Sand Play

To keep Dane out of my hair one evening last week Brad ushered him outside to play in the sandbox. I had to take a picture of this because it cracked me up. You can tell that Brad's a heavy equipment operator, he had this sand graded to perfection! Perfectly level with 3 ponds and some sticks for trees. We decided that all that was needed was a few barbies to lay on the "beach".........Maybe next year they can borrow Olive's.

Morning Time Lovin'

Early morning cuddle session between Dane & Olive :)

Alot of people have been commenting on how Olive looks just like Dane..... I don't see it yet.

I do know that she looks just like Brad did as a baby and when I get a chance I'll try to post a couple pictures to prove it to you.

Olive's eyes are of no particular color yet. How odd. They are neither brown, nor blue, nor green and are still a pretty gray color. I expected them to change and be dark brown already but what if they stayed this "no color"? Wouldn't that be cool!?

* Back to work in 2 days! (gulp)

8 weeks

I wish I could remember who got her this cute little outfit so I could thank them. She looks adorbable in it. So if you did and your reading this, Thank You!

Can you guess why she has a big smile on her face? It's Dane, he was standing beside me. She just thinks he's the funniest.



* We've been practicing with Olive and trying to get her to take a bottle. She doesn't particularly dig it. I have concerns she may starve to death when I return to work. Seriously. Brad thinks I'm being irrational. He's probably right. I've been reading lots of articles with tips on how to make the trasition work and most of things we do. I'd been the one trying to give it to her and one of the articles said that babies can smell their mother within 20 feet! That's amazing! and some babies won't readily take a bottle if they can see or even smell their mother. So you know what happened yesterday? I left the house, went outside and sat on the porch and Voila! Olive took the bottle. Not a lot mind you but she did suck on it and swallow some of the milk. Thank god now she won't starve.

A Birthday Party

Every year Dane looks forward to getting an invite to Wyat's birthday party. They always have lots of fun games to play and alot of other little boys to play with.

Happy 6th Birthday to Wyat, Thanks for inviting us!

Pinata Time!

Water Slide

Pin the tail on the donkey.



Musical chairs.

A minute to win it game where the boys had to walk a circle while balancing an egg on a spoon.



* Back to work in 4 days. I think I'm going to throw up. Lord give me strength. I'm not ready to leave my babies behind. God bless their grandparents for watching them while I'm at work. I'd never be able to leave them with strangers.

Big Brother Love

Little Olive love, love, loves her big brother! Morning is Olive's happiest time, in that sense she must be like her father. I hate early mornings. Anyway, Every morning Dane says "Good morning Olive, Your so beautiful" over and over in the most sing songy voice ever and she just smiles and coos. She just follows him with her eyes everywhere he goes.

Dane can also be a "brother" out of the blue and do something completely mean like pull her hair, wipe a booger on her, etc. For that sort of thing, he of course gets scolded but I like to think that someday she'll pay him back for all that torture and I think for the first time 10 times or so I'll just look the other way. (smirk)

* Poor baby Olive had her well baby check today and 2 immunizations to which she did not enjoy and neither did I. She's currently 10lbs 8oz (50th percentile) and 23 inches (90th percentile) So just like Dane she's long and lean.

Lo. Co. Fair

Despite the fact that Dane had a fever we took him to the Logan County Fair last night. Yeah, He has a fever and no I don't know why. He seems fine otherwise. Anyway, I never would ordinarily take him anywhere when he's not feeling well but we'd mentioned the demolition derby and he really wanted to go. So we did.

While on the way to the stadium to watch the derby Dane saw this mechanical bull and wanted to ride it. I think Brad and I were surprised cause he'd been pretty quiet and shy-like due to being sick all day and I figured Brad would pay and then Dane wouldn't get near the thing.

Not the case though.

Here he is riding the bull!

He also enjoyed the Derby! What little boy wouldn't enjoy cars purposely crashing into each other :)





* Dane's fever just popped up yesterday mid-morning. He had told me earlier that day that he head was tired but I just giggled cause it sounded like another one of his silly things to say. I thought to check it when he came in from fourwheeler riding and laid down on the couch. Dane doesn't ever lay down so I knew something was up. It was 101.4. Huh? Otherwise he seems fine so we just alternated Tylenol and Aspirin. Today when he woke up the fever was gone and he was his normal mischievous self. However it started to creep back up toward 100 at lunchtime.

I'm wondering if he's getting an ear infection or something. We have done ALOT of swimming recently. He hasn't complained of an ear ache though.

Ahhh, That's better!

Not everyone will find this post helpful or even interesting but I just have to say that the new Medela Softfit Breastshield is awesome! It's just so much better than the original. I don't know when they came up with this but if they had it available when I was pumping for Dane, I didn't know about it. It has a super soft silicone like cup that eliminates that pinching feeling that that the standard plastic ones can give you (at least to me)

Here's what it looks like.

The only thing is you have to buy a separate connector.
*As you can probably tell I started pumping a few weeks ago. I'm trying to save up for going back to work, 12 days left of maternity leave. Just the thought makes my stomach churn. Ugg. Not ready at all but truth be told I never would be ready. It's just never a good time to leave your precious baby behind.

It's really hard to work in something else during the day as well. So after I feed Olive I set up the pump and pump away. Usually while Dane is driving me crazy running a muck and creating all sorts of chaos. Which makes it super hard to relax and let the milk down. Which makes pumping take that much longer. Then the stress of thinking I won't have enough milk stored up for her, etc, etc.

6 weeks

Little Olive is 6 weeks old already. Time flys.

Swim Lessons Recap

Everyday for the past 2 weeks Dane has participated in swimming lessons at Scott's Pool in Marysville. It didn't start off too smoothly. Actually, For the first 3 days it was awful. He refused to get in the pool and the instructors had to physically rip him off of my body! I was in shock that he was acting this way. Afterall, he took lessons last year, and we'd been practicing everything he'd learned in the tub.

So when I over heard the instructor say "Dane buddy why are you so scared, Have you ever been swimming before?" and Dane responded with "No" I nearly fell off my chair!

Seriously Dane? Really?!

This next picture is from day 1. Notice the face he's making. That pretty much summed it up.

It did get better, thank god. Day 4 and 5 were much better and he was actually having some fun. Our trip to Kentucky where Dane and Brad played in the pool all weekend really helped cause when we returned to lessons that next week he was a changed boy.

Here he is with a look of determination before he hops on the diving board.

and takes a giant sized superman leap toward one of his instructors.

and a close-up of her face because she was not expecting that! I wish I'd kept on shooting because he hit her with such force it knocked her right off her float stick and they both went under! (giggles, so funny)

Her gave her a break the next time.

The following day.

Last day of lessons and all smiles!! Dane graduates to Level 2 next year!

Kentucky Fun

We spent our holiday weekend in Kentucky visiting with family and having fun!

Despite the fact that it was super hot (around 90 degrees) I talked Brad into going down the road to a greenhouse so we could pick blackberries. Brad wasn't the least bit excited about it, but I thought Dane would enjoy it.

Then we headed back to Gram & Tam's to cool off by swimming in the pool.

Olive was just chillin' under the umbrella.

Up Close & Personal

Look what Brad found in the yard! A baby (we think) hummingbird. It couldn't fly. How sad! I've never seen a hummingbird this close up before. I was still terrified that it was going to "come to" and fly up to peck my eyes out! Those beaks totally freak me out!

Can you feel it?

The love that they have for each other is amazing, you can just feel it in the pictures.

Grandma Burrey's thing is to quiety sing 'A Bushel & A Peck' into Dane's ear. She's been doing that since he was born and everytime it's like for 1 minute the world stops moving. Dane's calm and quiet and just listens to her until the song is finished. Now that Olive is here Grandma B sings to her too with the same effect.

"I love you a bushel and a peck, a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck"

"A Barrel and a heap, barrel and a heap and I'm talking in my sleep about.....Dane"

Great Grandma Burrey with Dane & Olive