Ollie Is 10 Months! Plus CHRISTMAS :)

*Disclaimer* I write this blog about Ollie being 9 months old, but wrote it after he turned 10 months.

Ollie began crawling at 9 months! I got his first crawl on video (which I actually have because I emailed it to my mom!) He was so cute. He was on my floor and really wanted a toy.  Usually his arms would work but his legs wouldn't follow.  THIS time (very shaky) his legs moved too!  Arms and legs in tandem moved his little body to to the desired toy!  I was so excited!  Since he began crawling, he wants nothing to do with his walker because now he can move around at his leisure.  He is definitely getting into more things, but I don't mind because he is so happy he can move.

Here is Oliver's 10 month picture

Some of the mommy/baby friends we have met in Tucson had a baby Christmas party breakfast!  It was so fun!  The girl that hosted it just remodeled a beautiful old home downtown and we LOVED getting a tour of it.  Oliver (the new-found-crawler) loved exploring it too!

We had a breakfast potluck and played together for awhile.  Then we had a white elephant gift exchange.

All the babies playing!

Gifts for the White Elephant Gift Exchange.

Ollie's gift is so fitting that it made me laugh.

He got a tooth fairy pillow.... Momma and Dadda are both in the dental field!

Dave has a some singing friends in Tucson and they all arranged a time to go caroling at Winterhaven (a home community that is required to decorate for Christmas and gets pretty much the whole town coming to see the lights).  Ollie and I went to watch (since we don't sing :).

The singing group.

We went to Thatcher with Dave's family for Christmas.  I went to visit my friend Katie for a night and she has 3 dogs.  I believe Oliver fell in love with dogs at this visit.  He would stare out the window at them.  When they came inside he was so fascinated with them.  I always say "Look Ollie, Doggy!  WOOF WOOF"  So when he hears or sees  dog he goes "Ffff" "Fff"  (Probably saying the end part of wooF).  He seriously loves the letter F.  He loves Fans and now calls them Fff Fff.  He has grandpa Lundin wrapped around his little finger.  Everytime Grandpa walks in the room Oliver begs him to pick him up and as soon as he does Ollie points at the fan and says Ff Ffff.  Grandpa then picks him up and lets him touch the fan and moves the blades.

Ollie getting a buzz from daddy in Thatcher.  He did really good!

Anyway, Christmas.  We had a good time.  We ate a LOT of food. We played ultimate frisbee and kickball twice and volleyball (it's fun to get out there and do active things). We celebrated Ollie's first Christmas :).  I didn't think at his age that he needed very many gifts. I got him awesome bubbles, and Grandma Hatch got him a cute hand sewed pillow, and Grandma Lundin got him a little push walker.  Simple and sweet.  The Hatches got a ping pong table and they spent all morning setting it up.  IT was a fun gift!  We played and played on it.  I ALSO GOT TO TALK TO LIZZY!  That is the best Christmas gift.  We got to all 'google hangout' with her.  She was so cute and fun to talk to.  At the end we all said a prayer together as a family and we were all in tears.  Mom asked Dad to say the prayer, but he was too emotional, so Cameron said it.  Next Christmas we will have Jared AND Liz out!  We also had some fun activities, like making sugar cookies and playing ultimate frisbee, kickball, and volleyball.  I'm such an old lady.  We were at volleyball and Dave and I planned to take turns playing and watching Ollie. Dave played first and then after awhile he asked if I wanted to go in because he had been playing awhile.  I said ok, and went in and not even the 2nd serve I fell on my knees to hit a low ball and RRRRIIIIIIPPPPP--I felt like my quadriceps ripped apart!  I was like, "Dave switch, SWITCH!!"...as I limped off the court.  And that was all the volleyball I got to play. haha.  I'm just stiff... I used to be able to do that move no problem!  Does that mean I'm getting old?

Ollie's first Christmas!  His pillowcase and bubbles.  (but he was more interested in my capri sun from my stocking).

We decided to stay in Thatcher for New Years Eve too.  Everyone kept asking me what I was planning for it, so I felt to pressure to get a party put together.  Dave's aunt Lisa and Cindy and their families came.  I organized a big Cafe Rio Sweet Pork Salad/Burrito meal.  Then I divided everyone in 3 teams and had them compete against each other doing minute to win it challenges.  I had prizes for the winning team.  Then we had a ping pong tournament.  Dave made up a double elimination bracket on a white board.  I think everyone really enjoyed it.  My big shocker came when I battled against Kathy (my mother-in-law).  I thought "oh this will be easy, I should get her out in no time".  Well OBVIOUSLY I hadn't seen her play before!  I had to get serious real quick.  We rallied a lot and everyone was watching in suspense.  In the end I had the winning point, but I will have to play her again in the future.  (Everyone said I should have let the mother-in-law win, sorry Kathy, I'm too competitive.  In the end, it was Dave's Uncle Luke and Luke's son Jake (they own a ping pong table and get more practice than the rest of us).  Luke won! I had Jones Cream Soda in bottles for the prize, it people were really motivated to win it! 

Cafe Rio Food Set Up...Mmmm

PING PONG BRACKET--Double Elimination

Finale at like 1 AM.  Luke and Jake (Dave's cousin and uncle)

New Year Kiss

Back at home we felt the need to making goodies and deliver it to some of our friends we have made here in Tucson.  We have been so blessed to meet some amazing people, and wanted to give this as a Christmas/Goodbye gift.  We made homemade kettle corn, sticky buns, caramels, divinity, and chocolate chip cookies.  It was a lot of work, and our kitchen was very crowded for awhile, but eventually we got them all delivered.

Little Ollie snacking on his first candy cane

Dave went and interviewed at a dental school in West Virginia and felt pretty good about it. They asked a few tough questions, which made him feel a wee bit nervous. But he felt pretty confident.  I guess we'll see what happens! Well that's all I can think of for now on our goings the month of Dec!

The Holidays are Upon Us & Oliver Turns 9 Months

The following is an update on Oliver's 8th month, I just wrote it after he turned 9 months.
What a good and bad November this has been....
All the photos I have taken since the computer got stolen were sitting on my phone.  I was hoping to get a new computer in the near future so I could save the photos from my phone and update my blog. Wellll.... I have 'hurt' my phone 3 times and the 3rd time it was dead for good.  Or I guess I should say OLIVER has killed my phone..  The first time it was in my back pocket and I was trying to go to the bathroom while being distracted by a clingy Oliver and it fell in the toilet. After 3 days soaking in a rice bath it revived. YAY.  Then Oliver thought it was his chew toy and bit the top of my phone and popped out the opposite side (he has some STRONG chompers)! Dave popped it back in and it started working again YAY.  Then Oliver got ahold of it and as fast as he could, he threw it hard and fast on the tile.  Could we be so lucky that it will work again!? I tried everything I could think of, Dave even order a kit online to take it apart and look for something internally that could be fixed, nope.  It is dead.  Along with more of my cherished photos and videos.  Seriously?  So no 8 and 9 month photos for Ollie. Just the ones I could get off facebook.

We went to Ollie's first parade! Veterans Day!

Oliver just turned 9 Months. He is such a character.  This month we have seen so many changes in his personality and abilities.
Oliver's first 2 teeth came in this month!!!!  As a dental hygienist this makes me very excited and happy.  i was at swim class and Oliver was smiling and I look down and see a little shimmer.  I stopped what I was doing and looked and saw TWO teeth barely poking out.  I squealed a little and spent the rest of the day touching his gum and teeth and staring at them.  I've been brushing those little teethers too :).

When Ollie gets mad or sad a lot of times he will make this little squinty eyed face and moan. The squinty face makes us laugh every time and then he looks at us like "hey why are you laughing? I'm sad here!"   He is saying babababa, mamamama, and aaahhhhhhhhhhhhhuhuhu.  :)  I love hearing him babble.  It is adorable.  He often talks to himself.

He isn't mobile on his own yet.  He wants to be but hasn't found the coordination or motivation to do it yet. As I wrote this he just pulled himself up from the floor onto the couch :). He can go from tummy to sitting. Crawling is SO close.  He gets on his hands and knees like he is about to crawl and reaches for something and then usually ends up belly flopping.  Luckily he doesn't face plant anymore so I don't have to be right next to him.  As for walking he has discovered if he puts one foot in front of the other he can go places, but he needs help.  He has learn to recruit anyone and everyone he can to hold his fingers while he cruises around.  This results in all our backs *especially mine* feeling awfully sore :).  Luckily I have an awesome walker that I can put him in and he will walk around the house in that.  The only downfall to the walker is it does limit where he can go (if there are objects in his way or small doorway) and he can't reach most of the things that he wants.  But he is VERY good and has great control walking in that.  When walking on our fingers he knows when he wants to stop and sit and play and then get back up.  His favorite game is to have someone chase him and scare him or go sit around a corner and him walk slowly peeking around the corner and then get scared.  Once scared he picks up his walking speed past the person and then turns around a does it again.  It is fun to be able to play with him (what I've been waiting for his whole babyhood--well that and being able to talk to him and teach him cards).  :)

Ollie likes pulling out dvds, books, everything

Oliver has been a not so good sleeper this month.  Lately I've been so tired I just have him sleep with us (bad of me, I know).  Ollie loves it though. haha.  We all sleep horrible when Ollie sleeps with me, so I have only done it in Havasu.  One morning Ollie had woken up and was sitting there banging his head over and over on Dave's head.  Dave woke up and looked at him and Ollie just stared back.  Then dave turned his head again and closed his eyes and ollie started again.  He is too funny.

Oliver is a scaredy cat--mostly to loud noises.  Whenever I vacuum, use a blender, use a food processor, or if there is a loud scream or laugh he cries.  My Aunt Barbi has a baby Oliver's age and we were all in Havasu for Thanksgiving and they were playing by each other.  Baby Matthew made a squeal of delight and in a split second Oliver flung his whole body on my lap behind him and reached for me and started crawling up my body.  Can you tell he is a first child? Even something as simple as changing his sheets on his crib scared him when I set down the mattress too hard.  He is silly.

My family tries to see Oliver every month or so, but this month we got to see them TWICE.  Dave had a week at the beginning of November that his dentist had taken off, so his paycheck wouldn't be as big.  So Ollie and I drove down to Havasu and I worked 3 days for my dad.  We had a good time there, but Ollie was timid most of the time.  He warmed up to my mom enough that he would let her watch him while I worked.  Usually I see 2-4 patients a day, so not too much.  Dave stayed in Tucson to work for one day and go to class.  Unfortunately while we were gone our house got broken into.  Dave worked on a Wednesday and was gone all day at work and then went straight to class that night until 8:30 PM.  Somewhere in that day someone broke in.  There is a little alley street behind our triplex that they probably parked in, came from the back, hopped our fence, broke our kitchen window by throwing a rock through it and then opened our window and climbed in.  They took everything out our back door and over the fence again.  We had a really nice 27 inch IMAC that we used for a LOT OF THINGS.  It was our 'TV', used for Dave's real estate photography business (he has a lot of software he bought to edit the photos with), used to store ALL our 1000+ songs we have bought on ITUNES, recipes we loved, my budgeting software I bought that tracked all our purchases for the last year and most importantly had a journal I wrote for Oliver from the beginning of my pregnancy and all the photos and videos I had of Oliver and of Dave and I since 2006.  BOOO on dishonest people that steal.  Now all of that is gone in one expensive computer (runs about $1900) not including all the software we had on the computer that we bought. I feel like I was robbed of my organization and memories (not just a computer).  Dave has just upgraded cameras to a Canon T3i for his real estate photography and that we bought used for $400 (retails at $600). They also took the memory cards with it and a part of our tripod that was still attached to it (so now our tripod is no good).  They were on their way out with Dave's bike, but for some reason left it in the backyard.  Dave got home at 8:30 at night walks in and sees the back door wide open and he got so mad he threw his keys at the wall.  He gave me a call that I didn't want to hear that we had been broken into.  He called the police and they said not to touch anything and that they will put him on the list of non-emergency visits and an officer will come 'soon'.  Soon?  yea right.  Dave sat outside in the cold, starving because he didn't have time to eat lunch or dinner that day waiting.  He didn't want to leave to get food in case the officer came.  He didn't want to go in and make something because they said not to mess with anything in the house.  When did the officer end up showing up?  2 in the morning!  We were grateful Ollie and I weren't there, but maybe it wouldn't have happened if we were there!  Who knows!  All I know is now I want a gun so I can defend my family if someone ever tries to break in when we are there.  Dave was a little shaken that night, but was finally able to go to sleep.  Luckily he didn't have work the next day. I really don't like Tucson, especially where we live because it is so ghetto.  We live right on a busy street and Dave said earlier that week he took out the trash and left the door open and on his way back to the door saw a guy walking by and the guy had a straight view into our house and could see the iMac computer.... Dave had the thought "That guy saw our computer and is going to come back and steal it".   Scary. One BIG reason we are PRAYING Dave gets into a dental school this year is to get us out of TUCSON!.  Part of me is going to miss Tucson ONLY because of the AMAZING people we have met here and that's IT!

Thanksgiving week was AWESOME!  I couldn't have asked for a better holiday.  We drove after Dave's class on Wednesday night.  We got to Havasu at like 1 AM.  Ollie slept almost all the way.  Some of my dad's siblings came into town.  David and Barbi and their 7 kids and Bruce and Amy and their 5 kids and Mom, Dad, Dave, Me, Ollie, Cameron, Brooke, and Lulu and Papa.  There was a lot of people squished into my parents house.  I haven't seen  a lot of them in a while, so it was so great to catch up!!!  We were so busy the whole time and I loved it.  I was talking after to my fam and said "wow I had so much fun" and they said I was like on a high all week. haha.  I told them it is because I stay at home with Ollie all day and do the same thing so this was like heaven to me. They said that all the food I ate, I savored every bite. I come from a long line of great cooks:).  Everything was made from scratch.  Thanksgiving night we all went to Rotary Park and saw the new big Skate Park they just put in.  There were people doing tricks that were giving me a heart attack and I was just waiting for them to crash and hurt themselves.  My child is never going to do anything like that cuz momma can't handle it! We, being a very competitive family, began to race at the Boche Ball area and spent like 30 minutes seeing who could beat who.  I loved it.  We spent a LOT of the week playing cards.  Another Lundin family fact is almost all of us LOVE cards (because my grandparents have taught us to love playing cards).  A patient of my dad's gave us a timeshare at Nautical on the Lake.  It had a beautiful little beach cove and a pool right next to the lake AND an awesome view of the town.  My parents rented a paddle board and 3 kayaks.  We just had a blast.  The pool was slightly heated and so Ollie and I swam with the cousins.  We showed off all Ollie's swim class tricks.  He did great!  It was my first time paddle boarding and I was better at it than I thought I would be.  I was really motivated NOT to fall in because they lake was a little chilly.  The weather was good to us.  It was like 68 and sunny.  It was pretty sweet to be able to swim during Thanksgiving.  We also played tennis and the guys golfed and played basketball.  I stayed a few days after everyone left to work for dad because Dave didn't have to be back until Wednesday.

All the pies Ma made.

All of the delicious pies!

Some of the gang staring at the people in the kitchen salivating waiting for Thanksgiving dinner to be ready!

Ollie met his cousin first removed? My aunt Barbie's baby.  It was fun to see them together.

My Little CUTIE!  He loves the water!

                                              

Soooo Tired

                                           

Buddies at the beach

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

       

We L-O-V-E our cards!

Michael photobombing in back haha

Cam had an adoring fan--cousin Abigail

I was walking by the room and saw Ollie in the middle of all his adoring fans on the bed.  Too Cute.

Lastly, Dave is doing great in his classes.  He has gotten in the groove of knowing what and how to study for these classes.  He performs like a 96 on his tests when the class average is 46.  I'm proud of him.  He got a blessing from my dad during Thanksgiving week because he has a lot of stress of getting into dental school and providing for his family.

November is NO SHAVE NOVEMBER..... Daddy showing off his beard. Ollie is a little jealous.