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

Oliver Clayton Royal is twenty-nine months old!

So that time of the month has rolled around again, and I am sure you are all wondering if I will ever stop counting months...well, at least not yet! :) To celebrate Oliver's 29 month birthday, we spent our morning at Arbor Hills Nature Preserve which is only about 5-10 minutes from our house. It was such a beautiful day and we had such an incredible time! We started off our excursion with a little walk, and soon we came upon this bridge, which Oliver was delighted to call his Pooh Sticks bridge. We watched the water, threw some small stones down and just hung out for a little while.

This is our Pooh Sticks bridge -- watch Winnie the Pooh A Day for Eeyore if you don't know what we are talking about

Next we decided to go explore the stream

Oliver threw rocks in the water and dug in the muddy sand and had so much fun...doesn't he look mischievous?

I don't know if you can tell very well from the picture, but I am actually on the other side of the stream. I thought I was being so cool when I used that branch on the bottom left of the picture to cross the stream to take a picture. Too bad it broke on the way back and my favorite shoes got all wet!

After exploring the stream, we spent about an hour at the playground. This week is Spring Break for the school kids in our area, so there were tons of children and Oliver had so much fun watching everyone play and joining in on the fun too!

Before we came home, we stopped to do one of Oliver's favorite things....get the bumpy rider (what he calls our 4Runner) washed. Oliver loves to see the spinney and swishy brushes and asks to go to Royal Car Wash every time we pass. The bumpy rider was definitely dirty from the rain last week, so I was happy to indulge him this morning.

Last on our agenda was his 29 month photo shoot in our living room. Enjoy the pictures!

I don't use black & white for his photos very often, but I thought it fit these two very well

This is his official 29-month picture -- love it!

I tried to get the same pose as last years St. Patrick's Day photo, I think he cooperated pretty well!

Here are some extra pictures from our photo shoot this morning in a collage.

Does this little guy look happy to have his Daddy home or what?

Clayton has been out of town for the past two weeks and will be gone again next week. To say Oliver misses his Daddy when he is gone is an understatement. He is constantly asking me "where Daddy?". Yesterday, Clayton came home while Oliver was napping. When he awoke, Clayton was still taking care of some work things and had to take a call only a few minutes after they were reunited. Oliver was absolutely heartbroken when I had to take him out of the room -- he was sobbing to be exact! It was so sad, but at the same time it warmed my heart so much to see just how much he loves his Daddy!

Oliver & I planned a surprise picnic in our living room for Daddy. This is the only place our tent has ever been used; someday we'll go camping, right! :) Oliver loved playing in the tent and wanted to have all his stuffed animals in there too.

Happy Birthday Aunt Tricia!

I asked Oliver if he could sing Happy Birthday to Aunt Tricia and to my surprise he could. In the past, I always just relied upon him to finish each phrase. Here is a video of him practicing.

He caught me

A cold front moved through last night, so Oliver and I hunkered down in the house trying to stay out of the cold this morning. We were watching Cars his favorite movie and I left the room for a moment. When I returned, I found he had taken the pillows off the sofa and was using them to relax on the floor. It was so precious that I had to grab my camera. I was trying hard not to disturb him so I turned on my camera and zoomed before I was even close, then I snuck up and just as I was about to snap the picture...he caught me. Doesn't he look surprised?!? Oh well, I guess I can't get them all! :)