Birthday GIrl!

So our baby is now a fully fledged toddler!! I cannot believe it has been 2 years since she came into our world and made us a family J  She now has her own opinions, attitude, and way of doing things that we are now negotiating with.  She can count to 15 on her own, count in Spanish to 5, and is learning her shapes.  Every color is still green and the ABC’s are still getting worked on.  We are going to start her in a gymnastic class that Steve will be doing with her once a week, and are still touring pre-schools to put her in the fall for 2 mornings a week.  She is still a good sleeper, taking a nap during the day, and bed by 8 every night.   We are working on her getting dressed by herself, which now entails a fight every morning because I won’t let her wear her princess Dora dress.  She loves to cuddle and kiss and is obsessed with anything princess or Barbie!  She is also a complete Daddy’s girl, and waits at the window every day for him to come home.  She has started to talk on my blackberry, and will walk around the house talking with her Mimi or Aunty! She has brought us so much joy and happiness and we cannot believe she is getting so old already!

Liv in her Princess dress!

Princess stickers!

I had to take a picture...true southerns...Steve giving Liv a ride on the mower down the street:)

Birthday cake time!

At Build A Bear..a little shy at first...

then quickly realized she could make Daddy wash the bear...

and dress the bear in their changing room!

and finally print out a birth certificate for the bear!!

Can you say Nesting??

So I have officially begun nesting non-stop. Combined with my flight ocd, I cannot open a drawer without re-organizing it!  At first it was great my house was getting clean, now it seriously takes me 20 minutes to do a simple task like, putting a pen in a drawer because I think go around the house and collect and organize all the damn pens!! I am also trying to get everything done that I don’t think I will have time to do after the baby comes, like cleaning out the coat closets and packing away our winter clothes. I realized I may be jumping the gun a little bit when Steve was asking where his coat was the other morning and I had to explain packed away already in the attic J  I have finally decided to take out our dining room table and turn it into a playroom. We have another room above the garage, but when Steve works from home that’s where he works so it couldn’t function as both unfortunately. So our playroom now has lovely silk beaded curtains, and a great two-toned wall green wall color that really shows off Olivia’s doll collection, blocks, and play kitchen!

Ducks!!

 Last week we headed over to a local pond, (and by pond in Tn I mean a man-made body of water between large corporate buildings) to feed some ducks. Liv loves all types of animals and we met a few friends over there. She did great walking around the whole path and not throwing a fit at all! At a few points she got really close to the geese and I had to run and grab her :) I think growing up with our animals has really shown her no fear of animals. We met an older gentleman named Harvey who goes down every day to feed the ducks. He loved the kids and gave them little "toys" that he said were from the ducks. All the kids then proceeded to yell thank you ducks, kind of odd but in a kind sort of way.  He went to his truck and brought us about 10 loaves of bread!! He told us he goes every morning and the local grocery stores give him there old bread they are going to throw out.The kids then spend the next hour throwing out all of the bread given to them by Mr. Harvey. It was nice to get Olivia out of the house and take a walk :

Liv and her baby doll

     After dragging my poor husband to numerous classes during my first pregnancy I was pretty skeptical he would come with me to the sibling class that I had signed Olivia up for. However he surprised me and said he would go, after me promising him that it would be totally worth it and Olivia would get so much out of it with the new baby coming in about 6 weeks. Once again, I couldn’t have been more wrong! As we entered the class we were received a handout.  I scanned it quickly and a few key words popped out at me, PINCH, HIT, BITE, STUTTER,PUSH, and SPIT were just to name a few. These were all listed under what your child would do once the new baby was brought home. I thought the terrible two’s that we were going through right now were horrible, this handout practically made me suicidal!!  After reading the entire handout, which at this point I wished I hadn’t, the author basically suggested that your child will become a monster ready to kill their newborn sibling at any moment.   The only way to solve this was to reinforce how much each child means to their parents.  I know my hormones are raging at this point in the pregnancy but seriously who gives this kind of information to an expectant parent!!Clearly we should NOT have taken this class

Steve and Liv learning to "change" the babies

this is right before Liv refused to let Steve change the baby

Liv receiving her award at the end of class!

Liv was mad  it wasn't a sticker

Steve and Liv looking at the babies in the nursery

                After calming down and shoving the paperwork in my purse, we settled into the class. The dads all sat on the ground with their children, which Olivia refused to sit down. She was way too interested in walking around and checking out all the baby dolls in the room. When it was time for a movie, she screamed Princess Movie, and again was not a happy camper when it was about becoming a sister or brother to the new baby. The only part of the class that was worth it was the walk to the nursery where we saw new babies. When one of the infants started crying, Olivia immediately wanted to give her a binky to make her stop being sad she saidJ

Liv was very interested in the newborns

Can't wait till she's a big sister!

Olivia's future tryout for American Idol!

Sun, Sand and Fun!

The first part of our vacation we spent on the east coast with my parents in Pompano Beach. We had a blast at Moe's, which included laying by the pool, cruising in the boat, and eating lots of good food! Olivia is officially a fish, and had breakdown's every time she had to get out of the pool.  She is great at blowing bubbles now and doing the doggie-paddle. She hammed it up with every older person at the pool and blowing kisses to older men...hilarious! We had a blast on the boat, Moe gave us a tour of the million-dollar houses on the inter-coastal and Liv did great on her first time on a boat. She was so comfortable she was pointing out birds and waving the other boaters. Being super pregnant it was nice to have my mom and sister help out with a very active toddler!Here is a few pictures of the first part of our vacation:)

The only picture where we were all smiling!

Liv loved the pool!

kissing her baby sister!

Posing next to the boats:)

Mimi and Liv LOVE the ocean

Steve modeling Papa Moe's sunglasses!

Lovebirds

Posing with her new princess sunglasses!

Liv wanted to put lotion on my feet!Check out the cankles:)

The second part of our vacation we headed over to the west coast of florida and stayed at steve's parents house. We hit up the beach which was tropical and so calm! We also did some shopping and more swimming in the pool! At a one point I was so overtired we had to stay and relax because I was so run down and not feeling well.  Other than that I have felt really good this entire vacation and it was such a nice break before life with 2 kids begins!Our first night we headed to the red sox spring training game which was so much fun. Liv made it until about the 5th inning and then we headed home. Overall it was a very relaxing break and our family really had a good time:)

Posing for the camera!

At our favorite Naples restaurant...

Foxboro's!

check out all the older women in the pool behind Steve!

Spring Training

Papa and Liv at the game!

Liv loves baseball like her Daddy :)

Outside the stadium

Traditional in a Non-Traditional World

Last night I was reading Baby-World, (Yes I know we are lead such exciting lives now) when I came across a surprising statistic that we fell into. Since I do not work, and my husband is the breadwinner this qualifies as a traditional family, however this only accounts for 7% of American households. Popular shows like “Modern Family,” show just how different the new normal is becoming in our society.  Growing up with a single working mother of 3 kids, I had hopes of running my own company, and coordinating the nannies work schedules.  However once I held my daughter for the first time, I knew that all that mattered at that point was being the best mom I could be.  I always thought I would hate being a SAHM (stay-at­-home-mom) but the truth is I love every minute of it.  I love the moments that I get the share with our daughter and how I feel we already have a bond that could never ever be broken.  I also love how my husband has just as strong of a bond with Liv.  This month he is signing her up for gymnastics on Wednesday nights to do together, or how they go on daddy-daughter dates without me asking for a break. The truth is, this is what works for us and we couldn’t be happier.  I feel extremely lucky that we are financially able to live of one income, and still be able to travel home when I get home-sick! Sure there are days when I would kill to have a 20 minute commute of silence, but more often than not, I love the flexibility of making my own schedule, teaching my daughter, and being able to witness every single Kodak momentJ