My little Bubushka

I just love her in this hat. My Auntie Rosalie made it for her and every time she wears it I think of little Scandinavian children. SO CUTE!!

I also love this denim dress of hers, I got it at a garage sale for like 20 cents, such a steal! She is down for her nap right now and I am relishing my quiet time.

Also just have to say I liked having my haircut short during the summer, but am missing the versatility of having it longer. I am going to grow it out. In future if you ever hear me say "I wish I had short sassy hair" or "I just want to chop it off", grab me and say "remember how much you mourned your hair the LAST time you chopped it?". At which point I will hug you and say, "Thank you for showing me the light, how could I have ever thought I wanted it that way?". Oh and................

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Thank Goodness!

I know-forever since my last post. There are three reasons why I am exclaiming "Thank Goodness!!" REASON 1: Olivia slept completely through the night last night!! Normally she will sleep fine and wake up around 4-5:30, after which I nurse her and she goes back to sleep. I have been longing for a straight through sleep (I know, I know... how much can a girl wish for? all the moms of troubled sleepers are probably wanting to exact revenge on my "goes to bed at seven and never hear a peep til early morning" baby) But she's getting bigger and I don't think that early morning is necessary. Without having to do any ferberizing techniques she slept straight until 8!! I was jumping for joy until she decided all that great slept meant she didn't feel like taking ANY NAPS today!

REASON 2: My amazing, wonderful, magnificent mother offered to watch her for a couple of hours tonight-feed her dinner and EVERYTHING! (OF course this was after I called her with the "what are you doing right now I am going to go crazy unless you watch my baby" conversation). I am really blessed to have such a loving Gramma right next door that loves having Olivia over to play! And not only that but an equally loving Grampa who will play with her for hours on the floor, talking to her, showing her toys, crawling around with her. He is her second favorite (right after Dada who is #1 favorite). She lights up every time she sees Grampa and cries if he doesn't pick her up right away, it is so cute! THANK YOU GRANDPARENTS!

REASON 3: A totally loving husband who doesn't mind in the least if I haven't got the house spic and span. A guy who is totally willing to do dinner time, bath time, diaper duty, just to give me some "alone" time. I wanted to take a nap on Sunday (it was like 5 pm) and he said "sure I got her" and before I knew it I had conked out and woke up by Marcus asking me if Olivia needed to be nursed before bed. He had done all the "feed dinner and get ready for bed" routine without so much as a single complaint. It was glorious to sleep so long!

Don't get me wrong, being Olivia's mom is the greatest blessing I could ever ask for! She amazes me every single day with her smile, her hugs, her laughs and squeals. It's just every once in a while this mom needs a break! So while I started the pasta water I got to thinking about how blessed I am by all the support I have in my life and figured I could squeeze in a quick post waiting for the water to boil. It is quiet in my house and I am looking forward to making home made mac and cheese without chasing a crawling speed demon around!

REUNION PICS!

My sister got her this really cute Piglet onesie to sleep in. She looks so adorable in it. It really helped to keep her warm b/c we were camping in September, and it was COLD at night!
Just trying out our camping chair-it will be so sad when she doesn't fit that outfit anymore :(
At Camp Hurlburt (the location of the reunion) they had this huge kitchen. The sinks were enormous and proved to be very useful when one little piggy needed to get all clean. These sinks were like baby hot tubs!
Her first taste of SPAGHETTI! The maniacal look on her face says "Now that I know how good big people food is, this is all I'm eating from now on!!" I try to save the really messy foods for dinner b/c after dinner it is straight to the BATHTUB!
This is her figuring out how to get Lady to pay attention to her. Sometimes she just holds her fist out with no food in it and just laughs to herself, "Take that dog, you never play with me and now you are jumping up hoping that I drop what I have in my hand when...PSYCH there is nothing in my hand to drop!". Although sometimes she does have a big chunk of bread or something in her hand and Lady does get it and then Liv is so sad she lost her piece of food. Every once in a while I have to ban Lady from the kitchen b/c Liv thinks it's great fun to throw her food to the dog. Lady has actually started playing with her nowadays and it's pretty fun to watch them.

Old Tag

So I was tagged on this a while ago (by more than one person, I think) so I thougt I should get to it. It's all about my Marcus!

Where we met: We first met through church (dances etc) and then when I was out on my own he moved into the same apartment complex as me and my roomate Lesha.

How long we dated before we got hitched: One year

How long have we been married: 4 years

What's my fav feature about him: I love the whole blond hair blue eyes thing ;) Very sexzy

What's my fav quality about him: He is a CRAZY hard worker. Like I thought I had a very intense work ethic (two jobs while in school, not to toot my own horn or anything;) but he puts me to shame! He works so hard for our family, at his job and when building our house for us!

What's his nickname for me: He likes to pick random names for me, the biggest one being Barbara. If it's a really tense situation or I am starting to get mad, with the straightest face he will look at me and say "Barbara, settle down.... or Calm down Barbara" Like it is my REAL name. It totally throws me off so then I start laughing and it diffuses the situation. He will also on purpose mispronounce my name (Voshtee, long a sound) when I am doing something to bug him.

His fav color: Red, as in the red button up shirt he has had from the seventh grade and refuses to part with it. I'm not sure as a sign of his frugality, or the fact a shirt can last that long, or as a heirloom he can pass off to any boys we might have so that THEY in turn can where it when they reach the seventh grade! He loves to wear it, you would never know it was that old (it is a very good shirt) You have probably seen it, he wears it at least once a week!

His fav food: Hawaiian Haystacks

His fav sport: FOOTBALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Who said the L word first: He did

First kiss, when and where: It was at my apartment while watching Beauty and the Beast or something like that and it was in late August.

Fav couple thing to do: We love to watch the Office and play with Olivia.

How many kids: Just one

His hidden talent: He's master of minutia. Like all the random facts of random things. He will amaze me by pulling out this statistic of knowledge of tons of different things. Like he would probably kick butt on Jeopardy. He gets most of them right whenever we watch it.

His age: 25

His fav music: Country

What I admire most about him: He is such an AMAZING Dada to our little Liv

His fav pastime: Anything outdoorsy, football, family time, football, swimming, football

Will he read this: yes

I TAG: KAITLYN, SUZANNE, EMILY

Here's the Proof

I think I can do it...
I'm going for it....
Break Time!
So we spent the weekend up in the motherland for my uncle's funeral. Funeral's are always sad, but not devastating like how it can be for some people. Being LDS means I believe my uncle is in a better place with people who have gone on before him, where none of his health problems ail him anymore, where he is whole. I love going to LDS funerals because you always leave with a feeling of peace and comfort. It is a celebration about the life of the individual and while I will miss Uncle "peaches" Pete dearly I know I will be able to see him again, that there will be somebody from my family waiting on the other side to welcome me in when it is my turn to return to my Heavenly Father. I was so grateful for the opportunity to go and be of support to my cousins and aunt.
While we were there I also figured out some stuff. Like every time I think Olivia has a cold-it's really been teething. Like a couple weeks ago I thought she had a cold and I felt in her mouth of Friday and one of her top teeth is all the way through. She also decided two more were going to start coming through while we were in Canada. They are almost to the surface and this has meant not a lot of sleep for the momma. The first night @ my aunt Rosalie's she was up the WHOLE NIGHT! I felt bad b/c everyone else in the house could hear her and woke up a lot too. But I have definitely pinpointed her signs for teething: runny nose WITH excessive drooling, diaper rash, rosy cheeks and NO SLEEPING. Runny nose without drooling is a cold.
I've also figured out that her little bum does not like Luvs diapers. She broke out with what I like to call teenage acne on her bum when I started using them. I switched to Pampers baby dry two days ago and her bum is almost back to normal! It's weird b/c her skin isn't sensitive or anything-just to the luvs. The rash from teething, the rash from the diaper (trust me I know for sure they are two separate things as they are in two separate areas) combined with the pain of teething my little bundle of joy has been the opposite of joyful. The end is in sight though b/c the longest it's lasted for is a week so hopefully it will be done by Friday. It'll be weird to see her with more teeth in her mouth, my little baby-sniff, sniff-is on her way to being a big girl!

Big News!! (I'm not Preggers in case that's what you think i mean by Big News)

So Olivia IS officially a crawler. She stared on Tuesday night, but we kinda pretended like it never happened so as not to jinx it. It's really slow and methodical and SOOOO cute! Marcus being the ever faithful coach/cheer section would chant "Livy, Livy, Livy" and she would rock back and forth with her hands in the air in a kinda victory dance. It would have been fine with me if she waited longer-cuz I know she's going to be getting into everything now-but Marcus has been very excited for this next step. He kept crawling around her to show her how, she just laughed at him like he was a crazy, and then he has been doing the Livy chant.
Whenever he comes home she is euphoric with excitement. He can get her laughing so hard that she is almost falling over, and tears streaming down her face (not an exaggeration, she literally will laugh so hard she cries). I try not to get bent out of shape about it, b/c it is seriously cute. I can make her laugh and we have cute times together, but me making her laugh is nothing compared to the party her and Marcus have together. when I make her laugh it will be for like a minute and Marcus gets her going for like 5 min. But seriously I'm glad they get to have that special time together. I get to see a lot of special things with her all day, and sometimes Marcus gets frustrated he can't be here for more of it. So when they do spend time together she is completely enchanted, it's really good for both of them. Plus she see's me ALL DAY LONG-I bet a change of personnel is fun for her. Like right now he is giving her a bath and I keep hearing uncontrollable mirth with intermittent squealing echoing down the hall, gotta run so I can watch some of it!

Way to be Neighborly

Olivia wouldn't take her morning nap, so we decided to go for a walk. We left our house on Everson Goshen and headed down Central. Sometimes we go down to the end of central, but there are a lot of dogs that bark (they are all fenced in so it's not scary or anything, just annoying). Every once in a while we turn by Butch and Patsy's to go down this dirt road that heads back almost to Fazon Lake. It's nice down there and no dogs! Plus it's nice to mix it up with different scenery. Now this road takes like 10 min to walk to the end of and gives access to like 7 or so acre plots, two of which are Butch and Patsy's-she gave me the idea to walk down there. The first house has started construction and I can see it straight across the pasture from our house. (This means lots of noise with the trucks dumping things and hammering).
So we are walking past the construction house (by we I mean Olivia in baby bjorn and our shitzu Lady) and this lady is walking down the driveway to us. The house is set back from the access road, it's not like I was walking right by her house or anything, here's the following conversation:
HER: What are you doing?
ME: Going on a walk (I thought that would have been obvious in my tennis shoes and work out clothes) I live right across the way, you can see my house..see?? (I'm pointing across the way)
HER: Well this is private property, you can't just walk back here. Especially during the construction phase we don't want just anybody back here while we aren't here to keep an eye on things.
Now I know I must have been very intimidating. My dog had on a bright hot pink collar and leash. Olivia was decked out in her cute pink hoodie, sucking her bright pink binkie and gooing at Lady. Meanwhile Lady is wagging her tail and laying down on the ground belling up for Ms Crank to pet her. I'm very impressed with her at this point for uncovering my plot to steal an air compressor and graffiti her house with the can of spray paint I have tucked in between my belly and Olivia.
ME: trying to be nice Well I didn't know I wasn't allowed (thinking in my head-her property might be off limits but this road isn't. After 900 feet a road is no longer private, it is a county road, therefore open to all including Mom's walking their babies and dogs. I know the 900 feet thing from our home construction). I'm just that green house right there pointing again we are practically neighbors and just thought I'd see how the construction was going, sorry.
HER: ignoring the fact I am still pointing behind her Well just don't come back here again, my parents will be building back here too and I KNOW they don't want just anybody back here. I just looked up and saw you and it startled me and I was like "holy cow where did she come from".
At this point I'm amazed she had no idea where I came from, there are houses everywhere, I guess my appearance was so alarming she must have thought I just materialized out of thin air
ME: Well you can get here from central, which was where I was on my walk, sorry again (I didn't want to fight with here about the legality of me being allowed to go on a walk, I'm still trying to be nice but getting annoyed and trying to back away, but she just won't stop!)
HER: Well it is private property
ME: OKAY!! Sheesh I get it!! (Kinda being rude-oops!)

Now I kinda pride myself on being a good neighbor. My two neighbors across the way love us, they leave us treats on our mailbox, we always talk when we run into each other in the grocery store. I had every intention of bringing her some cookies when they were all moved in beings how we have straight shot views of each others houses, but now I just feel like being "screw you", except in a Christian friendly neighborly way. I am determined to not have her hate me though (I know from experience what having a bad neighbor experience can do to you) so I might still bring her some goodies, maybe. Heavenly Father must be trying to teach me patience, and anger management, and turning the other check, not being hateful, smiling in the face of adversity, setting a good example to our offspring (which I was until the end), and forgiveness. It just sucks when it's a beautiful day and your in a good mood and then someone just dumps all over it. So in a effort to calm down, I put Olivia down for her nap. I made some cocoa, settled into my comfy couch, picked up my new book to read (thanks Kaitlyn). Then I took I calming breath and looked out my big gorgeous picture window to take in the view of Mt Baker, which is directly above the new construction house over the pasture. Maybe I'll have to try practicing all the good, Christian attributes tomorrow.