Olivia Update

Nothing is really new with Olivia.  She had her first Thanksgiving and I forgot to take pictures.  Of, course.  She is still crawling around everywhere and can now open drawers.  That's all.  Just enjoy the pictures.

Now Olivia splashes around in her bath and plays with her toys!

 She loves Cheerios!

 Olivia is now completely content playing alone.  Her favorite thing to do is pull out all the toys from her toy basket and knocking all the books off her baby book shelf.

 Surprisingly it is the end of November and there is still no snow.  We went for an off-roading experience today in her stroller.

 Olivia in her marshmallow.

One Gallon of Paint

We have been so busy lately!  We got the "keys" to our house two weeks ago.  By "keys" I mean they left the door unlocked and told us the place was ours.  However we sold our contract for our apartment in Rexburg, but we sold it for January.  So we are going to finish painting the inside of our house before we move it.  Everything was primer before, but look at the color now!  I love it!  I can't take all the credit for it though.  They are the same colors in John's parents house.

Ignore the mess.  Oh, and the brown color on the walls was painted with just one gallon of paint. I was impressed. but I guess a gallon always goes that far.

Kitchen

 Stairway- this is where our gallon of paint ended.

That's all for now.  Painting takes a longer time than I thought.  We've painted for 3-part time days and haven't even finished the downstairs yet.  Hopefully we'll be done within the next week!

Plus, I'm taking suggestions on colors for the bathroom and bedrooms.

Halloween

Happy Halloween!  Here are just a few pictures of Olivia.

Olivia's new favorite toy

Going for a walk!

Olivia's toy again

Ward Halloween Party

Olivia loves being upsidedown

We went to our ward Halloween party yesterday!  Olivia had fun, but was grumpy most of the night.  We love her in her little chick costume.  Her cousin Stu was the same for Halloween!
Nothing is really new with us. Olivia is crawling on top of everything and we are just excited to move into our house soon!

We Couldn't Afford Our Rent, So We Bought a House

A lot has happened since our last blog update.  I finished my summer semester at school, then we moved out of our mobile home into an apartment.  The next day I went to Texas to visit my sister, then my parents came to visit, then John's parents, then my old roommate, then John's cousins Jordan and Elizabeth.  August was a busy month for us.  Then in September I went back to school.

At the beginning of September we thought about buying a house.  The next week we went out with a real estate agent, then three weeks later, we put up an offer for a house and it got accepted.  We get the keys in November, but we might not move in until the end of the semester, or whenever we sell our contract here.  We don't plan on staying in Idaho for the rest of our lives, but our monthly payment as home owners is cheaper than  our rent.  We plan on renting our house out after we move and keep it as an investment property.

Olivia is growing up quickly!  She is 7 months old today!  We introduced her to solid food when she was 4 months old, but she refused everything.  She is starting to eat more solids, but only eats organic food and Gerber Graduates.  She started crawling around last month, but now she is a pro.  Now when she wants to play, she doesn't just cry until we go to her; she cries and crawls to us simultaneously!  And she has 5 teeth!

Stress Week

We're actually not stressed out, but we do have a lot going on over the next few weeks. We were planning on going to the Tetons on Saturday, but since my finals are coming up, John's GMAT test is soon, and we are going to be moving, we decided that this Saturday, we needed to stay at home and prepare for our studies.

Meanwhile, Olivia has been doing a lot of thing! She rolls around everywhere, grabs everything, talks to herself, goes to sleep on her own, almost can hold her own bottle, and sometimes even sleeps 9 hours straight!

Here she is sitting up, or folded in half. She sits like that occasionally, but prefers to be played with.

She loves playing with her toys now!

And here she is already 4 months old. She started out in the 25th percentile for height, the moved up to the 50th, and after her last appointment, she is now in the 75th percentile for height. Hopefully she won't a little stump like her parents.


She is now 4 months old and has already been to six different states! We are trying to do as much as we can while the weather is still good in Rexburg. After we finish with all of our work, we'll go back to having our weekly trips.

Olivia Goes to Yellowstone

John's mom is here and on Saturday we went to Yellowstone! We have three National Parks within a two hour drive from where we live. Unfortunately we haven't gone to any of them yet this summer, but here's our first trip to Yellowstone. There were way too many pictures to choose from, so here a just a few.





And this is my favorite place in the entire park!


Next week: Tetons?

Catching Up on Work

It has been a really busy week for both John and me. We mostly needed to catch up on things that we put off from going out and having fun. Next week we have a fun week planned, but here are just a few things that Olivia has been up to.

Sitting Up. She can't by herself yet, but she's only 3 1/2 months old. She will soon enough.

Push ups: she hates being on her stomach. This happy moment only lasted a few minutes.


Smores with Reeses. We are trying to have a BBQ twice/week before we move. These were a must.


I've been looking for a brim hat for Olivia and found this at Old Navy!


Chillin' on the couch with Daddy!


John's mom is coming this week! We have a lot of things planned, so a very good update will come next week!

Salt Lake and More

This week was a lot of fun because Olivia got to go to Salt Lake City for the first time! John had a business meeting in Salt Lake, so we went down for a day and I took Olivia to Temple Square for the first time!

Here's Olivia and Daddy in Salt Lake.

There was some sort of kids carnival that we walked through, but it wasn't too interesting.


On our way to Temple Square!


I love this side of the temple.


After John went to his meeting, Olivia and I stayed on Temple Square and looked around some more.


John had Thursday off this week so we went on one of our favorite little hikes right outside of Rexburg. This was the first time that I had ever done the hike during the day. The view from the top is really pretty, especially at night.



Olivia was in her stroller most of the time until the end where it was no longer paved. I had her in a baby carrier the rest of the way up. She loves to drool, so that big wet spot in the middle of my shirt is her big drool puddle.



Today, after church, we went to the Nature Park here in Rexburg. Olivia was asleep most of the time, but it was fun!



And for the family picture:

Sleepless in Seattle

John went to Seattle this week for some investment training while Olivia and I stayed in Rexburg. He landed Wednesday morning and had all day to explore Seattle. Thursday and Friday he had his training, then came back on Saturday. Here are some pictures of his trip. Unfortunately he isn't in any of them, but I promise he took them.






This week was a really busy week for me with school work. I thought I could get a lot of work done, but being a single parent for 3 days was harder than I thought! Thanks to Olivia's nanny that stayed late, I was able to get homework done.

By the way, how many 3-month-old do you know can sport the pig tails?

Olivia and the Hot Springs

On Saturday after John got off work, we all went to the Green Canyon Hot Springs just a half hour drive outside of Rexburg. Olivia got a cute swim suit from a good friend of mine and we had to try it out. I really want to take a swimming class with Olivia sometime, but the only place to swim in Rexburg is at the college. In August, a new swimming pool is going to open up. Until then, we'll go to the hot springs.

Getting Olivia ready to go. I went to the store to get swimming diapers, but these were the smallest ones they had. Olivia is almost 12 pounds, but these diapers were for 16 pound babies. I bought them anyway.


At the hot springs, they had a swimming pool that was 96 degrees where Olivia swam and a hot springs what was 115. Here we are in the pool. It looks cleaner in this picture than it really is.


Olivia loved being in the water and smiled the entire time, but right when I took her out into the locker room she was screaming her head off. We were in the locker room for nearly 20 minutes. I calmed her down enough to put her diaper on, then went out to feed her. Here's John as we are waiting for our friends. Olivia is in the car seat with just her diaper on.


We are going to go again sometime this summer. We have two more buy one get one free passes, so we'll go again.