October is Here!

I love fall sooooooo much. I whipped out the Halloween decorations on Monday. I don't have a ton of stuff to festoon our house with, but here are a couple pics. I love the crow silhouettes!

The candy bowl is already a little depleted...how did that happen?

A fall garland, cobwebs, and crow silhouettes spruce it up a bit!

Kevin and I aren't too sure if the student/retiree demographic will yield many trick-or-treaters.

"Nightmare Before Christmas" tree?

Last week, I watched a friend's kids for a couple hours while she ran some errands. I think Olive was entertained to have Dallin (3) and Evan (6 mos.) around. My friend is not a crafty person, so Dallin and I made a cute cowboy bean bag! Dallin danced around for the babies while I had a good laugh.

Olive has started spitting. It's totally my fault. I got her to stop fussing one day by blowing raspberries at her. She picked it up surprisingly fast. Now she is blowing spit bubbles all the time and all over the place. When she is lying down, she likes us to help her to a seated position. I am really surprised she can do it already but she is really strong! I firmly grasp around her forearms and she wraps her fingers around my thumbs. Then she squeezes really hard and her jaw usually drops--like she is concentrating.

My mom has a new line of fabric out inspired by the civil war era. It's called "Americana Collection" by Benartex. She sent me some and I have already put some to good use. This is my Hugs and Kisses quilt:

We still go to the beach weekly. Kevin got a body board and has had a lot of fun with it. The waves weren't very good on our most recent visit, which was pretty disappointing.

I am bummed that the water is getting cold. It was so warm just a month ago--like taking a bath. I love Olive's strawberry attire from Grandma and Grandpa Goertzen. Soooo cute.

2 Legit 2 Quit

We're not quite sure why Olive loves MC Hammer so much--but it's entertaining! We usually put on some jazzy music at bath time but Kevin set the IPOD to '90's tunes last night.  She is fun.  And now that song is stuck in my head.

On Friday, I resigned from the bank. I was supposed to return from maternity leave tomorrow (Monday) but told them I wasn't ready to return. Not only because Olive is still little but also since Kevin is at school 10+ hours a day.  And it is supposed to be crazy like that the whole first year of law school.  I can just imagine how it would be to be working and get home around 6:30 or 7.  It would be a mad rush to make dinner, run errands, do chores/laundry, get Olive's bath...  It would be terrible.  I want Kevin to be able to relax when he gets home after his long day.   I want him to be happy to come home. And I want him to do well in school with no more work piled on than what is absolutely necessary. Student loans, here we come!  However, it is my hope that I can bring in some income by selling some of my crafts on etsy. I am still working on the quilting book with my mom too.



Olive visited the cardiologist on Monday and had an ultrasound to see what was going on. It turns out that she has ventricular septal defect (VSD), which is basically a tiny hole in her heart (see diagram below). The good news is that it should just heal itself. (Phew!) We have another visit right before Christmas just to check things out.

  









Last night, Kevin and I did some crafting and made Olive a couple of headbands. (I have hated the elastic ones because they dig into her head.) We created a few and utilized velcro to make them adjustable. I made the one with the bow; Kevin made the one with feathers.

Olive Loves...

Olive loves being toted around in the carrier. I soooo appreciate that she loves that carrier. I can strap her to me and get a lot of things done. I can't say enough about how much I love the carrier!!!

Kevin and I have observed that she always wants to see what we are doing. I just hold her when we eat dinner and she watches. We always feel guilty eating in front of her for some reason. It might be because she licks her lips as she watches. Okay, she doesn't lick her lips. But she does watch us so intently.

Olive loves watching me cook. I put her in the carrier and face her forward and try to show her what I am doing. If all else fails and I am doing something she apparently is not interested in, I just open up the spice cabinet. She LOVES looking around up there. And it keeps her distracted enough that I can do whatever I want.



Olive loves going to the grocery store. It is the sensory overload I imagine. And all the old people love her. It is no exaggeration when I say that I get at least 10 people every trip that stop me and comment about her. My favorite was some old ornery woman who skidded in her tracks and yelled, "LET ME SEE THAT FACE!!!!!" Funny and a little scary.

Oh oh and Olive loves watching me get ready in the morning. Even if she is fussing while I am in the midst of putting on makeup, all weeping and wailing is remedied by laying her in the boppy in the bathroom doorway so she can watch me. Or sometimes I will face her out in the carrier and she watches from there. She loves watching me apply my makeup and straighten my hair. (Sidenote: she really really loves Dad's hair too. Sometimes he is trying to get her to look at him and she is captivated by his locks...)

Olive loves her new wardrobe that opened up. Okay, maybe Mom loves the new wardrobe that has opened up. At her doctor's appt on Monday, she weighed in at 11 lbs 3 oz. So now she is fitting in her 3 month clothes. What a fatty. The doctor said her heart murmur is back though, so we go to see the cardiologist tomorrow. It isn't supposed to be a huge concern, but the doctor just wants to have it looked at anyway.

Olive LOVES LOVES LOVES outdoors. See video, it explains everything.





And of course, Olive loves Dad.



Finally, Olive loves sleeping. Last night she slept 10 hours. Mom and Dad LOOOOOOOVE Olive.

2 months old!

Olive is getting fat. And it is simply irresistible! She has discovered her delicious hands it seems and they are always in her mouth. She tries to suck her thumb but tucks it inside her hand as she puts it to her mouth. But she does manage to get some fingers in there.

Since I am home I have been listening to music a lot. Growing up, my mom always had something playing so I suppose that is where it comes from. Kevin bought me an IPOD docking station and installed an app called Pandora. It's fun. You can type in an artist, composer, or song and it will create a radio station based on that search. When it plays a song, you can mark whether you like or dislike it and it will adjust your preferences accordingly. Some days we enjoy listening to Symphony Espanole and its assortment, but Olive really likes the Rodgers and Hammerstein mix. If I had to guess, I would say her favorite song is "Whistle a Happy Tune" from "The King and I," and anything from "Mary Poppins" is pretty big too. (Mary Poppins is not R&H but our preference for Julie Andrews has created a nice segway to Disney...)



Olive and I have become a sewing duo. She cries with me whenever we have to unpick our mistakes. She seems to like the machine-quilting process and tries to help. Usually I position her in the swing on the floor since she likes to see me as I sew, but I decided to put the carrier on the other day so she could see what I was actually doing. She seemed to really like it and even rested her hands on the edge of the table onto the quilt. The picture above is the best I had to represent this although in the picture she was starting to get upset. Probably because we weren't actually sewing...just posing for the camera after Dad got home. Still, don't we make a great team?



I started and finished this quilt this week (yay me!) and have it listed on etsy.com. It is a pinwheel like the one I made for Olive but totally different color palette. I call it "Chocolate Huckleberry Baby Pinwheel." Don't you just want to eat it up?





Olive and Dad are best friends. He can get her to smile like no one else. Kevin has been very disciplined and stays at school 8-6 every day so he can come home and be "done." (It's nice to be able to put away your toys at the end of the day, right?) He has a contracts class which I think has been an overload of terms but at least most of the reading he does every day is actual cases. Makes it easier to stay awake I suppose. We just found out Christmas break for him is Dec 15-Jan 11. We are going to take a Utah trip so we are delighted that we will have a lot of time for visiting!

Being Olive's mom is the best job in the world. She sleeps about 8-10 hours every night and I am grateful for that! The downside: she hardly naps in the daytime. And by that I mean 30 minutes at the most. She is really good at dozing off but wakes up almost immediately after I set her down. Which means I have trouble getting very much done. There ARE moments when she is content to lay on her back and stare for a bit (and I scramble to get something done), but there are also times when she just wants to be held. She LOVES the carrier that I strap to my chest--but only if I keep moving around. (It comes in handy when I am unloading the dishwasher. It does not come in handy when I want to piece together a quilt on my knees.) And then there are the times when I could be getting something done but SHE IS SO IRRESISTIBLY cute and I must play with her. Here is a good example of this:

How could I resist? I must also plug how great it is to have Kevin. He is a great papa and Olive is lucky to have him. Here are some pics from this week:

Cute little ballerina outfit from our former neighbor, Madi.

She likes to snuggle in her towel after her bath. I always just want to squeeze her! She is already outgrowing the kitchen sink. I will have to start doing something else soon...

She likes to play on the floor with her kitty blanket from Grandma and Grandpa G.

She is a big fan of Dad. He can keep her entertained for a while. He bails me out for a bit after he gets home from school. Muchas gracias! She is DEFINITELY a daddy's girl (as her shirt points out).

Okay so Kevin and I picked up some Blue Bell "Happy Tracks" ice cream and I have had 3 bowls in a 24-hour span. Heavens to Betsy; it is divinity! We probably should never buy it again or I can kiss all of skinny jeans goodbye!

The Many Faces of Olive

Olive smiles a lot. It usually involves me or Dad making faces but it happens a lot. She is trying to figure out how to laugh too and usually ends up pushing out some happy noises instead. She looks soooo much like Kevin's baby pics.



Kevin's grandma made Olive a beautiful little dress. She wore it to church last Sunday and WOULD NOT cooperate when we tried to take pictures. These are the best we could manage.

Olive's Swing

We have a little swing we got for Olive in Florida at Target. Originally, we had a nice bouncer for her (gifted to us from our good friend Beth, her sister, and mom). Olive really seemed to like the bouncer and for the longest time we didn't even use its vibration feature. (Partially because we didn't pick up the right battery for the longest time, but also because Olive seemed to like it just fine without that feature anyway...)

Well finally we got the right battery and Kevin ended up taking apart the wrong part of the bouncer. (The little box that holds the wiring.) And of course, when you open that compartment, all the parts pop out and you spend forever trying to put it back together. So I spent an hour trying to put it back together and in the process some of the delicate wiring broke.

I thought I would try to exchange it so we could replace it with one that would work with the vibration function. Luckily, (because of the upcoming move) I had held onto the box and the receipt was still attached. Upon further thought, we decided it might even be smart to just exchange it for a gift card and then re-buy it in Florida so that it would be one less thing to move. So that's what we did.

Well of course we got down here and the Target doesn't carry it. OF COURSE. So that's basically how the swing came about. Olive seems to like the swing pretty well but sometimes I get her to nap better in it when it isn't in motion. So I am still weeping about the bouncer and feeling guilty that the fantastic gift my friend got me has been replaced. I should have just exchanged it in Orem. It really wouldn't have taken up that much room in the move. Oh well. Hindsight, I guess.

I caught her smiling in the swing the other day, here is the footage. I am really glad that, as we approach the 2-month mark, Olive is starting to entertain herself SOMEWHAT. (I can't wait until I can get something done!) I used to have to feed her into a coma previously.

6 Weeks Old

Olive turned 6 weeks old last Wednesday. Now that we are FINALLY settled, I have had a little bit of time to post some videos. Here are some of our favorites!



We frequent the beach in the evenings. I absolutely love the fact that I don't have to worry about heat or sun. Kevin loves to swim in the warm water. Olive loves listening to the ocean. It reminds her of her previous home of 9 months.



Last week I put Olive on her tummy on the living room rug and this is what took place. As soon as I turned the camera off, she did a move the resembled a break dancer's stall. It was pretty sweet.



I love giving Olive her bath. This is a video from when we were staying at Kevin's parents' house in Eagle Mountain, UT. She seems to enjoy it most nights!

The Big Move

It all went well, but I must say that I am sick of moving. Thank HEAVENS we are stuck here for the next three years! (Knock on wood, I suppose Kevin WILL have internships...)

Kevin and I didn't have a lot to move. Most of our big furniture pieces were sold and everything else fit into a small U-Haul trailer which was towed behind our Passat. Kevin and his dad began driving our belongings cross country two weeks ago, on an early Monday morning. They drove without stopping until they reached New Orleans on Tuesday evening. Those two crack me up. They were excited to experience the food there and had gumbo THREE times in one evening. The results? None of the gumbos compared to Kevin's family's recipe which doesn't surprise me one bit. That gumbo recipe is extreme goodness and I am incredibly happy to have it. Kevin said he had some sublime beignets though and brought me a coconut praline. I had never had a praline before and hadn't even been sure what it was. It was tasty!

After spending the night in New Orleans, Kevin and Dad started fresh and reached Pensacola by lunch time where they met up with some old friends. (Kevin was born in Pensacola on a naval base in case you were wondering where the connection came from.) They reached Gulfport later that evening and unpacked our boxes from the trailer.

Meanwhile (back in Utah), I remained preoccupied with some last-minute errands before flying out with Kevin's mom Thursday morning. My fervent prayers of Wednesday night were answered because Olive was an absolute dream to travel with. Seriously. I think she slept pretty much all day except when she ate--which was during ascensions. It was really nice to have Kevin's mom with me too. She was so extremely helpful and it was nice to have an extra pair of arms all day.

Kevin and his dad picked us up at the airport Thursday evening around 7. We grabbed some dinner at the Pink Palace and then had a walk on the beach. Through the weekend, we finished unpacking everything and our place came together quite nicely. We made a detour to Miami (a 4-hour drive) just to eat at Shake Shack. See picture below, the best ingredient is the portabello mushroom--stuffed with cheese and deep fried. It is nirvana on a bun. The cheese is so gooey too--just ask Kevin's mom. The cheese on her burger was flying all over the place in the wind.


I can't believe how much I love our new place. It is always terrifying to move into a place you have never seen before. All we had known of it before was a picture of the exterior, which I must say does it absolutely no justice whatsoever. It is an old house but very charming and feels clean--which is absolutely imperative to me. I know ya'll are wanting to see it, so Kevin and I have provided a video tour links for you!

One Month Old

Well I can hardly believe it but one month has elapsed since I was in the hospital giving birth to little Olive. She is a sweet sweet baby! I think one of the biggest surprises for me is the fact that some days I feel like I can get absolutely NOTHING accomplished. I'm hoping that will change once we are finished moving and have a chance for things to settle.

In the last week or so, Olive has been sleeping about 8 hours through the night. Although it is an inconsistent pattern, I say PRAISE!!!

We are moving to Florida this week, so we had Olive's blessing last Sunday in Kevin's parent's home. (I had fallen in love with the idea of doing the blessing at home instead of church when I heard of Clint and Clare doing it.) It was really nice to have our loved ones gathered together in an intimate setting. It really touched my heart to hear Kevin's sweet blessing for Olive. What a good man I have. We had some great food as well; I am still dreaming about Tita's tender pork and Sharylann's quiches. (I NEED RECIPES!) I guess I should also note that the picture above is Olive in her blessing dress--which was once MY blessing dress. My mom made it, and unfortunately I didn't get a really great picture of the whole thing--mainly because Olive became pretty fussy when we finally got around to taking pictures...

Well I guess I should tell a little bit about Olive. Ever since she was born, she has had an incredibly strong neck. (When I used to babysit, I recalled baby's necks seemed to be pretty floppy and am unsure how Olive evolved to avoid this...) When you try and burp her over your shoulder, she refuses to rest her head down and keeps it up in the air. She looks around, mainly to get a good look at who is holding her. No matter where you have her propped up, she will usually inch her head towards you until she can see the pores on your neck. If you are really lucky, she may give you a big sloppy kiss on the neck! It is hilarious. You know she is ready to go to bed when she finally rests her head on your shoulder! Otherwise, keep feeding!!!

She is a really good baby and generally only cries when she needs something. She loves going outside and Grandpa Goertzen can usually get her to fall asleep within about 5 minutes of taking her outside (no matter how fussy). She used to cry during her bath in the sink but lately just sits and enjoys it. Kevin can usually get her to smile in the morning. And she likes the music of Rodgers and Hammerstein. (Exception: "Poor Judd is Dead." She finds it a little depressing...)

I will try to be better about posting some video and more pics of her, especially once we get settled in Florida!

Pioneer Day

Caring for a newborn baby is enough to make your life hectic.  THEN you add in the hormones, recovery from labor, lack of sleep, etc. and it is enough to drive a person crazy.  I wish I could say that is all the craziness in my life at the moment, but it is just the beginning! 

Our lease was up in July which resulted in us moving out of our apartment last Wednesday.  Being at the mercy of Olive and her schedule, I felt pretty useless at times.  But we made it, though I mean BARELY made it.  We dropped of our keys and rushed to get Kevin to his show. After dropping him off, I rushed to his parents' house to get rid of the last batch of cargo, bathe and feed Olive, pack a few things, and go pick Kevin up from his show.  And that still wasn't the end of it: we traveled to St. George and made it around 2 a.m.  It sure made for a long day.

Luckily, we got to sleep in the next day before packing everything back up and traveling 12 hours to Colorado.  Olive slept most of the way and only spit-up twice.  Thank heavens I caught the projectiles both times via the burp rags without incident to the car or infant seat.  It was an exciting evening--complete with a police barricade in Dulce where we were warned about two fugitives on the loose--one of which was just shot and killed by a police officer. His partner was still on the loose and believed to be armed.  Spooky.

It was another long day but finally we arrived in Manassa, CO.  That is where Mom is from.  Growing up, it was tradition to visit every year for the Pioneer Day celebration.  I hadn't partaken in the festivities since high school...eek!  I am glad that we finally made it!  It is sooooo deliciously small-town.

My grandma lives on Main Street so we have a front row seat to the parade.  After the first run of the parade, all participants turn around and give a repeat performance.  Here are some of our favorite pics:

The fire chief, apparently.

 

 

Uncle Kevin blessed Jace with the knowledge of how beads get gotten.

Our favorite "carnie" working one of the kiddie rides. Such amazing wrinkles.

No Pioneer Day Celebration is complete without a demolition derby.  Apparently Olive wasn't as amused as the rest of us.  She slept soundly through the noisy event.  We rooted for the car labeled, "Kevin," and were delighted when it won.

Four generations of quilters: Mom, Grandma, Olive, and Vanessa.  Well, we presume Olive will be a quilter.  She definitely gives the stink eye if she doesn't approve of my fabric choices.

We visited Grandpa's grave on our way out of town.  This is where sweet little Olive gets her middle name "Elwin."

Kevin did a photo shoot with Jace.  Jace was absolutely in love with the trains!

Penny got a photo shoot too!  Take a good look at the wash basin, it is the last time you will see it in the family.  After photographing in front of the house made of garbage, Kevin left it behind on accident.  Twenty minutes later, he went to retrieve it and the obstinate old cuss who lives there had stolen it and wouldn't give it back!

I love this picture so much.  Kevin is the cutest dad ever!!!!

Tom took this picture of me.  I feel like I look like Johnny Depp in this picture.  I think he has the same outfit.

We had a great time vacationing and just doing a whole lot of nothing.  In a couple of weeks, we get to pack up our stuff again and relocate to Florida where Kevin will begin law school!  The craziness MAY end some time soon... ???

Meridian Article

Looks like Olive made it into Meridian Magazine! I thought this article was really fun to read. Marvin Payne is such a sweetheart!!

http://meridianmagazine.com/backstagegraffiti/100714audra.html