outside a little

Yesterday was warm. It was in the 40s. I took advantage of the "warm" weather and we spent a lot of the afternoon oustide. It was nice to see Oliver riding his bike and scouter. I think this is first time that I've played outside with him in two months. I know it's terrible and I should be taking him out more, but I hate the cold. Anthony has been great about having him outside. They play for hours in the snow and go on long hikes in the woods.

Tonight while I was in the kitchen working on dinner Oliver came and said he wanted to have a conversation with me. We sat down together and he said "Mom how do I stop growing? " He touched the top of his head and said "this is as big as I want to be. How do I start growing down?" I smiled and laughed at him. I asked him why and never got a straight answer. I think I know what it might have something to do with. Lately we are making him do more for himself and we are telling him that he is a big boy.

We had another really funny conversation the other day. It's a little dirty. Sorry, but I really want to remember this one. Oliver and I were in the bathroom because he said he had to go potty. As I was unbuttoning his pants his "oh shoot Mom, I crabbed my pants." I just laughed and told him that was ok.

Otherwise we are surviving this long winter. We visited my parents in Florida about two weeks ago. We had beautiful weather. It was great to be able to walk around in short sleeves and flip flops. Oliver likes the winter, but while we were there he told me that he was glad that he didn't have to wear all of the clothes I make him wear at home.

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.