More hot deals

Tim and I were on the lookout for a shopping cart cover now that Oliver is sitting up (...like a big boy). We went to Babies R Us and also to Merry Go Round in Bellevue and found them to be extremely pricey! $40+ for some fabric? And awful designs? Yucky.

I turned to Me and Moms again to look for one, and found a super cute "shopping nest" and "dining nest" for restaurant high chairs. I found the new ones at: http://www.theshoppingnest.com/ Each separately new runs $40 for the shopping cart and $30 for the high chair cover. It all came in the Matching Carry-All Tote that runs $15. And what price did I pay for this treasure? A measly $7.99. And it looks BRAND NEW - I washed it in hot water and it's good to go! Look for photos to come.

Turning from my hot deals are new photos of the little guy. This one is from last Monday... the beginning of snopocalpse. My mom (TTC) thought she'd bundle up the little man and walk to the grocery store. The trip was cut short when she was not dressed properly. Oliver remained toasty, however.

Anyone think he looks like Ralphie's brother from "A Christmas Story"?

Super cute, right?! Yesterday, Oliver woke up from a nap in his crib and looked so happy... so I brought some toys in to him. He played with them for a while. Here's one I caught of him showing us that he still doesn't have any teeth.

Oh, and that awesome thermal onesie? Courtesy of his Uncle Jim and Aunt Ali. And although it says 9 months, it fits him perfectly!

The king of sitting

Well, maybe not yet. It is amazing to see how he is getting to control his balance. Just thinking back to a week ago, he could not sit up this well. What a big boy.

Here's a video showing him sitting on the bed while Tim and I were putting the sheets on.

A few minutes prior, he was playing with his BFF Spike. Oliver is really taking to him, although we are doing our best to not have him grab a chunk of cat flesh... luckily Spike is pretty easy going, but I know one of these days, he will tell Oliver, "No more!"

First pureed food!

Now that Little O is feeling well, we are starting on the "solids" train! Solids in air quotes, because it's just puree and rice cereal. I pureed the pears we got in our CSA box. I first lightly boiled them to soften them up, and then put them in the blender with a little bit of water. A few seconds later, delicious, puree pears!

Knitting?

Spurred on by my crafty cubey neighbors, I decided to take up knitting. I wanted to do this about a year ago, but then I broke my hand - so no knitting for me. I'm getting into the slow season at work for me so finding a hobby helps pass the time.

I am on day two of my adventures. Things I've learned about knitting:

1. Being left-handed means I can't use any learning to knit books. I hear they have a book (yes, ONE) at Michael's, but I have yet to go.
2. Online also follows the right-hand dominant peeps.
3. I have found a few videos via youtube to help me and my minority ways.
4. Looking at blogs of ladies and their super crafty knitting projects makes me want to stop right away.
5. Bamboo needles are better for beginners (why didn't anyone tell me this before I bought the aluminum ones?).

I will keep at it. here is day 2. It's kind of a hot mess - but I'm proud of it so far.

Getting back to normal

Little man seems to be almost done with the nasty cold he had. I gave him a bath last night and here he is chewing on Ms. Octopus.

I'm so glad he loves his baths now. He spends a majority of the time chewing on this toy while I clean him up.

Yesterday evening, after watching the Seahawks dominate over the Cardinals, Tim, Oliver, and I went to Fred Meyer to kill some time. Tim is now sick but he was getting cabin fever and needed to get out of the house. Here he is dressed up, ready to go.

Are you noticing his fly kicks? Yes friends and family, those are Pumas. They are a little big on him right now, but they are SUPER cute. And I'll let you know right now, I will not be spending that much again on little baby shoes. We saw them and both Tim and I had to get them.

All in all, we had a pretty slow weekend while Tim was trying to recover, but I did do quite a bit of cleaning on Saturday. People with children tell me that it's not going to get any easier to get a good cleaning in, so I'm doing my best to keep up with most of the mess.

Sickness... continued

I thought all was well this past weekend when Oliver seemed to be fine after his little fever incident last week, however he had progressed to coughing, sneezing, and runny/stuffy nose all this week. Wednesday afternoon, his eye had globbed over and after a diagnosis from the doctor, developed an eye infection. The past two nights have been absolutely awful - Tim and I have been up a lot. The Nose Frida has been our best friend lately.

So you haven't missed anything wonderful this week. I am being optimistic that he will be better and back to his old Oliver self soon!

BTW, no photos, because really, you don't want to see it.

One last bit of news - we found out that Tim's sister will be having a baby girl early next year! Yeay! Baby girl explosion!

Toes

Today's blog is interrupted by Oliver's toes. Which apparently are delicious.

Happy Wednesday!

Pennsylvania, part two

I am back from the brink of death, so I thought I'd let you know how the rest of our trip went. We spent a lot of time hanging with Tim's mom's side, however we did drive up to see his dad one of the days, along with his dad's mom and dad. His grandparents live in the middle of the state near State College, PA, home of Penn State, and his dad lives about an hour and a half north. I did not have my camera mind going so I missed out on a family photo at his grandparents.

Both visits Oliver did wonderful - he was a big hit. Oliver is the last hope (so far) to carry on the Hollingshead name, so both Tim's dad and Pap were happy to meet the only hope!

We also spent a lot of time down at Tim's mom's parents (Pop and Grandma). Grandma goes by Aunt Grandma to the great-grandkids. It came accidentally but stuck after one of the great-grandkids called her that (apparently she had a lot of "aunts"). Her number one thing she wanted to do was sit in her rocking chair and rock him to sleep - which totally worked.

While we were there, autumn was in full force. Here's a few of the changing leaves.

Gorgeous, right?

Here is Tim's mom hanging with Oliver (and Christopher).

I'll finish up with two small videos - one is actually 3 small clips together, and then the other? That is Christopher. He's 2 1/2, and is off the walls with his energy! Whew!

First sickness!

I will finish the trip blogs tomorrow (I am still under the weather), but I needed to share.

Now here is a milestone that I do not want to hear, and it's that Oliver is sick! Gah! Hard to escape his mom being sick and the way he loves to shove his little fingers into your mouth like he's a dentist or something. I came home tonight from work and the little man was burning up - and so cranky!

I took his armpit temp and came back with a high 101.5 degrees. Yikes! I snapped a quick photo with my phone of him in the Bumbo while I was calling the on-call doctor:

The on-call doc calmed me down immediately, but my goodness - I can see why parents are so distressed when their children are sick! It's like, "WHAT CAN I DO TO MAKE IT BETTER?! FROSTY? MONEY? WHAT IS IT?!" Even harder at this age is he can't tell me what he wants. For now, I am relying on my motherly instincts and giving him a big dose of love (and Tylenol).

First flight, Pennsylvania, et al.

I'll apologize ahead of time for not posting sooner - we got home on Sunday and I have been sick as a dog since! Even now, I should be at home, in bed, with a nice big bowl of chicken pho. Instead, I am here at work - I'm going to try and make it to lunchtime and maybe go home. We shall see.

I will post more later, but I wanted to share about some of our adventures to PA. We flew out on Saturday (Oct 23rd) morning. I was so nervous about flying out with the little man - will his ears hurt? Can we entertain him for 5 hours on a plane? Will we be "those people with the baby?" My fears were quickly diminished when Oliver still had his wonderful demeanor throughout the entire flight. Before we got seated, the pilot invited any kids/babies to come up to the cockpit for pictures. In our post-9/11 world, we were quick to do so!

You can see in this photo that there is another baby in the background. She is one day older than Oliver and she was busy screaming and crying the entire flight! I told little O he better not get any ideas!

 

We got in very late, and the very next morning Oliver got baptized! We had to get up at 7am which felt like 4am to us. The pastor at the church where Tim's family goes is amazing. Here are a few post-baptism pictures down in the basement (decorated for Halloween):

From left to right, me, Kathy (Tim's mom), Amy (Tim's sister), Christopher (Amy's son), Tim, Oliver, Pastor Dietz

 

I am going to end it here as I am feeling wiped! I hope I can beat this illness!