Rocker Babe

Do you dig Olive's outfit? Ever since we stumbled upon the ACDC onesie at Old Navy, we were determined to have an 80's outfit for Olive. All she really needs now is the skirt. Clare (my sister-in-law) had posted some links a while back on how to make chiffon tutus, and I intend to make a white one to complete the outfit. Still cute "as is" though.

I have a couple of projects I am working on. For etsy, the next item I want to add is a sunflower quilt. There doesn't seem to be anything like it online. So far I just have the blocks laid out, and now I am ready to sew it all together. I am debating about using a different green on one of the stems. See the green and white print? I actually like the contrast even though OBVIOUSLY you wouldn't find it like that in nature. Is it too much white? Should I use something else?

The other project I am working on is for Marcus Brothers using their new baby line. It is a pastel palette with lots of teddy bears. It is very sweet. I will try to put up pictures once there is anything to look at but I have basically designed a teddy bear family tree. Hopefully it will be cool! (Sometimes quilts end up looking a LOT different than how I've imagined them in my head.)

Kevin has an exam on Thursday for his research and writing course. Wish him luck! He has been living at the library and is really nervous about it. I think his biggest frustration with law school thus far has been the inability to gauge how he's doing. As far as I'm aware, the only test you have is the final...so who knows what to expect! And of course everyone has his own strategies and recommendations for Kevin, but they are always contradicting what someone else has told him. Anyway, he puts EVERYTHING into his studies and makes me so proud!

Okay, here are the videos of the week! Olive is trying to create a spark by rubbing her feet together. She wants to build a fire, apparently.

And she also enjoys Dad's hair...

Dad Pissing Olive Off

3 Months Old

Well, the little fatty is 3 months old. Are those not the most pinch-able cheeks?

I gave Olive the baby doll this week and first she embraced it and then she tried to eat it. Then she remembered that she has hands.

When Olive is lying down, she does these little mini crunches. We took this video in the early stages, but she has since become even stronger! She will be sitting on her own in no time! You get to see a little of her cheerful personality in this too! We also heard a first giggle this week.

More happy noises. And one of her crunches.

Olive has a new cousin! Kevin's sister (Geordan) gave birth to baby Zoey 10/7/10--exactly 3 months after Olive. She is beautiful and has quite the head of hair. (Olive is really jealous!) She needed a little help breathing at first but is doing much better. Geordan will probably get to bring her home Monday morning! And Zoey had to deal with the bili bed too. Much sympathy from Olive!

I just have to say how wonderful the "Amazon Mom" club is. Kevin found it for me on Amazon.com. All I had to do was "subscribe" to have diapers delivered every month (free shipping on our student account) and I get 30% off for just being set up to have it shipped every month. I can go in and cancel if I need to, change size, quantity, whatever I want. I am delighted to have discovered it! It is saving us lots of money!

Kevin and I went and saw a play called, "I Will Be Good." It was directed by our friend, Erik Orton (wrote "Berlin" that Kevin was in on KBYU-TV). It is a one-woman show and involves a woman (Tricia) telling about her colorful life. The website describes it as follows:

"In this witty, one-woman show, Tricia Rose Burt chronicles her unexpected journey from Southern businesswoman to contemporary New England artist. Along the way she learns how to draw a naked man’s essence, is stalked by God, and gets beauty tips from her priest. Despite great pressure to conform, she finds hope and healing in authenticity, and learns that life and art are both about process."

http://www.iwillbegood.com for more information

I related to Tricia a lot. I also thought that the performance was something my mom would enjoy a lot. It reminds me about a lot of the books she reads. It was a nice evening and it was nice to have a date night.

When I was younger, my mom and I went shopping for groceries at Albertson's. They had some free "Quick Fix" recipe cards, and one of them included the recipe for these chocolate kiss cookies. Last night I made a double batch and we delivered all but 4 cookies to neighbors as an excuse to introduce ourselves. I thought I would share the recipe. They are foolproof! They would be fun to make with kids! (Olive had so much fun watching that she decided to take a nap from it all).

Chocolate Kiss Cookies

2 C. Bisquick

3/4 C. peanut butter

1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

sugar ( for rolling)

36 Hershey kisses

Preheat oven to 375F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or grease it. In a large bowl, mix Bisquick, peanut butter, sweetened condensed milk, and vanilla extract. Roll some dough into a ball (usually is about 2" in diameter) and roll in sugar to coat. Arrange on baking sheet and bake for 8 minutes. As soon as they leave the oven, press a chocolate kiss into each ball and let cool for a few minutes. Make sure you have milk before devouring!!!

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!