Patty Cakes

Valentines Party Part 2

2012-02-19T19:36:00.000-08:00

Now it's party time!! In the past I have done a really fun Valentine's party for my 6 oldest nieces. This year, since they are all getting older and busier, it was tricky to get their schedules and mine to match up. Plus, I usually like to do it on Saturday so that I can make it big and fun with food and everything but Scott had a wedding on that Saturday and I didn't think I could pull it off by myself.

Since I have collected tons of fun Valentine's themed things over the years we just had to have a party to use it all. At first I told Scott it was just going to be a play date with a friend. Then it kept growing and I kept inviting people and planning more activities. I figure, more people means more love. I had an absolute blast but I think some of the kids might have gotten overwhelmed and the chaos. Besides the occasional meltdown, it was a major success.

Like I said, I just kept planning more and more activities to do at the party. I think it is the school teacher in me or something. I had so many that I had to break our party up into stations. The first one was decorating Valentine's cards.

Milo was a trooper and liked hanging out and playing with his toys. He had on his red socks so he could feel festive too.

Then there were some matching games and toddler writing activities. I think these are so cool and Olive and I love to do them together.

My favorite craft was from when I taught school. They are called "magic message hearts" You color over the heart with your dot pen and it shows you a message like a conversation heart.

We also made a little foam turtle craft, decorated Valentine's bags, played "pin the lips", Valetine's twister and heart bean bag toss. I am telling you, it was quite the party.

Oh, and we can't forget lunch, heart PB&Js!

Plus there were lots of sprinkles for decorating our cookies and plenty of yummy heart shaped treats. Then we passed out our Valentine's treats! All of that is on top of the huge bag of treats Olive brought home from her preschool party. We are a bit overloaded on sugar this week.

Olive and her cute friend Bo.

We had to check out all of our cool toys. Our house looked like a tornado hit it but it was worth it for all the fun!

Here is Olive and her friend Brynn playing dolls. They liked playing Valentine's twister, but not as much as playing Barbies. What can I say, they are all girl!

It definitely was so much fun to have something special to do on Valentine's day. We don't need a big reason to get together with our friends! We have so many great friends and it feels good to show them our love.

Valentines Party

2012-02-17T16:21:00.000-08:00

I'm going to update our Valentine's Day in 2 posts. This post is going to be about the decorations. I have a tendency to (because of pinterest) get over inspired and then plan way too many projects. I just go all in! So here are some of the new things that I made this year to get in the Valentine's spirit.

I have become obsessed with pom poms. I saw a pin that had a felt heart garland with pom poms and it looked so easy. I changed it up a bit and made the garland but decided that hanging pom pom strings would looks so cute framing my door.

Here it is all together. I love how it turned out. It couldn't look more festive. (Please ignore the baby gate in the photo, that looks horrible.)

I have been seeing lots of ideas about fabric in these cross stitch circles as an easy way to add color and make things festive. I decided to not do obvious heart fabric but just tried to bring in a holiday theme by sticking with bold patterns in festive colors. I think it looks great!

I made these branches at Christmas and thought why limit them to only that holiday? I made up some felt heart and sewed them with embroidery thread. They were easy and but very festive. I am thinking it will be easy to make something to hang on these branches for every holiday.

It was fun to try and figure out different creative things and designs to sew on the hearts.

And then of course we needed something festive to wear on the big love day. I had tons(!) of felt so I just hand sewed on a heart to a shirt Olive already had.

She had on everything heart that day. A heart shirt, ribbons, skirt, and even made me put on her heart undies. This is a girl who takes after her mama and commits to something all the way!

Do you want to know my favorite thing about all of these Valentine's decorations? They literally cost me $7. Have I mentioned how awesome felt is? It can be used for almost anything, looks great, and is so darn cheap! Once we were all decorated we were ready to invite some friends over to share some love!!

Milo is 9 months!

2012-02-14T16:17:00.000-08:00

Oh my boy! My sweet, sweet boy! Today Milo is 9 months old. He seems like he has been with us for so long and yet it has gone by in a flash. What can I say about this cute boy that I haven't already said? He is a joy! He is cheerful, full of love, constantly smiling and laughing, exploring and destroying everything, a good sleeper, a good eater, very fast in his army crawl, easy going, curious, loves to be outside, and loves to be with people. I haven't been able to take many good pictures of him lately, partly because it is dark and dreary February, but also because he can move and isn't interested in posing. Seriously though, look at that face!

9 months feels like such a big milestone because they have finally been here as long as you were waiting for them. I love 9 months. It is such a fun age. They are still chubby and squishy and babyish but now they play and move and love and it's wonderful. I love each new phase and age Olive comes to, but there is something even more magical in reliving it with your second child. It's like "Oh yeah, I remember why I loved this age so much!" I remember feeling like Olive was so old at 9 month. Such a big girl. In some ways she was older than Milo. But with him I just feel glad that he is still little. That he is just my squishy baby and not a big boy.

This is how Olive was playing with Milo the other day. I guess it was only a matter of time that she started dressing him up!

We love his guy so much and he has been so delightful. We haven't been to the doc yet but I am positive he is not the staggering 22 pounds at 9 months that his sister was. I will update once we get his new stats.

14 Days of Valentines

2012-02-13T16:20:00.000-08:00

I found on Pinterest a cute idea to do 14 gifts until Valentine's day (don't you love all the amazing ideas on Pinterest? I am obsessed). All the gifts were planned out and they even had little tags all made up and ready go. They were so cute. I just had to find someone to give it to. Then I thought of my niece Veronika. She is 13 years old and the perfect age for a cute gift like 14 days of Valentines. If I was 13, I would have absolutely died to get something like this!

So it was decided, Olive and I would be Veronika's secret Valentine. It was so much fun for us to deliver these gifts. Every day Olive would remind me "We need to take Veronika her present!" We would usually drop it off as we walked past her house on the way to preschool. Or sometimes we would just take a special walk to leave her a present. Olive liked helping me pick out what to give her. She was rather jealous of some of the gifts, like the Valentines balloons and the cupcakes.

Olive would say "We be sneaky sneaky!!" as we would walk up and deliver her presents.

It was really nice for us to do something together and helped us think about how wonderful Veronika is. I was sure that Olive would tell her but I think we made it without a slip. We knew her schedule pretty well, and it helps that she is in school all day. We did get caught by her mom a couple of times, but what can you do? I think Veronika might suspect that it is us, but at least we didn't spill the beans!

One of my favorite gifts was "10 thing we love about you". We spent and FHE getting all the presents ready and then filled out some of our favorite things about Veronika. We put in way more that 10 things because we just kept thinking of great things about her. Some of our list was:
-her creativity: she is always sewing and crocheting and crafting. She got yarn for her birthday and was jumping up and down with excitement.
-her resilience: This girl has been through so much and has always held her head up. She just starts everyday with determination and doesn't let things bog her down. I am continually surprised at how resilient she is!
-her determination
-her ability to solve any problem and usually with very ingenious solutions. This girl thinks outside of the box and is really creative at solving problems.
-her willingness to put others first. She would give you the clothes off of her back if she thought you needed them. She always wants to make sure that others are taken care of.
-her compassion
-her testimony!
-how service minded she is
As I sit hear and re-list all of the things we came up with, tears fill my eyes like they did before when I think of what a strong, capable, and thoughtful young women she is and is becoming. Olive loves Veronika. Veronika is always willing to play with her AND will play whatever Olive wants. We are so lucky to have such an amazing girl and example in our lives. I love thinking that Olive gets to grow up with so much family around, but it especially touches me that she gets such amazing people to look up too.

It was seriously such a great experience that we decided that we are going to find someone every year to do 14 days of Valentines for! Tomorrow is the big day and I have a big surprise waiting. We are going to heart attack her room while she is at school. I will have to post pictures of her heart attack because I went a bit crazy. It is going to be a huge, but happy, mess. I don't even know how many hearts I cut out and then punched out with the scraps. Yeah, it's going to be intense!

Olive's homemade Christmas gift

2012-02-12T15:00:00.000-08:00

Sorry about the video of Milo crawling. I tried three times doing different things and couldn't get it to work. Then I made Scott try. He is pretty handy when it comes to computers, or anything tech really. If he can't get it to post, it's not going to post. So I will try and take another video and see if that one works. Now if only I could actually remember to do it!

For Christmas I made a homemade gift for each of the kids. It is now weeks later but I am finally posting about it! It has been crazy and I keep forgetting to get pictures of her in her outfit. So yesterday I forced her to put it on over her clothes and stand out in the cold to get some quick pictures. She was pretty unhappy with me but at least it is documented right?

I made Olive this apron dress/ tunic. Then, I had extra yarn and decided to make her a matching hat.

I love how it turned out and it was extremely easy. It looks so cute over jeans. I should have made her change but I was only willing to start so many battles.

After I made the tunic I learned the ridged pattern and loved it so I did that on her hat.

The details:

PS I promise I will get back into the grove of posting. My camera ran out of batteries and so it took me a solid week to remember to charge it. But, we are in business so expect more posts because I have lots of things to post about!

Mr Milo on the Move

2012-02-06T11:57:00.000-08:00

Did you know our extended family all call him Mr Milo? I think it's so cute when his cousins run up to hims yelling "MR MILO!!!" This little man is into EVERYTHING these days. He used to roll where ever he wanted to go. Just a few days ago he started scooting himself around on his tummy. HIs shirts are filthy dirty because he is essentially sweeping my floors with his tummy. Now he army crawls with one leg straight to push him forward. We think it is so hilarious. He is close to real crawling but only holds himself up on his knees for a short time. He can get himself around and is all over the house so we need to get things more baby proofed since we never really did at the new house with Olive. Here is a little video of when I put up a gate around the tv. You can see that he is genuinely disappointed and angry at me. You can also see some of his army/leg crawling method.

This kid loves to explore. He is already finding things on the ground randomly. He has discovered our oversized old vents (see in the picture background) and I am positive he is going to put things down them. His favorite things are drawers and doors. He likes to pull the drawers open and close and swing the door. We have already had some sad smashed fingers. A few weeks ago he was playing with toys in his room. I went across the hall to my room to quickly put something away and within a minute I heard him really crying and upset. I rushed back in there to find that in less than a minute he had rolled himself over to the door, swung in closed and now had his leg trapped by a baby gate I was storing behind the door. Poor guy.

He still loves his toys and banging them together. He is usually pretty easy to entertain and is willing to sit and play while Olive and I read books or if I need to do something else. Looks like I am going to have to get all our gates up and our vents covered. Milo is mobile.

Olive's First Trip to the Dentist

2012-01-30T07:11:00.000-08:00

About a week ago I took Olive to the dentist for the first time. It is a pediatric dentist and I really liked the office and the staff. I almost started tearing up when I looked over and saw Olive in the dentist chair. She was so big and grown up. As usual, she just walked right into that big chair and was so ready for whatever was going to happen. This girl lives for new things and experiences. It's one of my favorite things about her.

We had talked about what was going to happen before we went. She knew that they were going to look at her teeth and then brush them with a silly, toothbrush that tickled your teeth. She was amazing during the Xrays. The assistant said that she was better than lots of older kids at the Xrays.

Olive was also charming the pants off of everyone, like always. When the dentist came in he said "Hello Olive, I'm Dr.___. It's nice to meet you" and Olive said "Hello Dr. ___, it's nice to meet you too!" We were all laughing. She likes going around and telling people that she loves them, so I am pretty sure that she told the dentist and the assistant that she loved them.

Olive was seriously so brave, even with the other little girl in the next chair screaming bloody murder, Olive was totally fine. She is actually really excited to go back because she left with a whole bag full of "prizes" like a new toothbrush and toothpaste and stickers. Yeah, she is easy to please. But Olive did remember the secret password so she got the superhero cape to help her fight cavities.

Other than the loot bag she got she really liked that she got to watch Princess and the Frog on a tv in the ceiling. That and showing off her sparkle TOMS to everyone there. She is just growing up way to fast!

Peter and Amanda's Wedding

2012-01-29T13:07:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago my cousin got married in the Salt Lake Temple. It was SO much fun to have all of our family here (even if we (especially Olive) missed their kids). It was a great day!

We tried to stay warm outside while we waited for them to come out.

Isn't she such a cute girl?

My girl cousins. I am seriously to lucky to have fun, beautiful, and smart girls to call family. None of us had sisters and growing up I definitely counted them as my closest thing to a sister. They are such great example and friends!

The girls in my family.

Here is the bride and groom. Olive was very excited to see them and kept crashing a lot of their pictures because she just wanted to be close and admire them. She kept asking me "Can I have a picture with Amanda?" Amanda's dress was gorgeous and they made a beautiful couple!

Here are my parents, holding Olive, saying hi and talking to my cousin Peter's grandparents in Brazil on Skype. It was so cool. His grandparents weren't able to be there for the wedding but they got to see everything. I seriously love that we live in such an amazing world.

After the temple they had a ring ceremony the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. I haven't spent much time there but I fell in love with that building. It is so beautiful. Olive and I kept admiring the paintings on the ceiling and all the details. She especially liked looking at the temple through the windows.

The couple at the ring ceremony.

Mr Milo waiting for some food. It was getting a bit stressful keeping the kids good at such a formal event after a long day. We would have loved to stay longer and visit with people more but we had to leave before any major meltdowns happened.

Here is Olive trying her hardest to be very good and polite. Once she got a cupcake the world was a whole lot better. I am glad that we got to celebrate Peter, he deserves so much happiness. Now we just need to get my brothers married because the are the last ones in the family!

Look What Milo Can Do

2012-01-25T07:39:00.000-08:00

We all agree, cutest boy ever right?

Olive's Preschool Program

2012-01-23T07:22:00.000-08:00

As I was going through some photos on my camera I found these and realized that I forgot to post Olive's Preschool Christmas Program. It was the cutest thing and Olive loved it, so I thought that even though it is well past Christmas I would post it anyway.

They made these shirt at school. I seriously am so in love with our preschool. It has been amazing. I love, love, love hearing Olive talk the whole walk home about all the things they learned that day. She seriously just soaks it in like a sponge.

This is Olive being a reindeer while wearing her reindeer shirt.

This is Olive walking like a reindeer while wearing her reindeer shirt. (There were some reindeer dancers in her ballet performance the week before, so she was copying them.)

Sadly this is the best picture I got from the actual performance. It was crazy packed with people so we are lucky we even got this picture. Olive has a knack for learning songs but I was wondering what she would do in the program. She had told me before all the songs that they were going to sing. She was most excited for Jingle Bells because they got to shake bells, and for Jingle Bell Rock because they got to dance and go crazy. As we were walking in I was reminding Olive to listen to hear teacher during the program. She looked up at me and said "I will not go crazy mommy, only on crazy-rock-out-dance." Then when it came time to dance, everyone kind of froze, except Olive. She was ready to dance her heart out until she looked around and realized no one else was going crazy. Apparently in class things got pretty wild, but in front of parents it was a different story. She still kinda bopped her head around but, I was prepared for some crazy rock moves. I tried to get her to show me at home but she wasn't interested. And thus was the joy that was Preschool Program.

Family Goals

2012-01-20T17:35:00.000-08:00

I thought I would just round out the week with updating our family goals. Luckily, this post has pictures. And thanks for passing on your family mottos. I find it so interesting!

Okay, so I think I mentioned that we set some family goals last year. They were: for us to go to the temple as a couple quarterly and to have consistent FHEs. We made it to the temple only once, but I am still counting that as a success because we hadn't really gone since Olive was born.

We were horrible about doing FHE for most of the year. Monday would just totally slip by us. But the last few months we have gotten into a pretty good groove. During the holidays was especially easy because there were lots of things we were already doing and we would just count it as FHE. Like we drove around the see Christmas lights and made sure it was a Monday night. Or the kids "bought" Christmas presents for each other, on a Monday night. Okay, okay these are slightly cheating. But I am still counting it as FHE. We have been doing pretty good with FHE this year. For some reason BoM lessons are pretty easy. Most of our lessons are planned in like 5 minutes, when I realize that it is Monday and almost dinner time. They are nothing fancy and usually they not well planned out. We'll get there someday. So, this post is about one more memorable FHE we recently did. Bowling!

Olive absolutely adored it. It was really fun just doing something together. Olive liked the shoes, and the pizza for dinner. Seriously, it was such a blast!

This year our goals are to do something active as a family every week and to have monthly date nights. Yay for date nights!

My 2012 Goals

2012-01-18T07:28:00.000-08:00

These things have been on my mind lately so I thought I would just share a little bit. Last year I started our "Family Binder". This binder has our family motto, theme, rules, and monthly traditions written down. We will have a family scripture also but I just haven't chosen one yet. Since we are studying the Book of Mormon in Sunday school this year, our family scripture will be something from that. Any great ideas for me? The Book of Mormon will also be the focus of our family home evening lessons. We have a goal to learn all of the versuses from Book of Mormon Stories song.

Did you know we have a family motto? It is: Pattersons are Nice. Simple but to the point. Do you have a family motto? If so I am very curious about what other families do.

Anyway, our Family Binder also has all of our goals written down in it. Since I shared Olive's goals for this year I thought I would share some of mine too. We each make individual goals and then a few family goals.
My 2011 goals were:
-learn to knit cables
-read a novel a month
-submit a photo to the State Fair
-have consistent girls nights
-have a baby

So let's review, in complete honestly I didn't actually achieve one single goal I set last year. Well that's not totally true. I did make one of those goals and I will give you three guesses at which one.

At first I was a bit depressed about this. I mean, none of those goals are that demanding. But, after thinking about it for awhile I came to the conclusion that I was a bit insane when setting such goals. I mean, what was I thinking? I was either very pregnant for the beginning of the year, had a challenging newborn, adjusting to two kids, or it was the holidays. That is all a total cop out but I am still using it. Let's be honest...read a book a month? I have been sleep deprived for the last year. If I sit down to read anything I fall instantly to sleep. Sadly, this was the first year since we have been married that we missed the State Fair. And girls night? Yeah, that didn't happen. In truth I really could have learned to knit cables. I could have. For some reason going the a class just didn't work out for timing.

Okay, so on the positive side I did read lots of birthing books last year. And I did lots of practice relaxation to prepare for labor. I did achieve my goal of an unmedicated labor and delivery. I was also pretty consistent about blogging. And since I did a lot of sitting on my butt watching tv either out of exhaustion or feeding my baby, even though I didn't spend it reading, I did knit over 20 items in the past year. Now that is pretty impressive right? Even though none of those things had cables on them. I'm counting those things as success.

This year I set these goals (basically I'm just copying last year):
- knit cables
-knit new Christmas stockings for the family
-submit a photo to the State Fair
-read a book a month
-read the Sunday school lessons every week
-have girls nights
I think those are pretty doable goals. We shall definitely see. Part of our problem last year was that we set these goals and then were horrible about following up with them. So this year we need to be more consistent on checking in on our goals. I have had a pretty good start at putting some of these goals into action. So, here we go!

Olive's Goals

2012-01-16T11:45:00.000-08:00

As of last year we started a tradition that every New Years we will watch a slideshow of our own family's year in review. We do it with extended family but I really wanted to do it for us too. It was really fun and so shocking to see how little Olive was just one year ago. 2 to 3 has been a big growth for Olive. In the future I think we will also play a year in review game, Jeopargy style maybe, and have each person in the family be a category.

I love new beginnings because they are motivating but also because it is a chance to look back and appreciate what has happened. That night we also set some goals for the new year and reviewed our goals from the last year to see how we did. We were so proud of Olive for reaching all of her goals this past year that we got her a little prize. I just thought I would share what those were.

Olive's 2011 goals:
-use a big girl potty
-get dressed and undressed by herself
-learn her ABC's and recognize letters and sounds
-be a good big sister

See? She has done amazing at those goals! I am very proud of her! I sometimes have a hard time coming to terms with what a big girl she is becoming. I mean, she is a Sunbeam now.

So, here are her goals that she set for 2012:
-continue to work on letters and sound out short vowel words
-count to 100
-learn how to ski
-learn how to ride a bike
-pick up toys after done playing
-using a happy voice

I can't wait to see all of the great things that are in store for Olive in 2012. She is going to have a great year!!

USU Aggie Basketball

2012-01-13T15:13:00.000-08:00

Last week we had the chance to go up to Logan because someone gave us tickets to the basketball game. We thought it was an afternoon game but it wasn't. It didn't even start until 7pm which for our kids is bedtime, so we almost reconsidered. Plus the drive and everything we thought it might be too crazy. But, we decided to just be prepared for meltdowns and do it anyway. I'm glad we did, but there were definitely multiple meltdowns.

While we were up there we were able to visit Trent and some of his friends at their apartment. When we got there they were water color painting and Olive went right over and sat down like it was no big deal and just started painting. It was hilarious. She talked to them the whole time and told them lots of things and they thought she was so funny.

Here we are at our seats. It was so fun to be back in the Spectrum with all the fans. Nobody in Salt Lake really cares about Aggies.

We had hot dogs and ice cream and popcorn and all kinds of junk. Partly because that is game tradition but mostly because we needed anything to keep the kids happy.

Isn't he cute? He was such a trooper. The biggest problem was that whenever we made a basket and everyone cheered in scared Milo and he started crying. We were able to calm him down each time until the last 10 minutes, which were super intense, and so Scott had to walk him up to the top where he wasn't surrounded by screams. Milo fell asleep the instant we put him in his carseat, poor guy.

Sporting our new Aggie gear. Everyone in our family got some kind of Aggie clothing for Christmas. Olive was ecstatic because hers was a cheerleading outfit. Unfortunately I forgot to take any real pictures of her wearing it at the game. I loved us all matching and showing our school spirit.

Olive was a very enthusiastic cheer leader. She was waving her pom poms like crazy. It was so funny. She loved cheering with dad. I think you can perfectly see the intensity from this picture. We had so much fun and decided that we are going to make this an annual tradition for our family. Go Aggies!

MIlo is 8 months

2012-01-11T07:20:00.000-08:00

Oh my Milo! He is almost eight months old. I am a bit shocked at how much he has changed just in this past month.

He has two little teeth on the bottom. See them? I keep thinking his top ones are going to come in but no sign of them yet. When they just have the two on the bottom is my favorite tooth stage. Milo loves to eat and will eat almost anything. He refuses to let me feed him anymore and insists on feeding himself. I am impressed with his dexterity. He can actually grab really small bits of food and plop them in his mouth. It might take all his concentration and be very funny to watch but he gets it done. He makes a gigantic mess but what can you do? It's a bigger mess if I try to feed him baby food and he is constantly trying to grab the spoon, spearing food everywhere.

He has started babbling. It's adorable. His favorite is mamamama. Olive is convinced that he can say mom and Ollie, which I think is so cute. She tries to teach him other things to say. Like his sister he likes to talk and use his voice, especially during church. He also still gets excited and kicks his legs like crazy. He still loves bouncing and will bounce his little legs until your arms hurt.

He is very inquizitive. It's so different than Olive. He examines everything he discovers. He twists it and turns it in his hands. He tries to see what moves and makes noise. He likes textures. Olive liked to just sit and listen to books but Milo wants to hold them and put them in his mouth. He likes to bang things together to see what they do. I just can't get over how interested he is in things where Olive was interested in what was going on around her. I can get Milo to play for quite awhile with toys and Olive was never that interested. If he is in your arms he will try to grab anything in reach. If he is sitting in his bumbo he will arch and reach and stretch to to try and get something to look at.

He is almost crawling. He will hold himself up on all for and try to rock back and forth. He will turn himself around on his tummy so he can face the action. He pushes himself backwards on his tummy and often gets himself stuck in corners or under things.

He has been sitting up for about 3 weeks now. He is pretty stable these days and I don't have to worry so much about him toppling over. He likes his little gym now more than ever since he can sit and play with things.

Sometimes I just leave his pants off so I can look at his chubby legs. I mean look at those. They are wonderful and I love them.

Milo is so easy these days. He sleeps for 12 hours at night and takes a 2 hour nap. He is easy to put down and likes his crib. He is just so easy these day. I love spending my days with this sweet boy. He is just growing up way too fast. Is it just me or does it go way faster with your second?

Olive LOVES Ballet

2012-01-09T09:13:00.000-08:00

The highlight of my Christmas season was Olive's ballet performance. It was the best thing ever! Seriously! I think it was the peak of her life so far. Olive was ecstatic to get to wear a costume and dance ballet. The performance was "A Christmas Dream" and the Kinderdance class were toy teddy bears in Santa's workshop. How adorable is she?

Olive goes to the Ballet Center that is just a street away from our house. We wold walk there when it was warmer. I love it for it's convenience but also because it's this school that has been there forever, you know? It has all this charm. This is Olive with her teacher Ms Danielle. She loves her teachers (a couple of the TAs are in our ward). I am so impressed with what their class teaches them. Olive can plie, releve, point and flex her toes and they also work on the ballet positions.

These next few pictures were taken before the performance and you can see her excitement.

I think Olive loved that she got to hang out backstage with all of these ballerinas in their beautiful costumes. She talked about them for a long time and all the things they did.

See Olive at the bottom there? Yeah, she was in heaven.

I had to include this picture because it has a funny story, at least I laugh when I see it. I told Scott to take a picture of the big ballerinas dancing so that Olive could see them, since she was backstage. Being the professional photographer that he is, he has a gigantic flash on his camera. As he took the picture he accidentally blinded all of us sitting around him in the dark. I was seeing spots it was so bright! Everyone that was there with us then got the giggles and had to really work to gain our composure. But at least we got the picture right?

I was really proud of Olive. I thought there was an 80% chance that she would be the kid to stand and wave at us the whole time they were on stage. At least that is what she does if she sees us during class. I have to kind of hide out from her. But since the audience was dark she didn't necessarily think about us. She was the best dancer out there, honestly. She was so into it and jumping and skipping her little heart out. It was so awesome. I think we were all laughing the whole time at it's adorableness. Olive felt so special that we got her a rose after her performance.

It is honestly one of my all time favorite memories. I can't wait until the spring for her next performance!

I had to include one of Olive and Tanya. Thanks to everyone that came, I'm pretty sure they agree with me, that it was the best ballet they have seen. If you didn't go I highly recommend you see the next one!

Christmas Photo Outtakes

2012-01-06T11:18:00.000-08:00

I hope I haven't built these up too much. Here are (lots) of our photos that went so wrong. They aren't edited but I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

A Christmas Photo We'll Never Forget

2012-01-04T17:20:00.000-08:00

I wanted to post this before it got too far from Christmas. Taking a Christmas photo this year was quite the feat. We certainly did not give up considering that we tried 4 separate times to get a decent photo and ended up with over 500 photos taken. It seemed nearly impossible to get two kids to look at the camera at the same time, or more problematic to even be in good moods at the same time. It always happened that when one was willing to cooperate, the other was grumpy. I don't know how you parents of more than two kids get such cute photos (Mary, I'm looking at you!) Even when we pulled out all of the bribery things we could think of and threatened every threat. Thusly, we have tons of awesomely bad photos. But we were persistent and (forced) our kids to keep posing. We did get some really cute photos out of all of that and I figured since we all suffered so much that we might as well show them off so that they have some purpose. These are all photos that we considered using for our card.

In case you didn't get our card here is what we decided to go with. We picked it because I felt like it just completely captured the whole experience. This shot is my memory of Christmas photos this year.

But here are some of the other contenders:

I don't know why I love this one so much but I do. Maybe it is because Milo looks very sad and Olive looks, well, like Olive. She is definitely becoming a ham for photos, when she isn't doing a weird forced smile or a "you guys are the worst" pout.

Cute Boy!

See what I told you, one horribley miserable and one sweet and cheerful.

I loved this one of Olive too. Something about her little pose is just so adorable to me. Maybe it's just because I'm her mom.

This was Scott's favorite and his number one contender. I did like it but convinced him to go with the other one. It's subtle and very anti most Christmas photos, I mean you can barely see Milo.

I just think this one is so sweet. I imagine Olive telling him something funny but that is definitely not what was happening in this photo.

This is the same as the photo we chose except that the kids are actually looking at the camera. I thought it was a pretty hard decision but I like what we chose. What do you think? Is this the cute one where you can see their cute little faces?

Seriously couldn't you just squish Milo up?

I really liked this one too and it was my second choice. I thought that they looked more genuine in this one that the other ppose where they are looking. I think Scott's problem with it was her random hand on the edge. Who knows why she was waving. I kinda like that she is.

Once the two together pose started deteriorating we thought maybe we could do separate photos on the card. Milo looks darn cute but Olive was...let's just say was Over It.

So what do you think? Did we make the right choice with our card? What one would you have picked? Seriously I'm so curious! Stay tuned on Friday for some awesomely bad outtakes!

New Years Miss and Other Party Details

2012-01-02T15:12:00.000-08:00

We had such a fun New Years weekend! We headed down to St George for a lovely little get away with family. As always it was nice to be outside, enjoy the weather, and take a break. St George is perfect because the kids can do the drive with no problems. They are fabulous travelers. We went to Snow Canyon again just to be outside and run around and play. Olive loved the sand, especially since it was soft enough for dad to "tackle" her in. Once he started she wouldn't let him stop. Let's just say they were both covered in sand by the end.

Then we went on a little hike. I can't wait until summer when we can actually hike again! But this definitely did the job for now. Milo was a trooper since we were pushing him way past his nap time and started to kind of melt down towards then end. Then, literally as I was walking to the car finally decided to fall asleep!

Isn't that pretty? Oh how we love our cousins! Olive could move in with them and be completely happy. I sometimes think she would have loved being a youngest child to always having big siblings to play with. That is why in some ways, St George in her heaven because there are always people around and always things going on.

Because we had been on vacation all weekend we had stayed up late every night and Olive had no nap for 4 days in a row, I was very curious about how New Year's Eve would go. We decided to put Olive to sleep at the regular time but then wake her up at 11:30 so she could dance and party with us. When Scott went in to get her she wouldn't wake up. Then he brought her out and she still wouldn't wake up.

She just stayed asleep on him for 10 minutes, even after a drink got spilled all over her. Finally, after she kinda saw that there were some dress ups she decided that she wanted to wear a hat and woke up. We were having so much fun playing games and dancing that we actually missed the real ball drop and just did it on "our own time". Technically this was the year that we missed New Years!

My two cuties. I swear we didn't keep Milo up. He usually wakes up and has one last night cap bottle to fill that little tummy for the night and it so happened to be right in time for the party. He was very concerned about most of the noise and all around craziness and kept grabbing on my shoulder.

Party!

The best part about staying somewhere for New Years is that you can all be together but not have to drive home (I'm always scared of drunk drivers). So after we rang in the new year it was off to bed! Olive especially liked this bed because it was a small bed like hers at home but also because it is called the "bear bed". It is full of these huge stuffed animals that were all Scott's from when he was a little boy. She was thrilled to find out these new friends used to belong to her daddy "when he was whittle".

Happy New Year!

Christmas 2011

2011-12-27T12:55:00.000-08:00

We had such a fabulous, busy, fun Christmas this year. Here is a brief overview of all the festivities. (Sorry about the photos. My camera's flash broke and so I was taking most of the pics on Scott's camera that I am horrible at using. So a lot of the pictures are flashed out or just kinda crazy but they are memories right? Also, there are a ton of photos and sorry it's such a long post but it's not even 1/3 of everything I took that day!)

We started it all off with a Christmas eve luncheon at my aunt's house. It was so great getting to see some cousins and for Olive to have some kids to play with since she is usually lonely at my family's get togethers. It was delicious food and so much fun but sadly way too short!

Then is was off to the other side of the family for some Christmas eve traditions. After stuffing ourselves silly on Chinese food we were entertained by a wonderful nativity program.

Olive was very excited because she and Tommy got to be Mary and Joseph. They were the cutest ever and took their roles very seriously.

Look at that cute clan. The kids did it all themselves, with some direction, and I was way impressed.

Then we opened our Christmas jammies. Don't they look adorable? In our family the adults also get new Christmas jammies. This year all of the girls got pajama jeans. Have you seen those? I think Scott was more excited than me about them. They are pretty sweet!

This year we also started an awesome tradition of a pajama parade after everyone was changed. They loved marching through the house and thinking up different moves to perform as they passed us. The biggest hit was definitely "old man pants" and I will just let you imagine because some of the pictures will scar you forever.

Then is was rush rush home and rush rush to get the presents all out before it was insanely late. Christmas morning was pretty awesome! I don't think Olive remembered that much from Christmas last year and only knew what we had talked about or told her would happen. She loved all her presents, it was just a lot to take in all that was happening that morning I think. I was picturing in my mind some great reactions but was worried that she was disappointed with things. It has been really cute though because as she has had a few days to check out all her loot she will randomly thank us for something that she got. In a way that is kinda perfect because I know she is loving each thing.

Scott got us matching aviators.

Olive got Scott a ukulele, or" baby guitar" as she calls it. She was with me when we bought it and I was pretty proud that she didnt' give it away because usually she tells everyone what they are getting.

The one thing that Olive has been asking for consistently for months was a purple unicorn. She also wanted a pillow pet. I was so stoked when I could make both happen with one gift!! And that thing has not left her side for 3 days.

I like to make each child a gift for one of their presents she here is Olive modeling her new dress along with a scarf that I knit her.

Olive's main present was a pair of pink sparkle TOMS. She kept telling me all the other people that also have TOMS. I would say she was pretty excited to join the group!

Here is our diva fashionista all ready to head over to grandparents houses for more presents and fun!

Milo Loves Olive

2011-12-21T07:21:00.000-08:00

Oh my two kids are so dang cute. I know I've said all things before but now that Milo is 7 months old (can you believe it?) their relationship is really changing. Milo can sit and play with Olive and she likes that he isn't just a fragile, floppy, tiny newborn anymore so we don't have to constantly tell her "Stop! That's too rough! Don't touch him!"

Milo likes everything about Olive. He thinks she is so interesting which works perfectly because she likes to show him all kinds of things. They are pals.

And he thinks she is hilarious, because she is. Milo must have a good sense of humor.

Isn't he the cutest ever?

The fun thing about them recently is that they are doing everything together. They just started and like to take baths together. Yes, the water is green. I saw this fun thing on Pinterest about putting colored ice cubes in the bath so they could chase them, and they did love it, you just get colored water afterward.

Siblings are the best. Seriously!

Holiday Traditions

2011-12-19T07:40:00.000-08:00

I sometimes feel like I am making up traditions as we go but every year we try something new and if it turns out fun then we do it again next year. We have started the tradition of a Christmas book collection. On the first Monday of December we get to open our new book for FHE. So this year we decided to decorate a gingerbread man cake after we read our new story. That we pretty darn fun.

We always go drive around to see Christmas lights. This year we brought treats for the ride which was a good addition to an already fun tradition.

I saw a pin on pinterest about making Santa pancakes so last Sunday we did our best to make holiday themed breakfast.

This is our Santa....

and an elf....

and an angel.

Those are just some of the new traditions that we have tried this year. There are lots of our usual ones that I haven't been as good about documenting. There are enough fun things to do that it gets tough to squeeze them into 25 days! One that doesn't look like is going to happen this year is Temple Square. I'm kinda sad, but we are just running out of time. I just don't know where this month went! I am so excited for Christmas and I really can't believe it is only a few days away. Are you ready? We mostly are. I am also waiting to post Olive's preschool program and ballet recital until after the new year because, well, I will have more time to think about it. They are awesome though so you should be excited about it!

Finally here is our "Olive, the other reindeer" She has literally worn these around for days. Isn't she so cute?

Advent Calender

2011-12-16T07:01:00.000-08:00

Have you seen the adorable Pottery Barn Christmas tree advent calendar? I first saw it years ago and thought "I can totally make that!" Well, here is my version.

There are some crazy things about it, like it turned out huge, and not all the pockets are the same size, and things are sewn on crooked. It is harder to make then you would think. But, I still like it.

I still have to figure out how to put the number on the pockets. I realized after it was finished that I should have done that before I sewed anything. Oh well. And meet "Grahm". He's our little gingerbread man that we moved from pocket to pocket to count down the days.

So, it's not quite Pottery Barn quality and style, but I think it's full of charm.

Smiley Milo

2011-12-14T06:50:00.000-08:00

We have lots of nicknames for Milo. I am kinda of surprised by that because we thought Milo would be a hard name for nicknames. I mean, it already ends in an o and how do you add an ie to it?! But, it has been surprisingly easy. We call both of our kids Munchkins but that also gets shorted to munch, or munchybuns, or lots of other variations. We call Olive girlfriend but we call Milo dude, which has also turned into duder and Duder McScooter. Scott made up "Royal" names for everyone, since Olive loves princesses so much. They are Olivephina, Scottfield, Marinnia, and Milonius. So, we call Milo Milonius. Whenever I said Milonius it made me think of a song, so that nickname also got a theme song. (if you are wondering...do you know the "Aquarius" song? That is the tune we just sing "Milonius, Mi-lo-ni-us!") We also call Milo Milito because well, Scott speaks Spanish. But I think my favorite nickname for Milo is Smilo because he is always smiling and here are some pictures to prove why he needs that nickname.

He loves to jump and bounce.

Doesn't he look so little in that highchair?

He loves bath time.

He is my smiley guy. Oh how we love our Smilo!

Olive loves Cheerleaders

2011-12-12T07:14:00.000-08:00

Do you remember this photo? Well, ever since Halloween Olive have been in love with cheerleaders. She loves the pom poms, and the outfits, and everything. She notices cheerleaders now if she watches any sporting events with Scott. Often she will tell him "I the cheer-weeder".

Because of Tanya's influence she was pretty determined to love BYU. But Scott worked away at her and then he showed her that USU has cheerleaders too, and their outfits are basically the same colors so now she is more on board with being an Aggie.

Luckily for Olive, she got her own pom poms and and cheerleading doll for Christmas from her cousin. She loves that thing. She already knows the cheers it sings and walks around singing "Wiggle it, just a wittle bit!" Yep, it was a home run gift!

Snowflakes

2011-12-09T10:01:00.000-08:00

I think this may be one of my favorite holiday decorations that I have made so I wanted to show it off. Last year I made some snowflakes to hang on our tree but didn't finish them in time for Christmas. I was extra excited this year. My mom had made some of these for our tree when I was little, so I think I am a little sentimental about them. Plus I just think they are so pretty. Well, our tiny tree didn't have any room left for my snowflakes but I was determined to find a way to use them in my decorations. Since I am obsessed with pinterest (just ask Scott) I had seen lots of pretty decorative branches and got inspired. One little project turned into a rather big one (that always seems to happen). So I made this:

I still have to figure out a better solution for the base/vase situation so just ignore that. Isn't it lovely?

I had also seen on pinterest these spray painted pineconces in hurricane vases that looked gorgeous. Since I don't have any vases or the money right now to get them, I decided to add some to my branches. I really like how they turned out.

What do you think? Festive? I am getting all kinds of inspiration about other things that I can hang on these branches for other holidays. Like those cool string eggs for Easter....and President's faces for Presidents day. The possibilities are endless. Do you have decorative branches? What do you do with them after the holidays are over?

Family Christmas Party

2011-12-07T07:22:00.000-08:00

As always our Patterson Family Christmas party was a blast. So much food, fun games, presents, and family.

I love this picture so much. Milo was just playing on the floor when all the kids came over to start games. They surrounded him and he was kicking his legs like crazy because he was so excited to get so much attention. It was so cute!

Here is Olive with her reindeer ears. She is obsessed with being a reindeer because of the book, Olive, the other Reindeer. She calls it "Me, the other reindeer!" Thus, she likes to wear her antlers everywhere.

And we just had to stick a Santa hat on Milo!

Here is the adorable video of Olive performing her "talent". She is singing Jingle Bells.

Olive Loves Tanya

2011-12-05T19:22:00.000-08:00

I was wondering what to blog about today and started browsing through some pictures to get inspired In an instant I knew exactly what to blog about.

Olive has many cousins, 7 of them are girls, and 6 of those girls are much older than Olive. This circumstance is truly an amazing blessing because at any given moment Olive has a cool older cousin doting on her, taking care of her every need.

But, there is one cousin that holds a very special place in Olive's heart. That cousin in Tanya.

This is a picture of Olive and Tanya at our annual family Christmas party two nights ago. As I was browsing old photos something stuck out to me:

I can go to lots of my albums and find a similar picture of Tanya and Olive. It's not only from recent photos either. Here is a sweet picture of the two of them when Olive was only 3 months old.

IT is so easy to find pictures of these two together is so easy because Olive loves Tanya. Well, to say that Olive LOVES Tanya is an understatement. Olive IDOLIZES her. She wants to be exactly like Tanya. If Tanya takes her shoes off, then Olive wants to. If Tanya puts a sweater on, then Olive wants to. If Tanya likes a sports team, then Olive does too (even as hard as we try to sway her). If Tanya does Olive's hair, then Olive will not let me take it out at night time. If Tanya gives her something, she treasures it. Olive talks about "her" Tanya constantly. And since our amazing Tanya lives around the corner, Olive gets lots of chances to be "just like Tanya" and loves every minute of it. Tanya is her helper. Tanya is her playmate. Tanya is Olive's world.
I can't help but feel so blessed to have sweet Tanya be Olive's idol. Tanya genuinely loves Olive in return. She is an amazing helper and loves to take care of both of my kids. Tanya's cheerful personality, infectious laugh, and caring heart endear her to everyone. I could not pick a better person for Olive to idolize, because I do too. My heart is so full that Olive, and I in turn, are so blessed to have Tanya in our life. We truly love her!
As if you need more evidence of Tanya's awesomeness here she is helping Olive feed the ducks.

And as a side note, how do you like Olive's duck-feeding attire? She picked it out herself.

Tanya, we love you!

Little Red Riding Hood

2011-12-02T04:27:00.000-08:00

A sneak peek at what we have in store for our Christmas card pictures. We are going to shoot them tomorrow and I am so excited!

Sleeping Baby

2011-11-30T12:26:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Milo didn't wake up before it was time to pick Olive up from preschool. He looked so peaceful sleeping. So I had to take some pictures. There is something amazing about a sleeping baby. So sweet and precious. It broke my heart to have to wake him, as it always does.

You can see that Milo is still swaddled. We call him our "burrito supreme". We have always called our swaddled babies burritos but he is just getting so big. Over the holiday weekend our relatives were kind of making fun of us when they would see us wrap Milo up. He is just so big that it does look funny.

Here is a close up of his little cheeks. And oh that poutty lip!

Do you think we are crazy to still wrap him up? Olive was swaddled until she was 8 months old, Milo is only 6. We had to actually ween Olive off of her swaddle and even to this day she really likes to be tucked in nice and tight. I don't know if it is the swaddle or Milo but he is sleeping 12 hours most nights, so I am not willing to mess with anything at this point.

So, do/did you swaddle your babies?

Thanksgiving

2011-11-28T13:20:00.000-08:00

I am sorry about those last few posts. I did them in advance, and then obviously forgot to finish them. I promise I will go back and update the ones that didn't have pictures like I said they would. Oops!

We had a really fabulous Thanksgiving this year. We have so much and are so blessed that it is easy to make a long list of all that we are grateful for. I'm not going to add that list here but just know that all of you great friends and family that read this blog are definitely at the top!

Scott started off the day with a Turkey Trot with his sister Becca. They did amazing and we are so proud of them (Becca, please forgive me if you are mad that I posted this picture:) but I love it!)

Then we went as a family to go see the new Muppet movie. Scott and I were laughing the entire time, we thought it was so funny. Olive got pretty bored towards the end, but thankfully her popcorn was enough to keep her happy until the end.

After some nice naps we went to my aunt Lori's house for dinner. This is the first time in forever that this side of my family has had relatives here and it was great to get together with them. Dinner was delicious, as always. We took some real pictures of their cute turkey outfits so hopefully I can post those soon.

Then we just had to break out the Christmas jammies because, well you only have so long to wear them! I love matching jammies, almost more than life itself. Sadly, camera phone pictures just do not do the job. I hope your Thanksgiving was as joyful as ours!

Exterior Transformations

2011-11-18T04:52:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago Scott painted the exterior of our house. All along we had planned to paint it this fall but somehow it snuck up on us. We ended up in a frantic rush to pick colors and paint before it got cold and snowy. Fortunately October stayed nice and he was able to finish, although it did take multiple Saturdays. We always underestimate the time of a project, especially this one. We also miscalculated how much I would be able to help, which ended up being not at all, other than "occasional ladder holder".

It was pretty hard to pick our colors. We got probably 15 samples and still weren't sure. The hardest part was that we wanted colors that would compliment but downplay the purple-ness of our brick.

Here is house the front looked 2 years ago when we purchased the house. Cute but, I don't know....something seems old lady-ish to me. I think it's the hedge.

So, we (read Scott) pulled out the hedge. We also need it out to paint. The main reason we were painting was for looks, but we were also hoping it would stop some of the leakage we were having in our basement if we painted and sealed the foundation.

So here is the finished product:

What do you think? I love it! I think it is just a subtle change, in fact a lot of our neighbors didn't even realize we had painted. It's just that little bit of updating. Now I feel like the exterior matches the interior. Besides, I've always wanted a gray house!!

Two Whole Years

2011-11-17T04:32:00.000-08:00

As of November 7 we have officially lived in our house for 2 whole years. That is so shocking to me. It is the longest we have lived in one place since we have been married. It doesn't feel like our new house any more, it just feels like our house. I do kinda miss it not being new. Everyone has seen it now. I did love when people came over and I got to show it off. I love our house. I adore it. I loved it when we first walked through it, and I loved it after we remodeled it and moved in, and I loved it when we got to do all of the firsts in it like first Christmas etc, but now.... I really love it. Now it has all those memories and time in it. I wasn't too sentimental about moving out of our other places even though they had lots of the same "firsts" but this house is different. Besides we have made so many great friends and love our neighbors.

I sometimes stress out about the potential of someday having to move out of this house. Crazy right? Well, I thought I would just show you some of the things that have happened and changed in our house over the last 2 years.

Knit Romper

2011-11-16T06:49:00.000-08:00

I am actually quite proud of this little knit romper. You might not know it by looking at it, but it is one of the hardest things that I have knit. The pattern was pretty confusing, the shaping was pretty advanced, and it took forever to sew on all those buttons. But, it was perfect for the fall day that I knew Milo would be wearing it on for his 6 month pictures.

Good thing he still fits in it with that chubby tummy.

I made a hat to match, but, well, the hat barely fit! This boy and his head....but still so cute!

Some details:

Olive at 6 months

2011-11-15T06:42:00.000-08:00

I just had to post this picture because I think it is so amazing. I was looking back at pictures of Olive as a baby (she loves to see herself) and found this forgotten gem. She is a little older than six months here and this is right before she started crawling so she was at her chunkiest. Those cheeks are intense....I love it!

Milo at 6 months

2011-11-14T13:42:00.000-08:00

Today Milo is 6 months old.

It is absolutely shocking to me that my little guy is so old. These may have possibly been the fastest six months of my life. Milo is such a joy and it is really hard for me to remember what life was like before he was here. He fills our lives.

Milo, in most ways, is a very easy and cheerful boy. I feel like his life has kind of been divided into 3 sections: pre-prevacid (which is a blur), diagnosed with reflux (which was a lot of adjusting of dosage and our expectations, this is when he started sleeping and I kinda feel like we could start seeing the baby he "really is" because reflux hid that for a few months), and now he is just....Milo.
He is almost always smiling and easy to get to laugh. We can really get him going with big belly laughs and its the most amazing thing ever. Most mornings I look in his crib and he greets me with a huge smile. His tongue is almost constantly sticking out, as you will notice because it is out in every.single.picture we took yesterday. I love it. (He was also in a strangely serious mood while taking pictures, I think it was because he was so fascinated by all the leaves.)

He loves eating real food and basically yells at you if you don't feed him fast enough. He will eat almost anything, but he so slow and it takes like 20 minutes. His stomach does much better with oatmeal than rice and it has cut down big time on his spit ups. I used to have to warn people that he would probably barf on them if they held him, but not so much anymore. He got his first tooth on Saturday. He sleeps like a champ and I am so extremely grateful (although day light savings transition was a nightmare waking up at 5:30 am). He can sit up, most of the time, but flops hard when he topples over. He can roll from back to tummy and then back. The only frustrating part is that he hates being on his tummy but refuses to roll back over. He will scream and then when I flip him he just looks at me like "How could you do that to me?" He gets shy and hides his face in my neck and shoulder. I adore it.

Milo likes to bounce and jump. If you hold him standing on your lap he will just bounce like crazy. He loves his jumper and it gets lots of use. He still kicks his legs, especially when he is excited. He will kick and then twist his feet at the same time and it is a pretty funny sight. He has discovered his voice and likes to use it, inevitably at the worst times. He can play with toys and entertain himself for short stretches. He wants to be in the same room and cries if you leave. He has learned how to grab Olive's hair. He is Olive's biggest fan and is fascinated by her. He has yet to make it through church, 1 o'clock time is hard. He charms everyone.

He is growing out of his 3-6 month clothes but 6-9 month ones are very long, he must have a short torso. He loves baths and splashes like crazy. I would still describe him as intense, especially if he is upset about something, be he is much more flexible and predictable which helps with his intensity. He cuddles....in the mornings we are the first ones up and it is just our special, sweet time as he lays on my chest and grabs my face.

I could go on forever.

There is just so much to love about him! I am very smitten.

Knit First Coat

2011-11-11T09:20:00.000-08:00

There are so many people that I just absolutely admire and they all seem to be pregnant right now. My friend Meredith is one of those people. She is amazing! I look at her strength, talent, style, kindness, and am often in awe of her. She designs the most beautiful stationary and you should definitely check her out at LilyJaneStationary.com.

Well, Meredith is about to have a new little addition in just a few weeks, although you would never know it because she looks like she is maybe six months pregnant (so jealous!) I just adore her and her cute family and I wanted to make her something special. Since her due date is in December I thought what better to make than a "first coat" as this pattern was called. I think it turned out great and the details really make this sweet little coat. I am in love with that collar! Congratulations Meredith and thank you for being my friend!

PS Did you know that today is 11/11/11? I just barely realized that. I feel like I should do something to commemorate it, but what? Anyway, sorry to any of you that may still possibly read this blog. I know that I don't comment on any of your posts because well, I usually read them in bed before I fall asleep and then forget to comment later. I do read them and love your post and keeping up with your lives. I hope that you don't think I have ditched you and I hope you haven't ditched me too! I miss you guys!

Milo Swimming

2011-11-09T04:14:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago Milo went swimming for the first time. I just loved him in his robe

But he was super cute in his suit too.

Oh, and we can't forget his sweet sunglasses.

I love how they were making the same face in this picture. Hehe! Milo loved the water and was splashing away. Olive thought that was awesome and was excited to splash him back. She was very confused when she got in trouble and he didn't.

Olive and Renegade

2011-11-06T04:59:00.000-08:00

Four years ago Scott gave me a kitten for Christmas. He was tiny and cute and we called him Renegade. This cat lived in our family until about a month ago when we listed him on KSL and a nice family came to take him home. There were lots of reasons why we decided to give him away but it was pretty hard to come to that decision because Oilve really liked the idea of having a cat. She identified herself as a cat owner and liked to talk about him when we saw other animals. I was pretty nervous about how she would react to him being gone. This is the funny story of her coming to terms with it. I'm sure no one else cares but I just really want to remember....

One evening a family came to look at our cat Renegade to see if they wanted him to live at their house. Olive met the family and liked running around with the little boy. We had prepared her before hand by talking about how Renegade was going to live with a different family now and she seemed pretty ok with it. She liked the idea of him, but didn't actually like playing with him, or at least she wasn't too interested yet. So they took Renegade home with them that evening.

The next day Olive was playing in the back yard with Scott when some cats came running through our bushes. One of them was black, but small like a kitten (Renegade was huge weighing in at 20+ pounds) Olive yells "Renegade! He's back!" Then pauses and looks more closely at him and says "It's kind of Renegade?" because she realized that something was off about this cat. Still convinced it was hers she went up to try and pet it and it kept running away from her. In frustration and chasing it around the yard she yells "Renegade, it's me! Come back here! Renegade, stop running away!" Finally the cat scampers away into the next yard probably because it was feeling harassed by this little girl convinced it was her friend.
The following morning as I was doing my make up, Olive was sitting outside the bathroom talking to me as she often does (she is not allowed inside the bathroom while I'm in there so she just sits on the floor and talks and talks) I brought up the cat from yesterday to see if she was upset about missing Renegade or not. I asked "Did you see Renegade yesterday?" and she tells me "It was kind of Renegade." Then she thinks for a minute and says "It was Renegade's little brother!" He was small." Surprised by this I said "Oh, his little brother huh? What is Renegade's brother's name?" and without skipping a beat she answers "Rufus!"

This is why I love 3 year old Olive. I have no idea where she came up with Rufus. I have racked my brain thinking where she might have heard it before. I just adore the innocence and confidence that fill her life right now. I just might think that this is the perfect age (like I have never said that before).

I Promise....

2011-11-04T06:17:00.000-07:00

This is the last of the Halloween posts this year! Ha!

For months Olive has been saying that she wanted to be Rapunzel for Halloween. So that is what costume I got her. Then, as you have seen from the other posts, she frequently changed her mind because well, she has a whole box of costumes. You might not know this about Olive but, she spends about 80% of any given day in some kind of dress up. So, that meant that she had lots of options readily at hand. But, on actual Halloween we convinced her to be Rapunzel because we had all planned costumes to go with her.

The trickiest part of Rapunzel, as you might have guessed, is the hair. We bought a wig online, because well, I thought the $25 dollars for the Disney one was outrageous (in retrospect we should have just got the one at the store but oh well)

Well, when it came in the mail it had these crazy bangs that we could never fix. But the back was pretty cool.

So we cut the braid part off and just figured out how to connect it to Olive's hair. It didn't look perfect but at least she didn't look homeless anymore.

Here is Rapunzel with her Flynn Ryder

Apparently he is still afraid of her hair! Hehe. We seriously love this movie at our house!

Milo was Pascal, in case you couldn't tell:)

And finally the whole Tangled bunch. Flynn, Rapunzel, Pascal, and Mother Gothel. I think we looked dang good, but I couldn't stand that horrible wig.

More Halloween Activites

2011-11-02T06:23:00.000-07:00

So here are some of the other Halloween highlights (there were lots of fun things that we did that I forgot to take picutres at! Oops!)

Decorating our homemade witch's hats

Preschool costume parade (Olive is the bride in white. Interestingly, the other kids didn't know what I bride was.) Olive loves playing in the leaves.

Orange and black dinner

Homemade donuts and hot cocoa

Library Halloween Party

Painting pumpkins

Posing with Pumpkins

Our Giraffe. We have had multiple costume changes this year.
We had a family Halloween party and Scott decided to be....can you tell?

He was Steve Jobs (a tribute) and I was his greatest invention

Cute family

I think this picture is so awesome and hilarious at the same time. First of all, that littlest cheerleader isn't even two yet but I think she has a bright future. And second, how funny is Olive desperately wanting to be part of their awesomeness?

These two are so cute together! Love our cousins!

Here is the whole group:

There is so much more like our own Halloween party, a Halloween playdate, sugar and pumpkin cookies, caramel apples, a trip to St. George, carving pumpkins, etc. etc. etc. Even though it has been so much fun, I am ready to put the decorations away and start thinking about Christmas presents. Yeah!

Gardener Village Witches

2011-10-31T06:54:00.000-07:00

We had done so many Halloween things it's hard to know where to start. A few weeks ago I took the kids to go see the witches and Olive LOVED it. She liked searching for them and seeing how each one was different. It was crowded and busy but we still had loads of fun.

Olive really liked this witch with a black cat running under her skirt.

Being a mummy.

Olive liked these dolls, I think because they were just her size.

We got our witch hats.

Posing with the witches.

Milo was here too but just enjoyed the scenery from the stroller.

We had to end our trip with treats from the candy shop. Olive chose a chocolate lollipop but mostly just shared my caramel apple. It was a great day!

Newborn Sweater

2011-10-21T07:46:00.000-07:00

I kind of love this stage of life. I just love when my friends get pregnant with their first child because now you know they are going to be in on how amazing it is to be a parent. You try and tell them, explaining it the best you can, but it doesn't matter. I find it impossible to clearly put it into words. I remember thinking that I totally knew what it was going to feel like to have my own kids. How ridiculous. I had loving parents and I knew how it felt to love them. I had no idea that your own child becomes the all encompassing part of your being. So, I get excited when I hear that people are going to have their first baby because I love knowing what an amazing thing that is in store for them.

That is the case with one of my former roommates. I wasn't in college for very long, but Stef was the longest roommate I shared an apartment with. We were room roommates my second year. We were both psych majors and ended up taking a ton of classes together. We were roommates when she got married and when I started dating Scott. She is the roommate I have kept the most in contact with post college. She is an amazing, strong, driven, funny woman and I am so ecstatic at the joy that is going to fill her life soon. As soon as I found out she was pregnant I knew I wanted to make her something special. So I got busy making her baby girl this sweet sweater. It is one of my favorite things that I have ever made. Congrats Stef and I can't wait to meet your new little girl!

Monster Milo

2011-10-19T06:39:00.000-07:00

I bought Milo these monster jammies and I am now obsessed with them. I make him wear them all the time. I mean look at the hat, the monster toes, the....everything. I am obsessed. Basically, Milo is going to be dressed like this until Halloween. Speaking of Halloween, I better get busy on our costumes. I think we have nailed down what we are going to be, now it is just a matter of assembling everything. This should be fun!

Fun Monster

Serious Monster

Olive Loves to Help

2011-10-17T06:23:00.000-07:00

Whatever I am doing Olive wants to help me. I want her to help as much as possible although that occasionally proves tricky to have her help and stay sane. But usually it works out great. I especially like when we can actually have some one on one time together.

Olive is getting big enough that she can vacuum with our little sweeper vacuum. She does a pretty darn good job for only being 3 years old. It has now become tradition that she helps me vacuum up the kitchen after lunch.

Her favorite time to help is when I am cooking. We have been doing a lot of fall baking lately so she has had lots of opportunities to help. Here we are making some chocolate chip pumpkin cookies and bread to send to my brother in college.

I have recently been watching a neighbors two kids a couple times a month and having 4 under 3 has been a bit challenging at times. One way that I have found to keep some sort of structure is to have a treat to bake while they are here. Olive loves to take turns with the other little girl. She now insists that we take turns when we are baking on our own. Also, we always have to wear aprons, and in Olive's case her chef's hat that she got as a birthday present.

Olive especially likes using the mixer and watching things get mixed up after she dumps them in.

Eating our finished product. Yum!

Fall is here, that means Sweaters!

2011-10-14T07:52:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I finished the fall sweater I made for Olive, and just in time too. This week is suppose to be rainy and down right chilly. Oh how I do love fall!

Olive was being a bit of a crazy model, but just look at the sweater.

I am in love with the neck line!

I am so happy with how it turned out and since I splurged and got the really nice wool yarn it is actually an awesome sweater for her.

Good job ME!

More Comparisons

2011-10-12T06:03:00.000-07:00

I am positive that nobody cares about this but me. I am not sure what my obsession of recreating photos with Milo from when Olive was a baby but I just love it. So here is another (Olive's are much better lit but I just didn't have as much time.)

I feel like Olive looks like a porcelain doll here or something. I love Milo's chubby cheeks but they look like nothing compared to her cheeks. I still feel like they both have Scott's eyes and my nose and chin. Recently I have been thinking that Milo isn't looking as much like Olive as I once felt but here I do see a lot of similarities. What this had made me realize is that so much of their "look" is their personality coming through.

Olive Lately

2011-10-10T06:36:00.000-07:00

Olive's busy weekend:

Olive got invited to 2 birthday parties this weekend. One was a fairy party. She has been anxious for it all week and it did not disappoint. She came home with a new set of fairy wings, a tutu, a bracelet, a hair clip, cotton candy, and loads of fun things to tell us. She loved it.

I got a smoothie maker for my birthday so we have been eating a lot of smoothies for breakfast and Olive LOVES it. She asks almost every morning for a smoothie.

We have been watching lots of college football. Olive loves to cheer "Gooooo Aggies!" It's awesome. She also copies her dad while watching games and says things like "Come ON!" or "That's it, that's it" I find it hilarious. She like to feel very involved but more than anything she likes the game food and when we have friends over to watch. In fact she is pretty grumpy today from a weekend of late nights and no naps from all the fun.

There's our team spirit. How cute are they right? Then we also picked pumpkins and made/ decorated sugar cookies. It was quite the busy weekend.

Last weekend was crazy too. Olive's highlight was how she got invited to a Barbie party. I must admit it was amazing and Olive was in heaven. The party host collects barbies and had them out and displayed everywhere. Olive and I spent a good 10 minutes just walking around and admiring all the barbies. Then she got loads of party favors, her nails painted, hair done, and tons more. She had a blast!

September flew by but I cannot even keep track of October. That is how you always know you're having fun!

Halloween Chain

2011-10-07T06:08:00.000-07:00

Once we put up our Halloween decorations Olive has been constantly asking "Is it Halloween now?" She knows it is fun and something to look forward to but doesn't remember exactly how we celebrate.

So we made a chain to count down to the actual holiday. It was a bit disappointing that the chain was really long. I then decided to plan 31 themed things to put on each link. I think Olive will have more fun in all the build up to Halloween with all of the fun stuff I've planned. A lot of the activities are various fall/ pumpkin art projects and quite a few fall foods. We are making pumpkin cookies, caramel apples, chili, and dinner in a pumpkin. We are painting and carving pumpkins, decorating witch hats, and making feet ghosts.

Two activities that I am really excited for are our orange and black dinner where everything is only orange and black and our "phantom give" for an upcoming FHE.

Milo Likes to Show Off

2011-10-05T07:51:00.000-07:00

Or maybe I should say that I like to show Milo off. There really isn't any other reason for this post other than that. Truthfully he doesn't really need much help from me to get attention. Strangers are always approaching us and they love talking to him because he flirts back with lots of coos and smiles.

He is getting really good at holding his head up these days which is impressive because that is quite the feat. I mean, look at that noggin. It has it's own weather system (not really, I mean I'm not making fun) I do just want to congratulate him whenever he does tummy time because, well, it's a lot of work. He is rolling from his tummy to his back but mostly its just coincidence or maybe inevitable when his legs are kicking like crazy.

He has also recently gotten pretty good at grabbing things for the soul purpose of putting them in his mouth.

Of course, Olive had to get in on the action.

I also thought I would just take a moment and show off his wonderfully amazing little chubby thighs. Aren't those awesome? I just squish them all day while I'm holding him. I hope he realizes that its a sign of affection.

Olive's Quiet Time

2011-10-03T19:34:00.000-07:00

I just thought I would share this because I always like good mom ideas that I see on other people's blogs. At our house every Monday is cleaning day. I like to start off the week with a clean house. I have found it rather difficult to keep Olive occupied while I was cleaning without her making another gigantic mess for me to clean up. I am not opposed to using tv for times like these, and believe me I have done that a million times. But, I have also seen moms who talk about practicing sitting and doing a project to get their little ones ready for school (which I am not saying is totally necessary but a little practice doesn't hurt right?) and so they have quiet time during the week for that purpose. So, I decided to combine these two things and so far it has been fantastic.

While I am cleaning Olive gets to pick out one of the quiet activities we got her. She only gets to play with them at "quiet time" and has to stay at the counter. That keeps her contained and entertained while I try to clean as fast as possible. I am sure you are all rolling your eye at me because you are all super moms and this is old news to you. But it has been rather life changing around here. We have all the usual standbys... folder games, magnet boards, coloring and playdough, but we have discovered some gems that I don't know if everyone uses. First is an awesome mini sandbox that my sister in law gave Olive for her birthday. She will sit forever and play with the fairies that live in the house in the sandbox. Second are the felt storyboards that I bought forever ago. I highly recommend both of these!

The felt boards have different scenes like Pet Shop, zoo, camping, under the sea, and others. They are meant for teachers to use in the classroom to tell stories with but, Olive will sit for hours and act out her own stories. They are so awesome. The other great things is that when she is bored of one I can just get another scene out and the fun starts all over. Plus, we have been using them for "learning and fun time" which was what I was originally planning when I bought them, but also for FHE lessons and Olive loves it.

The other great thing is that Milo loves to watch his sister so he will hang out and admire her playing. That only last for about 5 minutes, but still, I take what I can get!

PS Isn't he cute?

Our Garden

2011-09-21T06:39:00.000-07:00

We kind of made the mistake of getting in way over our head with our garden this year. I was so excited to start our garden this time around because I was feeling pretty confident from what we had learned last year. So we got pretty adventurous and planted LOTS of stuff. I had big plans to can all kinds of things. I mean, I planted 4 varieties of tomatoes all for different purposes. For some reason while we were planting it never occurred to us that we were going to have no time or energy from having a newborn in the house. Our garden has been neglected to say the least and my big plans went right out the window.
Contributing to our crazy out of control garden was that we were given some plants from my amazing neighbor who is a horticulturist. She didn't warn me that she was giving me lots of exotic squash and such. So we planted some things not knowing what we were getting ourselves in to.
Our garden that started out like this:

And soon became this wild and overgrown monstrosity.

It might be hard to tell all of the insanity. There are vines and craziness growing everywhere including up our fence, into the neighbors yard and across our lawn. The worst part about it all is that it was our exotic squash that was taking over everything and not only did we not know how to tame it, we had no idea how to even cook it.

See those round green squash? Yeah, they are some Japanese variety that has to cure for 30 days or something. I don't even know. And, yes those are humongous zucchini and yellow squash. I told you it was neglected which means we would forget to go pick them until they were way too big.

So, the only thing to do was rip out the squash and save our garden from complete take over. It looks and feels mush more manageable now.

Sadly our tomatoes didn't do very well either. They got blossom rot from being over watered by our neighbors sprinklers and we didn't even realize what was happening. Even though they all died it is kind of a blessing because we would be up to our eyeballs with tomatoes and no way to keep up with them. That is my dream to make/can everything fresh from my own garden and I will do it someday. The other good thing is that we learned what to plant and where to plant it so I'm thinking that next year we will be much more successful.

And here is a cute picture of my little gardening partner.

Milo at 4 months

2011-09-20T13:33:00.000-07:00

Last week Milo turned 4 months old. It feels like he has been with us for a lot longer than that, I think because we have had so many ups and downs with him already in his short life. Thankfully things are evening out with him and we are all getting back to not being crazy people. I think the biggest contributor to that is sleep. Last week I decided that it was just time to get some sleep so that meant that Milo would have to cry it out. And boy can he cry it out. It was a good 3 or 4 nights of him crying for 30 minutes multiple times a night. The kid just doesn't give up! I am happy to report that for the last 3 nights he has slept from 11:30 pm to 7 am and it's like a whole new world has been opened up to us. I can actually reason and function during the days. I have energy and desire to work out. Its amazing what sleep will do! I'm also grateful because he has been stretching out his naps during the day instead of taking 10 cat naps like he was doing. All in all much is improved.

At the doctor appointment (which was an utter nightmare because I did both kid's well child at the same app so we were there for 2 hours and the doc called Olive fat but that's another story) he described Milo as intense. I found that so fascinating because that is the 3rd doctor to say that about him. It's not that I don't agree, there is major intensity in this little man, but I'm just surprised that they see it so fast. His stats were exactly the same as his 2 month, 40 percentile for height and 75 percentile for weight, so he's kinda a short, round little guy. Weighing in at 16 pounds means that his cheeks and thighs are very very squishy and that's just how we like them. People will comment to me how chubby he is and I will tell them "You should have seen his sister at this age"

How handsome is he? I just think he is the best looking baby around! At 4 months he is constantly sticking his tongue out, especially when he smiles. His hands are always in his mouth but likes to suck on almost anything and everything. He likes to grab things with his feet and is surprisingly strong when I try to pry something out of his clamped toes. He likes baths now. He has had some adorable belly laughs. He can do tummy time now that his stomach is feeling better. He can bat at things and is almost able to grab them. He likes his jumper and the bjorn because they hold him straight upright. He cries in the swing now. He is swaddled still at night but kicks his legs like crazy and often undoes our super burrito wrap. He is really quite strong. He likes to stand up. He is timid and nervous about people, often crying even if it's only grandma that's holding him. He is easily startled. He still loves to be bounced on your knee but will settle for sitting on your lap. He doesn't like his bumbo, bouncer or any other seat for longer than ten minutes. He screams (seriously screams) on all car rides so that makes you think twice about going somewhere. He likes to watch what is happening around him, especially his sister. He really likes when Olive shows him things or plays with him. He's just adorable! (and sorry for the stream of consciousness but I'm on a time crunch here)

My cute sister in law bought our boys matching overall outfits and we thought this was the perfect time to get some real photos of them together. Turns out it was a disaster! They didn't have any good props for these guys because they aren't quite sitting yet. Nothing worked out. So, here is a funny look at the worst photo shoot ever.

Nice right? Two babies balancing atop a chair, neither one happy about it. Honestly though, could these little guys be more different?

The lady kept scaring Milo because she would use loud sounds to get their attention but all it did was make him cry every time. She never tried any other tactic and so most of our photos have this sad face in them. In this photo he is actually looking at me and I feel like his face says "WHY are you doing this to me?"

This random couch in their waiting room was the ONLY thing they had that would sit them up so these are the best photos we got. Notice how Milo's hand is in/almost in his mouth in every photo.

This is the one I ended up getting printed. It's as good as we were going to get.

Olive's First Day of PRESCHOOL!!

2011-09-19T07:17:00.000-07:00

I have known for a year that Olive was going to LOVE preschool. She was probably ready for it months ago. Well, the day has finally come and boy was it stupendous! Olive is going to the Cottage Preschool which is here in our neighborhood so very close. It is a fantastic little school with a teacher that I am in love with. If you want to check it out click here.

Here is our big girl on her big day! How cute is she? We went on a special FHE the week before to pick out everything she would need for school. This was her special new outfit.
I particularly liked her choice of shoes, always the fashionista!

Look at that happy smile. She was so excited!

Hooray for school!

Always the big sister Olive pushed Milo the whole way. She lives to help us.

We have been talking about preschool for months now and since it is in our neighborhood we would walk by Mrs. Jani's house all the time so, Olive knew right where to go. She was so anxious that she literally ran to it.

Yippee Skippee! Olive is a big girl!

We found her star and she was overjoyed to find out that she got to take it home. It is currently hanging in her room.

Milo was happy for his big sister too.

The second day of preschool might have been even more exciting than the first because now she actually knew how awesome it was instead of us telling her it would be fun. She now asks everyday if it is a preschool day.

Doesn't she look excited?

I bought her some new Vans over the summer but she has been patiently saving them for fall. I thought it was the perfect time to break them in.

There she goes...my big preschooler!

The Film

2011-09-17T08:25:00.000-07:00

Scott took some film shots of Olive's birthday and I am in love with them.

Olive's Actual Birthday

2011-09-16T06:18:00.000-07:00

Olive's Princess party was quite the smash but that doesn't mean that the celebrating was over. A few days later it was her actual birthday and we tried to make it very special. She just kept thinking that everyday was her birthday and it basically was because she got presents all week.
The poor girl had a pretty serious cold on her actual birthday so you will notice a lot of runny nose pictures. Also, being the mom of 2 means that I am constantly forgetting my camera (as you may have already noticed from other posts) so, there are lots of camera phone pics.

She woke up to a house full of balloons. That was very exciting. She also had her a special birthday breakfast that had to include strawberries because she adores them.

Olive refused to let her illness get in the way of any celebrating so we carried on with our birthday plans. Lunch was a lovely picnic in the park with the cousins where she got to open some gifts.

Her new princess shoes were a major home run. She now wears them constantly.

Then it was off for a good nap to help her recover. After nap it was time for a special dinner. On their birthday our kids get to choose where/what they want to eat for dinner. Olive loves pizza so we decided to splurge and get the good stuff.

The funnest part about (any) food is getting to dip it.

Cheers to yummy birthday dinner!

Milo got to chill and watch us eat.

Then it was home for more present opening. She had already opened her Belle dress. This girl is obsessed with brides so that was the them of her gift. A bride dress that I made a veil and bouquet for. She insisted on wearing all of it even though it was 100 degrees. Finally we ended the day with some chocolate ice cream cake that Olive didn't actually eat any of because she didn't want to take her new white dress off. She sacrificed chocolate for her dress, now that is dedication.

The Details

2011-09-15T08:14:00.000-07:00

This is basically just for myself but I thought I would do it seperate from the party. Here are just a few of the details that went into making it a pretty special Princess party. (and don't make fun of my cake, and yes I did hand cut out 25 of those crowns. Oh what you do for your children!)

The party favor included things like Snow White's apple, Rapunzel's headband, Ariels bubbles, etc. It was pretty darn cute.

By the way, Scott and his friend Kent just got their own radio show! It starts tonight and will be every Thursday from 9pm -12am. They are going to take listeners calling in, talk about movies and tech stuff, playing good music, doing Netflix reviews (which I am still writing here) and just being funny. I am really excited and so are they. SO....show your support! Listen to them on utahfm.org

Princess Party!

2011-09-14T07:45:00.000-07:00

At long last...behold Olive's 3rd Birthday Princess Party.

Olive got to open one present early...her new Belle dress just in time for her party.

Perfect!

In fact, we all dressed up but somehow didn't manage to get a picture of the royal family, much to my disappointment because we sure did look good (and yes that was a high school dance dress from way back when)

Here is our patio all decorated for the party, or should I say ball.

When the guests arrived they all got to make a beautiful crown.

The guests were all decked out in their best princess/prince attire and everyone looked so awesome!

Then we had the Coronation Ceremony where each guest got announced to the Princess, knighted with a sword, and bowed for the Princess at the Royal Ball.

Princess Olive and all of her royal guests.

Then it was time for the ball and boy did we boogie down to a very special Princess Party mix made exclusively by our King.

Then the ball was over and we had to find our glass slipper (but don't have pictures of it)

Next, it was time to "Kiss the Frog" to become our prince by pinning some lips onto our friendly frog.

We also read some fun Princess stories and got to play with Princess Barbies until our guest of honor arrived:

OH the excitement!

Our dear friend Rapunzel played a fun game where she sang us some songs (which Olive identified every one, even Mulan that had stumped her friends). She also retold us her own Princess story.

Finally we had a delicious feast at our "Be Our Guest" banquet. It was quite the ball to remember.

Matching Siblings

2011-09-10T07:23:00.000-07:00

Way back when before Milo was here, I knew that I would some day want a photo shoot with my kids matching and I also knew I would want them in something cute that I made. So I set out to make their matching outfits. I'm not sure how many hours it took me to make their outfits, let's just say a lot. I am positive that it was worth it though. Now the day has come for them to don all of my hard work and boy did they look great! (I know you've basically already seen all these photos, but I thought I would just highlight their matchy-ness)

I think the little heart detail on Olive's sweater is my favorite of all time.

Aren't they cute all coordinated?

And now, here is the progression of getting Olive to smile. Scott and I were both laughing for like 10 minutes from these photos.

First she's (faking) sad.

Then she's trying to be mad at us.

Then we tell her not to smile.

Then she's adorable.

This last one I just think is funny.

PS I promise that princess birthday party pictures are coming soon! They are worth waiting for!

Now for Milo

2011-09-09T07:28:00.000-07:00

Oh what a sweet boy Milo is! He is all smiles. He is pretty easy going (if he is feeling ok) He is a solid chubby little guy. I just can't get enough of him!

He is sticking his tongue out constantly these days. I don't know if he is teething or what but he often looks just like this.

Yeah, he thinks I'm funny, but not as funny as Olive. He loves to just watch her and thinks she's amazing.

I am in love with this picture!

My big boy!

Olive's Big 3

2011-09-08T06:25:00.000-07:00

What more can I say about Olive at 3 that I haven 't already said? She loves life. She is full of enthusiasm. She is hilarious and knows it. She is loving being so grown up and so are we!

3 is the Number to Be!

2011-09-07T06:15:00.000-07:00

Milo turned 3 months and Olive turned 3 years all within 3 days of each other. So we decided to take some photos of them together to document their special 3's.

Our Labor Day

2011-09-06T18:15:00.000-07:00

We headed up to Bear Lake this past weekend and it was SO much fun! I absolutely love Bear Lake because it always reminds me of hanging out with friends back in the college days. Here's what we did:

Went swimming with the cousins.

Watched the Aggies kick Auburn's butt (I don't count the last 2 minutes)

Ate delicious, world famous raspberry shakes..

Hung out at the lake.

Went boating (unless you were Milo, then you chilled on the beach)

Olive loved the boat and kept yelling to go faster.

Olive was pretending to be a rhino by sticking these on her nose.

Before we left we were sure to walk around campus and indoctrinate our future Aggies. We had to stop by the A!

Notice Olive is wearing her Game Day shirt!

Here is our group shot. I think we converted quite a few people to Utah State. It was a beautiful day. There wasn't much happening on campus so we could run and be wild. It was perfect.

Good ol' Old Main. Oh the memories of working there after I graduated.

Uncle Trent stopped by campus to visit with us since he just started school up there this week. We got to check out his apartment and meet some roommates. It was really fun. I kept thinking "I could just strap on a backpack and be back in school!" Then I realized I was the old lady with 2 kids and everyone was thinking the if will be forever until they are in my position! Things change fast, it was only 6 years ago that I was a student!

Then we had to stop by the temple. I love showing Olive different temples and talking about how they are so special. She loves brides and understands getting married and now she says she is going to get married in the temple. I would be very happy if she chose the Logan temple.

I just love how "pioneer" this temple feels. It is very rustic and charming. I always like to look for it up on the hill as you drive into town.

It was such a fun weekend and a great way to spend our holiday. I miss you Logan!

Even Princesses use the Potty

2011-09-02T07:15:00.000-07:00

Olive is going to hate me someday for this post but I absolutely love it.

I must say, besides my baby having reflux, potty training has been the most daunting thing about parenting I have yet to encounter. I hate potty training. I hate it and everything went relatively smoothly. I still hate it. Olive on the other hand was such a champ.

About a month ago I decided that I was done with diapers and we were going to go all in at potty training. I whipped out every piece of advice, tip, or conversation that I had ever heard about potty training. We didn't leave the house for 5 days, and well, Olive is basically potty trained! We only had a few traumatic accidents (one the first day when Olive was sans underwear I left the room for literally 2 minutes and came back to poop on the floor, that was traumatic for both of us). Within the first day Olive was awesome at peeing on the potty. I have to say, I was very proud of her.

Here is our princess on the potty. I just love this picture.

After talking to a friend about how to motivate poops (they are so tricky because you only have one chance a day, for awhile Olive was holding it until naptime which was a nightmare!) and she told me that for the first poop her little guy got to go get ice cream. So that is what we did. The first real poop in the potty and we went straight to ice cream. Then we did a sticker chart for every time after and once the chart was full we got another ice cream. The good part is that it worked great, the bad part is that now Olive knows what/where Cold Stone is and asks for it all the time.
There have definitely been some horrible moments but I am glad that now it is over and the potty won.

Overalls for All

2011-08-31T07:00:00.000-07:00

I have officially decided that I am obsessed with little boys in overalls. I just can't get enough. It is my weakness, if I see overalls at the store I must buy them. Here is my cute boy in all his cute overalls. (sorry for the crappy cellphone pics but you get the idea.)

I told you, adorable right?

Olive's Birthday Bear

2011-08-29T13:59:00.000-07:00

I have loads and loads of birthday stuff to post about but I'm kinda "waiting" on someone to get it edited. So I thought, in the meantime, I would post the gift I made for Olive on her 3rd birthday.

Here he is, Olive's Birthday Bear. Isn't he cute? We are still deciding on an appropriate name for him.

I really like his little face. Olive is in love with him. She saw me making him and I told her it was going to be a teddy bear, but I don't think she believed me because they were all flat pieces before he was sewn together. When she took it out of the box she screamed "It's my teddy bear!!" with so much enthusiasm it was like he was her long lost bear. She is the funnest girl to give gifts to because she is so genuinely excited for everything.

My heart melts every night because she asks to sleep with him. It's so cute. My plan is to make Milo one for his birthday too so they have matching bears.

I just love how he turned out. His little face, his floppy limbs, his pudgey tummy. I think Olive loves him too. It will be a good keepsake to remember her at 3 years old.

Bre's Wedding

2011-08-12T10:04:00.000-07:00

About a month ago I had the chance to go to my cute cousin Bre's wedding in California. I was so excited for Bre mainly because I know how happy and exciting that time of life is. There are only 3 girls out of all the cousins so I had to be there and represent us girls! I just love Bre and her family and I'm so happy I could be there to celebrate with her. These cousins are the ones I know the best 1) we are all roughly close in age (roughly, but more so now that most of us are at the same stage of life. kids are a major equalizer aren't they?) and 2) they were the cousins we saw the most growing up.

I took Milo while Scott stayed home with Olive for a few days. I was so nervous to leave her because I had never spent a night away from her. I kinda figured that she wouldn't miss me as much as I was going to miss her. They partied it up while I was away seeing movies everyday. It was play, play, play. But, Olive asked for me every night, so I guess she did miss me after all.

It was a beautiful and simple sealing and it I kept thinking about my own wedding day. That day I was kinda stressed out but listening to the temple president talk about the blessing of marriage made it melt away and I remembered how lucky I am to be married to my husband. I really wished he was there and it made me miss him so much. There is nothing like the feeling of knowing that you have a partner walking with you through everything you will experience in this life.

Jerrica was nice enough to take care of Milo while we were in the sealing. I was so worried that he would scream the whole time but she said he was fine. She might just be saying that. Or he just saved the crying for me when I got out of the temple. But, I would prefer that than crying at them.

Kellen loved harrassing the little boys. They loved rough housing back.

Everyone socializing and waiting for the bride and groom. I really wanted to take Olive to this wedding because she is in love with brides these days. I knew she would love to see one in real life. But Scott had a wedding that weekend and I didn't think I could handle traveling with the 2 kids on my own.

That is the only shot I got of the bride and groom when they came out. Can you believe it? Can you even see them? Milo started getting really tired right when it was time for all the photos so he is probably crying in most of the actual photos.

One of my biggest motivations to get out to the wedding was that I knew it was a rare chance to see some of my cousins. We all live across the country so it is a very special occasion to bring us together. There were still quite a few missing though! I love that we are all grown with our own families now. Some of their kids I was just meeting for the first time. I am so glad that I did get to spend some time catching up with them so it was well worth the trip. Here is my cousin Austin with his two kids and my youngest brother Connor.

Milo and Grandma:

The reception was absolutely beautiful. They had everything you could want in a reception and lots of details I never even thought of. They totally treated it like a party and everyone stayed to dance and have a great time. I kept thinking "Olive would be in heaven! I wish she was here!"

I don't know why but I loved the table arrangements. Every table was had a different grouping and it created such a perfect look. I loved it but I'm sure my camera phone photo doesn't do it justice.

Dancing the night away. It was a blast and I'm so glad I could be there to celebrate with them!

Shoes Shoes Shoes

2011-08-10T21:47:00.000-07:00

I fooled you huh! You thought this was a post about Olive. But no, indeed, Milo has a ton of shoes. Why are baby shoes the cutest things ever? And since Scott and I both have a weakness for shoes (Scott might possibly have more shoes than I do) we always agree that Milo must have it when we see a cute baby shoe.

Milo was also given lots of dang cute shoes at his shower. So, he wears shoes every single day so that we get some good use out them before they don't fit anymore, which might be next week or tomorrow!

Here wears these the most because they are probably the easiest to put on.

We, of course, had to have some Vans for him. I can't wait until he is big and running around in real Vans. Oh he is going to be so cute!

These are by far my favorite and he has some pants to match them so they are extra cute!

He has to have some high tops!

Here is our big boy!

Olive is (almost) Three

2011-08-08T09:41:00.000-07:00

Wow! 3! What a sweet and loving girl Olive is. I am absolutely loving 3 year old Olive. When she was born I couldn't picture what our life would look like in three years but I have to say, it is wonderful.

Olive is a very expressive girl. Her little eyebrows just tell you her thoughts. Sometimes we just chuckle at her from the faces that she makes. She loves to be silly and make silly faces. I love how goofy she is.

Olive likes telling jokes. She will say "You jokin' me!" when we are teasing her and she loves it. She likes playing the opposite game. For example, if she says "I love strawberries" then I will tell her "No, you love pickles!" or something else she doesn't like and she will laugh hysterically. The only problem is that there is no stopping that game.

Olive thinks her dad is the funniest thing on earth. He can make her belly laugh like no one else. He has made her laugh so hard that she literally falls over laughing. It is the cutest thing in the world.

Olive is quite a sensitive girl. She really doesn't like people, especially mom, to be upset or angry with her. She is quick to say sorry when she has done something. I love it when she says "Fank you for saying sorry" if I apologize to her. She gets embarrassed if another adult corrects her. She is "afraid" of the garage and laundry room because "Scary monsters wiv in dere".

Olive loves learning and asks questions all day long. She wants to know what things are called and how they work. I love her inquisitive mind. She knows her ABC's and can count to 20. She has started recognizing her letters and likes to find them. She is quite an auditory learner and can learn songs really fast. It is kinda surprising. Once a neighbor was teaching her (for about 10 minutes) how to count in Spanish and now she remembers and can get all the way to ocho without help. It didn't know this had happened and then one day she was just walking around saying "Uno dos tres..."

She loves barbies, princesses, ballerinas, dress ups, and being fancy more than ever. She has opinions about what to wear and likes to pick out her clothes while shopping. She watches me do my make up in the mornings and likes to have some put on her too. She likes watching and doing whatever I'm doing. She is hilarious talking on the phone because she holds it up and walks around the house while talking.
Olive loves to cook in her kitchen, take care of her babies, play with playdough and do art, read books, and she especially loves when you do those things with her. What I love so much is her enthusiasm for what ever we are doing. It is really easy to get her excited for almost anything (except using the potty but more news on that later).

Olive likes to go places. Almost every morning she asks "Where we going today?" She likes going to the store and running errands. She wants to know what kind of store we are going to, and if we are getting to the grocery store or a different store. Recently I listed off a whole bunch of places to go like the farm, zoo, dinosaur museum etc and she got so excited and said " We going there? I get my shoes!" and ran off before I could tell her that we weren't going at that second. She often asks "Today is Sunday?" because she really likes nursery and wearing a Sunday dress.

Olive is gaining lots of friends and loves to play with them. She talks about her friends constantly and wonders what they are doing. She likes to tell me what she likes to play with them, like "Me and Jane eat meat" or "we be dinosaurs". She will ask her friends to be "my body guard" when she is playing princess. If we walk or drive past a friends house she tells me who lives there. Unfortunately some of her closest pals don't live very close to us.

Olive has some funny sayings that are just so classic Olive.
She asks for "fresh milk" in the morning.
She likes things that are "so com-for-ble" like our bed or her blankie.
She says "I don't fink so!" all the time.
If she wants something or sees something at the store she ask to get it "for my birf-day?"
She will add "and stuff" and "or some-fing" on the end of her sentences.
If you ask her to do something, like use the potty, she will say "maybe tomorrow?"
If you ever ask her how something was like dinner or a party she always, 100% of the time says "it was reew-ey goob!"for really good.

Some of Olive's favorites are:
Favorite color, pink
favorite food is definitely fruit, seriously almost any fruit. She especially loves strawberries. Her favorite "meal" food is pizza.
Favorite princess is a toss up but she usually says Cinderella or Belle.
Favorite shows are almost anything, she loves tv but frequently asks for YO Gabba, Dora, or Rugrats

Olive has had an amazing third year. She has learned so much. Olive brightens every day and we are so proud of her. We feel lucky that she is in our family!

PS If you want to know what I thought about the new Jane Erye read my review tomorrow at showtimeshowdown.com!!

Bear Bums

2011-08-05T21:16:00.000-07:00

One thing that I loved about a baby girl is all the ruffles, especially ruffled bum pants. I love it so much I even made a post about it here. So I was a little sad when I wasn't going to be getting out the ruffle pants. But, little boys have cute things are their bums too. Things like lions and bears. I might even like little lions on bums more than ruffles.

Olive Get a Real Hair Cut

2011-08-03T09:19:00.000-07:00

Olive has been talking about hair cuts for awhile. She likes to give me pretend hair cuts. Well her hair has gotten a little hammered this summer with all the sun and swimming. Scott was quite sad about it, I mean it was her little baby hair we were cutting off of those ends. I knew we were also going to lose her curls and her blonde since her roots are quite brown. I was convinced she was going to look like a different girl.
Before:

We also needed to do something about her grown out bangs.

Here is her rather impressive pony tail. I can't even remember when I had a pony tail that long.

Here we are at the trusty old Cookie Cutters. She was really good at sitting still and being patient. There were loads of kids running around and it was kinda crazy in there but she knew not to wiggle too much.

Here is the after:

Thankfully she didn't lose all her curl. We were also able to tame those bangs. I wanted it a little bit shorter but this was a good compromise. I sometimes blow it out and flip up the ends which looks so cute. She looks like such a big girl with her new hair cut doesn't she?

My Movie Reviews

2011-08-02T09:52:00.000-07:00

I just thought I would post a quick reminder that I write a weekly movie review on my husband's website Showtime Showdown. Check them out because there is usually something for everyone. I would love to hear your feedback if you have seen the movie(s) that I reviewed. Or if it inspires you to go watch it to I definitely wan to know if you agree or not. Leave me comments!

A new review is up today. Just go to showtimeshowdown.com You can click on the As Seen on Netflix tab to see my past reviews. Plus, if you want news on the new movie coming out you could listen to there podcast I guess. I mean, they are kinda funny. But I mostly care about my reviews so check it out!

Milo Update

2011-08-01T09:24:00.000-07:00

Thankfully this has been a really good week. I won't lie, there were lots of weeks where I could not have said that. But this was a good week. Although, I don't want to jinx myself.
After we switched Milo to the new formula for his milk allergy I thought life we going to be perfect. I hoped that was going to solve all our problems. Unfortunately, the new formula caused a whole new set of problems. First, it was gross. Seriously that stuff smells horrible and it makes their diapers smell horrible too. That doesn't matter much except that Milo also thought it was gross and didn't want to eat it. He would barely eat 2 ounces at a feeding, sometimes less than that. I couldn't blame him but, I started getting stressed because he wasn't getting any nutrients. He was always hungry but then didn't want what I was offering. I kept telling myself that in a couple days he will be so starving that he will eat anything and we would be back on track. Just then he started getting this terrible diaper rash. I'm sure this is exactly what you want to be hearing about. Seriously though, it was horrible. It was like the first layer of skin was gone. Nothing I put on it would help. His poor sore bum! So, nothing was solved and lots of things were worse.

Then, we had a family get together and saw little Gavin. You remember Gavin right? Well he was just the most chill baby ever. He would sit in his little chair and coo. Milo would never do that. Milo would squirm and fuss and last for about 5 minutes just sitting there. Milo would need to be walked and bounced and swayed and patted and to try 50 million things. Gavin was just happy. That is when Scott and I realized that is how babies are. Lots of babies are just happy. As we watched Milo and Gavin in comparison it made us realize, something was wrong with Milo and the milk isn't solving it. I called that night to get an appointment with the doctor.
And, we were right. Poor Milo has acid reflux or GERD. The doc seemed a little skeptical at first and I wasn't totally sure either. I had done some research online and he didn't necessarily have the biggest signs. What finally sold me was the realization that there are lots of times where he is crying, well, more than crying, and nothing I do helps. It seemed like he was in pain.
I almost don't think I can explain what it is like to have a baby like that. Unless you have had a reflux baby it's hard to know what it really means. What is it to have a baby scream at you. What the reality of that is 24/7. You are trapped and you never leave the house because it is too hard on the baby. You give up even normal outings like going on walks because all he does is cry the whole time. It feels like your life is caving in on you. It feels like nothing will ever be normal again. It is daunting and depressing. The worst part is that it is almost impossible to not get frustrated with this little person but in truth you know it's not their fault. Then you feel awful for being mad at them.
I have been reluctant to tell anybody, especially the internet, about how I was really feeling. I got the sense that people thought I was complaining. I guess it sounded like I was just griping, that I didn't want to deal with a "fussy baby". There is nothing further from the truth. I wasn't wanting an out. There is nothing more that I would rather be doing! I wanted to be the one holding him while he screamed. I wanted to try and make him better. I wanted to be the one that would try 50 million things even though none of them would work and I would have tried 50 million other things too. I wanted to be the one up at 1 am (and 4 and 6) every night with him. I wanted to be the one to stand and walk/bounce him for 5 or 6 hours every day (that is how I watched tv, standing up bouncing.) So, I stopped telling people. No one understood. Even the people that tried to understand couldn't actually.
Thankfully, he is a whole new kid. Medicine works miracles.
I have also learned some coping strategies:
First, I cut out basically everything extra in our life. This was a hard one for me. I "thought" I had done that initially but then I found that I kept scheduling things. So I for reals cut out everything. I had to get things settled before real life kicks in the fall with preschool and such. Having nowhere to go has made each day pretty simple and relaxed.
I use the swing. Milo loves the swing. Olive never did so I got out of the habit of really using it. Now, it is the only way I can get anything done. I also had to let go and just him fall asleep in there. It is the only way to survive.
I now see why there are so many gadgets and gizmos for babies. When you have a hard baby you are willing to try/buy almost anything to make it better. We turn the music on, we use the vibrate buttons, we tried every drop, trick or suggestion out there. We never turned did any of those things for Olive. In fact I don't think her bouncer and such even had batteries in them. But we do now.
I've realized that I need more me time and I value it so much. A little break can go a very long way.
I'm just thankful it's been a good week.

More Matching Babies

2011-07-29T09:35:00.000-07:00

Here are some photos that I tried to re-create to see how much Olive and Milo look alike.

Olive:

Milo:

Olive:

Milo:

Yep, they are basically clones

Milo's Blessing

2011-07-27T08:45:00.000-07:00

Way back at the beginning of July Milo was blessed as part of our whirlwind 4th of July weekend. It was a wonderful day (although it was the hottest day of the year). My mom knit Milo his adorable blessing outfit. (I knit him a matching hat and booties but considering it was 102 degrees that day I didn't have the heart to put them on. In fact, Milo only wore his outfit at church and we stripped him down as soon as we got home.)

Scott gave Milo a beautiful blessing. What stood out to me the most was that he blessed Milo with compassion and to error on the side of being too charitable. Scott also blessed Milo that he would be a good friend and at times, people's only friend to rely on. There were many other wonderful things he told him. It was very touching. I felt the power of the priesthood and a major sense of responsibility to raise this sweet boy to achieve those blessings.

We had so much support from our family and friends! We are so blessed! After the blessing we went back to our house for a pot luck salad luncheon and some nice visiting. It was really a great day.

Olive Loves Swim Lessons

2011-07-25T09:19:00.000-07:00

This past couple weeks Olive has loved going to swim lessons. After St. George she was so comfortable in the water that I didn't want to miss this window to get some actual instruction in before she became apprehensive. She absolutely loved it and it was a big motivator for her every day.

Here she is before lessons ready to get in. It was usually a bit of a rush to get over there in the mornings. We were only late once when I literally ran the whole way to get there.

Here is what Milo did while at swim lessons. Actually, that isn't at all true. He hated sitting in the stroller so I had to usually stand and bounce him or walk him around.

Here is Olive and her class. Her teacher was named Steven and she would tell me that every morning on the way to the lessons. She would also "look" for the pool.
The other kids in her class were much older than her (especially since she isn't quite three yet so I bluffed a little on her form). They were all quite good swimmers. Sometimes when I would watch the class I would be surprised at what the other kids were doing, and then I would remember that Olive is at least a year younger than anyone else. She kept up pretty well though and there wasn't anything to obvious that she wasn't suppose to be in the class. This girl is going to love preschool because she likes to be in a class setting and does really well. Possibly her favorite part was socializing with the other girls!

They learned about pool safety.

She also got to wear a life jacket. She was great at floating on her back, kicking her legs, going under water, and jumping in to her teacher. After her first day I asked her if she liked it and she said "I a mermaid now mommy!" I think that means yes, she liked it very much. Her favorite things were to play Motor Boat and Chop Chop Timber. She also went down the very large water slide all by herself which I was seriously shocked about. I was pretty impressed with how much she learned.

She also loved her ballerina swim suit. Here she is after lessons. This girl loves her routines. Everyday when it was over she would come wrap up in her "pokadot" towel and ask "Snack please" and then "where's my drink?" Seriously, every day was exactly the same. Then she would dry off a bit and either ask for her "wrobe" or to get dressed. Then she would eat her snack as we walked home. This girl just cracks me up!

Here is a video of her going off the diving board. She is on the far diving board. She did it the first day but then refused to do it again. I don't blame her, I was very nervous just watching her do it.

My Guy

2011-07-23T10:19:00.000-07:00

Here are just some cute pictures of Milo. I can't get enough of him. And I like to eat his cheeks all day long.

Ok, so those are all basically the same photos but I couldn't decide which ones to cut out. I really love "my guy"!

MIlo at 2 months old

2011-07-18T19:54:00.000-07:00

It's official! Milo is 2 months old. Quite frankly that seems shocking to me. How has is gone so fast? He seems like such a real baby these days.

He had a very successful doctor's check up today. He is 23.5 inches long (50th percentile just like his sister) He weighs 13.5 pounds (75th percentile) and I don't remember his head circumfrence but it was in the 50th percentile also. He has the most perfectly round little dome. I love it.

I can't believe how much he has grown! There were a couple weeks there that we just could not keep him full. It was like watching him grow before my eyes. Every day you could see new rolls on his legs. Every day his cheeks seemed fuller. I was happy about him chunking up because that's how we like them in this family.

Although he can be a very serious and pensive baby, Milo is also a very smiley baby. He is WAY easier to get to smile than Olive was (because she was nearly impossible). Usually after every meal he will just sit in my lap and smile and coo at me. I absolutely love it. He will even smile at strangers (which Olive absolutely never did) and likes to get a lot of attention. Unfortunately for the photos he was not is a very smiley mood but trust me, his smile will melt your heart.

Milo knows what he wants and will tell you. He has this intensity to him. I am serious, he is intense. He will scream until he is red in the face. Sometimes, like on a recent car ride in California where we were stuck in traffic, I am shocked at how long he will fight and how he will not just give up. Maybe that will be a good quality someday. What is harder with two kids is that sometimes I can't get to him right away so he has times that he has to cry (scream) until I help him. Fortunately he calms down pretty fast if you can figure out what is wrong. I always go through the check list in my head: he ate, he has a new diaper, he might be bored, he's probably tired. If none of those things work then we work on getting his gas out. He has had a lot of gas and an upset stomach.
The other hard thing is that he goes from happy to screaming in no time flat. You never get a build up or warning to get what he needs. It's a good thing that he is so smiley and lovey because I just try to remember that when he is screaming at me.
The saddest part is that today at the doctor we found out that he has a milk allergy. Olive also had one so I was trying to watch for the signs but the way it effected Milo was completely different. I just assumed that his fussiness was typical. Some babies are fussy and gassy and have colic and they jsut cry more. Olive was never fussy, so I thought this was what a normal baby was like. Now I know that he was uncomfortable and probably in pain. It just breaks my heart! I feel horrible but we are hoping that he will be more content on the new formula.

He is getting into a pretty regular schedule which I am so grateful for. He likes to be held upright so that he can see the world and what is going on and probably to help his tummy. He needs to be rocked to sleep. It took me awhile to come to terms with this because I could just lay Olive down and she would fall right to sleep. The amazing part about that is it made her very flexible so I didn't want to be stuck rocking Milo forever every time he had to sleep. I am hoping that solving his milk allergy will help in that department and he won't be so uncomfortable. My guess is that this will solve a lot of the challenging things from the last 3-4 weeks. I do like rocking him though. It is so nice to know that he feels so safe in my arms. It also warms my hearts that when others can't calm him down and I can. The rough part is that there are plenty of times where I can't calm him down and we are all at a loss, but like I said, hopefully that is over.

Last night was the first night that he slept straight from 1 to 7 am. I was over joyed until the doctor told me he should be sleeping 9-10 hours. I think he is close though. He just might be a whole new kids in a few days here.
He likes taking baths. He likes the front porch and sitting in the rockers. He loves swinging and being in motion so usually he does great on walks. He gets bored and needs a change of scenery often. He loves being in the sling or bjorn which is nice because I need to strap him on more to get anything done. He will just snooze away when he is in there. He also likes when I sling him and vacuum at the same time. He loves his binkie still and usually needs it to fall asleep. Thankfully now he doesn't wake up when it falls out. He is still swaddled because otherwise he punches himself in the face while asleep. He also likes to sleep propped up I'm sure because his tummy hurt. Poor little guy! His life has been a bit rough.

Milo is my "guy". We also call him our little Milito. Olive always says "Hey dude!' to him which I love. He is getting more alert every day. He doesn't love tummy time, but he is getting much better at holding his head up. It cracks me up when he gets worn out from it because he does this wiggle trying to keep it up but it's just too heavy. Like all parents I think that absolutely everything he does is so adorable! It has to be this way because he has pushed me to my edge more than every in my life, in both good and not so good directions. I have felt a serious connection and bond with him but have also felt lost and incompetent. I have felt extreme joy and extreme frustration. Thankfully Olive has gotten used to him being upset and somehow tunes it out, even when it is right in her ear like in the stroller or car. She is so used to it that even when he is laying content on the floor she will tell me "Uh oh, Milo is frweekin' out!" when he squirms around.

Milo loves his sister and tries to watch what she is doing. I love watching them bond. It is one of the best things about parenting. He is pretty lucky to have a big sister that loves him so much.

Finally, do you like his knit vest that I made him for his 2 month photos? What a cutie!

There have been definite highs and lows these past 2 months. We have all had some major adjustments. But, we wouldn't have it any other way!

Our crazy 4th of July

2011-07-08T07:03:00.000-07:00

We had a really busy, fun fourth of July. The whole weekend was a bit of a whirlwind. The great part was that it was all spent with family. We started off the weekend with a trip to the pool on Friday because Scott was working on Saturday. We headed to Provo for a BBQ on Saturday. Then Sunday was Milo's blessing. Finally it was the fourth.

We started with the 5K run which was bright and early.

I did pretty well and Scott ran ahead with the kids so it was kinda peaceful. It was a great way to start the day.

The only problem with doing the run was that it was a super rush to see the parade. Olive loved the parade for three reasons: The princesses dressed up on the floats, waving to everyone, and most importantly the candy.

The kids with uncle Connor.

Olive became pretty creative with her flags.

Here is Scott as super dad carrying both kids to the carnival. Since it was such an early morning we were all a bit on the grumpy side.

Olive liked the idea of the bounce house but she was a little bit small to climb on everything. Then she got stuck at the top and wouldn't go down the slide at the end. After 10 minutes when the attendant slid down with her she hopped off and said "Can I go again?"

We came home and had our traditional Red, White and Blue breakfast. It was delicious.

After we got some sleep to get rid of our grumps, we went to the cousins house. Olive was excited to run through the sprinklers in her festive swim suit.

She also had her first drink of soda. She said it was spicy.

We ate lots of yummy food and hung out with family.

Then Olive found the dress ups and insisted on wearing this the rest of the night, even through fireworks.

She was still patriotic with her red white and blue outfit.

Then it was firework time.

Scott has decided that the 4th is now his official favorite holiday because they changed the fireworks laws so that now they can shoot up to 150 feet in the air. It was quite the show. Afterwards we ate some dessert and headed to the park for their great firework show. It was definitely a fun 4th!

The Challenge

2011-07-01T09:00:00.000-07:00

Taking pictures of two newborns is no easy task. Quite frankly, in most of the pictures something crazy is happening. I thought I would share my favorites.

It was almost impossible to get them both happy at the same time.

Or to get them both happy at all.

This is a classic one.

Or they were just squished together.

My niece thought it would be funny to make them look like they were reading a book. Neither baby was very happy about it.

Holding their head up at the same time was also very tricky.

One goes up and the other goes down.

We all agreed it was very frustrating.

Doesn't it look like Gavin is trying to eat Milo?

I'm not sure if we just tuckered them out or if eating the ground was more interesting but I think this photo is so funny.