Just Livin' the Good LIfe

Ollie got in his first "quarrel" over a toy.  I don't think he totally knew what was going on, but it was funny.  During swim lessons they put the babies on a floating mat to do tummy time and they get to look at each other and play with toys.  Well Ollie was awfully keen on this neon orange squid thing.  This other baby had a yellow one and wanted Ollie's orange squid.  The little boy kept swatting and grabbing at Ollie's squid, but Ollie had an IRON GRIP on it.  He was just staring at the baby like "what are you trying to do?" Good ole Ollie did not give in, he held onto that toy with his life.  Good job Ollie.

I had something funny happen to me this week.  On Thursday after Ollie's swim lessons, I went to Walmart to do some Price Matching.  Before we went in I was feeding him in the car.  All of a sudden our trunk opens. It scared the HECK out of me!  I jumped so high and for a second all these scary thoughts were running through my head, "oh no, i'm going to turn around and someone is going to have a gun pointed at my head" "Why didn't I lock the car while I was in here?" "Maybe I can make a run for it".  I caught a glimpse through my side mirror and saw a Disney's Cars umbrella (it was raining).  Seeing that gave me the courage to turn around, I don't think any bad guy would be walking around with a Cars umbrella.  So I turn around and see this lady starting to load up my car with her groceries.  "Uh, I think you have the wrong car".  She jumps and says "OH MY GOODNESS, I was wondering when I got scratches on my bumper!"  So she apologizes and goes to her car, meanwhile my heart is still pounding.  I'm such a scaredy cat.  I alway think of worse possible situations, but I guess that is a good thing because if it ever is the worse possible situation that occurs, I will be ready for it and already have attempted to make a plan in my head on what to do.  My main concern is protecting Ollie :).

I went to library time today and he was sitting (with my assistance) next to a 10 month old.  The mom couldn't believe Ollie was only 5 months because he was bigger than that 10 month old and much longer, including his feet!

His feet are almost hanging off his baby carseat! And these are the adorable shorts Lance sent Ollie.  I love them!

So this week I found a recipe for homemade corn dogs. I didn't know if they would be good or not, but they were super easy and super delicious!  I liked that I can make them with less preservatives and with nitrate free hot dogs.  Even though they're fried, at least they have more pure ingredients.  I'm going to try to figure out how to freeze them and then I can have them for a snack when Ollie is older.

Every 6-12 months they have this event where people in the community bring kid stuff and they sell it for way cheap.  Well Saturday was the last day and most everything was half off.  I went when I was pregnant and found some cute Sunday outfits for Ollie, so I thought I would go check out what they have.  Here are the goods I found, I got this all for $10:

2 Sunday outfits in different sizes, 2 sleepers (because right now he only has one) and 3 bath towels (right now he only has 1). All for $10.  I thought it was a good deal!

This week was Ollie's first time riding in a cart.  He did pretty good!  We just held his hands to the cart and it kept him steady enough.  I think he liked being able to look around instead of being stuck in his carseat.

Tough Guys!

Ok, so I was at the grocery store and saw these delicious chocolate bars.  Well since we can't leave Ollie and go on dates yet, I had the thought that we could have a date night at our house.  The activity: Taste Testing.  I plan to do this with more products in the future because we had a lot of fun.  We had to close our eyes and try each of these candy bars.  We gave each other 3 tries and the best 2 out of 3 won.  It was funny to see what we thought each candy bar was and sometimes we were totally wrong!

And the winner is:

CADBURY! It was delicious!

My sister Elizabeth is officially gone, off to the Mexico MTC.  She will be missed.  It was very emotional saying goodbye!

Our roof has finally been worked on! It took forever to get a roofing company to come out.  The cool thing is that our insurance cuts us a check at the beginning and tells us to find our own company.  They told me if we can get a quote for less, that we can pocket the rest!  We found a company that comes well recommended that would do it for thousands less.  I honestly take this as another tender mercy from Heavenly Father to provide for us.  We have had a lot of expenses with applying to dental school (it isn't cheap) and the Lord provides!  Another testimony for me of paying our tithing.  Things always work out!  On Friday they came and tarred our roof and it smelt like tar for days in our house.  They had to turn off our A/C and it smelt bad, so Ollie and I went and hung out at Dave's work with him while he cleaned and waited for a package.  It was much cooler over there than we keep our house at! It was nice :).   

My Amazing Sister Elizabeth....

My little sis leaves in 2 weeks to serve a LDS mission in Ecuador.  She reports first to the Mexico Missionary Training Center which just opened up. It worked out that I was able to spend some time with her this week and it was so great!

Lizzy's friend was getting her endowment out in Mesa and my parents were on a Pioneer Trek, so Lizzy and Brooke came up here Thursday and then I went down with them thru Mesa for the endowment and on to Havasu to spend the week there before he Farewell.  We had SO much fun!

  When Brooke and Liz got here Ollie had a fever from his shots, so we spent most of Friday chilling in the house.  The girls were SO tired and kept waking up to eat, or say hi to Ollie and falling back asleep.    Liz and I made orange pancakes and then Ollie was doing a little better so that evening we all went shopping at the mall (trying to find a few more shirts for Lizzy's mission).  That night for dinner we were adventurous and ordered take out from an Indian restaurant.  I had no idea what I was ordering (the online menu had no food descriptions). And anyone who knows me knows I am the WORST at talking to people with accents.  When I call customer service or something like that and a person with an accent comes on, I might as well hang up because I ask what after every sentence!  Well of course a person with an Indian accent answered and I was trying to ask what some of the menu items were.  He would describe it, and I would ask What?  One time he said something 3 times and I still didn't understand him so I said I just wont order that one.  He laughed at me, at least he was patient.  I went in to get the food and he asked my name and I said "i'm the one that couldn't understand you" and he said "ahh yes Here is your food." It was delicious.  Lizzy was all paranoid about trying it, thinking she was going to open her food and there was going to be a duck head or something.  Haha  Sorry Liz, it wasn't that exotic.

Ollie did pretty good on the drive to Mesa and then to Havasu.  It was late, so he just slept.  The endowment got done at 8 PM so we had a late drive home.  We played lots of games this week: Hearts, Pictionary, Nertz, Mad Gab.  It was so fun.  I love hanging out with my sisters because they love games  too and I can get my fix! We had a funny time with Pictionary. It was really late and we were all sleep deprived and a little delusional. The game was going longer than expected. It was Brooke and I against Mom and Liz.  We kept landing on this ALL PLAY spot that made us have to draw the same picture at the same time. Well SOME cheater (won't name names) kept listening to the other team to help them guess, so we made a rule that one team had to go in the other room to draw at the same time.  We were stuck on the ALL PLAY square for some time because we kept alternating who won so no got to roll of the square.  FINALLY Brooke and I won TWO in a row and we grabbed each other's hand and started jumping up and down giggling and squealing and then while jumping and giggling Brooke said "I'm going to pee my pants" and then I said "ME TOO!"  So then we started laughing harder and we were done for.  The girls in my family have some of the weakest bladders ever. Sorry if that is TOO MUCH INFORMATION, but it was so funny.  :)

The highest Liz has ever stacked her cards

We couldn't get a normal picture of us with our dates.

Mom made us this middle eastern snack of Dates with almonds and cream cheese on top.  We are willing to give most things a try, and at first bite those were pretty good, but man those dates are CHEWY! I just sat there and chewed on for like 5 minutes, it started to gross me out.

Mmm...

Speaking of snacks, we were in short supply at home, and us girls were getting late night munchies.  Brooke and Liz ran to the store because we were craving apples.  They picked up apples, cheese, almonds, and dried pineapple.  Can you say healthy?  I was so proud of our healthy munchies.

I kept mixing up Lizzy's and Brooke's names, so sometimes I would go to Brooke and start calling her Liz, so I would finish it with "Hey Llllllittle Brooke". So that was her name the whole week. The other funny thing that I found myself saying was when we would stay up to late, or we would be discussing who gets the shower first I would always say "Guys, Ollie is going to get me up in 2 hours, so I need the shower, or I need to go to bed".  It was ALWAYS 2 hours. haha (even though most of the time he didn't wake me up in 2 hours).

I love to have Dad as a dentist because I get to work for him when I am down there!  I hadn't worked since the week before I had Oliver, so it had been over 4 months.  I actually miss it!  Grandma Mel was more than happy to watch Ollie while I worked. She actually took him to the office and hung out in Dad's office.  Some of the patients poked their head in to see Dr Lundin's grandbaby.  I got done with some of my patients quickly, so it gave me time to jump in and feed Ollie. It was nice to do something else besides sit at home with Ollie (granted I wouldn't change being a mom for the world, but sometimes it is nice to change things up). We are thinking once Ollie is a little older and able to eat without needing to be nursed, I might try to pick up a half day one day a week. I hear it is good after 8 months for a baby to have just a small break from their momma, so that would be perfect.

Back in the Saddle!  It felt so weird at first!

Mom on baby duty! :)

We all went and got our hair cut and colored from this lady that is really good.  The girls watched Ollie while I got mine done.  It was nice to have fresh hair again.  I decided to give in and get the mom haircut.

OLLIE PHOTO BOMBING US! :)

 My mom is OBSESSED with reading Brooke's texts and it drives Brooke crazy.  When Brooke leaves her phone on the counter and mom sees it, you should see how excited she gets.  Usually she does a happy dance over to her phone.  In the following picture we can see the Grandma Mel has been taking Oliver to the dark side:

Lance sent Ollie a box of a few outfits and they are adorable.  The shirt is a little big on him, but he will grow into it:

Dave got into town on Friday and he said Oliver got so big and developed so much in just a week!  Ollie sure was happy to see Dave:

We had SO much fun Saturday.  We went out on the lake and then Lulu and Papa came into town and we had a BBQ at the park with steak, potato salad, fruit salad, corn on the cob and baked beans.  Then we went to Carls Jr for dessert and got hand scooped milk shakes.

At first Ollie wasn't sure about those small waves.

But then he relaxed and had a good time in the water. Even though the choppy waves kept splashing him in the face, I was scared he was swallowing the water.

Captured Liz and Dad on the waverunner behind us! 

Funny Story with the waverunner... we were having a hard time getting it started and Dad had to spray his little special spray on the engine to get it to start everytime.  On the last ride Liz and I were on the waverunner pulling Dave on the tube, and we decided to switch and have me get on the tube so I jumped in.  Well Dave decided to try to get on the waverunner from the side, bad idea.  I watched from the tube and Lizzy tried to balance the waverunner in vain.  The waverunner slowly started to tip. So Dave had to abandon ship, luckily it didn't tip, but it did turn off. So since was off Dave could go up on the back without risking his life in the propeller ;).  Well he had to get around Lizzy to get to the driver's spot. Liz isn't the best at counteracting weight haha.  Dave started to go to one side and once again it began to tip.  Dave had to again abandon ship.  Finally he made it on and they couldn't get it to start after like 10 tries.  They tried and tried and then we all abandoned ship and tube.  My ride around the lake was.... nonexistent:).  So we all pulled and pushed the waverunner to the side of the beach and Dad walked over and met us and got it started.  Come to find out, it was out of fuel and he had to put it on reserve. It was an adventure at least :).

Playing around on the playground we found this cool thing!

Brooke put Ollie in the grass on a towel and he just sat there relaxing looking at the sky for like 20 minutes.  So cute!

Relaxing in the grass with Aunt Brooke. He was looking at Brooke freak out over a bug like she was crazy!

Ok this brings us to SUNDAY. Lizzy's farewell.  She was left a lot of time, but filled it perfectly.  My family sang Lead Kindly Light in spanish as a special musical number and I accompanied with the piano. Liz did AMAZING on her talk.  He spoke with power, confidence and love.  I could see right then what an amazing and influential missionary she is going to be.  I love her dearly and think she is just such a great example.  She has grown up so much and will grow even more on her mission.  It is SO sad that she won't see Ollie for a year and a half (he is going to change so much), but I can tell him all about his Aunt Liz on a mission and what a great thing she is doing. I honestly wasn't emotion about it until I had to say goodbye.  She was hugging Ollie and I saw the look on her face, she loves Ollie so much and Ollie ADORES her and I could tell it pains her to know that she isn't going to get to see him.  That made me tear up instantly.  Then I got to hug her goodbye and just didn't want to let go.  This is my little sister!  My sisters are my best friends.  I love them dearly.  Things just aren't going to be the same without her!  Here is my little walk down memory lane for Lizzy:

Oliver is 4 Months!

What a goofball.  Loves making silly faces. The right one is what we call "his fat boy face"

Reaches for that camera... one expensive toy eh?

Such a HAPPY boy!

Just want to kiss those cheeks!

I can't believe Oliver is growing so fast.  He is getting cuter and cuter everyday.  When he looks at me with those cute little blue eyes and flashes that gummy grin, my heart just melts! I love cute little newborns, but I have to say, I like that Ollie is able to do more.  It makes the days more fun when I can interact with him and do things with him.  Also, he is generally just a lot happier now than he use to be, which makes momma happy :).

Little Ollie continues to smile and laugh lots.  He still babbles, but mostly a gargly, throaty babble, especially when he is tired. He loves watching me clap my hands and will grab my hands and help me clap.  He is discovering his feet and when his legs are up he tips over to one side (I think rolling over is in his near future).  He can also sit up with some minor assistance, but if I let go he usually dives head first into the ground, so I have to be careful.  Grandma Lundin got Ollie a little Jumper that goes in the doorway.  The only place in the house that fits it is our closet, so while I get ready for the day and do laundry I put him in the jumper.  He hasn't grasped the concept of using his legs to bounce yet, but he'll get there soon.

Ollie in his Jumper

Ollie also has continued to do the "DUCK FACE".  That is his concentrating face. I wonder if he is going to do that when he is older, for his sake I hope not--It's cute now but may not be later! ;)

Oliver still has to be swaddled when he sleeps.  I tried letting him sleep without it one night, and he woke me up WAY too much.  Because it is SO hotttt and we can't afford to crank the A/C, my mom bought Ollie a swaddle strap.  It keeps his arms down, but doesn't cover his whole body.  My dad calls swaddling "torture" and whenever he sees Ollie swaddled he say "poor little guy, he's all tied up".

Step 1: Sleepy Baby

Step 2: BIG STRETCH....free arms!!

ONE ARM STILL FREEE!!!!! Hurry Rub the Eye!

Ok, Can finally sleep

Ollie is learning to stand up with our help and has such strong legs:

Being 4 months old also means SHOTS.  I was dreading them all day.  Took him to the Dr and found he is still in the 97th percentile for height, weight, and head circumference. He is 17 pounds 13 ounces, 28 inches long, and his head is 45 cm around.  He is a big boy.  The pediatrician asked if I was feeding him anything else besides breast milk, and I said no.  He said "WOW  Way to go!  You are feeding him well!" He also said sometimes bigger babies take a little longer to do things than smaller babies because they have so much extra weight, so that might explain why he has such a hard time lifting his head for tummy time.

My baby boy got his shots and it made him jump!  I felt so bad for him.  He did ok the rest of the day, not being too fussy.  The area of the shot was very tender! One of his legs hurt so bad, he wouldn't nurse on the one side because he didn't want to put pressure on the shot area.  He woke in the middle of the night with a fever and was very fussy.  I could tell he was feeling so sick.  The whole next day, I just cuddled with him and gave him LOTS and LOTS of grape baby tylenol, so much that at the end of the day he refused to take any more medicine--he would spit it out! The fever got up to 101 even with the tylenol, but luckily it went away within 24 hours.  I can't STAND seeing my baby sick, it makes my heart ache!  Ollie was a trooper though.

Poor Ollie with his little bandaids over his shot sites.