Who remembers Reading Rainbow?

At our house we love reading!

It is amazing to see the progression from when Olivia was a little baby and how she is now when we read with her.  When we read now she studies every page, really looks at the pictures, points to the animals when I ask where they are, and turns the pages for me.

I just love watching her learn and grow - it is SO AMAZING! 

Also - I may just be a book hoarder! I love kids books and get very board with the ones we have!

Wordless Wednesday

This makes my heart happy! Love when these two play!

Memorial Day Weekend on the Lake

We spent Memorial Day weekend at the lake this year (as we almost always do!)

It was a bit chillier than years past... never warming up past sixty degrees and it hardly stopped raining. 

Didn't stop up from having a great weekend though! Got the boat lift and dock in, the husband went for his first (freezing cold) ski of the year, and some quality playing with the baby!

A picture recap of the weekend....

The lake.

 Dan and his Dad putting the dock in.

Boat lift time! Notice the wetsuits on May 26th - the water was very cold! 

 Skiing time!

Only boat on the lake.

Olivia's favorite new game - throw the blanket over her head and play Peak-a-boo!

There she is!



Happy Memorial Day - Let us never forget the men and women who gave the ultimate sacrifice!

Palmolive® Soft Touch™ Product Review

A couple months ago I signed up for Influenster.  Influenster is a free-to-join community of invited trendsetters who live to give opinions of products and experiences.  Influenster creates links between brands and members to reward participation and influence future products.  Basically, Influenster is a place for cutlure junkies to come togeter and share their unique opinions of products and experiences.  Active members of Influenster get exclusive access to deals, promotions, and swag from brands that thrive off the input (the good, the bad, the ugly -- they just want to know what's up).

So a week or so ago, I received a wonderful box from Influenster - the Palmolive Soft Touch Box! Much to my surprise they sent two full bottles of dish soap and a load of coupons (I can get on board with that!) I was really expecting travel size/sample size bottles - not the actual large bottles!

 

If anyone loves coupons - it's the ladies I work with.  So they were the lucky recipients of the awesome Palmolive coupons! We were instructed to take a bottle and share a bottle - my mother-in-law received the Coconut Butter Palmolive! She is very excited to use it!

The two bottles I received were the Palmolive Soft Touch Vitamin E bottle and the Palmolive Soft Touch Coconut Butter.

So on with the review:

My favorite pick between the two samples was the Palmolive Soft Touch Vitamin E.  While I enjoyed the scent of the Palmolive Soft Touch Coconut Butter, I think the overall performance of the Vitamin E was superior.

Of course, the Vitamin E is the perfect shade of pastel pink, which I love. And the scent, while not overpowering, is enough to make me a regular buyer.

Every time I do the dishes (which seems like every day with all the baby bottles!) about 10 minutes after I finish my hands just ache because they are so dry.  Both samples use the "soft touch" technology, and really left my hands and nails lotion-soft. It is true what they say - Palmolive is tough on grease and soft on hands!

Maybe I'm partial to the color pink...or love that extra dose of skincare while washing the dishes, but Palmolive Soft Touch Vitamin E gets an "A+" in my book.

If you're a coconut butter fan and have extra-dry hands, you'll likely love the Palmolive Soft Touch Coconut Butter dish liquid.

Overall, both soaps worked great, smelled good and looked pretty sitting on my counter.  The pink Vitamin E soap slightly edged out the Coconut Butter soap - purely because I love the color pink!

 

Sparkling clean dishes, soft on hands, dermatologist tested - this dish soap does it all! Palmolive Soft Hands dish soap can be found at Walmart.

 

So there you have it, my honest to goodness review. 

Disclaimer: I received these items complimentary from Influenster.  All opinions are my own.

Growing...

I seriously think my baby is going through a major growth spurt!

The past three nights she has had three bottles! One right before bed (normal), one about 5 hours later (not normal), and one in the morning about 5am (normal).  She does really good, eats her bottle then goes back to sleep.  Those are the only times she is up.

Hopefully she doesn't grow too much! I just bought new summer clothes!

She is still a really good eater! We are so lucky!

Olivia's 9 Month Photos!

We got Olivia's 9 Month photos taken a while back and just got the disc in the mail.  Christy Bode Photography took her photos again (took my maternity photos and all of Olivia's photos).  She is so great to work with - we love her!

Here are a few of my favorites!

Our trip to South Dakota...

We spent this last weekend visiting family out in South Dakota. 

I was super nervous about having Olivia in the car for 10 hours.  We decided to try it two ways.  On the way out we left at about noon on Friday.  Most of the drive was spent awake, happy and playing.  We stopped a couple times to get out and stretch our legs and to eat dinner.  She took two hour naps randomly in the car which was great.  I was so happy with how she did! She hardly fussed at all!

On the way back we left right after dinner.  Our plan was to feed her, play with her for a couple hours then she would go down for sleep the rest of the trip.  That is mostly how it went... She slept for a majority of the trip, she woke up at about 1am for about an hour.  We played, drank a bottle, read some books then she was out again.  The way back went equally as well as the way out.

The next time we go out we will probably do it the same way.  We took Monday off to catch up on sleep and laundry and took the baby to daycare.  By having her sleep the entire drive home at night, she stayed more on her normal schedule then she would have if we traveled during the day.  She was a little off at daycare today - very clingy.  When she got home she was a bit off too.  Whenever I left the room she would she would have a break down.  Hopefully she is better tomorrow!

Overall the trip went great! It was so good to see my family and to meet my newest nephew.  The only bad thing is that I didn't take ANY pictures! That is so unlike me, I can hardly believe it.   Next time I guess. 

Olivia's 9 Month Photos taken by Christy Bode Photography

Happy Thursday

Simply Amazing

I was signing into my yahoo email yesterday and this story popped up on the front page. 

It is a post by Jamie C. Moore Photography about her daughter who just turned 5. Instead of doing the usual Disney Princess photo shoot she went a different route.  Real Women.  She says,  "REAL women for my daughter to know about and look up too, REAL women who without ever meeting Emma have changed her life for the better. My daughter wasn’t born into royalty, but she was born into a country where she can now vote, become a doctor, a pilot, an astronaut, or even President if she wants and that’s what REALLY matters. I wanted her to know the value of these amazing women who had gone against everything so she can now have everything."

So inspiring. This is what I want for my daughter.  Real hero's.

Hat's off to Jamie, such an inspiring idea and her photos are just gorgeous.

9 Month Update!

Olivia is 9 months old!

 

It is hard to believe how much she has grown in the past 9 months.  She was so tiny!

At 9 months old she weighs 19.6 pounds and is in the 76 percentile for her height.  She is (and has been) in her big girl car seat and LOVES it! She can see out the windows and has so much more room. 

She is still standing up on everything and is quite daring when it comes to just letting go and standing there!

She loves 'beeping' people's noses, clapping, waving, getting tickled and not sitting still when getting her diaper changed! She is definitely on the move all the time!

She has TWO teeth! Both on the bottom and they are pretty darn sharp.

She can do "So Big!" and claps her hands afterward - the cutest thing ever!

She can still be a snuggle bug if she is in the mood - but when she is not... watch out! When she doesn't want to be held she will let you know!

She is still eating very well - mostly baby food with real food mixed in.  Loves apples and cheerios and lunch meat and well pretty much everything!

Love this little girl so much! She is such a blessing!

Happy Friday!

Some happy inspiration for today!

Vents Day...

Every once in a while you just need to let out a good vent.

Today - my vent is how Facebook seems to be turning into Pinterest!

Some things are great together.  Like peanut butter and jelly, Rachel and Ross, Summertime and flipflops.

I love Pinterest and I love Facebook. I just don't necessarily love them together.  Lately my newsfeed has been jammed up with everything I have already seen on Pinterest. It's just more annoying then anything.

And that ends my rant.

Now for the main attraction..... a picture of my adorable little girl who has her first ear infection :( After we got some antibiotics in her she was back to her happy self!

Playing in the Grass

We played outside in the grass for this first time!

Olivia thought it was interesting to say the least.  She was wearing capris and did not like the feel of the grass on her legs at all! She was ok when she was standing up though!

We are loving the warm(er) weather! She loves going on walks in the stroller - looking at the trees, birds, cars, people.... pretty much everything!

She had officially had enough at this point!

Mama and Mini!

We had a very busy weekend!

We did quite a bit of shopping, had Olivia's 9 month pictures taken, played with the chainsaw to take the branch down, and did some marathon playing!

It was so nice yesterday that we decided to take some Mommy and Me pictures!

Can you believe that the woods in the back of our yard is just starting to get leaves - amazing.

Olivia's outfit was a gift a while back - I think it is from Kohls. My shirt is from Maurices.

I love this one because you can see her one tooth!

When the baby gets tired of wearing her cute clip - mama can wear it!

Gorgeous clip is from Pretty Little Elm! Love it! She has amazing stuff - check her out!

Bye bye branch...

All that snow yesterday (and it is still snowing today, yuck!) and this is what happened to our tree.

I am super bummed out for two reasons. 

1.  I really wanted it to fall on the deck, not beside it! We need to repaint the deck AGAIN.  If the tree had fallen on it, we could have replaced it with the plastic composite decking that you don't have to paint!

2.  That branch provided some AMAZING shade for the deck and privacy from the neighbors.  Now that it is gone we can see right to the neighbors and there will be little to no shade.  Sad face.

Oh well, what can you do right! I guess clean up the branch and re-paint the deck.

It really is May right?

Last week we were strolling along in this...

This morning we woke up to this...16 inches of snow!

Our deck - so much snow!

This tree looks like a Weeping Willow but it is not! It usually does not cover the front window!

Guess we aren't grilling tonight...

Hope it melts fast! We want to see the SUN!

I really want the weather to warm up so I don't have to buy more winter clothes for the baby - we are stretching the ones we have now! She should definitely be up a size!

The best age is.......

Can you believe that it is already the end of April? The past 9 months have gone SO quickly!

Every different age I can't help but think.... This has got to be the best age ever!

When she was an newborn - I loved every single minute.  How tiny she was, how she was mine, the bond with breastfeeding, how she grasped my finger and slept on my chest.

When she was a couple months old - watching her take everything in, her first smiles and giggles, learning to move!

When she was six months old - watching her explore new foods, crawling, really playing and having favorite toys, learning her ticklish spots and getting those giant laughs from her!

And now, almost 9 months old - watching her zoom up the stairs like she has been doing it all her life, big hugs and wet kisses, listening to her 'talk', how she yells at me when I don't get her her water fast enough, how she points at everything now, her giant smile every time she sees me, how she loves every single picture of herself.

I could go on and on.   This little girl has my whole heart and I really never knew what that felt like until she came along. She is so inquisitive, loving, happy and playful.  I love the crap out of this baby.

When we talk of future kids my husband has said that he just doesn't know if we should have anymore.  We had always planned on it but his new reasoning is that he doesn't think that he could love another child as much as he loves Olivia.  I know we are both first time parents and every parent must feel this, but I kind of feel the same way right now! I know that we will be able to love another child just as much and I keep telling him that.  We don't need to worry about it right now, we have time.

I am just so happy that we got this happy little girl.  She is my world.