What I have been doing

So the whole reason for my solo trip to Utah was to meet my brand new niece Layla, so without further ado, here she is.
Isn't she beautiful? She was so incredibly sweet. She is still in the phase where she sleeps a lot, but sometimes she would just lie there taking in everything from the conversations around her. Thanks for letting me hold her so much Michele, I loved every minute of it!

Oliver did surprisingly well while I was gone. I left Saturday morning and returned late Tuesday evening. He had known for weeks that I was going, so on the morning I left I told him we needed to hurry and get dressed so we could go to the airport. Once again, he told me that he wanted to come too, and added in my fave "that be a good idea?". He then said that he wanted to bring his suitcase like Mommy. I agreed without knowing quite what he was talking about. He ended up bringing back a car suitcase he got for his birthday last year that has a handle and rolls, just like mine. We let him bring it to the airport and I think it made him feel big. I don't think he grasped the longevity of the situation as he said goodbye to me so easily. He did surprisingly well for those four days; by the second day he was asking where I was and wishing I was there, but aside from a few meltdowns, Clayton and Oliver genuinely enjoyed each others company. He was incredibly excited to pick me up at the airport, Clayton said he was shaking when he got him out of the car seat. It was such a sweet reunion. I missed my guys so much!

Even though I missed my guys like crazy, I had a great time. It was wonderful to get to spend time with my sister and her sweet family. For those of you who don't know, Michele's little Avery is only 7 weeks younger than my Oliver. I wouldn't have thought it possible, but it actually helped having her there. She was very receptive to all my loves and has some of the same mannerisms as Oliver, and the cutest little girl version of Oliver's toddler voice that just melted my heart. Madi & Emily were also dolls to be around. They definitely kept me going and helped make up for my lack of exercise while I was there with all the games and rough housing they like to do.

Thanks so much for being such fantastic hosts and making my time there very enjoyable! Prepare now for picture overload.

Emily, Aunt Pamela & Layla

Madi, Michele, Avery, Layla, Aunt Pamela & Emily


Mom's don't get their picture taken very often, so we took these of Michele the day I arrived. I thought these turned out so cute; I love them!

Madi told me she didn't want any pictures taken, here she is trying to block her face. Please don't start that yet Madi, you are not old enough! :)

Such cute sisters and best friends: Madelyn & Emily

Madi, Aunt Pamela & Avery

Emily wearing Aunt Pamela's bracelet

Madi wearing my necklace

Layla early in the morning, holding her Binky in her mouth

These girls love, love, love their baby sister. I agree with my sister, Madi would like to be the Mom! :)

Travis with his sweet new baby!

Look at how teeny Layla looks in her bouncy seat!

The Layla baby burrito

Madi ready for school on the "hats off to her teacher day"

My Mom, my sister April, Me and my sister Michele (just missing Debbie)

trying to be silly!

Avery, Madelyn & Emily at the Thanksgiving Point Dinosaur Museum

The girls playing it the water area

Here is a video of Avery digging in the sand/water

Digging in the sand

Avery was more interested in burying herself, than unburying the bones!

Michele & Travis

Layla along for the ride in a front carrier

Gramps holding Layla

Emily making a PB & J all by herself the day I left. I was so impressed that she wanted to make her own snack and I thought these pictures turned out too cute!

Unfortunately, I didn't get to see my brother this trip, nor several of my nieces and nephews. I did however get to see Debbie and Preston briefly and the way to the airport and had a nice quick visit, too bad I packed my camera and didn't get any pictures! Hopefully we will be returning to Salt Lake in May and will have more time to visit everyone then.

Girls night out!

I haven't had a girls night out since before Oliver was born, so Michele & I made some plans for my first night in Utah. Michele, my mom & I met Lori (my best friend since I was like 3) at Cafe Rio in Lehi. We laughed so much and took some incredibly silly pictures. After dinner we went to see the movie Confessions of a Shopaholic which received some mixed reviews from our group, but was fun to go to nonetheless. Thanks to Lori for making the long trip to Lehi and thanks to everyone for making it such a fun night!

My old love, Trolley Square

Clayton and I spent a lot of our early dating days at Trolley Square; I absolutely love that place! Unfortunately it is either going under some huge renovations, or my dear Trolley Square is not what it used to be. All the same, my absolute favorite restaurant is still there and my parents indulged me after they picked me up from the restaurant on Saturday.

We ate at Desert Edge Brewery at the Pub, aka The Pub to me, and it did not disappoint; I love, love, love their sandwiches and fruit. I couldn't leave without my salt water taffy so afterwards, we walked to the Taffy shop for some yummy desert. My parents willingly snapped some pictures of me to mark the day.

my yummy taffy

My little froggy!

Of course I wanted to spend lots of quality time with Oliver before I left for SL, so my agenda for the day before I left was full of fun plans. The weather cooperated beautifully and provided a perfect warm rain for Oliver to try out his rain gear he received for his birthday last October. We jumped in puddles and walked through rushing water for a while before he told me he was cold and wanted to be held. I loved seeing my little froggy in his rain gear!

The sneaky chef HELPS again!

Okay, I have to tell you that when I started I never thought I could pull this one off. So Oliver is an incredibly PICKY eater. I can probably count on one hand the number of main courses he will eat; his meals generally consist of several side dishes. One of the things he will eat that I don't have to feed him, or otherwise coerce (aka bribe) him to eat is pancakes. I have been hesitant to do anything with them, for fear that he would move pancakes to the "I don't like that" list. But The Sneaky Chef herself, made a quick fix for boxed pancakes mixes that I thought Oliver might go for. So I tried. This is a picture of my chocolate pancakes. The batter looked disgusting and was a little too runny, so I added baking powder like I do to normal pancakes and here is the result:

He loved them! This is Oliver's third pancake.

I love my Sneaky Chef cookbook. We are doing great with sneaking in healthy ingredients to foods he will already eat, now somehow I just need to get him to try new foods. This kid won't even try mashed potatoes...hello, does anyone not like mashed potatoes??? Any suggestions?

I just had to throw this one in here. When I returned from the gym and grocery shopping at 8:15 am yesterday morning, Oliver was still fast asleep. This is what I found when I went to wake him. SOOO sweet!

Our goodnight routine

After a bath, and a relaxing massage complete with songs and lotion, Oliver & Mommy always read a story. Tonight Daddy captured the moment for us. We love this little guy so much!

YUM and YUCK!

The YUM:

Oliver sitting on the chair with his bunny daydreaming about a peanut butter bagel; I don't know what is more yummy, Oliver or the bagel! :)

The YUCK:

I opened up my refrigerator this afternoon to begin lunch, and I found this nasty little concoction sitting on my shelf. It looks like something I should have had on St. Patrick's day. It really didn't look that bad this morning. I made too much smoothie this morning, and thought I would save the rest for tomorrow. Do not, I repeat do NOT under any circumstances SAVE a protein smoothie made with spinach, strawberries and blueberries; that is unless you want to find this in your refrigerator in a couple of hours! I honestly don't know which is more yucky: the congealed concoction on my counter, or the fact that I am digesting this in my stomach right now!

Happy Birthday Aunt Debbie!

Today is my sister-in-law Debbie's birthday and we wanted to send her a great big birthday wish! We love you Debbie!

P.S. There is a picture of Aunt Debbie right next to him on the counter, hence the reason he keeps looking over there while he is singing.

Oliver-isms

My little carb lover:

Oliver was taking his time eating dinner last night. After an hour, and what seemed to be quite a bit of food, I asked him if his tummy was getting full. He looked at me with a furrowed brow and said "my tummy never too full for cornbread". That's my boy! :)

My little negotiator:

In response to me telling him about me going to SL this weekend, Oliver tries to make his way on the plane with: "I come with you. That be fun? You not go without me?" Sad! :( I'm going to miss this little guy like crazy!

My little truth teller:

Lately Oliver and I have been having lots of discussions about what it means to tell the truth and to keep your promises. Oliver loves to have our approval, so he has been so excited for us to praise him for telling the truth. From reading our blog, you may know that Oliver's favorite movie is Cars. He could watch this movie day in and day out, over and over again if I would let him. However, I try to curb too much television and often our TV goes on strike and won't turn on for a few days at a time. :) We hadn't watched any television for a few days, so I let him watch part of Cars while we ate our pizza for dinner tonight. We were watching the part where Lightening McQueen is headed to California to race Chick and The King for the Piston Cup. Mac (his driver) is tired, he wants to pull over and take a break, but Lightning McQueen wants to get to Cali first so he can have Dinoco all to himself. Lightning McQueen has just promised Mac he will stay up with him all night to keep him company and then he falls asleep. Oliver looks over at me and says "Lightning McQueen not a truth teller? He not keep his promise?" I'm blown away and don't really know how to respond. Is he crushed thinking that his hero is a liar...or is he happy thinking that if his hero is not a truth teller, maybe he doesn't need to be either. Hmmm...I quickly attempt to make a teaching experience out of it and tell him that Lightning McQueen learns to be a truth teller in the end and he helps everyone in the town and everyone likes McQueen very much. I don't know if it worked, he was still trying to wrap his brain around this as was putting him to bed tonight. Hopefully, this doesn't turn into anything negative; I'll let you know how it turns out!

Cicadas and trucks sound an awful lot alike!

Oliver really had his lips buzzing in this video clip; you'll have to turn up the volume to hear his "quiet" sounds at the end! :)

And back to the Arboretum we go, this time we had Daddy in tow!

This morning we headed back to the Dallas Arboretum, and if you can believe it, it was even more beautiful this time. There was an Art Fair/Show going on this time, hence the tents in the picture on the left. This was Oliver's Daddy's first time at the Arboretum and we all had such a great time together. Oliver has been waiting all week to be able to show Daddy the Doctor's house and it didn't disappoint; also, we were able to see some of the Storybook Playhouses we missed the first time we went. I was very careful in my picture taking to try to skip any shots I took the first time, hopefully there will be some fun NEW pictures for you to enjoy!

Daddy & Oliver looking out from the Teremok playhouse

My little bunny from the other side

The many faces of Oliver from inside James & The Giant Peach

Daddy & Oliver playing

A new playhouse that we missed last time: The Lorax by Dr. Seuss

Hello, can anyone hear me?

Clayton took this shot of the foliage. We have a Japanese Maple that I love in front of Oliver's window that is just like the one pictured on the right.

This playhouse is from Hope for the Flowers. I am not familiar with the story, but the playhouse was so cute!

Oliver saw another little boy riding the deer, he thought it would be fun to try it himself. Does he look like he is having fun to you? :)

Mommy & Oliver back in front of the Witch's cottage from Hansel and Gretel

Daddy & Oliver peeking out of the Treasure Island building