Behind on the blogging!

So I'm realizing it has been a LONG time since I have updated this blog. Sorry. I see others who are excellent bloggers and I am definitely lacking in this area. I am going to try to sum up the last several months on the happenings in our household.

*Terry is finishing up a class he is taking for his master's. This class has been more time consuming with more paperwork to do. He will be thankfully once it is over this coming Monday night! He also is busy with school this year for several reasons: he's teaching a new grade level again (4th grade) so he spends some extra time there working on things and goes back some evenings or weekends, too. He also is busy with a book study they are doing. Not thrilled about that one! He officially has his keys for the new school building which they will begin teaching in come January after Christmas break. Therefore, he has a lot of packing up and moving of things from one school to the other. Terry finally sold our Bonneville. Thank goodness! I was tired of having 3 vehicles in our small driveway! On top of all of this he has been a single parent a lot of evening due to me being sick and not feeling well.

*...which leads to me (Carissa) has had a rough time during this pregnancy. I have learned to be more compassionate to those who deal with chronic pain! I have had a terrible time controlling my gall bladder issues and finding foods that I can eat. These pains are aside from the nausea that I continued to feel through week 24! A couple weeks before Thanksgiving I had finally started to have more good days than bad days during the week and now it has started to lessen a bit again. Issues! A month ago my sciatic nerve really started to give me fits and has continued to worsen. It has brought me to tears recently in getting on the floor to play with Olivia, carrying Olivia places other than in the house, and even this morning tying my shoes! I have resorted to seeing a chiropractor for the first time in my life to try to find some relief in this pain. I continue to go 2 times a week and started to see a slight improvement. The pain isn't as constant as it was before. I am happy to report through all of this the baby continues to grow and get stronger (feeling lots of kicking!). My class of first graders this year is great! They are a really good group of kids. This helps out tremendously on all of my days of not feeling so well.

*Olivia will be 20 months on Monday! Time does fly. Olivia and I were watching videos of her when she was a baby last weekend and I could hardly remember her that small. (She was very upset with me when I turned off the videos after 20 minutes!) Her favorite things to do right now are puzzles, Play-Doh, coloring, hammering, animals, building with blocks, running, and reading books. Her vocabulary is so vast! It truly amazes me! She says new things each day. She has begun to put 2-3 words together. She had a 6 month check-up with her Ear specialist. He informed us that her tubes are no longer where they "should" be in her ears. They are beginning to come out so this means that they are no longer functioning the way that they should be. We need to be cautious of infections again. He did say that there is no sign of fluid or infection now, though.

ABC's

Olivia loves the ABC song! Awhile back she started to say M on her own and then when we would sing the song she'd add it appropriately in it's correct place. Recently she started adding Z and usually giggles or squeals when she says it.

Family Lake Vacations

July 20-25 we were at Hamilton Lake, Indiana with the Beck family. We enjoyed time with family, relaxation, and being outside. Olivia loved being with all of her cousins and having them push her around in her Coupe car.

Olivia loved playing in the sand and water. Here she had already gotten all of her clothes wet by deciding to get into her pool with them on so then once they were off she moved over to the sand. Her diaper was HUGE with all the sand and water. It's a wonder it didn't explode!

Here she is in the pool with all her clothes on! By the way, I had just changed her shirt because it was a little wet and then she did this!


Olivia (front and center) was having a snack and watching a Baby Einstein video. Slowly all of her older cousins trickled into the cottage and sat down and joined her!

Uncle Reggie has his arms full reading books to Olivia, Jaret & Leah.

Olivia and Clara sat in the hammock clapping their hands!

July 27-August 2 we were at Bankers Lake, Michigan with the Huber family. We enjoyed camping, boat rides, and swimming. Olivia loved running around outside!

Olivia enjoyed playing in the tube.

We borrowed a 5th wheel camper. Olivia loved to run to the front of the camper and say "up" at the stairs because she wanted to play on our bed.

Olivia's first tubing experience. It was so exciting she messed her pants!

Olivia loved the bubbles. She would go up to the picnic table and grab the bubble wand and bring it to someone saying "bubba".

The bee swing is another thing she would often walk over to and say "up" to.

She loved to go out on the dock but wanted to be Miss Independent and DID NOT like it when we made her hold our hand to walk out on it.

Baling

Jaret & Olivia ready to unload another wagon.

Jaret & Olivia riding in the truck to pick up another wagon of bales.

Checking out an injuring little pigeon that was found in the elevator.

Olivia loves watching the bales go up the elevator.

Playing in the straw!

raspberries, puppies, gator, and a hog roast...

Although July is not over, it has been filled with friends, family, and fun! Olivia is officially a busy body! She loves to walk. You'll often find her just walking around the house just because she can! Aside from signing "all done" she now says "ah don". She can tell you where her toes, tongue, fingers, and hair are. She understands when I tell her to go get or go do many tasks. She continues to love having me (mom) grab her toes and do "This little piggie.." When I get done doing it she'll grab my hand and put it back on her toes and say "Dis" (for THIS..little piggie) and want me to do it again.

We went to Art & Donna's for lunch one Sunday and this is Olivia's face after eating raspberries.

Olivia loves having the blow dryer blown in her face!

We took a visit to Fred, Elaine & Katie's to see their puppies and cows. It took Olivia a little while to warm up to the puppy but she loved to tease them and by the end of the visit was rolling around on the floor letting them lick her face.


Who knew that a Kohl's magazine could be SO exciting?! "Great" Uncle Fred added a lot of excitement in his voice while showing it to her.



Olivia LOVED riding on the gator to go see the cows. She would squeal whenever they drove close to them.

We had a hog roast at the park and invited a lot of our friends. There were SO many little kids running around. They had a blast playing!

Where did June go?!

Father's Day

Where has June gone? So far this summer Terry has been busy packing up one classroom and moving into another. He will be teaching 4th grade this Fall. He also took a week long class (Multicultural Education) at Defiance College. We celebrated our 3rd Anniversary on June 17. We've been busy being with family, walking across the street and watching some baseball games, taking many bike rides and walks, playing outside, etc. My summer hobby is garage saling! Can you believe it?! It's SO addicting. I get my newspaper on Wednesdays and circle the ones I think I'll "find" something at. No...I'm not just picking up junk! I have been specifically looking for outdoor "big" toys. I have had some luck with it! Olivia is getting braver and walking some. She'll take about 10 steps to someone. Olivia also is using some sign language consistently now. She most frequently uses "more" and "all done". She loves to blow kisses, give kisses and now rock her baby. She particularly likes to play with the cow and horse out of her Little People barn and loves to say "moo" (quietly of course) and have the horse gallop. Olivia is successfully down to one nap a day and no longer needs that bottle at bedtime. Now to tackle the paci at naps and bedtime!! (I think I'll wait awhile for that one.) She definitely is no longer a baby! (sniff...sniff)

Olivia liked pretending to be a "bee".

Playing in the new children's discovery area, Nature's Neighboorhood, at the zoo.


#2 zoo trip, July 1, 2009



Taking a break from playing for some juice.



Being silly!

Swimming in her new pool.

First Zoo Trip

Watching the baby monkey!

Giraffes!

On the way to see more monkeys!!

A very tired little girl after her first zoo trip!

We decided to get a zoo membership this year, so we tested it out this morning at the Toledo Zoo. The animals were very active this morning! Olivia particularly liked watching the polar bears pace back and forth, the baby monkey climbing and swinging around, the sloth black bear pacing, and the female elephant eating a whole watermelon! We decided we didn't want to push our luck on the first visit so we didn't see everything and the new Children's Zoo is not open yet. We'll definitely be going back many times this summer! On the way home Olivia chowed down her chicken nuggets and french fries and then zonked out the last 15 minutes of the trip home.

Goodbye Spring...hello Summer!!

First time riding in her wagon. Riding like she owns it!

Enjoyed opening and closing the door repeatedly.

Testing out the new wheels.





Looking at Gabe & Clara's baby chicks.


Only cared to touch it once or twice.

Mother's Day

Olivia came and woke Mom up from a nice nap in the hammock.

She loves her fridge magnets.

She is such a chiller when she rides in Daddy's truck.

Olivia LOVES her swing.

This spring has flown by and has been so much fun with Olivia. She loves being outside! Olivia was a late crawler and didn't start crawling until 11 months old. She was too content scooting and rolling around everywhere. Now I know why everyone was telling us we were lucky, she's into everything now! She loves to clap, wave, say "ha" for hi, yell "dod" for Dad ALL the time and now just started saying Mom. This week she also started saying "no" and she'll keep saying it repeatedly to herself. We really do hear her trying to repeat things more often and do not feel its a coincidence anymore when she says something that sounds like something we were saying. Today she has repeated "toes" and "mess". Olivia loves to open and close things, stack things, put her shapes in her shape box, pick out and match her shapes and colors, take puzzles apart, push the walker through the house (she is very serious while she does this and gets extremely mad when she can't turn it around), finally is drinking her milk from a sippy cup (she only would do juice before and thought the milk should be in a bottle), point at things, jabber all the time, and dance, just to name a few things.

Terry finished up another class at Defiance College towards his masters degree. He also coached the JV baseball team for Pettisville. I have not commited to anything else but teaching and being a mom. At the beginning of the month we joined the "mini van club". Right after purchasing the van and driving out of the lot, I said that I officially felt 30!

A little late but here's Easter!

Easter was a lot of fun this year having Olivia with us. Her first Easter! We celebrated the day by Olivia opening a few cherrio filled eggs at home, looking through an Easter basket, wearing a pretty yellow dress to church, visiting both grandparents' houses, going on an Easter egg hunt, and celebrating my (Carissa's 30th birthday).

When we put on her dress and shoes for church. She was SO proud of them!

On the Easter egg hunt it was cold and windy outside (of course) and Olivia didn't want to pick the eggs off the ground. She wanted you to do it for her and then give it to her so she could put it in her bucket.