Hiatus update

January has slipped by so quickly - only 3 blog posts?!  What?!  I think between illnesses, the snow, and work being crazy busy, I am sad to see my poor performance in blogging.  Alas, it's February now.  New month.  Let's move on, peeps.

Recapping January, Oliver had his first bit with snow.  Not surprised that he was a fan of looking at this new and fascinating thing, but he was NOT a fan of how cold and wet it was.  Also not a fan of being pulled on a sled!  Not sure what that's about... I'm thinking next year may be a different story.  We shall see.

We love our fireplace.  We haven't had many fires since Oliver has come into the picture.  Now Oliver understands "hot" and "no touch" so it's a bit more feasible to have a fire while Oliver is awake.  Here he is supervising Tim making a fire.

Here's a couple other photos that happened last month.

Why we are pro-bumper in this house:



Oliver has figured out he can chomp a sandwich like a dinosaur now - no more bite size pieces!

My grandpa with Chelsea and Oliver. Oliver has been drooling like a mad man lately (more molars?).

                      

That's all the news that's fit to print... maybe you'd like a flashback of BABY Oliver?  How about this one...



Hike!

Gooooood Monday morning, y'all!  I am recalling the weekend in my head and thinking, where the heck did it go??  Oliver is learning so much right now, it's MADNESS.  After being a relatively quiet guy, he is really practicing the talking thing.  He does a lot of jabbering, but sometimes you can catch a word or two.

For example, as he squeals with delight chasing the cats, we can hear him say, "Ki-ki!" Something else that was funny - we were watching part of Sunday Night Football and there is a commercial where a guy at an auto body shop picks up the phone and says "Thank you for calling A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A Auto Body" and right after that line, Oliver says, "A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A."  We have really watched our language since he's been born, but this gives even more incentive to watch our P's and Q's.

Oliver recently got this little nerf football.  Tim has taught him how to hike the ball.  Silly guy now likes to just put his head on the ground and look between his feet!

We went to a potluck on Sunday that our daycare was hosting.  I brought my camera but forgot to take it out the whole time!  Darn!  It was a lot of fun, and we all are pretty good cooks.  :-)

Fall is in full swing so I hope we can get to the Arboretum before all the leaves are gone!

Oliver update

I'm a little late getting this out - Monday I was volunteering and yesterday I was sore from all the heavy lifting I did on Monday.  :-)  All that good karma comes with a price.

Little man turned 16 months on Sunday, and he is a walker now, although not in a direction you need him to go.  He also is still practicing on the stairs at the condo which is great fun.  Here is also a list of things he gives thumbs up and thumbs down...

Things Oliver likes:
Walking
Kitties (see video below)
Squealing with delight (while chasing the kitties)
Milk
Showing you his bellybutton
Bringing you a book, then you reading to him
Elmo (really Oliver?  What about Grover?)

Things Oliver dislikes:
Dolls (they make him cry)
Pink feather boas
When I have a towel on my head, post shower
Diaper changes
And, of course, being told no

Not too many things make him upset, although Tim and I think he will be a sensitive little guy as he grows older.  The home daycare he goes to 3 days a week commented on how quiet he is.  We had always noticed too that he is more of an observer rather than a doer.  He is a sweet sweet boy, and we love him so so so so so so much.  :-)

A quick video of Oliver cornering Bailey.  The middle of the video gets kind of dark, and I was too lazy to edit it.  So feel free to forward it along.

Oliver, aka the walking machine

I was going to update on how I am sick again, but it's really OLIVER who is the sick one.  We were notified by Oliver's daycare that the coxsackie virus, aka, hand, foot & mouth disease, was going around.  We thought little man was in the clear until he was up with a fever last night and had spots on his face, hands, and feet this morning.  :-(

So he is now at home today resting up. 

On to happier note, Oliver is officially a walker!  Yeay!  We went to a local event on Saturday down at the spray park, and Oliver actually walked around just like all the other kids.  I tried to get him to pose with Tim, but he was so distracted.  :-)

A few other cute photos over the past couple of days... first he shows us his new toy - the ever popular corn popper (I think it is LOUDER than it used to be).  He then shows us how awesome sand is.  He hearts Golden Gardens.

                  

G'Gpa was nice enough to buy Oliver some SHOES.  He was in need of them badly since he is walking now, but we haven't found any that fit his chubby little feet. 

Sunday, Oliver visited my mom's friends, Susan and Joe.  They have transformed this sandbox into a wading pool, which Oliver gives the thumbs up on!  Susan is entertaining Oliver with bubbles. :-)



So pre-sickness, Oliver has had a great couple of last days.  It's been SOOOO nice and warm!  One last video of Oliver rocking out on a box.

Labor Day weekend!

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend.  Like an idiot, I volunteered to work on Monday for a few hours (they draw me in with the lure of overtime!), but even so, it was a pretty great few days.

Saturday was GORGEOUS out.  I hadn't taken Oliver to Golden Gardens since his birthday (and it was too cold to play anyway when we were there), so my mom joined us with spending almost two hours playing in the sand.  

He started out heavily clothed, but he has learned to pull off the bib and hat... then his shirt got soaked with drool - thank you, molars - so it soon turned into a strip show.  Heh heh heh.  :-)

Sunday was busy running errands, and even an impromptu visit from Chelsea, while Jim & Ali went to dinner.  Love her sweet little Chelsea face!

Monday afternoon (after returning from work), the gang of family that is my mother's side went to the Ballard Commons Park.  2 babies and 6 adults?  Sure!  This was Chelsea's first wagon ride.  She wasn't too thrilled on the way there but was happy as a clam in it on the way back.

First, a little video of Oliver walking more with his new ball.  Also Chelsea gives the camera a staredown.

 

For some reason, they barely had the smaller spray ones on.  There is supposed to be a little fountain spray thing where Oliver's hand is - alas, it is just a small trickle.  :-( 

Chelsea seemed pretty pleased with the situation. 

What wonderful weather.  Wish I was off today to enjoy it with little O! 

Where the hell have I been?

A funny thing happens when you fall off the blog-o-sphere, so I thought I'd give a quick update.

On Tuesday, I had a big time surgery to fix a Giant Paraesophageal Hernia.  Impressed?  Well, you should be.  :-)  A giant paraesophageal hernia is where at least 1/3 of your stomach has herniated up next to your esophagus through the diaphragm and ends up in your lungs.  It looks kinda like this:

It is a pretty abnormal condition.  I've been living with it for several years but just recently was told it was time to get it repaired.  Surgery was apparently a success but I am now trying to mend.  Imagine this:  No lifting anything more than 10 pounds for at least 8 weeks (Oliver weighs about 25 pounds), for the first two weeks, it is a liquid diet, then if x-rays show everything is a-okay I can move on to a "soft foods" diet which consists of soups and pureed foods (if you think this sounds like baby food, you would be right!) for another 6 weeks.  And the pain!  I am trying not to whine too much as that would just make the pain worse.  Here's been my companions the past couple of days:

Did you see Children's Ibuprofen?  Yes, well, they don't make liquid Ibuprofen any other way.

The hardest part has been not being able to snuggle with Oliver but I know that it is temporary.  Today for example, he spent the day at Papa's and Grandma Jana's house and got to play in a little wading pool!  So Oliver is still getting all that attention that he craves.   

Thank you to modern medicine and Dr. Alex Farivar for making me feel better.  Well, in a few weeks.  :-)

Memorial Day weekend | Wagon rides

I was just mentioning to Tim last night that a year ago we were at home with this little tiny baby burrito who slept ALL THE TIME.  And now, he is a crawling, cruising, and a no sleep machine!  And if you then think that a year before that, we were probably having drinkies while BBQing with friends, not having to be accountable for anyone but ourselves... my my my, how times have changed.

A quick recap, then some cute photos of you-know-who.  Saturday, Oliver and I had our first picnic, with barbeque chicken and everything!  We went to a little park by our place, set up a blanket and had lunch.  It was a beautiful afternoon.  That evening Timmy Toes surprised me with having my mom watch Oliver and he took me out for our 7 year wedding anniversary!  We went to Jak's Grill in West Seattle.  It was SO SO SO good.  Dinner was followed up with a Husky's ice cream cone. 

Sunday, we went to a princess party!  I'm sad to report that I forgot my camera.  My friend Kirsten, her daughter Sophie was turning 3, so she had her birthday party which was an explosion of pink!  We also learned a very important thing about Oliver - he does not like feather boas!  Note to self.

We also went to my brother and S-I-L's house and picked up little O's birthday gift - a wagon!  If you recall from his birthday party, he LOVED that wagon that was on loan.  Here is little O in the wagon!

Nevermind the little mark on his forehead - he was busy accidentally scratching his face in the middle of the night!  Gah!

Oliver loves going in the wagon.  LOVES.

Oliver's 1st birthday party!

Oliver turns the big ONE on Wednesday, but we celebrated his birthday on Sunday (since no one likes mid-week parties, including myself).  We prayed and prayed for good weather, and although it was partly sunny, it was the wind that drove us to a quick party. 

I've heard everyone had a wonderful time - I was very very busy, and felt like I barely spoke with anyone.  So if I didn't say much or anything to anyone, I am sorry in advance.  I also didn't take too many photos.  Some of these are from my mom's camera (click to enlarge). 

I'm pretty sure Oliver's favorite part of his b-day party was my dad pulling him around in the wagon.  He liked it best when he was in a full sprint!  Luckily, no babies were harmed.  Just big smiles.

          

We were all bundled up (except my brother, who never gets cold, apparently). 
 

         

It was cupcake time - my mom made two different kinds.  Oliver enjoyed a yellow cake with chocolate frosting.  

           



Oliver then very delicately ate sucked on the cupcake like a vampire.  He did eventually eat the whole thing, but it did take a while. 

He nommed and nommed on his little hand like that for a long time.  

This was about the dirtiest he got.  Kept it pretty clean, there, Oliver!   We wrapped it up a bit after that, deciding that Oliver was cold enough.  After a warming bath, Oliver opened up his presents!  He loved immediately playing with all the toys as soon as they came out of a bag or were unwrapped.  He got some nice new toys and clothes and money for college. 

Tim and I were just WIPED after all the activities of yesterday, and so was Oliver, so we all called it an early night and went to bed.

I cannot believe this year has flown by already!  More birthday updates as they come about!

BabyLegs photoshoot!

A few weeks ago, BabyLegs posted on Facebook that they were holding an open casting call - e-mail a recent photo of your little one, and the details on them, to be part of the fall collection.

Oliver was selected as one of those lucky few.  We went down for a fitting a few weeks ago and yesterday was the big day.  Tim and Oliver went down to Georgetown for the event.

Someone was there streamed the whole thing live from her iPhone, but it is blocked on my work computer (not enough Flash updates).  We found the chunk that Oliver and Tim are in here: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/14654573

Oliver is in a long sleeve green onesie, and is sometimes wearing a super cute fuzzy hat.  Tim is in a short sleeve brown t-shirt.  The person doing the iPhone seemed to get a lot of some girl in a tu-tu to the point where I wanted to shove her out of the frame!  Hahaha!  It's a long video, but Tim and O are only in the first like 10 minutes or so.

Don't worry - this was just a one-off and Oliver will not be some kind of stage baby.  Really.  :-)
I'm also getting prepared for Oliver's birthday party.  I took some photos from my phone, if you would like a sneak peek.

It will be barnyard theme, and will be outdoors - so everyone pray for good weather!

O and his playtime

So I will apologize in advance that the following video is on youtube and not on vimeo (I find the quality a million times better on vimeo), but after piecing together the clips the file was just slightly over the allotted amount for vimeo - 20 megabites over :-(  So I will need to get another little video together so Tim can view it at work as he cannot view youtube videos there. 

So just an update, Oliver is a crawling machine.  So much so that he would rather crawl now instead of cruise.  He's learned that he is much faster at crawling, so now I think he won't be walking for a little bit. 

He also continues to eat and try new foods.  I am so impressed with the variety of what he eats.  The other day, my mom figured out in one meal he had 7 different fruits and veggies!

The following video is kind of long, but I was too tired to do any editing.  4 different clips put together of Oliver playing and being silly.

3 weeks away to Oliver's first birthday!!  Where did the year go???

Easter weekend recap

Happy Monday, y'all - are you like me and wondered where the weekend went? 

Saturday, Oliver and I went for a nice long walk while Tim was at work.  After that, we drove up to Mount Vernon to see the tulips.  Tim and I went a few years ago, but it must have been on a weekday or something, because it was CRAZY busy.  Gah.  Lots of photos ahead - the weather was wonderful and the tulips were GORGE.

                               

A quick video of the tulips... sorry for the crying baby in the background!

We had a great time while we were there, however we will not be going back for future years unless it is during the week.  WAY too many people and traffic.  Added to this frustration is that the diaper bag was without formula (canister was empty) and Oliver dropped his pacifier in the tulip fields somewhere (without a spare).  Suffice it to say, the long ride back was not a pleasant one.  :-\

Sunday we had a pretty wonderful day, despite the weather.  Oliver was busy crawling and cruising around while Tim and I got ready for family to come over.  No opportunity for Chelsea and Oliver to be bunnies together, but I did get Chelsea to be bunny-fied!

Ali even got in on the action - don't you love Chelsea's glamour-shot hands??



We had a great weekend - can't wait for more of this awesome sunshine!

Long recap... warning, long post ahead!

Whew, it has been a long time since a real post.  Oliver has been sick.  Again.  I'm hoping that this will be over soon since it's Springtime! 

We got the baby gates shipped from Amazon (I love you, Amazon.com), and arrived a day or two later.  One box showed up destroyed:

           

Luckily, nothing was damaged or missing.  I was able to take two of them to my Dad's house and he was able to punch some cat holes through them.  Here is one:

The cats have already figured it out.  I think Spike likes it a lot, as it makes it more "jungle gym" in our condo.  Oliver also got some overalls.  My Mom saw these and had to have them (apparently my brother lived in a pair just like these for a long time).  He is super cute in them.

I also found out that my favorite video camera is being killed off by the mother company (Cisco says no more Flip Cameras).  I convinced Tim that it was time to upgrade to a newer one with HD capabilities since they aren't going to be around soon!  I took a test video (nothing too exciting), but the quality if definitely a lot better.   

This morning, I got together my last active box on thredUP to get mailed out.  Every week they award their members with different badges... top rated, top rockstars (most times favorited), super swappers (most boxes sent), etc... I was awarded a top rated badge.  This info is listed on a leaderboard, so people on the leaderboard usually get their stuff picked ASAP.  I have more clothes to put into boxes, but now I just need time to do it! 

So sad to see little O's clothes go.  I am keeping just a few items for sentimental reasons, but most of it is getting swapped for bigger stuff.  We just don't have any room to store all of it.



I also took a quick pic of Oliver hanging out in his crib.  You can see in his face that he still not feeling 100%, but I am pretty sure it is a combination of being sick and he is having some teeth come in.  He has been a little cuddle bug lately, which means that we haven't been able to do much else.  My Dad and Jana got to spend some quality time with him on Sunday while Tim and I spent the day cleaning!  We got SO MUCH DONE. 



That's the recap!

Busy weekend!

We had a very full weekend, starting with Saturday, when Oliver and I went down to visit Grandpa Carl (or Papa... still undecided), and Grandma Jana (perhaps Granny, as she calls herself :-) ).  O enjoyed showing off his new cruising skills as listed in the prior post.  They love him SO SO much, and Oliver does, too!  I ordered some baby gates that should be coming in soon, and my Dad will hopefully be able to make a cat hole so Spike and Bailey can get through without jumping over the top, since they are not spring chickens anymore.

We came home, and Oliver took a nap with Tim.  We then went up to visit my sister-in-law and Chelsea since my brother was away this weekend, getting some man time in Vancouver watching hockey.  We hung out there for a while. 

Sunday I finally broke out the camera.  Oliver enjoys hanging out by the TV - I know that once he is a little taller, he will be digging the windows even more.  He's wearing this super cute onesie with faux jeans (they are just normal cotton pants that LOOK like jeans).  What a cutie.

                      

We then went over to our friend Tenzing's house.  Her husband is away for a few months learning how to work on Apache helicopters (to be a part of the Reserve).  She has a son, Samten, who is about a month younger than Oliver.  Two words to describe Sam?  Mover and screamer.  He is very loud and is a crawling machine. 

Oliver really liked this toy - Sam did push him around just a smidgen but didn't get too far.

I had noticed a lack of photos of Tim and Oliver, so I forced Tim to smile for the camera.  :-)

The rest of the day was a blur, but the weekend ended too quickly.  Can't wait for next weekend, where we will be staying overnight at a cabin on Camano Island!  Fun stuff!