Remember when you used to blog?!

This was the question posed to me recently by my dear friend Bethany. I do, in fact remember such a time. It was approximately 6 weeks ago -- the same time that every project I was involved in at work blew up and I went from a nice, in-house, part-time schedule to working around the clock and remembering why I left a big law firm!! But, things have slowed down a bit now, so I figured I should take the chance to catch up while I can. So....here goes!

Winter Storm 2014

Houston suffered a “terrible” winter storm a few weeks ago that included 2 “snow days” for Miss Olivia.

 

Luckily, one of those days was on a Friday, so she and I met up with the Williams girls for a day of fun at Happy Playland. These blurry pictures pretty much sum up the afternoon. I love the relationship that Olivia has with Sofie and Minah. They really are like sisters, taking care of each other. Makes my heart swell!

The other day was on a school day so Matt and I took turns taking care of Olivia. I took the morning shift and we started the day by making popsicles -- because why wouldn't you do that on an ice day?!

Then we watched some Sesame Street on the iPad...in our undies. Again, because why wouldn't you do that on an ice day?!

After a few hours, we were both going a little stir crazy, so we discovered the wonder of Memorial City Mall – a little toddler gem only minutes from our house! I can’t believe all the great stuff that exists here – a carousel, train, escalator (?!), Build a Bear, and a Chic Fila. What more could a two year old want?!

Potty Training Boot Camp

I also decided to use the winter storm and forced home captivity to focus on some potty training. We have been doing some “Potty Training Lite” for several months now, but it didn’t really seem to be taking. I guess both Matt and I just assumed that at some point she would start telling us when she needed to go, as opposed to us simply taking her every 30 minutes. But when that didn’t happen after several months, we started to get a little nervous. So, I read about and got some good advice from friends and decided to try out a Three Day Potty Training.

We “modified” it a bit to fit our schedule, but I think it was still effective. For me, I think the difference was that we put a big emphasis on forcing Olivia to be conscious of her own signs of “potty readiness” as opposed to us making her “try” all the time. I’m sure we will have accidents going forward, but for now, she is doing GREAT!

Fashionista
Olivia continues to have strong opinions about everything, including and especially what she wears. She only really likes to wear dresses and patterned leggings. Here are a few of her latest masterpieces.

Funny Quotes
Matt and I continue to get a big kick out of the things that Olivia says. A few of our favorites recently:

1. I had to renew my DL, so Matt took her to school one morning so I could head to the DPS office. Apparently on the way to school Matt explained the process of getting your driver’s license to a fascinated Olivia. She then wanted to see Matt’s DL. The picture was pre-baby and pre-stressful life, so Matt was a few pounds lighter and had a bit more hair. Olivia looked at the picture and said “Oh. This was when you were a baby, daddy?”

2. Olivia still has a VERY short attention span. She won’t really sit still to watch an entire TV show. But, in those moments where you really need her to sit still (i.e. you have to go to the bathroom and want 2 minutes of privacy!!) we have found that Olivia loves her some You Tube. She can watch short little videos and has control to change things she doesn’t like. [On a side note, sometimes it seems Olivia doesn’t really care about what is on YouTube, she only cares about what else is on YouTube.] Either way….she clearly watches too much YouTube because the other day she said “Mommy, look at me.” I looked over to see her moving her hand in a circular motion. I asked her what she was doing. She got a big grin on her face and said “I’m buffering!” We took the iPad away immediately!!

3. Olivia is pretty fearless when it comes to her own safety. I’m not sure if this is a common thing for 2 year olds, or if ours just happens to have little disregard for her own personal well-being, but it causes this safety-conscious mamma lots of angst. The main culprit in her care-free attitude is one Matt Dean. Ever since he got her first little shriek of excitement, he has loved throwing her around. Literally…Throwing. Her. Around. !!! So, it was no real surprise to me when we were at Happy Playland and she climbed up the ladder and reached out her little arm to do the monkey bars, all the while knowing I was a good 50 feet away from her. I sprinted over in time to catch her as she plummeted to the ground. She of course, burst into laughter and demanded to do it again. 

This video of her on Matt’s pull-up bar will give you some sense of what I saw.

So…a few weeks ago, Popo and Tutu were visiting and Olivia wanted to show them how she “falls.” Matt went to get the bar and said “Everyone has to do a pull up. Popo is going first!” We all laughed until Popo mentioned that Olivia was stripping down naked. She pulled down her pants and undies, ran to her room, and came back holding a Pull-Up (i.e. a diaper!). Pretty cute.

Sesame Street Live

And we took Olivia to see Sesame Street Live. I bought the tickets MONTHS ago when they were on a GroupOn sale. I wasn't sure how she would do sitting still for that long, but she actually did really great. She was pretty amazed when it started and sat pretty still for about 10 minutes (pretty long time in Olivia world). But she soon got antsy. We were sitting in the first row, right by the edge and Matt and I were both nervous that she'd fall. So we snuck back to some empty seats and she spent the entire second act dancing around, and eating cotton candy and pizza. She had a blast!

After a long show, I asked her for 1 more picture. This was the best I could get (she's yelling at me here "no more mommy, ok?!"):

Which may explain why this happened about 4 seconds after we got home!

Valentines Day
We had a nice LOVE day this year! I had the best of intentions for making these complicated Pinterest-inspired Valentines for Olivia's friends. Then work got crazy, so I bought some DIY valentines. And still, days before V-Day, they were still sitting on my counter. Luckily, Matt went out of town and my sweet parents came to stay with me. This night was the perfect example to me of how you're never too old to let your parents take care of you! As life gets crazy sometimes and my focus is on taking care of Miss O, its nice to know that my parents are still here to take care of me. After an afternoon of playing with Olivia, we put her to dinner and sat down to eat ourselves. After dinner, I went back to work while my sweet daddy did all the dishes and my wonderful mother made all Olivia's valentines. SO THANKFUL!

Luckily, I did have time to make a few valentines for Olivia's teachers

And we had to get Olivia a little present, which she loved!

And, Matt and I enjoyed a MUCH NEEDED date-night, as well.

Okay folks -- that was the extra quick version of February. Glad it was a short month and I was able to catch up. March should be another busy one with Matt traveling the first THREE weeks!