Tuesday, February 28, 2012

tomboy turned girly-girl

This girl is becoming more and more of a girly girl. She no longer likes bugs, but loves to put on make-up. 
Anytime she sees me putting on my make up she says "Livy need make-up too". 
I don't let her wear it too often, but I catch her getting into my make up bag more and more.

There was silence for too long, and when I found her in the bathroom she looked like this:



You might not be able to tell too much because she used all bronze colors and it blends with her skin tone, 
but she had bronze eyeshadow on her lips, eyes, and cheeks.

Another thing about her right now is that she's literally the hardest thing to take a picture of. 
She WILL NOT look at the camera. So that was the best I could do.

She was pouting while I was trying to get her to look at the camera, but all the sudden she realized there was 
a box of brand new nail polish right beside her and her spirits instantly changed.



Monday, February 27, 2012

Petunia+Poppy

I'm going to start doing a weekly post on my sisters' blog! The blog is called Petunia and Poppy and offers great ideas from cleaning tips to beauty tips to inspiration for the day.


Today I just introduced myself, but you can head over there if you want to finally see a belly shot!

Friday, February 24, 2012

Valentine's Day


Valentine's Day fell on a Tuesday this year which happens to be one of the days that we don't see each other until 10pm.

B always always has something to give me on every holiday even if I tell him not to buy anything, and I will admit that I've been caught without anything to give to him in the past. Somehow, no matter how busy things are in our lives, he ALWAYS has something special to give me on birthdays, anniversaries, and Valentine's Day even when I think we're too busy to celebrate.

This year I knew I wanted to give him something special, but I wanted him to think I forgot.

Well it wasn't too hard since I knew we wouldn't see each other until 10pm anyway. I came home (he's already gone when I get home) to a sweet surprise. He had "made" a dinner for me since we couldn't be together on this Valentine's Day. He even hand cut and made a bouquet of flowers out of paper because I told him I didn't want him to waste money on flowers this year (not that I don't like flowers, I just think they're extra expensive on Vday and I would rather him give me a nice bouquet of flowers any other day of the year at a fraction of the cost). I thought it was pretty sweet since every other year he has gotten me flowers and he didn't want this to be the first year without them.


I wrapped his present in a simple box and laid it on his pillow so he'd be sure to see it when he got home. It was a promise to celebrate Valentine's Day with a special date/night out with 2 tickets to see the Dallas Symphony play Vivaldi's (who happens to be his favorite composer) 4 Seasons Symphony. He was really excited! I don't think everyone would be excited to go to the symphony, but we actually like that kind of thing. I can't wait to get dressed up and go out with my man!

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Valentine's party and standing your ground

We made some Valentine's this year for the Valentine's Day party with Liv's playgroup.
It was more fun for me I think. She was nervous about me breaking all the crayons, and then just wanted to color :) I put the crayons on a 3 in circle of patterned pink card stock and wrote "Have a colorful Valentine's Day!". Very cheesy, but I loved making these little heart crayons and will definitely keep the idea tucked away for the future.


Side pony: check
Clifford doggie: check
Keys: check
Ready to party!





I think she had fun at her party. Its hard to tell sometimes with her. She has a hard time with large groups of loud kids that push her down and take all the swings. She's tender hearted like her Mama.

She still cries every time I drop her off at nursery, but she always gets super excited when I tell her we are going to play with kids. Hopefully by going to playgroup and nursery and playing with cousins, she's growing more accustomed to things like sharing and playing with others. I can't tell though because if I'm there she just wants to play with me. I've noticed when I've observed her in nursery, that she doesn't quite know how to stand her ground with the other kids. When a child grabs a toy out of her hand, or pushes her down for no reason, or hits her she is totally stunned and cries while other kids will just fight and push back. I'm happy that she doesn't respond by hitting or pushing back. As a mom I am always heartbroken for her because she has no idea why on earth someone would just be mean for no reason and I can tell it hurts her feelings. I can see it in her stunned face and eyes in the moments following, and then the tears fall. Its a hard thing to teach, standing your ground. Its not like I will ever just go and steal a toy from her or push her down at home, and she doesn't have siblings. I'm not really going anywhere with this, just recording the experience.

Monday, February 20, 2012

treats

We made a lot of treats for Valentine's day.


Red velvet cake balls
Toffee and chocolate chip peanut butter cookies
and Oatmeal cookies with red and white M&Ms

Liv was my little helper and was especially good at stirring and counting the cookies as I dropped them on the baking sheet :)
Oh, and licking the spatula of course!








By the time we were done with the cake balls Lu had it all over her face. Like I mentioned here, she refuses to look at the camera so I had to say "Look, Mommy has a monkey on her head" and this was the face I got:

And then she started fake laughing and said "That funny Mommy!"

I brought treats to work and to friends but let's be honest, the muddy buddies didn't make it to anyone else's mouths except my family's!

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Computer woes

So... our iMac randomly started doing some weird thing where the screen would go bright and then darker on its own. It was like it was possessed and ghost was turning the screen light up and down.

We finally took it in to the Apple Store (we have apple care) and they had to run a diagnostic test for 24 hours (seriously the way they talk makes it sound like you're taking a child to the hospital!) and then let us know what the problem was. It was the graphics card (B totally called it) so they operated opened up our little computer and replaced the card with a new one.

We were happy to get it back and up and running, but something was even more wrong with the screen this time. Half the screen was a couple shades darker than the other half. B took it back, they ran more tests and then fixed it by doing something (i don't understand computer talk), and then we were again happy to have it back. 

Again it wasn't working properly, this time shutting down when we would try to play any kind of video on it.

B took it in for the 3rd time with the intention of telling them no more fixes just give me a new computer, and they did! He actually didn't even have to ask for that, they just said "okay we've tried everything we can here so we'll have to get you a new computer". Yay for Apple Care!


They actually had to assemble this new computer for us and B convinced them we deserved an upgraded version of the 27" iMac for all the trips and time we've had without the computer, so it took another week just to receive it in the mail. Finally it got here! And then B quickly realized it only had 1 TB when it was supposed to have 2 TBs, and it was supposed to have more ram and some other stuff. 

He called and again convinced them to upgrade the computer even more since they didn't do it right the first time. Again, I don't quite understand all the computer lingo but I do understand dollar signs, haha, and what I understand is we paid $1300 for our original computer (that ended up having graphics issues) and now we are being sent a brand spakin new $3500 computer for free because of all the time and trips this has taken to get figured out. He explained it as the same look on the outside with a completely revved up inside, and actually the exact words he used were "the fastest Mac ever made" which I laughed at because I thought he was joking, but turns out he's not. It will have a core i7 with SSD, 2 GB graphics card and 16 GB of ram. So, we are just using the one pictured above until we receive the newer faster one.

Moral of the story, if you have a Mac get apple care. And having a husband who understands computer lingo doesn't hurt either.

Singer girl

Just some things about my big girl Liv. Its been so long since I've blogged, I wish I could have done this in a more creative way, but instead I just had to put it all out there quickly so I don't forget.

playing dress up in mommy's heels
When I say "I love you, Olivia"
She'll always reply "I wuv a too Mama"

At night when we have cuddle time before bed I tell her "I love you SO much" and she'll say "sooo much" and sometimes I catch her saying "Mama uvs so much"

She gives us hugs and tells us she loves us on her own occasionally. When it does happen without prompting its seriously the. best. feeling.

When B gives me a hug or a kiss in front of her she used to get kind of mad and push me away from him, but now she'll come over and give me a hug too.

more dress up
She has been developing her very own imagination and can play pretty well on her own for good bits of time, though she prefers to have Mom or Dad in the room with her.

She still LOVES to sing and is living up to her nickname of singer girl. I absolutely love to hear her singing songs. She asks for me to sing songs to her while we rock in the rocking chair before bedtime, and then when I lay her down she sings herself to sleep. When I close the door behind me after tucking her in I stand and listen to hear her belting out the ABCs or "popcorn popping" or her all time fave "wheels on the bus".

We've come up with our own parts to wheels on the bus (ie the grammy's on the bus say "I love you", the doggie's on the bus say "ruff ruff ruff", etc) Now she comes up with her very own phrases and will sing all day. Like when I was making her a pb&j sandwich she started singing "the mommy's on a bus say here's some nummies, here's some nummies..." or when I was changing her diaper and she wanted some diaper rash cream (which we call bum bum medicine, haha) I told her I would have to go find it and she started singing, "the mommy's on a bus say I fine a mesin, I fine a mesin..." {I fine mesin = I'll find the medicine} or when I got home from work after 6, and B was already gone to his EMT class and she wanted me to play with her, I had to tell her that I needed to eat dinner because baby sister was hungry, she said okay and started playing with the magnetic letters on the fridge and singing, "the mommy's on a bus say she's eatin dinner, she's eatin dinner..." I'm laughing in my head all day long, and I absolutely love seeing her imagination work.

at the pet shop
Speaking of imagination, she will play with her stuffed doggies all day, and loves to tuck them in, sing songs to them, feed them, all the things that most little girls do with their dollies she does with her doggies. She has me swaddle them and then carries them around like babies and is so tender and gentle with them. She occasionally plays with her baby doll, but isn't nearly as gentle or cuddly with it. Its so funny! She loves real babies but is still more of a puppy girl than a dolly girl. I wonder if that will change when baby sister gets here? Or if she'll quickly grow uninterested and go back to playing with her puppies. Its the cutest thing in the world to take her to the pet shop. She. goes. crazy. She liked the most rambunctious puppy the best (it was a bulldog) and was literally running back and forth along the window with the puppy and giggling and spinning and jumping! Then when another child came over she held out her hand in a stop sign and said "no, this Livy's doggy".

She loves to talk about "baby sisser" and I've tried on many occasions to have her feel the baby move, but every time she gets her hand on there, sister stops kicking, and the moment her hand is off sister starts again, so she still hasn't felt her.

The other night when I was rocking her in her rocking chair, I had just gotten finished singing "I am a child of God" as per her request, and she all the sudden sat up and said "kick". I was so confused as to what she was talking about, and then realized she had her hand on my tummy and was trying to feel baby sister. I love when she talks about her sister all on her own without any prompting or reminding from me.

I'm anticipating Olivia having a hard time with the new baby because she gets a lot of attention from us. I wonder how she'll take it and I'm starting feel nervous about dividing my attention between the 2 of them. My mom gave me some pacifiers for the new baby, and Olivia found them and put one in her mouth (she NEVER used pacis when she was a baby so why all the sudden she wants it now is frustrating to me). I told her thats for baby sister, and big girls don't really use those, just babies. She started to cry and I felt sad that this whole conversation will be happening a lot more often. I'm thinking we're going to have to start doing daddy-daughter and mommy-daughter dates soon after baby gets here so she knows she is still very important.

We think she's the bees knees. She knows all her abc's and sings 3 different versions of the abc song. She also knows the sound each letter makes (and has since her 2nd b-day about 6 months ago), her colors, shapes, can count to 20, and knows that 'aeiou' are vowels (but I don't think she knows what vowels are).

Grammy giving Liv a peek over the fence to see the dogs next door
She knows all the words to several songs, but mixes up some of the phrases. Like in the traditional abc song at the end she says "now I know my abc's, next time know my abc's". We thought that was hilarious when we first heard her sing it because it seems like she's saying "I know my abcs and next time I'll still know my abc's". When she sings twinkle twinkle little star she says "like a Grandma Grandma sky" instead of "like a diamond in the sky". Maybe its because Grandma's are a girl's best friend :)

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

A fabricated lab schedule

I've been MIA the last couple weeks since our computer had a problem with the graphics card. We had to take it in and leave it for a few days at the Apple Store. Right now I'm posting from my parents computer. It should be fixed soon (fingers crossed), and I can get back to posting! I feel like I haven't posted anything about this new little one and that makes me kind of sad. Thank goodness I've been keeping my own weekly pregnancy journal.

Today I'm doing a guest post over on A Handful of Peanuts for her Feb blog series on love! I met Janine while in Dental Hygiene School. I loved how witty and real she was from the moment I met her. Her job (among a million other things) was to get on to us if we had entered things wrong in the computer, etc. How you can reprimand someone and still have them like you is beyond me, but she could do it! Now that we've both moved away from Utah, I love to read her blog and hear her musings on life. Plus she has two girls about the same age difference as my two girls will be, so I think that's pretty cool too. I even stole the title she came up with for my story because she is that clever (why didn't I think of that?)!

Head over there if you want to know a little more of how we became B + T!

Monday, February 6, 2012

totally random pics from Jan/Feb

Liv loves to wear everyone else's shoes.
Here she is trying on Daddy's Vans.

I love how proud of herself she is. You can always tell when she thinks she's pretty awesome because she folds her arms like that. 



 Blowing bubbles outside. We do a lot of this :)

 Just looking so pretty on this Sunday afternoon.



Eatin kettle corn with Uncle Brett while watching the super bowl. 
She was actually watching it by the way. Her eyes were glued to the tv and she was cheering (sometimes at the wrong time)!