The Addiction

I am seriously thinking of enrolling my child in BEA (Baby Einstein Anonymous) because of her sick addiction with these movies. When she is in the foulest of moods, this video completely changes her disposition. She can hear just one note of the song being played or the quack of the duck and stop whatever she is doing and gawk at the TV. It is HILARIOUS. We thought it was just a fluke at first, but then she started distorting her body so she could see the television. I desperately tried to get the video to play on here, but it was just a few seconds too long, so pictures will have to do!!

Ohhhh....Back to School...

Not for me, for Michael. For those of you haven't heard, Bill DeLoach Automotives shut down at the end of May, like many other car dealerships in the United States. That left Michael and several other jobless. So, he enrolled in Shelton the next week for Summer classes. He is taking several classes: English, calculus, American history, a New Testament class, and speech. Two of these are online, and two others are split term, so it's not as much as it seems at first glance, but it is still a lot of work. He has done nothing but study since last Monday. I think he would say his calculus class is the hardest simply because it is one of the split term ones that is supposed to cover a whole semesters worth of info in ONE month. Numbers aren't my thing, and I doubt I could do the calculus work if it were a whole semester, much less a month. He took a test yesterday. I am anxious to see how he did on it.
UPDATE: Michael made a 93 on his Calculus test. Yay, Boo!!

Life Behind Bars

Morning time with Olivia has always been my favorite because she is ALWAYS glad to see us. Whether we wake her up or she is awake already, she greets us with a huge grin. My new favorite thing that she does is look out for us if she wakes up on her own. Due to her original sticking-her-arm-between-the-slats problem, I stuffed the bumper pads down between the mattress and the slats. They are now low enough that she can see over them if she pushes up. For the last several mornings, this is what we catch:

What you can't actually see is the sweet little smile that is covered by her Wilson-esque disguise. But it's there; I promise!

Eating Solids!

I desperatly tried, albeit unsucessfully, to load the video of Olivia eating solids for the very first time from a spoon. The video was over three minutes, and the blog will only allow about 1 min, 30 seconds. I will try again tonight to capture the adorableness on video.
In the meantime, here's the story: O turned four months on June 2. I was going to wait until then to start her on solids, since that's what all the baby books recommend. We tried it first in her bottle when she was 8 weeks, but it made her so constipated that we had to chase it with apple juice. Since she really didn't NEED it to aide in sleeping through the night, we just cut it out altogether. Sunday night (May 31st) we tried again, but this time with a spoon and not a bottle. All babycenter.com suggested was to start it at a time that you could be consistent with, so we chose night. Sunday night she ate 3 tsps of cereal (what she was getting the first go 'round in her bottle), but it was a little bit of a struggle. She knew exactly what the spoon was for, she simply wasn't sure what to do with the cereal once it got in there. After about 4 bites squirting right back out, she caught the hang of swallowing it. We have been going strong each night since. On Wednesday night we added about a tablespoon of peaches to the mix, and she devours it! I think we may try apricots tonight...

Ummm....yummy!

Reach Out...

One of O's new tricks is reaching...for me, a toy, Spots, but mainly for her bottle. I have been working since last night to upload the video of her reaching for her bumble bee toy that sings, only 10+ hours later to find out it (and her eating solids video) was too big a file for the blog. It was a little over two minutes. I will do better in the future to cut the video short.

Busy Girl!

She's like her Mommy...multitasking is her thing. She can eat and nap at the same time, laugh and cry at the same time... she's just an all around overachiever. If she doesn't have ten things going on at once, she's doing nothing. She looks all unorganized and in disarray, but if you ask her, she can tell you where anything is. Hugging the frog while chewing on the fish and wearing Spots as a hat...can she get any cuter?

She be rollin'...

Well, kind of. SEVERAL posts back I thought that she rolled over on her on. Since she was only like 3 weeks old, I am going to bank on that being false. So, a few weeks ago when I picked her up after school, Gram said that she knew that she started her out on her belly for a nap, but when she went to get her up, she was on her back. I didn't blog about it then, because I sort of wanted to see it for myself. That took awhile. About two weeks after that, she did the same thing for me on a Saturday. I put her down for a nap, and not too long after she started crying. This is actually pretty unusual, because I almost always hear her when she wakes up - our house isn't that big. Sure enough, when I went in there, she was turned over on her back like a June bug. I guess the actual flipping startled her, and that's why she started crying. I have since tried dozens of times to get this act on video. It hasn't happened yet, or you'd be watching it. In fact, she hasn't turned over since, but she sure wobbles a lot! Keep your eyes peeled for future video...

Thanks, Gramma Grape!

We have been so blessed with having someone be able to watch our baby when I returned to school. My grandmother, Olivia's great grandmother, most commonly referred to as Gramma Grape, volunteered to babysit for us. We were so thankful to have a person in our lives who we know loves that baby as much as we do. That reassurance made the transition back into the workforce SO much easier. Thank you and we love you so much!!

Da BEESH!!

We got so lucky this year! We got invited by Mattie and Katherine (hereafter referred to as "Kitty") to visit her parents in Fort Walton Beach, Florida over Memorial Day weekend. It was an awesome trip! The drive was not so great with O being so little. She's already NOT a fan of her carseat, and that, plus the heat, plus a LONG drive did not make for pleasantries in the back seat. When we first arrived the weather was rainy, but not miserable even though the Weather Channel kept referring to the weekend as the "Gulf Coast Washout". Coach and Mrs. Kay babysat O that first night (she went to sleep in the first ten minutes after we left...) so we could go to dinner on the beach. It was so fantastic just to touch sand and sea water again! It drizzled all that night and most of the next day, but not enough to stop us from attempting a beach trip on Saturday. We took all of our gear, lathered the baby in sunscreen even though it was cloudy, and marched onto the sand only to be hit by literal 25mph wind gusts. O kept her head down much of the time because the wind kept taking her breath away. Her most interesting find: her toes...
Not too sure what to think about this wind tunnel that Kitty dragged her to...

Her first time ever touching the ocean. She was NOT excited. It was really cold. She kept drawing up her feet.

A family photo in a monsoon. Ahhh...look at those calming waves.

Reading with Mommy after a long day at the beach.

Getting ready for Day 2 at the beach in her new FWB tee!

A gorgeous day at the beach and this is what the life of the party decides to do. The wind isn't blowing, but with the death grip on her hat, you'd think she was about to lose it.

My whole point (well, sort of...) for the trip: family photos in the dunes. I have ALWAYS wanted to do this!

Me and O at a nearby park.

Mattie and Kitty: the best picture takers on the planet.

O and Daddy next to her "First Beach Trip" sign. Look at those sweet little feet!

On Monday before leaving, we didn't really have time for the beach, but we did decide to hit the pool! She didn't like it at first. I think, again, because the water was cold. But it really didn't take her long to get used to it.

O in her new crab.

O and Daddy. Everybody needed a nap...

In her awesome airbrushed shirt!! All the cool kids get an airbrushed shirt at the beach, and everybody loves Alvin's Island!

The most ultimate thank yous to Mattie, Katherine, Coach and Mrs. Kay Green. We had a spectacular time (and the food was to DIE for!!)!!

Ahh!! Where does the time go??

Reflecting on the past weeks of May, I can't even count the times that I said, "I need to put that in the blog!" Well, so many times that I don't even remember half of the things that I thought I needed to blog about. With the end of the school year, hours and days seem to pass in a blur.

The last post was Olivia's three month birthday. Her four month birthday was three days ago, so I guess I have some backtracking to do...

One of the things that kept me busy over the last four weeks:

Finishing school took a lot of my time. I never knew the toll that being a mom would have on my job; I thought I could transition flawlessly. Um, yeah. Whatever. So many late nights the last few weeks trying to finish grades that were weeks old... Every night when I got home from picking O up across town, I was exhausted. It's not that I didn't want to do school work, I just didn't have the energy. On top of this, around May 10th or so, the Yearbooks came in. This was such a blessing. They looked great!! There were a few printing glitches and we (the staff) didn't really find a way to pay for it, but overall, it was a great experience, and it's mine again next year! Here are a few photos...

The awesome wrap around cover. This is actually a picture that I took at a faculty meeting we had a few years ago out at the Westervelt Museum. This is one of the statues in front of the North River Yacht Club.

Our tribute page to Paul Bryant. Thanks PWB Museum for the pictures!!

Some of the Senior ads I had the privilege of working on. This was, by far, my favorite part.

Since this is going to post backwards even though I am writing chronologically...what you will have read above this are some of the milestones and fun times we have had with O over the last month!