Last Weekend

Was the first out of our many busy weekends to come!

The clip on chair we found for $5at the annual yard sale on my grandmother's street.... thank God for that yard sale, a always find exactly what I'm looking for and it's always a great day! Saved me from spending 10 times the money on something I didn't actually want!

 

Saturday was the NICU reunion for Franklin Square Hospital where Oliver was born.  We got to see his doctors and a few of the nurses that will stand out in my memory of our experience there.  He got to do his foot print painted on a blanket that we can see next year which was cool.... though hopefully next year we can switch to his hand print (we couldn't get him to not want to "pick up" the paint off his fingers so we went with foot!)  We sent in his pictures for a slideshow and it was exciting to see him along with the other babies up on the screen!

 

This is Sharron, on the left, she was one of my favorite nurses!

And this is Stacey, whos reassurance and willingness to talk to me as more than just her patient's mom, I will never forget <3

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then on Sunday, one of the greatest days ever....

 

My first, and hopefully not last since it was so amazing, Raven's game at the stadium.  TV just doesn't cut it now :)  The stadium was thrilling.... and cold and I discovered I do not at all like the smell of beer all around me, but still!!! Our seats were great and it was even exciting hightailing it to the light rail after so we could hurry home to Oliver who was with my mom!



Girls Night Out

Last night, Rachel (my brother's girlfriend) took us to down town Ellicot City for the monthly girls night out.  I'd been there before (http://thebiggerpicture27.blogspot.com/2011/04/day-251.html this is the photo blog post from the day we did the Volks march there so I was very familiar with the streets!)  It was a lot of fun just to walk around, going in and out of shops, with my mom and Rachel since we don't get out too much ;)  We had dinner and coffee at this little cafe and had the best BLTs and Hummus platter, the last of which we made a lettuce, hummus and sprout roll after all the pita was gone.... I admit sprouts are kind of wierdly awesome.  Oliver was a big hit with all the ladies, dressed in his new jeans and sweatshirt!

 

 

 

Munch on the move....

These pictures are from the last few days.  We've all had colds around here and been pretty busy on top of that, so I haven't had much time to just sit down and catch up on things on the computer really.

We set up Oliver's new walker.... while he can't actually move it yet, he enjoys being moved in it by us and he likes the new toys on it!  We use it as the new "keep Oliver in one place" thing while we make dinner or while I get a shower if he's not asleep, seems to do the job!  He's pretty cute in it too!

 

Next up...  When Nate's mom wen to Washinton state last month to see her mom and family, she brought back letters to hang in Oliver's room of his initials.  Oliver helped his daddy put them up on Saturday :)

 

 

 

Oliver has also started getting an "afternoon snack" when he wakes up from his nap. I bought him little gerber cookies, supposed to be good for calcium and whatnot, he mostly mushes up the last half of it and it ends up all over his hands, but he loves them and it keeps him busy!

 

 

 

 

And last but not least, something for the big kids.... yesterday was our first Ravens party.  Sadly, we lost, but better now than later and for the record I'm blaming it on Andrew because he was offered a Ravens shirt and he refused it lol so that's why we lost ;)  I forgot how much I missed grape soda, which is a must at our parties!  



 

Game On!

Yesterday was opening day for Ravens football.... and first practice for the new handbell season (yay!)  I stayed up until the last two minutes of the game, at which point I figured it was safe to go to bed without waking up to any change!  If I do say so myself, it was an awesome first game!!!  Can't wait til the first football party next game at my mom's house!  It will be Oliver's first Ravens party, though not his first game... since he was properly attired for his first game in the NICU :)

Then today was another one of my "Amazon Christmas" days!  I call it that because I periodically order a bunch of stuff we need or will need throughout the next few months and get it sent to my mom's so I don't have to deal with the many packages coming to the leasing office. All the boxes start coming in all at once and it's kind of exciting like Christmas morning!  I wasn't expecting it all until tomorrow so it was double exciting to get it today!  Oliver got his first toothbrush, and more of our favorite kind of washcloths.  The only thing that didn't come was his socks.  He also definitely needs something more up to speed to sit in while we're busy so we got him a walker!  And then my new shutterfly book also came in which I wasn't expecting yet.  The Stevenson Homecoming thing is in there because this is the first time I've gotten one since I graduated that I'm actually going to go to it!  My roommate had the great idea that we should all go with our families so I'm really excited about that.  We'll get to see the football team play, and then there's a crab feast after!  It should be a lot of fun to be all together again at our school, which of course was Villa Julie when we went there... but still :)

P.S That's Steve saying "this box is for cats right?" which is true.... I LOVE my cat litter genie, definitely is worth the investment in a small apartment on the 3rd floor!

Being Busy

The last two days have been busy with visiting, playing, yard sale/flea market/ consignment shopping.  Oliver spent a few hours with his grandaddy playing yesterday while the girls checked out the sales.  My goal was to look for any clothes and books.  My mom has a lot of kids books, but I want them to stau special to her house when we go over, therefor I don't have very many for him at all!  The annual Benson Hammond house flea market fixed that problem.  I found a lot of really great cardboard books there!  And... the most awesome thing ever... a mango slicer :)  When I was at the community college many years ago it was a running joke amongst my group of friends as to whether anyone knew how you were supposed to eat a mango, so I couldn't pass it up!  Then we checked out this sweet little consignment store for baby/kid things.  This place is really great because their stuff is already so reasonably priced and then if things have been there for a while they start cutting the price which is even more unbeatable.  I had already been planning on buying a handful of the $2 (each)onesies at walmart in the next size up for Oliver but we found a 3 pack there for $2 total! Perfect!  And I just couldn't resist the Figment poster since it was too cheap and Figment is my most favorite thing in all of Disney world... yes I'm still a kid! 

 



And in between making the rounds for Grandparents Day today... I managed to drag myself back to gym for the first real time in almost a year and a half.  Ok so I actually really wanted to go.  I went a few times while I was pregnant but didn't want to risk anything with the baby so I pretty much stopped.  And then I went once after Oliver was born with my sister, but then really just was too busy or tired to keep it up.  Oliver seems to be becoming much more agreeable to being left with someone so I decided today was now or probably never.  It felt great to get back with it!  Hopefully I'll get the chance to go a few times a week now that I've broken the ice.  I lost all the weight from the pregnancy really fast, now just need to work on the shape, energy level etc! :)

Purple Friday

First purple Friday leading up to actual football season! Finally! 

 

Oliver was getting his purple on while doing some rather excellent sitting this morning!

Changes...

Today was yet another big day for us.  I'm pretty sure every day feels like a big day now :)  Last night, at several people's suggestions, I bought Oliver a fresh food feeder, for putting in fresh fruits and such so he can chew on it and get the idea of chewing and getting the nutrients without the risk of choking.  Figures as much that for the boy who insists on stealing everything from me and chewing it, the fruit thing (as it is easier to say) ended up on the floor after about 5 seconds!  Eventually, we got some use out of it.... but I got a bunch of these "you expect me to hold this myself" looks!

Soon after breakfast, we would discover he has his front TOP two teeth, just in over night apparently because they were definitely NOT there last night when I checked!  He's also figured out how to click his tongue and has changed that to his happy sound, it used to be lip smacking :) But I think the clicking is much more adorable!

 

After lunch I filled out and sent in my RSVP for the Franklin Square NICU reunion at the end of this month.  I've been waiting for the invite all summer and was very excited because I love that sort of stuff!

 

 

 

And last but very much not least...

Lyndsay came to visit!  She just graduated her school in California and is here on a break before she moves on to Georgia.  The last time I saw her was at Christmas when she came to the hospital with me to meet Oliver, so this is the first time she's seen him since he came home, and hopefully not the last for another year since Georgia is much more road trip-able than California :)  We caught up as per usual and then got Chick Fil A for dinner before I drove her home!

 

 

December 2011

 

 

  September 2012







My little big 9 month old!

Today is Oliver's 9 month day :)  Yesterday was a big day for him...

He started getting up on his knees to get after toys!

Last week he started sitting a clip on high chair and eating breakfast and lunch at the table with me and Kateri! He eats faster than we do so he has to occupy himself with toys when he's done... this is his favorite "triangle"

And these are his official 9 month pictures!

I can sit tall all by myself for a little while now!

 

In other news... he also popped through another tooth yesterday... that makes four now.  Two top, two bottom!  Today was the thrift store's 50 percent off sale for Labor day.  Kateri, Nate, Oliver and I did a tag team shopping trip taking turns standing in line and going through the isles with the kids.  Kateri got to pick out a stuffed unicorn and we came away with a pretty good stash of 12-24 month winter clothes and an awesome Halloween costume for Mr. Oliver!

 





To Be So Little...

 

... that the rustling of a plastic bag... it's news to you that you could make it make that noise... and a pile of cloth diapers makes you this happy!

 

 

Tonight, Oliver and I were going through our new invintory of cloth diapers we just acquired yesterday.  We bought them from Veronica, Kateri and Arthur's mom (my mostly former boss)  They just moved to Texas, but Kateri is back here in Maryland with her dad for a few weeks still wrapping up the house.  Considering I would love to have more children, I could always use extras, and there are girly colors which would be useful in the event that I have a girl :)  She made me a great deal for all of them that I couldn't refuse! Oliver sat in the middle of all them for over a half hour just rolling around grabbing one after the other until he found the plastic bag.... which mamma was mean and took away after the sound excitement wore off and the "I can get that in my mouth" look took over!