Friday, December 9, 2011

October 2011

It's 5 o'clock in the morning, I'm 9 months pregnant and I can't sleep. I've been up since 3:45. So its time to play catch up on my blog. October was a really busy month for us. I told Johnnie I wanted to do lots of fun things with Olivia while we were just a family of 3 and I wanted to get all our Christmas shopping done by the end of October. We did a great job of all of that. We crammed a ton of fun stuff into one weekend and called it "Olivia's Fun Weekend." It started on a Thursday night when we took her to the circus. Nana & PawPaw met us there and we all had a good time.
Olivia was most excited about riding an elephant and here is the one decent pic I got of her and Johnnie crammed onto the back of an elephant with way too many other people. I personally think circuses are terrible. I love animals and it is hard for me to believe these animals are being treated properly. But I'm not going to deny my 2 year old a trip to the circus either so I guess I'm a hypocrite? Anyway she loved her elephant ride and then saw that they were also offering camel rides and pony rides...






So of course she rode a camel and a pony. When Johnnie put her on the pony she immediately started kicking her legs and saying, "Giddyup horsey, go go go!" I had to tell her to be gentle with the pony and that this was not going to be a race, just a slow ride.


The morning after the circus we had our playgroup over for a Halloween themed pajama party and breakfast. All the kids and mommies had fun but sadly I did not take any pictures. The next day we went to the Dallas Arboretum and then stayed the night at the Marriott Rennaissance - Olivia LOVES hotels. I was hoping to get some cute pics of Olivia with all of the pumpkins at the arboretum and she was pretty good at smiling for me that day. Here are some of my faves:









My friend Casey and her family were also at the arboretum getting family pictures taken so we had to get one of Olivia and Audrey together. I had just changed Olivia's clothes b/c it was getting warm which is why she is in sleeveless and shorts all of a sudden. When we left the arboretum we went and had lunch at Manny's - YUM - and then went and checked into our hotel and all took a good nap. When we woke up Olivia just wanted to hang out for a while and watch tv in bed so we did that until it was time for dinner and then decided to just go to the Galleria and let her watch the ice skaters and eat there. She loved that and as we were leaving she noticed all these little ride on things and she wanted on one. There were several to choose from and this is the one she chose:
Her uncle Zach would be proud :)

The next morning we got up and went to the State Fair. When Johnnie and I have gone to the fair in the past we usually stay 2 hours max. We mainly just walk around and eat junk food and look in the animal barns and walk through the car show and go home. I figured it would be an even shorter trip since we had a 2 year old and I was pregnant but we were there for 5 hours and had a lot of fun. I wasn't counting on Olivia wanting to ride as many rides so that took some time and then we also did a lot of resting. The first thing she wanted to do was ride in the swan paddle boats so her and Johnnie did that together. I sat that one out and took some pics.
She also surprised us by wanting to ride the log ride. She LOVED it!

I didn't take any pics of it but she also talked us into taking her on the ferris wheel. The HUGE ferris wheel. I don't know what I was thinking getting on that thing b/c as soon as it started moving I realized it was a bad idea but once it stopped stopping for other people to get on and off it was ok and I didn't freak out.

Another HUGE thing that happened in October is when Olivia got her big girl bed. She loves it and it was a pretty easy transition. She still likes for one of us to lay with her at night when she goes to bed and usually we end up falling asleep before she does and just staying in there. But if we wake up and go to our own bed she doesn't mind so that's good. Our sleeping arrangements around here have been pretty strange lately. I can't sleep in the bed with King AND Johnnie anymore. There just isn't enough room for me and this giant belly so if I don't sleep in Olivia's bed with her then I either make Johnnie or King sleep somewhere else. There have been several nights lately when Johnnie has slept with Olivia and King has slept in the living room and I've had my big comfy bed all to myself (and my giant belly) and I love that. That is how we started out tonight (last night?) but King's ear started bothering him and he started shaking his head and making a bunch of racket so Johnnie got up and took him out to potty and then he (King) wanted in bed with me. I let him in but he was driving me crazy shaking his head and flopping his ears around and the baby was moving around a lot so I just couldn't go back to sleep. Here are a couple of pics of our sweet girl in her big new bed :)



The end of October was also Curtis and Casey's last football game. Jason & Lindsey and the boys came down to watch them and that was fun. Olivia always seems to make a new friend at the football games. Here is her and Zoe.

Nathan & Olivia


Olivia, Curtis, Vernal and Casey holding Olivia's mum. Gina asked the boys if they wanted her to make any mums for any girls since it was homecoming and they said, "just for Olivia." So sweet! Of course she wouldn't wear it but she loved playing with it and it hangs in her room and she calls it her "cheerleader thang." LOL.

My dad got Olivia a kite and it seemed like every time we went out to their house there was either no wind or it was too windy. We went out to their house on Johnnie's birthday though and the wind was perfect so Johnnie and daddy got out the kite. It's a big, fancy looking kite but they had so much trouble getting it to fly.




FINALLY! It didn't stay up very long but it did go up high this one time and it looked really pretty. Olivia just liked running around singing, "Let's go fly a kite, up to the highest height..." Glad she loves Mary Poppins as much as I do :)
Olivia picked out this Oreo cake for her daddy's birthday


We went round and round for months with Olivia about a Halloween costume. She never would commit to anything and when she did finally commit to Cinderella we took her to the Disney store to try on the dress and she immediately said, "TAKE IT OFF, IT ITCHES!!!" So I knew that wouldn't work. Johnnie took her to Party City one night to let her pick something out and she picked out Strawberry Shortcake. She was really excited about it, got home and let him put it on her. She stared at herself in the mirror before running in telling me to close my eyes. When I opened them she was standing there looking all cute and then all of a sudden, "TAKE IT OFF, IT ITCHES, I CAN'T WEAR THIS, YOU HAVE TO TAKE IT BACK!!!" So annoying! So we gave up. She said she didn't want to trick or treat anyway b/c she just wanted to pass out candy with King. So I told Johnnie if she changes her mind at the last minute she can just wear her skeleton jammies. Which is exactly what happened.