Madelyn on a walking tour of Colonial Williamsburg where she discovered she and Tracy Jordan have something in common, they're both disappointed by Colonial Williamsburg. Hopefully Sesame Street's Colonial Trolliamsburg makes up for it.
About a month later, Maddy came back for my dad's award ceremony and the baby blessing, this time with the entire crew. Highlights:

Nate: Mom Can I have some nuts?

Maddy: For a snack?

Nate: No! Ellie saw a squirrel, FOR REAL!

Sadie: Does her have a brother?

Me: No.

Sadie: Sister?

Me: No.

Sadie (forlorn): Oh, she just has you guys?

It is also this trip that I intimidated Nate into burping 100 times in a row despite his pleas of imminent death if he carried on. It went down something like this:

Me: I'm going to go put Olivia down for a nap.

Ellie: Can I give her a goodnight kiss?

Me: Sure!

Nate: Can I give her a goodnight burp?

Me: Fine, but just one.

Nate: No, 100.

Me: FINE. DO IT.

Nate: belch, one, belch two, belch... belch 57, I'M GONNA DIE!

Me: NO! Nate, you better do this or I'll call you a girl forever.

Nate: Fine, belch, 58, belch 59... 93, I'M GONNA DIE! I can't do it aunt Wowa, I can't!

Me: Nate, you have 7 left, you can do this.

Nate: belch, 94. I JUST CAN'T, I'M GONNA DIE!

Me: FINISH IT.

Nate: belch 95... 100, belch, 101, 102...

He never stopped. He still might be belching.

And then my parent's buzzed Luke bald. The word "buzzed" got lost in translation with the hair dresser and we wound up staring a tiny cancer patient do the rest of the weekend. It was quite the shock to look over at his naked noggin, but it's grown back now. Tears were shed, laughter was had and I think Luke escaped the humiliation without a sunburn.

And then, we blessed Olivia! Pants even whipped up a crocheted hat over night because in passing I had mentioned I wanted one.

Kyle's parents flew in from Texas to see the baby for the first time. Olivia enjoyed all the extra attention. Except the part where she screamed her face off the entire blessing. Maddy had taken me shopping for a blessing dress that wasn't quite nursing accessible, so I pumped a bottle for church. Olivia picked that very weekend to reject the bottle. Kyle spent an hour before the blessing trying to shove milk down her throat. Her screams echoed throughout the church house so he took her out to the car to try and get it down her. No dice. A very starving Livy showed up for her blessing and I wound up having to nurse her almost naked in the mother's lounge while making polite conversation with all the professional moms in the room. I haven't worn that dress to church since. But boy, is it cute!

Olivia spent the rest of winter and spring being awesome.
And then we headed out to Arizona for Ellie's baptism.

Olivia took her first trip on an airplane where she was adored by many, spent a weekend getting some intense cousin loving and I gave the talk on the Holy Ghost which would have sounded quite familiar had you attended this event in the fall.

Highlights:

Sadie: Why is everyone only saying nice things about Ellie? Nobody got me anything!

And also, an intense midnight run with my that ended with my nephew outside the car at 11:00 at night, shoeless and doing an odd rendition of the potty dance.

Next stop, my parents came for graduation where they took up a united front with Kyle to convince me not to walk for graduation. After the blessing debacle, nobody was willing to attempt the bottle on seniorita picky pants.
So we went strawberry picking instead and set up Olivia's exersaucer, which has become her official babysitter.

Late May we packed up our little family for a trip to the Outer Banks, Olivia's first and last beach trip of the summer.
Olivia snoozed the day away in a laundry basket in a tent on one of the nicest beaches in the Outer Banks.

At the beginning of June we did the annual Race for the Cure with our Philly cousins. Please check out my adorable squirt of a baby. She's three months older than her cousin Sara and the same size...

And because we were in the mood for over doing it, we took her to the National Zoo and an Orioles game.

Olivia love, love, loves to clap so we were equally opportunity, schizophrenic fans. The Orioles lost, but who cares? She got to wear a METS foam finger! She did however get to meet the Orioles bird who gave her a beak kiss to which she promptly grabbed hold of it and wouldn't let go.

And then we took a train. Long story involving car switches, 1000* weather and our move across the country, but who really cares? Here's Olivia in all her training glory:
I spent a lot of time up at my parent's house while Kyle got the house ready for the move. Sort of. Not I sort of spent a lot of time there, I definitely spent time there. Kyle only sort of got us ready to move.
We spent pretty much all day, every day at the swing set.

And then we went to Idaho. Cue heavenly chorus. My sister has a much nicer rendition of the trip on her blog, so if you really want to know, stalk elsewhere. Again, here's Olivia.
Highlights:

Meeting aunt Beaney, Mudding, Four wheeling, fireworks every night, jumping super high on the trampoline, the sheer volume of aunt Maddy's baked goods, being introduced to the sink bath, and non stop cousin lovin.

And then we went to Yellowstone. We went to Yellowstone to see the sites but people kept asking US if they could take pictures of Olivia. Remind me to tell you the story of Maddy and the Japanese tourists in Italy.
Highlights:

Sadie: But I don't want to ride in your car, I want to ride in my car because my car is so cute.

Wolves taking down a baby elk and then being scared into retreating by a mama bear and her triplets.

Upon our arrival to Utah we hiked the Y.

The night before Kyle assured me it was an easy MAYBE 15 minute hike and I could totally take the stroller if I wanted to. Nah, I'll just bust out my hippie sling. My butt. But we made it, and with enough spirit to sing the fight song at the top.

Kyle's grandma has a pool in her complex so we spent a lot of July sweeming.
Olivia couldn't get enough of kicking her scrumptious little leggies across the pool. That girl just loves water.

And by the end of summer, Olivia was just as gorgeous as ever:
In fact, every day she manages to get more and more and more gorgeous:

The end.

Maybe I'm back, maybe I'm not? I make no promises.