12/25/11 - a really great video of Ollie and I on Christmas Day...my kids request this little clip over and over so we've watched it a lot, and we always laugh! Hopefully the grandparents will enjoy it!
1/11/12 - funny pictures of Toby with a bubble beard:
I was washing pans and letting Ollie touch the bubbles and pick up handfuls of bubbles, and Toby came along and joined the fun! He made himself a little beard. Lovely! I really love how these pictures, and especially the last one show Toby's personality. He's a sweet, playful guy with a funny sense of humor...most of the time.
This is what it looks like when you leave your toddler along for 3 minutes with a bag of powdered sugar...haha! Thankfully our powerful Dyson vacuum got that stuff right out of the rug. And I'm really grateful that Ollie doesn't often make messes of this magnitude...he hasn't made one quite like this ever since.
1/21/12 - Wilamette Falls after several weeks of very heavy rain, looking as full as I've ever seen it:
1/23/12 - a stroller ride through the woods with a bear and an owl:
...And later that day, it is revealed that Ollie has truly entered TODDLER-HOOD:
1/24 - This is what it looks like when your toddler starts eating food from his own plate with a fork, and doing a good job of it:
1/26 & 1/30 - Some pictures from our backyard swings:
Gotta love Instagram.
1/27/12 - a free night at the Oregon Symphony and the band Arrival (a completely authentic and absolutely fantastic Abba cover band from Sweden), gratis of my sister Lara and her groupies (she always knows someone in the music industry...this time it's actually her in-laws who do sound/lights and sing backup for the band):
backstage with the band
2/4/12 - our first really nice day of the year...signs that spring are on the way:
1. Joshy finds a little garden snake sunning itself on the rocks in our front yard.
2. A trip to the park (it's finally dry enough) reveals the first daisies of the year...so pretty!
3. The first time all three boys ride the tire swing together...it didn't last long! Ollie was slipping through the hole.
2/5/12 - Ollie's first day in nursery:
anyone in our LDS (Mormon) faith knows that 18 months is a big deal because your baby grows up and goes into the nursery, and you finally get to sit through your Sunday classes and enjoy them! Ollie really enjoyed playing with the toys and eating snacks. He's having a hard time staying there without me though...but it's getting better. He's my first kid to have a tough time staying...my other kids didn't even look back to say "bye mama".
I called his pediatrician and she told us to bandage it once a day and watch for signs of infection. So we did a sterile gauze pad with triple antibiotic ointment, followed by sterile gauze wrap and a self-adhesive coban wrap every night before bed. It never got infected. The doctor said it would look worse than it really is for a lot of days and then suddenly the skin underneath would be ready and the burn would be better. I googled burns and learned everything additionally that I needed to know (or re-learn)...that it was a second degree burn, which takes 2-3 weeks to heal, how to treat it, bandage it, watch for infection, etc. It is time like these that I am really glad I took a semester long first aid class in college and worked in the OR (operating rooms) for a year, because I know all about bandaging and sterile fields...and I'm not at all squeamish (although it is much harder to see your baby's wounds than it is to see someone you don't know under a sterile drape). Anyway...Ollie did fine with it. It was sensitive for him and he treated his hand with care. He would point to it when I said 'owie'. He would not touch ANYTHING when his bandage was off. And he really only needed a dose of ibuprofen at night to take the edge off for a week. Sure enough, right at 2 weeks and 5 days the skin looked better! It was quite the transformation. And now there is barely even a scar to remind us of the ordeal. I'm so glad we got through that in one piece!
Boy wonder draws realistic portraits of everyone in the family:
Joshua drew these of Brent on 1/14 and Kate on 3/3
Are you laughing?? Cause I am!! Toby is crying...he's so scared.
Wow! No really, I think that Joshua has some potential and if he keeps showing interest in drawing we'll look into drawing classes.
3/4/12 - a spring time, evening walk through the wildlife preserve in our neighborhood:
niiiice and glowy!
3/13/12 - Where did spring go? We had our first snow day:
...and actually what that really means is that we had our FIRST SNOW of the entire season. That would explain why everyone was so excited.
3/14/12 - Ollie LOVES apples (well any food, really). I was shocked the first time he ate the whole thing...core and all, and handed me back the stem. It's a pretty regular occurrence now.
sitting in my sewing chair in the laundry room
3/18/12 - Mr. Potato Head? No, Mr. Ollie Head:
Well, I think that about does it for now. I have much more to catch up on, but this is a good stopping point.
