Monday, July 29, 2013

Weekend wrap-up

Well I am already feeling like a bad blogger - zero photos taken this weekend!  In my defense I came down with a weird 24-hour bug that left me feeling like death.  This is the first time I've been sick since having Olivia and being sick with a toddler is no joke! I was out with friends on Saturday when it hit me - I was torn between thinking I had food poisoning and was pregnant!  Thankfully I have a wonderful husband who took care of Olivia for 90% of the day while I slept the day away.  Feeling much better today & can't wait to play with my little munchkin tonight.

Friday night Olivia and I had a fun dinner date with Lydia.  Olivia is hit or miss these days when we go out to eat - she is either a perfect angel or a terror.  Thankfully she was in angel mode on Friday and spent the entire dinner waving at the waitresses and the other diners around us.

Saturday morning Olivia and I went to pick my Mom up to run a few errands at the mall, and when I pulled into the driveway my Dad came out and said he wanted to watch Olivia while we ran our errands.  Yes, please!  We were only gone an hour or so but it was much easier to get things done without my little sidekick and I know Olivia and Grandpa had a fun time.

My friend Jana got to town around 4:00 on Saturday and shortly afterwards we headed downtown to meet up with some friends for dinner & drinks.  Olivia had a fun night in with Jason!  I had a great time until the bug hit me around 9:00.  I made it until around 11:45 when I had to leave.  I'm hoping to avoid sickness for as long as possible - I forgot how miserable it is to have a fever!

Thursday, July 25, 2013

Thankful Thursday

I am thankful that Olivia woke up in an extra happy moood today!  Mornings are always her happiest time of the day, but today's level of happiness was above and beyond what I've ever seen before.  She was full of big smiles and giggles.  I suppose I'm also thankful she gets just as much joy out of an empty cottage cheese container as she does with a brand new toy.  Just try and not smile when you look at this face:

Mom you're so funny!

I'm thankful for cooler weather!  Finally the heat & humidity have let up.  Last week had me looking like this - scary!

It's the humidity!  My all time favorite Friends episode :)
I am thankful for friends introducing me to new things.  Today my friend Kayla came down for lunch and suggested we go to Open Sesame, a Lebanese Cafe in the East Village.  I won't lie, I was not thrilled about trying Lebanese food.  I am more of a cheeseburger/chicken strip girl.  However - it was DELICIOUS!  Their hummus was to die for.  One of the best meals I have had in a long time.  Thank you, Kayla!

Finally I'm thankful to have house guests two weeks in a row!  Last week we had Megan, Fred & Claire and this weekend my college friend Jana is coming down for a visit.  I love having extra time in the evenings & mornings to catch up with friends.  Not only do I love having friends stay with us but it gives me a reason to clean.  I swear if we didn't have house guests our house would never get cleaned.   

Monday, July 22, 2013

What a difference a year makes!

I started looking back through photos today and found photos that I uploaded exactly one year ago today.  How did our Olivia go from this sleepy little peanut to this sassy little stinker in just one year?!
A sleepy six-week old.

13-month stinker girl!

Welcome!

Welcome to our blog!  I decided to start blogging for two main reasons - first and most importantly to keep everyone up to date on Olivia!  I have been slacking on taking pictures of her so I figured if I had somewhere to post the photos without overloading Facebook I would be more likely to photograph our darling daughter. 

Olivia is now 13 months and I say this every month but this is my favorite age yet.  Right after she turned one we noticed that she was understanding a lot more.  We can now tell her to do something (bring us her blankie, bring us her baby, etc.) and she will do it!  If we ask her if she wants to have lunch, she will head straight for the kitchen.  My absolute favorite thing to tell her to do is to give Mommy a hug.  Seeing her toddle towards me, arms out, is the best feeling ever!

Can you even handle her preciousness?
                                                 
My favorites.
                                                                 
Secondly - I am selfishly starting to blog to hold myself accountable while training for the Des Moines Marathon.  I'm starting to get into the rough part of the training and I thought if I had somewhere to post how training was going it might help me stay motivated when  my alarm clock goes off at 4:45 a.m.  Right now I'm trying to do all my runs early in the morning before Jason and Olivia get up.  I want my training to impact them both as little as possible.  Of course that will change when I have to run 16, 17, 20(!!) miles on a Saturday morning, but for now I'm gone and back before they both even think about waking up. 

This blog very well might only be interesting to me and that's okay :)  For now I'll leave you with one of Olivia's latest tricks!