a bit of a recap

Here are pictures from Halloween through the beginning of December. We've been busy and done a lot. Oliver was a shark for Halloween which he loved. He was telling everyone he was going to eat them up. I remember thinking it was so cold that day. Wow was I wrong. We went to California in the beginning of November to visit with two families we adopted with and to see our family. I'll post separate pictures of the kids from Vietnam. There are too many to go through right now. We had a great time seeing everyone in California.

We did so much with our family. Oliver loved visiting everyone in CA, Aunt Mary, Uncle Mike and Olivia, but he especially loved his cousin Elise. She is older than him and great with him. They were adorable together. Oliver cried for days about leaving Elise. For about a week he would ask when we were going back.

The pictures are out of order. Sorry. It was a lot to go through. Next I'll go through December and post more about what Oliver's been up too. He is nonstop action which is another reason I can never post to this blog. I want to because I feel like time is flying and I'm forgetting everything. Oliver is so much fun. He brings such joy to our lives and the lives of our friends and families. We are lucky.

Merry Christmas

Guess who is 3?

August

August came and went in a blink of an eye. It was a crazy month with a lot of ups and downs. Thankfully it ended on the up side.

They are still working on the house. The kitchen is pretty much done and now they've moved onto the basement. We went on vacation to Montana two weeks ago today. The day before we had to move all of our furniture into our bedrooms so the floors could be refinished.

That Saturday was crazy and Oliver was really confused by the whole thing. At one point, while I was at the store, he wondered into his room that was crammed full of stuff. He got back into a corner and couldn't figure out how to get out. Andrea found him in there. He was crying. She went to pick him up, but he told her no that he wanted her to wash her hands. She and Anthony were painting and she had paint on her hands. She told him it was dry, but he insisted. When I got home he told me that he wanted upies, but he didn't want to get dirty. He was so sad and cute. I felt bad for him.

Our trip to Montana was perfect timing. It was great to be away. We all had fun and enjoyed being outside so much. We stayed in a cabin at a ranch. Oliver thought it was our new home. He told me he was glad that our stuff wasn't all over the place.

Hopefully September will be more normal.

week one

A week ago today we started construction on our house. We are redoing our kitchen and finishing the basement. I promised myself and Anthony that I would try very hard not to stress about the whole thing. It doesn't sound that hard for a normal person, but
I'm such a worrier and stress pot. I keep telling myself that the construction is a good thing and it is nothing to worry about.

So far so good. Anthony even said to me the other day that he was surprised at how calm I was being. Coming from him that's a big compliment. I wish I could be like him. He can just push any worry or bad thought out of his head. I on the other hand have to twist and turn a worry until it is ten times worse.

They are making good progress on the kitchen. I told them I wanted that to be the priority. The builders said three weeks. I don't want to jinx it, but so far so good. I might not be worrying, but I'm still very superstitious. I can't give everything up.

Everything is all over the place. We had to pack up the kitchen and most of the basement. The first day they took down the wall between the kitchen and the dining room. We have our dining room set up as a temporary kitchen. That night I went to cook dinner, but realized that all of the outlets were in the wall they took down. We looked for an extension cord and couldn't find one anywhere. So that night I cooked chili in the bathroom and rice in the bedroom.

Oliver has been great through the whole thing. The first two days he kept saying they were too loud and he wanted them to leave. He was confused and thought they were knocking the whole house down. He asks to go down to his new playroom even though we've explained that there is nothing there yet. We let him ride his bike down there. He's happy about that.

On Thursday we went to my parents for the weekend. It was my Mom's birthday and we celebrated it twice while we were there. The night of the second celebration we asked Oliver if he had fun. Oliver said "it wasn't really Grandma's birthday party it was a pretend birthday." We asked him why and he said "because there weren't real candles on the cake only pretend candles." He had a good point so we didn't argue with him.

While we were at my parents we went to the beach. Oliver really liked it. He spent most of the day digging in the sand. He didn't like the sand all over his hands or in his shoes. He kept asking me to wipe the sand off of everything. Getting away for a couple of days made dealing with the construction a lot easier.

I hope this week goes as smoothly as last week. Although no one showed up today.

buzzed

We have had a lot of fun company lately. Our niece Mary was here for a week and than her sister Erin came this weekend. Oliver loved it. He would stand at the bottom of the stairs and call " Air-in; Mare-ee". When they drove away on Sunday he turned to Anthony and I and said "I"m sad. I want them to come back NOW."

He had already been sad over the weekend. Part of me was glad that it was no longer our fault.

Oliver is usually a very laid back kid. He has never had a problem going to the doctor or having his hair cut. For some reason the last time I took him to get his hair cut he freaked out. Two minutes into it he stopped cooperating. He buried his head into me. His hair was only cut because I held his head up. He was a mess and I felt terrible about it.

Saturday morning we were both saying Oliver needed his hair cut. Anthony said that he could do it. In college he shaved the hair of everyone on the floor. I should have remembered the awful incident where poor Kevin got a cut and the only hair that remained were his initials, KOD.

I figured Oliver would perfer to have his hair cut by Anthony. It started out ok. Anthony cut it into a cute Mohawk ala Maddix. Shortly after that Oliver was not happy. He started crying, but it was done before we knew it.

He was still screaming as I brought him into the bathroom. Anthony and I immediately told him how good he looked. At this point Oliver wouldn't even look at Anthony. He was so mad. Mary tried to talk to him about it. Eventually he went up to Mary and said "Daddy cut my hair off. I look different." She was so good with him. She reminded him of a Yo gabba gabba episode we watched about kids being different. He didn't buy into it. Erin tried too.

Eventually I asked him what was wrong. He said "I'm mad at Daddy for cutting my hair off.". I told him it will grow back, but he said "No. It's on the deck." The poor thing. He hates his hair. Through the weekend he kept talking about how different he looked. That night when we were putting him into bed he told us he wanted his hair back. I told him it would grow back and he asked me if we could get him new hair tomorrow.

Oliver really was so funny and sad at the same time. By Sunday he was kind of getting use to it. When he saw Andrea for the first time he told her he was happy now about his hair because I told him it would grow back. But on Monday again he told me he wanted his old hair back. He wanted to know when it would be back and if it would be really really long.

It is a big change. It might have been a little too short on Saturday, but now it looks nice. If anyone sees him you have to tell him his hair looks good. Anything less and he turns to me with this intense "what did you do to me" look.

It's funny because he is still so young, but at the same time not. He always has opinions. I was surprised by how much this meant to him. I really shouldn't have been. In the winter I moved a painting that was right in front of his play table and he told me he wanted the picture back where he could see it. I guess I just still assume that he'll go along with what we want.

Obviously I'll attach pictures. I don't have any good ones because he was so uncooperative about taking a picture. He really looks so handsome and older with his new hair cut. We love it.

summer

Today has been one of those perfect summer days. The sky is bright blue and there is a warm breeze. I wish every summer day could be like this. It has been so hot here. This weekend it will be back up to 90. My sister in law JoEllen says that she tries not to complain about the weather in the summer because she complains so much about the cold in the winter. I'm usually the same way. I hardly ever put the a/c on. But this summer seems hotter.

Luckily, our town pool opened full time this week. Oliver loves going there. I forgot how easy our days our in the summer. Everything is more relaxed.

I can't believe that it was a year ago that we were at the pool. This year flew by. There were some babies at the pool today. Seeing them next to Oliver was funny. He looked big. He can go into the big pool this year since he is potty trained. They won't let him wear any swimmies in the big pool which means I have to go in with him the whole time. Right now he is happier at the baby pool. I hope it lasts.

Last night Oliver and I were outside as the sun was starting to set. Oliver came running over to me and he looked very upset. When I asked him what was wrong he said he couldn't find his shadow anywhere. I took him to a spot with some sun and he was very happy. He asked me if I could take a picture of his shadow so that he could always see it. So I did.

I hope everyone has a fun Fourth of July.