We're Out of Couches

There are 3 reasons Ryan can't get this flu

1. If he got it, then who would take care of Liv and I?

2. We are leaving for Oregon in a few days

3. We only have 2 couches. Where would he lay?

This was Liv at her worst.

Her worst lasted a few hours. She woke up from nap all sweaty and completely happy. I think the Tamiflu made her puke, but she kept right on playing and was bouncing off the walls begging to eat Chick-fil-a by supper time. I wish I could bounce back like my 2 year old does! Here's me at my worst.

My worst lasted 2 days. Even a mom needs a bear to comfort her. Thank you birthday bear. Both of us are feeling much better than when these pics were taken, but we laid low this weekend so we could get 100% well and not spread the flu love around. Thank you Ryan for taking off work to take care of us. Thank you Jenna and Lo for watching Liv while I sick Thursday. Hopefully we didn't share our germs with you!

Opening Season

Olivia's Patio is officially open for the 2012 year and we've been having fun in it all week! Well, the first part of the week, now we have the flu, but Liv doesn't let that stop her from playing for long. She projectile vomited outside then just kept right on playing!

Don't worry Ryan fixed this mirror.

She likes to be barefoot outside but doesn't like dirt on the bottom of her feet.

She was very concerned about the wasp that kept flying around. I was too.

I'd invite you over to play in the patio with us, but since I told you we have the flu you probably don't want to. But when we are back from our trip to the northwest all the germs should be gone and we can play then!

Mini Steve Jobs

When she pulled these pants up she immediately put her hand in the pockets.

I love it.

Then Ryan said she looked like a mini Steve Jobs. I said oooh maybe for Halloween or is it too soon? He said it's already too late.

(The hyperlink is mainly for my mom who may or may not know who Steve Jobs was. The important thing to know here, mom, is that he often wore a black turtleneck.)

Kitchen Update

Ryan starting sanding and taking off doors and painting while I was in TN and I panicked because I hadn't taken any official "before" pics! See those below. The big news is we chose a paint color for the cabinets! We went with Louisberg Green by Benjamin Moore. Here is Ryan holding up the sample door with sample color. Isn't he talented?! (for building the door not holding it up)

I actually like our kitchen in pictures. But up close and personal is another thing. The cabinets are made of thin cracked plywood as I tried to capture in an up-close photo, but it doesn't show up too well.

None of the doors and drawers match. The hardware doesn't match. It's all painted with a flat finish so they are impossible to clean. And the molding the previous owners added isn't even matched up in the mitered corners on most pieces. Here is a close up of my husband's handy work....

Such a great improvement. So here are the before pics.

You can see where Ry removed the doors on the one side to begin sanding. And yes sawdust is prevalent.

I'm really excited about this area by the back door.

The right is our hot water unit and we will paint the doors to it with chalkboard paint for me to write the weekly menu on and Liv to draw on. There is a small pantry to the left that we don't use at all except for holding plastic bags and dog food so we plan to tear it out and build a little bench/coat rack /tiny mudroom area. I'm so pumped about it! And here's another angle with missing doors. Anyway that's enough pics for now.

Now we just need to keep sanding and painting. Then we can hang em up!

We had our first snafu of the remodel. The fabric I chose is out of stock and can't be found anywhere. The back up fabric is also sold out. I possibly threw a 3 year old like tantrum when this occurred. Then I tried to go fabric hunting yesterday and the 2 places I drove to were out of business, or moved without a sign as to where. I took that as a sign from God to stop searching and I postponed the fabric hunt til this Friday. I also came to that conclusion when my gas light came on and I realized my wallet was missing. Don't panic, someone saved me and my wallet was in Ryan's car.

I'll add paint to the official/unofficial kitchen tally: $52.00

I realize it's the expensive kind but I hear from the pros on the web that it's worth it, and considering I hate the finish that's on there now I'm more than willing to splurge.

(I just google snafu and apparently it has a bad acronym associated with it. I did not know this. Maybe it was given it after the fact. Who knows)

Wild as a mink, sweet as soda pop

Oh man these TN pics are just so fun...to me. Maybe not to you, and if not then just stop reading here because that's all this post is about. Until tomorrow...then I'll show you some kitchen updates :) Hint: it involves painted doors! Enough of that though. This is my friend Katie. I think we became friends in 6th grade when I was trying out for the basketball team....go ahead laugh, I am too. Then we remained friends who had all sorts of inside jokes that we still remember but don't remember the meaning behind them.

We didn't keep in touch much after high school but we reconnected at the reunion and made it a point to see each other when I was home this time. She has two of the sweetest little boys and they have the cutest little southern accents. It made me a bit sad that Olivia won't ever have one. It was a fun but short visit and I hope we are able to see her every time we come home!We worked on our emotional faces with the cousins while in TN. This is happy...could you tell? This is sad...apparently Rachel is too awesome to ever feel this emotion and doesn't know an appropriate face.

And everyone's favorite emotion...surprised!

When they weren't making faces they were playing puzzles

and constructing towns from Lego's and Fisher Price little people.

And lounging on the couch

Even though Celeste had to work, Liv and I went back to her house to hang out with Madelynn and Madelynn's Nonna Donna. Liv tried to force a paci in her mouth.

Then she gave up and hung out in her swing.

Dear Madelynn, You will not get to know me very well since I live so far away. But I will try to spend as much time as I can with you when I am in Henderson. Your mom and I go WAAAAAY back. If you ever need dirt on her just call me up. You think that's funny? Oh I have funny stories about her too. This one time we were at Chickasaw....oh wait you aren't old enough for that story yet. Go ahead and laugh though it's a good one. Another time we staged her garage to look like a murder scene which didn't make her dad too happy. Then we tried to hold a seance to bring Conway Twitty back from the dead. It didn't work. Yep we were pretty silly and it was probably most of my idea. You're mom is the yin to my yang. She has been giving me level headed advice for about 20 years now and although I've never listened to her, I probably should have. I love you from far away and if you ever need to run away just head straight west on I40 and I'll see you in about 10 hours. You can bring your mom if you want. But tell her I won't be taking any of her good advice. Ok enough of those McPeakes. Here's a lovely posed photo of Liv with her Pop and Poppa!

Liv and Aunt Amy took turns on the swing.

Here we are saying goodbye to Papa and Grammy in Conway, Arkansas with some Hendrix college 1901 alumni in the background. My mom looks like she doesn't want to be a part of our family but I promise she does. Liv was pretty excited to see daddy but I got no pics of that. She was anxious to show him her latest boo boo. They played in the backseat most of the way home while I drove for awhile. She read him books until he fell asleep. I also got no pics of that because my hands were on the wheel and my eyes on the road. When we pulled up in our driveway after the 10 hour car trip Ryan and I were cheering and Liv started crying. "No mommy, not home, go back Tennessee." Poor kid. Don't worry....we'll be back this summer. You have about 3 months to prepare for our return, Henderson!

Half bear the other half cat

Seriously if you don't know the lyrics to Rocky Top you should read them, then scratch your head, then sing them, then sing them loudly. It's a pretty weird song that I hope Liv will learn after a few years of singing it while we drive over the Mississippi River and cross into that glorious land of Tennessee. I can never remember all the words but that doesn't stop me from singing it at the top of my lungs while we drive over that bridge! (Don't be jealous, Oklahoma, I sing your song loudly too.) Anyway here are some pics of the fun we had.

Liv got better at her tricycle skills with Grammy.

She had a Veggietales dance party with Amy and bears.

She got to spend lots of time snuggling and reading.

Can you tell she loves her Aunt Amy?

While Grammy kept Liv entertained I got to go play at Celeste's house. We had a slumber party one night and then I got to wake up to sweet Madelynn's face. More cute pics of her later.

Even bath time was more fun with Aunt Amy there.

Liv found Pop's secret stash of Vday cards from all the ladies at Southern Oaks.

We often went "shopping for fruit snacks" in the driveway with her shopping cart.

Jessica (why did we not get a pic together?) and her son Aidan came over one day. He and Liv were cooking in the kitchen all morning.

Look how adorable he is! And he's good with plastic utensils!

Uncle Joe even got in on the fun. Ok that's enough pics for now.....

More to come!

P.S. Only fail moment of the trip: Our car crossed over the 100,000 mile point and I missed taking a picture of it and didn't even notice until it was like 100,051. Boo!

Newsletter: 30 Months

Dear Olivia,

Oh my, you're 2 and a half! And the sass is quickly multiplying! We've really had to be patient with you this month as your attitude can be quite challenging at times. One of your favorite phrases this month has been "NO, I not!" and you say it with such force and with a scrunched up defiant nose that I want to laugh and throttle you at the same time.

But of course your adorable traits have outweighed the challenging ones this month. You've been talking about your sister every now and then and when I ask who your sister is you just smile and stop talking about her. Well, while we were in TN you gave this imaginary sister a name, Sappy. You'd have to go upstairs to "check on sister Sappy" and you'd lock her behind random doors. I didn't think imaginary friends came so early but it's entertaining!

We were in Tennessee all last week and I absolutely loved watching you play with our family and with my friends' kids. It was a pretty surreal thing to watch my daughter play with kids whose parents I spent many years playing with too.

Aunt Amy gave you baths and blew bubbles and had dance parties to Veggietales with you. Papa and Grammy took turns playing with you, going to the park, reading books, and looking at pictures on the computer with you. Then of course there were cousins, Pop, aunt, uncle, and Joe who also had fun keeping you entertained! No wonder when we pulled up in the driveway to our house today you looked at me and daddy with a pout on your face and said "No home, go to Tennessee." You almost started to cry until Daddy and I reminded you of the toys inside and Charlie and your bed. You kind of perked up but I think you miss TN already.

You still love to read and spent much of the 10 hour car ride reading different books to yourself in the back seat. Your current favs are two hand me down Thomas the Train books we got from BenDes. We have been reading them every day at nap time. If I start reading a book before nap time that you don't like you'll close it and say "it's too yate to read dis one mama, too yate."

I've been playing a CD in the car a lot that Lauren made you when you were a baby. We've heard it so many times now that you request certain songs by name and say you want to dance to them. Your favorites are Moonshadow, Moon River, and Don't Worry. You've also gotten really good at singing more church songs lately especially Blue Skies and Rainbows. You caught me off guard one day when you started making up a song while going to the potty. You just kept singing "Jesus holy my shepherd" over and over again and all I could think of was your cousin George who also makes up wonderful church songs.

When something is hurting you or bothering you this month you've started saying "It's heeeavvy!" In a frustrated tone. Sometimes you use the word correctly but usually it's just when anything is bothering you. For example public toilets might be too heavy, your car seat might be heavy, a toy across the room might be heavy, you aren't trying to lift any of these things, they are just annoying you in some way.

You've been waking up earlier lately (before 8:00) and sometimes if I'm not ready to get out of bed I'll let you crawl up with me and play on the ipad for a few minutes while my eyes open. One morning, you were laying beside me playing some game and looked over at me and said "Mom, Thomas the train have facebook?" I died laughing and was disgusted at the same time that a 2 and half year old even knows what facebook is but I figure you hear us say that phrase a lot since it's how we find out so much news (and gossip) with our friends. I said we could find out and sure enough Thomas the Train does have a facebook and we looked at it a few minutes before getting up to eat breakfast.

Most days and nights in TN you were fine to let Grammy put you down for naps or bed time but the last night we were home I think you got a little scared when we were saying good bye to cousins and you thought I was leaving you too. You got a little teary eyed and said you wanted me to read books to you in bed so of course I did. We sang songs after I turned out the light and you squeezed my neck and patted my cheek and said "Myyyyyy mommy" so sweetly I almost cried. And you'll always be myyyyyy Livvy!

I love you,

Mama