Just Call Me Babs

I waitressed for quite a long time (like 7 years... wow that made me feel old). It was always really interesting the conversations I would get in with my customers. My name is pretty different, so a lot of talk circled around that one. Another huge conversation point would be my heritage. I got a lot of questions if I was Jewish...... or Russian....... Or a Jewish Russian.

Also if not daily than at least half a dozen times a week (in all seriousness, more like daily) people would ask this EXACT question:

"Has anyone ever told you that you look like Barbara Streisand??"

To which I would exclaim in delight "Oh really?!? I just love her! What a wonderful compliment!". I was always working for that tip ;) When really it's kind of a weird compliment (don't get me wrong, I love the Babinator) because it's kind of like saying:

"Has anyone ever told you that you have some pretty crazy curly hair and a big nose??"

Then those questions were almost always followed up by:

"Can you sing like her too?? Wouldn't that just be the coolest if you sang like her AND looked like her?!?!"

To which I would sadly declare that I have zero singing capability and "gosh golly gee!! Too bad I can't sing, maybe I wouldn't have to be a waitress if I did" (insert wink and cute as a button smile---did I mention I made REALLY good tips?).

I love this picture of classic younger Barbara. I actually got this exact haircut when I was 13, but I couldn't quite pull it off like she could so my hair always ended up in a bun that year until it grew out.

In all honesty I love that I resemble her to some degree. I really love her and think she is fabulous in every way with a capital F. But I really love that I look different and unique. I love my nose (I really do!). I love my curly hair, even though now it is a little less crazy. I love my freckles and my dimples (wherever they may be). I'm not sure if I could say that I LOVE my bum and thighs, but I have a healthy dose of respect for them. The only thing that I would change is the fact that I have to wear glasses (they always get in the way, and get ripped off my face by the chillins) but maybe someday I can have the corrective eye surgery.

So here is to all of us who are all fabulously unique and different. It's being so different from one another that makes life so much fun!

Slave Labor

Olivia really likes to help out with the chores. Like when I am sweeping she likes to take the broom and push all the dirt around in the pile, which ends up scattering it around the room and then I have to re sweep. A lot of deep cleaning jobs I end up saving during nap time or after the girls have gone to bed.

Every once in a while (when I am feeling especially patient) I will tackle bigger chores when the toddler is awake. I always end my bathroom clean by mopping the floor by hand. I grab some of the diaper wipes for Olivia and while I am doing the tub and toilet she empties out the drawer that has my hair dryer in it and proceeds to wipe it out. Then she uses her wipes and I use Clorox wipes and we mop the floor together. She gets so proud of herself for helping her Mommy and I always end up entertained with her "cleaning abilities".

Resolutions

I decided after Christmas that I once and for all wanted to get myself back in shape. I have been unhappy with my body for a while now and all the extra baby weight did not help. I feel like I really have a system that works good for me. I am tracking my calories EVERYDAY (even if I fall of the wagon, I still track it) and I joined a fitness boot camp (bellinghamextremefitness.com).
I was pretty nervous about the boot camp at first, but I am so glad that I did it. I love the instructor and I love the camaraderie of our group. I feel like it has the right mix of everything to get my flabby self into it's pre-marriage glory. I am not that fitness savvy, so for me to do something like this is WAY out of my comfort zone. Not to mention the guilt I feel about doing something that is just for me (time away from family, expense, yadda yadda yadda). Marcus is so supportive of my doing it and I am so grateful for that. Plus I joined a weight loss competition and I love the accountability of weighing in every week.
The dieting/tracking my calories has been hard. I love food. Like I REALLY love food. LIKE I REALLY REALLY LOVE FOOD. I feel like everyday is a battle in my mind to make right food choices when all I really want to do is swim in a river of beurre blanc sauce, whilst gobbling up a dozen croissants. I usually always end the night with my favorite Dryer's slow churned ice cream as my reward for being good all day. It helps me to stay on track because if I feel like snacking in the afternoon (my danger time) I just think "stay on track then you can have your ice cream" and it gets me through.
Anyway I am doing this and I am going to be one sexy momma this summer. And if I'm not I am going to feel like a major foolio for posting this. So here is to new year's resolutions, and actually sticking to one this time!

Gum gum gum

Trident wintergreen gum. Up until yesterday this was my favorite kind of gum ever. The xylitol made my mouth feel oh so fresh. Yesterday at 12:30 pm I found my new package of gum on the kitchen table. It was open and there were a pile of wrappers beside it. Olivia ate the gum. ALL. OF. IT. Her breath was so minty fresh you could smell her from a mile away. I just laughed and thought "next time always keep my gum in the cupboard" and chalked the whole thing up to "what a silly little girl" experience.

Then at 4:30 PM the fun really started. Apparently consuming that much gum is not so hot for the old digestive system. It gave her the runs... BAD. It resulted in a blowout situation that required a change of sheets and a shower for her. Then it happened again and again. Her bum is now minty fresh smelling. I cannot get the smell of mintygummypoop out of my nose. Her sheets had to be changed again this morning. I've had to open the windows to air out the strange odor combination. She has also been burping minty gum smell all day long.

Why couldn't she have gotten a hold of Marcus favorite kind of fruity gum? Now my good old trident will be ruined for me..... FOREVER. Not to mention all the loads of laundry that I have had to do in the past 24 hours. I just hope it is finally out of her system. Please, please, please be out of her system. I don't think I could stomach another diaper change of the "gum variety".

I hope she remembers how upset this made her stomach feel and will refrain from gobbling up gum in the future!

Afternoon Activities

There are some days when we stay in our PJ's all day long. This is one of those days. The only thing that Marcus wanted to get Olivia for Christmas was blocks. Lego Duplo blocks to be exact. He was a lego maniac as a child and as soon as Olivia could stack two blocks together he was so excited for her to get her own blocks. I wanted to get the bigger sized mega blocks (maybe because you can get those in crazy pink colors?), but he insisted on Lego Duplo or nothing. There aren't many things he insists on, and beings how a block is just a block to me we ended up with the Duplo. Since Christmas morning Marcus and Olivia have had some magical afternoons of block building fun.

This particular Saturday was the day of "let's take every single block that we own and stack them on top of each other to make a HUMONGOUS tower". I walked around the corner and was shocked. The thing was as tall as me and standing on it's own. Olivia already thinks Daddy is the coolest guy around, but I'm pretty sure this solidified it for life, or for the next week at least. The lego set also came with a lego guy and a lego kitty. Marcus perched the kitty on the very top and Olivia would just stand there and stare at it in awe. The first picture is of her pointing to the kitty at the top.

Olivia is goofy and crazy and funny and zany. This is her making her "funny face". Every once in a while we watch a show called "Yo Gabba Gabba" to help kill that last little bit before Marcus gets home (or if I need to clean something unobstructed, or if I need to eat something undisturbed, or if I need to have some "private" time in the bathroom, or if I just need 5 minutes to hide in my room alone....). They have a segment on there called funny face time, and Olivia has been getting really good at making funny/creepy faces.

That show is crazy because I have listened to the songs about a bagillion times (Yo Gabba Gabba CD on repeat for 10 days on our vacation) and I never got sick of them. That show is pretty magical.

"Hair" Today, Gone Tomorrow

The part of my life that pertains to my hair is in depression right now. A very dark depression. I am going through the stage "you just had a baby and now your hair is going to fall out in massive clumps and clog your drain and leave trails of hair everywhere so much so that you have to wear a hair net to prepare food". On top of that the curly parts that are left have decided to show their grief for all the "hair friends" that have left by being limp and lifeless. I also have bald patches on either side of my temples. As of this week I have completely given up trying to style it at all, it was all buns and frazzled braids. I even ran errands with my crazy hooligan hair, I had no pride left.
Just when I had given up I had a hair appointment this morning. My gal did all the right things to coax my locks back to life and I am feeling much more refreshed and human. I have more layers to help disguise all the sparseness. Not only that but for the first time since 2002, my hair is completely MY OWN NATURAL COLOR. I am going to embrace my natural chocolate brown sheen until gray hair forces me dye it. I know it will grow back, the same thing happened after Olivia, but it still sucks to be in this stage of hair craziness. Isn't it enough that having children forever changes my hips/bladder/boobs/sanity/shoe size/overall fat dispersion? Why does my hair have to fall victim too?!?

Common Denominator

What do all of these things have in common?

~TI-82 calculator
~Hand-pump for an air mattress
~Cordless phone
~Teddy bears
~Bottles of lotion/shampoo/conditioner/hairspray
~Family sized can of Campbell's Tomato Soup
~Container of protein shake mix
~Quart sized canning jars
~Costco sized containers of spices
~24 oz plastic drinking cups
~Vase
~Tupperware water pitchers
~Rolling pin

These are all items that Olivia has pretended is a baby. I will find anyone of these various objects in random places, all tucked in with a blanket while they have their "nigh-nigh's". With the air pump, the handles are always the head of the baby and that is the part that I see on top of a pillow with blankets tucked around it. I have also seen her holding said various item to her chest with one arm, patting their backs to burp them. Or just holding them there while she bounces back and forth whispering "SSSSShhhhhhhhh, Kiet (quiet)" or "baby go nigh nigh now".
To sometimes help Bianca get rid of gas build up (she is quite gassy, what can I say... she is A LOT like me!) I will pump her legs. I have seen Olivia take teddy bears by the legs and bend them in half while she says "Toot!", which is our gas term.
She does have two dollies and one smaller fairy dolly. She does all of these things with her dollies too, but if she there isn't one she can readily see then she will find her own replacement.
Today she was helping a phone to go nigh nigh while I was getting Bianca ready for her nap time. I wonder what I will find tucked into a blanket tomorrow?

Road Trip part 2

So some people recoup from a big trip by taking a day or two to unpack and chill out. We recouped by getting back in the car, driving another 4 hours and hanging out in Leavenworth for the weekend. We did more sledding. We found the our driveway was the best spot, after having paid 20 bucks to sled at some dinky hill in a park.

I just threw this one in for fun. I feel like there are way more pictures of Olivia then Bianca. I think this was in the car on the way there.

All the adults and older girl escaped for some sledding on day two while Kaitlyn's Mom and Grandma watched the babies.

Blaine and Olivia found various ways to have fun together when we were not outside playing. They are getting to be such good buds and playing so well together. I think Olivia is going through with drawls of not having a playmate around 24/7. I think she thinks we are one communal family or something.

On the road trip she called Trevor "Datty" no matter how hard we would try to get her to say something else. Trevor is a hard word for her to say, but I think she also just thought it must be normal for there to be two Dad figures around all the time. We have one of those picture frames that show slide shows of pictures and every time Trevor's picture comes up she still says "Datty!". By the end of Leavenworth we could get her to call him "Uncle", but it hasn't quite stuck yet. Marcus told Trevor that he can pay for half of her college education, sounds good to me!

Magical Places

The place: The Treehouse Children's Museum in Ogden. It seriously was the most magical place. Ever. It was two stories of kid (and adult) heaven with a giant tree in the center that had a staircase in side. You would take the stairs in the center of the tree to get to the second level. There was so much to explore and we just let the kids go crazy with it until they about collapsed of exhaustion. A ton of the areas has dress up too. Like the fire truck area above.

Olivia spent quite a lot of time at the Doctor section. She kept picking up the babies and rocking them, then tucking them back in their bassinets. The she would make the rounds and check their heartbeat. From their stomach.

The barn area was equally as cool with a cow you could milk. Except water came out, not milk.
There was also an aquarium, dinosaur area, singing and story time, Indian tee pee, Lego's like crazy, mini houses that represented different countries.... I was blown away at how awesome this place was.

There was a lot of time spent in the snow. The guys took the big girls sledding. Olivia loved sledding, but didn't like walking in the snow. The first day of sledding Blaine found it more fun to make snowballs, but when they went sledding again she was going like a pro.

Why is Marcus not wearing his coat here? Because he left is coat at Trevor's sister's house. THEN he left his fleece (or back up coat as it were) and Kaitlyn's cousin's house. It was quite the shenaniganery to get them all back. We gave him a pretty hard time about it the rest of the trip. So for the love of a daughter he braved the cold in just shirt to take her sledding. In his defense he did have his hands chock full of kids at each location when we were leaving, making him forget his coat (s). But none of us left stuff behind...I'm just saying...

Road Trippin'... Utah style.

We just got home from a road trip. 4 adults + 2 babies + 2 toddlers + one excursion = BEST TRIP EVER. You might think I am exaggerating, but I'm not. Even with all the kid shenanigans (and were there EVER some kid shenanigans) I don't think I've laughed so hard in my whole life. Olivia entertained all with her amazing binky feats.

We saw some pretty magical lights at night in Salt Lake City.

We took a pretty fun train to get to those magical lights.

We made McDonald's significantly more rich by frequenting their facilities. I believe this stop was in Boise at 8 am after being in the car for 12 hours straight.

Had some brief moments were we all slept. And I mean BRIEF! Kaitlyn you can't be mad I posted this because I look like the nermal, whilst you look peacefully snoozing.

There was also sledding, kid museum attending, movie watching, game playing and shopping scattered throughout. Oh and a lot of eating, like REALLY a lot. Diet time anyone?? I'm gonna try and post about some of the highlights after I feel a little more rested.