Baseball

Minute Maid Park with it's retractable ceiling. Best invention ever. Two years ago we went to a game on the fourth of July, and after the game they opened the roof and had a fireworks show.

Every once in a while, Exxon will give their employees tickets to Astros games. Yesterday was one such day and one of Phil's co workers wasn't going to use her ticket so I got to come along! The best part was that the game was in the middle of the day so Phil and I got to spend almost the whole day together. The night before I told Livi that if she went to sleep we would go and watch baseball with Daddy and eat hot dogs. When she woke up she was really excited and said, "baseball! hot dogs!" I couldn't believe that she actually remembered. And we of course had delicious hot dogs. She had a blast at the game dancing and clapping. She was really loving when they started singing "Deep in the Heart of Texas" not that I can blame her. When Phil and I first moved here and went to an Astros game we fell in love with that song and Texas. I only wish we were in the American League so the Red Sox would come here, I guess we'll just have to drive to Dallas!

Uncle

Phil loves to come home from work and wrestle with Livi and tickle her until she can barely breath. She loves it as well. She giggles hysterically and yells, "Daddy stop!" but as soon as he does she goes back for more. The other night he was tickling her relentlessly so I told her to say uncle. She yelled uncle and Phil stopped so now whenever he tickles her or tries to kiss her she says uncles and it is so adorable!

Oh Livi

Livi and her nap/bedtime routine has really put us through the ringer the last few days. Our nightly ritual has always been: family prayer, brush teeth, rock in the rocking chair, followed by putting Livi in her crib and signing "twinkle twinkle little star" and "rock a bye baby". At this point in the past Livi would blow me kisses and I would blow them back as I walked out the door and she would calmly put herself to sleep and that was that. Well....something has gone terribly wrong. The last few days after I finish the last song Livi holds up her finger and says in a really whiny voice, "one more song!" or specifically, "twinkle da star!" or "baby song!" I tried telling her before hand, "only two songs" and that worked a few times but has failed me now. Besides last night, the last few nights it took me over an hour to get her to bed. In fact, Monday night she was in her crib screaming and Phil and I were watching the clock to see when we should go back in and try again, when all of sudden we hear her door open and she appears in our room. I don't think I could have been more shocked. How did she get out of her crib? Come to find out, she figured out how to climb out. She actually loves doing it. She thinks it's a game now and she loves to show me. It's really quite an amazing process to see her stick one leg over the edge then the other and then shimmy down. We took one side of the crib down last night because we were worried about her falling in the dark.

Anyway, I have been praying to know how to handle her or what to say to make her calm down and just go to sleep already. And yesterday it came to me. I was having a devil of a time putting her down for a nap. She was inconsolable and refusing to stay in her crib. Phil and I are huge fans of the book "Parenting With Love and Logic" It's all about giving your child options (that you are comfortable with) so they learn to make their own decisions and learn consequences. I was trying to think of choices that I could give her and nothing seemed like a good idea, ie "you can go to sleep in your crib or you can go on the balcony" Probably not a good choice, though it did cross my mind. Then I just blurted out, "you can go to sleep in your crib or you can go in timeout" She chose timeout...anything to get her out of that crib. So I put her in the corner of her room and stood in front of her so she couldn't move. That lasted about a minute before she realized the crib was a way better option and requested to get back in the crib. She was still being really whiny and said she needed a band aid, so I said if she went to sleep I would get her one. She immediately layed down and I walked out to get her a band aid. By the time I got back she was sound asleep. So last night for bed time and today for her nap I put her in her crib and told her I would give her a band aid if she goes to sleep and it works like a charm! She goes right to sleep. No complaining. Whoever invented band aids is my hero. I just hope this method lasts!

Identity Theft

Phil got a call from our bank the other day. Apparently there were some suspicious charges on our credit card and they wanted to double check to make sure we hadn't actually used it. There were multiple charges spanning the country so that set off some red flags to the bank. Phil and I both had our credit cards so someone must have stolen the number somewhere on line and sold it. We immediately canceled our cards and changed all of our on line passwords. Thank goodness banks have a fraud prevention system.

The most ridiculous part? One of the charges was $200 to Payless. Really? You steal someones credit card and you go to Payless?

New Bed

Cecilia is all packed up and moved out of her house. She still hasn't officially moved, but soon. They decided they didn't want to take this bed with them so they gave it to Livi. It took the place of the old queen mattress that used to be in there that is older than I am. Livi is loving it. She won't sleep on it yet, but she loves to sit on it and read books. If she is ever being really quiet and I can't find her, chances are this is where she will be. I love it.

Bo Peep

Watching Blues Clues with Go Poop and eating sunflower seeds

The other day Livi and I needed to get out of the house, but it was blazing hot outside so we went to the mall to use a gift card I had. Livi spots this lady opening a Toy Story toy for her son and is pretty mesmerized by all of the trinkets and was just staring at them. So this nice woman gives Livi the Little Bo Peep figurine and says that her son won't play with it because it's a girl. That was Friday. Livi has barely put that thing down. And the best part is that she calls it "Go Poop." Sometimes it can be kind of confusing because I think she has to go the bathroom, but she is invariably searching for "go poop."

Petting Zoo

We went to the library yesterday and were pleasantly surprised to find a petting zoo set up out front. Livi is not fond of animals, unless of course they are in a book, so she just sucked her sucker and held on tightly to my hand. At one point a duck got really close to her and she nearly had a panic attack. After we left she wanted to go back inside the gates so I asked her if she wanted to go pet the animals again and she said, "no, mommy touch."

These were taken with my phone so the quality is not so great.

She just spotted a donkey

teeniest little goat, it was barely as tall as Livi's waist.

cutest little pig ever

Once There Was A Snowman

A few weeks ago Sunday morning Phil was preparing his nursery lesson (yes he teaches nursery!) and Livi started singing along. It was the most adorable thing I've ever seen so I ran and grabbed the camera. Lucky for me she did it many times so I had ample opportunity to capture it. Every time the song ended she would say, "I go again!" Here you go!

This one is from swimming while my mom was here. Last year Livi didn't want much to do with the water so it's nice that she actually likes to get wet!

Feeling Better

Livi is finally feeling better! Last Saturday while my mom was here Livi developed a fever before she went to bed. She also had a horrible barking cough. She was definitely having some labored breathing as well so I decided to have her sleep with me. At about midnight I decided to call the Dr's office and talk to the 24 hr nurse. After describing all of Livi's symptoms she recommended that I take her to the ER in case she needed a breathing treatment. Livi was finally sleeping and seemed fairly comfortable so I was hesitant to wake her up. Luckily my mom was there and had dealt with Tommy my brother having some serious breathing issues due to his asthma, so she was a big help. Phil was in North Carolina so I was feeling pretty helpless. I decided to call the missionaries, who thankfully live in our apartment complex, and ask them to give her a blessing. They were so wonderful to come over at 12:30am and give her a really great blessing. After they left I was feeling good about my decision to not go to the ER. Livi slept through the night (though I didn't so much) and was so much better the next day. Sunday and Monday (Memorial Day) she still had that nasty cough and was acting lethargic so I took her to the Dr Tuesday. He said she probably had croup and since it's a virus there wasn't anything to do, but he gave me a decongestant because she had quite a bit of drainage. Wednesday she was acting a lot better and then and Thursday she started acting really lethargic again and refusing to eat. Friday she got a fever again was throwing up, and had diarrhea. I decided to take her back to the Dr. because I was worried about her getting dehydrated, she hadn't eaten anything for two days and I could barely get her to drink. The Dr said that he normally would just let it run its course but since it was on the tail of another sickness and she was refusing to drink, he gave her an anti-nausea. He said it works like marijuana in that it gives you the munchies and suppresses the desire to vomit. Interesting. It worked quite well and Livi started eating a little more, but more importantly drinking. And today, finally, she woke up her normal energetic self and ate breakfast! It was so hard to see her so miserable. She would just lay on the floor or couch all day and want me to tickle her back and play with her hair. It was nice that she wanted to be so close all of the time, but it was so hard to see her like that. Thank goodness for blessings and medicine!

Mom's Visit

My mom came to visit last week while Phil was in North Carolina for a bachelor party. It was so much fun eating, shopping and talking.

We ate fried oreos, fried twinkies, huge baked potatoes with brisket from Rudy's (one of the best BBQ places ever), we went to Old Town Spring and looked at some antiques and sampled delicious jams, honeys, and salsas at the Amish Store. I bought a Cuban cheese ball mix and it was DIVINE. I normally don't like cheese balls but I ate more than half of this one by myself. We went to the Good Will and found some sweet finds. We were especially excited to go and pick blueberries on a 20 acre blueberry farm about 20 minutes away. We got there around 10am on opening day and there were hundreds of people with buckets of blueberries (only $1.50 a pound!!!) most had been there since 7am. We started scavenging for berries but everyone we tried was sour. We found a guy who looked like he knew what he was doing and he told us that the blueberries weren't quite ripe, that they needed another week. All the people that had been there since 7 had found most of the edible ones. So we decided to leave empty handed. It wasn't worth climbing through the bushes for a few blueberries, Livi wanted to be held and we were all sweating like crazy from the insane heat. I am definitely going back in a few weeks though. I just keep thinking about fresh blueberry pancakes and muffins and I can't wait. We also went swimming at our pool and went up to Bentwater and hung out with Cecilia and swam there. Whenever my mom called my step dad he would mention how cold and windy it was, meanwhile we are pool side sweating our brains out. A few times she said she felt guilty, but I think she got over it.

My mom's favorite little antique store, we come here every time she visits.

eating the powdered sugar off of the oreos

Livi being brave and attempting to get her hair wet.

fried oreos

fried twinkies, my mouth is watering

mmmm, the powdered sugar gets everywhere

Livi was bound and determined to get a kiss out of James

Last night some girls from church had a little going away get together for Cecilia. We went and had gelatto at this yummy place. She is moving to Utah in a few weeks and I can't even think about it or I get emotional.