The End of our Havasu Living Days

Well Dave did not receive the Navy scholarship, but that is ok.  He also didn't get the public health scholarship he applied for.  Things will work out, we will just have to be on a tight budget after he graduates to pay off all that debt! Whew!

Ollie sure loves daddy time.  

Brooke got to go to 2 proms this year!  She went to her own prom and brought a date from California.  She met Robert at a New Years dance when she was visiting Barbi and David in CA.  They talk a lot and have little crushy relationship :). They looked great on prom night though!

Socks that Brooke sent to Robert as part of a Valentine gift.  The socks were fuzzy and pink and he sported them at the prom. 

Well...... Oliver was just barely over a year old when we got some news.  The news took us a little bit by surprise because we were not TRYING for it.  But, sometimes things happen for a reason.  The story goes that there was an illness going around that several people around me had.  My dad had it--the symptoms:  throwing up, nausea, fatigue, weakness, stuffy nose....  So I all of a sudden started feeling very similar symptoms to my dad and thought, "great dad, thanks for giving me your sickness!"   Well after a week or two, the throwing up and nausea didn't go away.  Mom said "Brittany, seriously are you pregnant?"  I said "No mom, i'm sick!"  But just in case I went to the Dollar Store and got a few little tests and went in the bathroom and saw two little pink lines.  I came out and said "Dave, uhh, we are pregnant". haha.  We were very excited, and also very nervous! Some of our trepidation included:  I had just accepted a job position at the dental school in MO and I would have the baby in the middle of my first year working there, we were about to move far away from any family,  Dave was about to embark on the hardest scholastic year of his life, and we felt like Oliver was still a baby.  How are we going to manage TWO babies?!  I was grateful to have the help of my family during this time because I felt horrible.  First trimesters are not kind to me.  I can't be around food, I puke, I heave, my stomach never stops churning, I feel as though I can not peel my lip body off the couch.  I was working for my dad, so still somehow managed to make it through 3 half days of work every week.

My mother MADE me take a belly picture.  She said that the next baby will get very jealous off all the pictures I took of my pregnancy with Oliver, if he doesn't have pictures for him.  But we were excited and did want to document it! This was around 9 weeks or so?

Well we got to talk to Liz (Hermana Lundin) who is in Ecuador on her mission!  It was mothers day and we got to skype with her.  It was fun to see her.  We got to announce then when she gets home from her mission she will have another little niece or nephew.  She left when Oliver was only a few months old, so she will be shocked to see what a big boy he is when she returns!

Lance came for a visit from LA to see us before we leave for MO.  He is such a good uncle!  He is so good to Oliver.  His favorite thing to do was to whisper 'secrets' in Oliver's ears about the sounds cats and dogs make.  Oliver always stopped and listened and had this intrigued look on his face like it was the most important secret in the world.

Saying all my goodbyes.  Holli (my gooood friend) came down from Vegas to say bye to me before we left!  

Brooke took this picture of Oliver hysterically laughing, she wrote on it that she was going to miss it.

Ollie got his 15 month shots in Havasu.  We are starting the tradition young that after shots, our kiddos will get a treat.  Oliver loves Keva Juice, so we went and got him one.  He was in heaven. Well we really all shared that one.  When I would take it from him for momma or dadda to have a turn, he would get very impatient and reach his hands out for it.

Yay for splash pads! Oliver loved running around dunking his head in the water.  Best idea for toddlers.

My parents had planned an amazing trip to Europe at the end of May.  They took Brooke and Cameron along.  They started out in Ireland visiting Dallin and Daniela who are living over there.  Then Dallin and Daniela joined all of them on a trip to Poland to visit where Cameron served him mission a few years ago and then on to Czech Republic where Daniela is from and to visit her family.  I was a little jealous of the trip, but happy they had such a great opportunity.  It was the first time my mom has EVER been out of the country!  She deserved it.  Plus they had great family tour guides who knew all the areas they went, so they didn't have to worry.  The sad part is that them leaving for Europe meant the last time we were going to see them before we moved to MO.  We were leaving about a week and a half after they left.  The most emotional part was seeing Ollie's 'best friends' leave and know they aren't going to get to see him for a long time.  They loaded up the car and Dad asked if he could say a prayer before they left.  It was a sweet and sincere prayer and when he asked that Dave, Ollie and I could be blessed in our endeavors, he got choked up.  This had a spiral affect on most of the rest of us and we all started crying. 

 Ollie being silly.... One sippy had milk and one had water... he loved chugging one then the other.

He also found some really good uses for our moving boxes--awesome fort hide-outs.

A few days before we left, we were at Safeway getting into car.  I started buckling my seat belt and felt this burning stinging sensation on my neck.  I thought, what the heck? I just got abrasion burn from the seat belt. But could not figure out why the feeling kept burning and lingering.  I ask Dave to take a look and move my hair out of the way and he sees a bee chilling on my shoulder.  He had gotten caught in my hair and then I started buckling, it freaked him out and he stung me right in the neck.  Well this darn bee bite affect me for a week and a half.  My body lymph system went into hyperdrive to try to reduce the toxins.  The whole drive to Missouri, my whole left side from behind my ear and down my neck was tender and inflamed with large lymph nodes running all the way down.

The week following was a busy one.  Dave and I had to gather all our stuff that had been scattered around the house and clean the whole house before we leave.  We had a nice guy in the ward (Paul Mosley) help Dave load up the U-Hall.  I got to know Sara while I was in Havasu.  She had a son a little younger than Ollie and I was so glad to have someone to do playdates with!  She went to high school with Cameron and was investigating the church.  She came to hang out the last day we were there while we were packing up and such.  We miss her and little Jake!

Dave and I stayed up until 1 or 2 in the morning the night before we left finishing cleaning.  We also had someone come over after Oliver went to sleep because Dave really wanted to replace his lost retainers and I had an unexpected hole in my tooth where a filling fell out.  This all happened after Dad left for Europe unfortunately, otherwise he would have helped us handle all this.  So Dave and I at like 8 PM the night before we left for MO went to my dad's office.  I took impressions on him and we made him new retainers.  Then he (who had assisted my dad many times on fillings) proceeded to fill the whole in my tooth the way he had seen my dad do it many times.  It was all fun and games until he had to use the handpiece to even out the bite and smooth it town.  Having the drill in my mouth was a little scary.  Dave did a pretty good job, but did have the 'smooth' mastery that comes from years of practice.  He kept forgetting to let off the pedal to stop the bur from spinning when he would go into and out of my mouth.  At one point he was coming out (while it was still going) and it slipped out of his hand and onto my lip.  Luckily he caught it really fast (cat-like reflexes) and it only nicked me.  But after that I was a little petrified. haha  He said "don't tell anyone about this".... mmhmmm dave, I won't ;).  

Next Up... driving cross country with a toddler.  YIKES

April

I'm probably not going to take pictures of Oliver every month now because he isn't changing quite so fast anymore. And I have been slacking on blogging for the last few months.  So I will try to remember the going ons in April!

Oliver is getting very good at his animal noises!  He is getting them down!  He can say a few other words too, but if I say "Oliver what is that? (referring to a car) He will say VROOM VROOM.  Or if I say What is that? *referring to a dog* He will say WOOF WOOF.  So the name of things right now are the noises they make.  

I always thought it was odd when people post naked pictures of their babies.  BUT I couldn't help it.  For some reason it is "different" when it is you own. haha.  Not a good excuse.  But look at the C-U-TE toosh!

It was one of those rare occasions in Havasu when it rained! Oliver sat in the garage fascinated!  a few times he tried running out in it and then got startled at what the heck was getting on him and ran back.  

This next picture is kind of sad to me because it is the last dental convention I am going to get to go to with my dad for awhile!  There is an annual Western Regional Dental Convention in Phoenix that dental professionals can attend to attend courses to get the hours they need for renewal of our licenses.  Since I became a dental hygienist (even in school), I have attended this with my dad.  We always get a hotel and stay 1 or 2 nights (it is a 3 day event) and we have a good time going to restaurants and hanging out.  I just really enjoy this bonding time with my dad because I don't get it often.  Well Oliver and Dave attended with us this year so I could nurse Ollie during lunch and after.  It was a good time.  Because we are moving to Missouri now I am not going to be able to attend this with dad anymore.  :( I will actually miss it!

Oliver did very well through general conference.  I was able to hear more than I thought I was going to with him being the rambunctious toddler that he is.  We watched it in my parents room while my parents were at the church watching it.  At one point Dave, Ollie and I were on the bed.  Ollie squeezed himself between Dave and I and started rubbing my back like he saw Dave doing.  He is learning our mannerisms and copying them so well!  I got on dad's chair and had Ollie asleep on my chest and look over and Dave is crashed out on the bed.  Had to snap a picture of my tired boys. haha

Oliver at our dental convention was running around while we were eating lunch outside.  There was a tree planted with a metal ring around it.  He fell right between the metal plate and the tree and banged his lower lip.  It was realllly puffy and bled a little.  Then at some point a few days later, my mom took Oliver outside and they were walking down by the wash (which makes me nervous because he is still unsteady and falls a lot and there is quite a decline down into the wash).  Well Oliver ran away from my mom and of course tripped because it was downhill.  He hit his mouth on the pavement and was bleeding.  It looked like his frenum was ripped (the little flap of skin above the upper central teeth).  So this pooor boy had this puffy bruised lower lip and tender bleeding upper lip, but still was able to nurse and eat---poor thing!

You can kind of see the puffiness of his lip and the flap of skin hanging down on top

This is just sillyness at Walmart.  Funny bride picture op.

It took SOME convincing to get Dave to let me take his picture. hahaha.  I was laughing pretty hard to see this bearded man with a dainty bride body.

Sometimes I like to take pictures of when Oliver is crying because usually the reason he is crying is ridiculous.  Here he is crying because I wouldn't let him crawl up on the table and SIT on the laptop.  Sorry Ollie, I am such a bad mom.

Sometimes I let him feed himself.... yummy yogurt! haha

Ollie has such a rough life--Daddy feeding him sandwich.

Our pre-easter egg hunt.  We were heading up to Thatcher for our Hatch family reunion during easter weekend, so my family wanted to have a little easter egg hunt with Ollie.  I filled them with raisins and let him loose.  He had no concept of putting the eggs in the basket and so just picked up 1 or 2 and walked around shaking them up and down.  haha.  Kind of uneventful.  But he was still cute.

Off to Thatcher for family reunion!  It was themed HATCHWARTS (Harry Potter themed).  It was a fun time had by all.  Besides the fact that Ollie got sooo sick toward the end of the week and had to get him antibiotics for an ear infection :(.  Poor guy.

This is the Hatchwarts take on QUIDDITCH (I have no idea how to spell that).

We had different challenges and this one was an "iron chef" themed challenge where we had to make a 3 course meal with the available ingredients.  We didn't win :(, but it was still fun!

Ollie again only liked getting one egg during the easter egg hunt.  He found a tasty starburst that I let him eat and was in heaven chewing on that for awhile!

So great for Ollie to get to see his cousins!  We miss Tim and Cadie and Trent and Allie!

Julie and I dressed in our Harry Potter get-up.  Julie was the Petronus? Sp again?  I'm not  a Harry Potter know it all, so I don't know the terms very well.

Some of my favorite times of the week was just hanging out playing games.  My sister-in-law Cadie wrote in her blog the most hilarious moment for me, and she writes better than me so I am going to plagiarize (sorry Cadie) and copy what she wrote on my blog.  At least I'm giving her credit! :).  Seth, Tim, Brittany and Jeff were in the living room playing with a balloon. (Cadie) was sewing an owl pillow Trent and Allie had made at the reunion that day, and watching the show! They were keeping the balloon off the floor by using their feet. Tim was rolling all over the floor and cracking everyone up with his antics and sound affects. After a while he stopped and said, "I feel like fat little pokemon. What's that one called?" That sent Brittany on a three minute giggling spree, and in the middle of it she said, "Jigglypuff!" Later that same night Liz came up and her, Tim, Jeff, Brittany, and Seth played boggle. I was so tired I literally could not stay awake. I fell asleep on Tim while they played, but as I was sleeping I could hear Seth cheating. He kept making up words, or completely misspelling them. At one point he was reading off his list and he said, "Worked." Everyone was trying to figure out how he'd gotten that word and he spelled it "werkd." Apparently that is Liz's favorite game, but she can't stand playing with Seth cause he's such a cheater at it. But it was really fun to listen to, even while nodding off.

Anyway, back to my horrible story telling.  *sigh*.  We tired SOOOOOO hard to get Jeff (Dave's Brother) to ask Brooke (my sister) to prom, because Jared and gone with Lizzy a few years earlier and they actually had a good time.  Jeff is one stubborn guy and would. not. budge.  We were a little sad, but Dave's cousin Parker stepped up and thought it would be fun.  So he send Brooke a pizza in Havasu that said "I know this is 'cheesy' but....." on the front of the box and then on the inside it said "Will you go to the Thatcher" and then on the pizza was spelt "Prom".  It was fun

Brooke had her messengers "dave and I" put together a response because she could not physically be present.  Outside of the tennis courts where Parker practices after school we wrote PARKER YES (see pic below).  A lot of his classmates saw it.  It was fun.

On their day date together.

I did Brooke's hair.  Holy stressful and holy amount of bobby pins! Luckily it turned out and looked super cute on her!

She looked like such a babe (as usual). :)

Oliver loves his books.  That kid can spend half a day reading.  What makes reading better? Having your own sized chair to sit in of course! 

Someone in the ward gave us this cute truck for Ollie. He loves pushing it around.  The trick is the back part goes up to get the "dump" affect, which means he is unexpectedly face planted it a few times while pushing it.

I had to add this, a picture of my dad when he was a baby.  hehe.  He has the receding hairline even then!  No wonder I have no hair in front!  Definitely strong genetics in the working.

Love this sweeeet boy!