sunday at grandma's

1.) I love that dress Liv is wearing. It was free and courtesy of my friend Angela's sister whom has a daughter older than Liv.

2.) The pictures of Liv and her daddy make me melt.

3.) Liv loves books. No, not having books read to her, but walking around with them, opening and closing them and bringing them to you so you can start to read them and she can insist on being put down and walking around with it some more.

4.) I don't even think I need to comment on how cute that swimsuit is on Liv. It should be illegal.

5.) We had a lovely afternoon at Pat's Great Grandma's house. It was so nice outside and we ate a lot of reallyyy good food. I had to take the taco dip away because Liv was obsessed. I don't know what all was in it, but it was amazing and Liv was spending all her time hovering.

6.) I hope everyone else had a lovely sunday afternoon.

pictures

swinging with her dad

clearly thrilled to be riding the rhinocerous

sliding

this may have been her favorite part of the playground...unimpressed

maxi dress

loving her new room
(that red mark on her cheek is a mosquito bite...my child doesn't have acne...yet)

digging in her toy box

The jist of this post. We have fun together :)

Sleep

Our little family has actually been getting some sleep! Its amazing. I feel like a normal person when I sleep for 8hrs a night. Liv has been sleeping for 12+ hrs a night. This is unusual for her. I remember asking when she would sleep in until 7:30 or 8 so that I could possibly wake up before her. Well....apparently she's decided that Calgary is the place where we sleep in. She may be going through a growth spurt and needing the extra sleep, but I'm going to keep my hopes high that she is now a 12 plus sleeper. She is also still taking two naps a day. Sometimes one is short, but usually one of them is at least two hours long. What can I say?..the girl likes her sleep. I'm not complaining thats for sure.

We are finally unpacked and starting to settle. It still feels like I'm on vacation, but I'm thinking I will snap out of it at some point. Maybe once we move for good and I'm looking for a job. When I'm not working my days seem to blend together. However, its nice to be able to focus on Liv and Pat right now too. Pat's days are pretty relaxed at the moment. He is working on his thesis and working from home for his internship. He has to go into the office once or twice a week. Life is good right now :).

Beautiful

I've won this award before, but since I recieved it from somebody different and I like getting awards, I'm gonna do it again :). Jenny from The Adventures of Two under Two is the lovely blogger that gave me the beautiful blogger award this time. Her blog is one of my favorites to read. Her son, Henry is adorable and she has another boy (Holden) on the way! I can't imagine having two babies under two, but Jenny is supermom and if anyone can handle it, she can :).

Same routine as last time...7 things about me that you may not know.

1.) I love True Blood. I had to add this because Season 3 just started and I'm overly obsessed. I didn't realize how obsessed I was until Pat, Ryan (Pat's brother), and Les (Ryan's girlfriend) were all watching it together and I couldn't contain myself and had to give them all the background information on why everything was happening. They are rookies, obviously. I found myself saying things like "he's a shapeshifter", "he drank vampire blood and now has a weird connection with him", and "oooh ooh, werewolves!".

2.) Sticking with my Vampire theme, I'm dying to watch Eclipse and in celebration of its premiere I'm currently reading "The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner", which in my opinion is way too short.

3.) I hate lip gloss. The only thing I wear on my lips is chapstick, preferrably the spearmint flavor. I own some covergirl amazemint, but only because it tastes like mint. I rarely wear it. Every time I have gloss on my lips, I end up wiping it away within 5 minutes...or if its the amazemint I lick it off. It annoys me.

4.) I hate folding laundry. I find no joy in it whatsoever. I like to go downstairs and repeatedly restart the dryer because I dread folding clothes that much.

5.) I really really like Coke. I used to be a huge diet coke drinker and then when I was pregnant with Liv, my craving was sugary drinks and Coke was my go-to. I can't seem to kick the habit. I think drinking regular pop is better than drinking the diet with fake sugar, but I don't think drinking one once a day is ok...so I try to control myself.

6.) I love Kareoke. If I get a few drinks in me I'm willing to sing Kareoke. I should be more shy because I'm terrible, but I don't know what it is. I always sing country songs and my favorite one to sing is "Play Something Country" by Brooks and Dunn.

7.) I'm double jointed. Just my fingers...it freaks some people out though ;).



7 blogs I'm tagging because I read them on a daily basis....

The Thomas Chronicles

Hormonal Imbalances

Completely Eclipsed

Last Train to Pooksville

The Power of the Pink Lines

Look at the Birds....

Navigating the Mothership

Father's Day

I promise I'll be better about updating. Its been a busy couple of days though. There are a lot of people here that had never met Liv and haven't seen Pat in a year, so we've been keeping ourselves busy.


Yesterday was a great Father's Day. I'm so glad that Pat was able to experience his first Father's Day with Liv. She loves he dad and is happy he's home. To celebrate the day, we went to Pat's Aunt Donna's house and then to his Mom's (Carolyn). Both have nice backyards where Liv could cruise around til her heart was content. She also had a little pool time at Carolyn's, but of course I didn't have my camera. We ate good food all day and it was nice to see everyone again. The last time they saw me I had an inside baby.


Liv has been adjusting pretty well. She didn't sleep well last week when we first arrived. I felt bad though, so I was putting her in my bed. I knew it wouldn't last long, but I thought she needed it in her new little world she's living in. She has been fighting sleep like a champ. Its been a struggle and two days ago I finally couldnt take it any longer. It was nap time and I had been trying to get her down for too long...even after giving up a few times and thinking "well maybe she's not tired". So, nobody was home, just me and her, so I tried again and was determined...no matter how much screaming it took...I would get her to nap. She worked herself up so much and was screaming so loud that I couldn't handle it any longer. I ended up putting her in her crib and wouldn't you know it, she fell asleep! Last night I did the same thing. She wasn't upset when I put her in her crib though. I had been trying to put her to bed for a good half hour though. Its not something I've done before, but I'm not going to physically restrain her so she'll let me rock her to sleep. She went to sleep between 7:30 and 8 last night and is still sleeping! I had Pat just go check on her because I couldn't believe it.


We are making a much needed trip to Ikea today for a dresser and a few other necessities. I unpacked all of Liv's stuff and most of mine, but we need a little storage for it to be complete. I think Liv loves having her own bedroom (I know I love it). She is always going in there and getting things out. I want some sort of storage shelves that have containers that can be pulled out. I think she would love going in there and getting her toys out. She is into taking things out and putting them back into things.


Also, the Stampede is going to start in a few weeks. The Stampede is HUGE here. Its a few weeks long and there is a rodeo that goes on with carnival type stuff. There are beer gardens everywhere and in the middle there is Nashville North. There is always live music going on and two stepping of course. The city seriously goes into Stampede mode. There is a ton of stuff to do. In the community we are in, they just threw a Stampede breakfast. These are put on by different communities or businesses all over the city. My understanding is that they are put on around and during the time if the Stampede. Anyways, we brought Liv here and she was all about it. She didn't really eat any breakfast but she loved seeing all the kids. I like to call her my little creep, because she gets right into their faces and likes to touch them! Its like she has never seen kids before?? She was also in love with this man dressed as a horse (I have pictures). She was seriously stalking him and she is so small that we had to watch her because he was gonna trip over her. She would not leave him alone. We've had a lot of fun so far.

father's day kisses

first father's day

buds

hey maaa, look at my fooooooot!

stampede breakfast - first balloon animal (a doggy of course)

the horse she was OBSESSED with

saying hello

watching the horses

grandma carolyn and liv, kid watching

just up after a nap....relaxing with her dad after a long morning :)

TODAY

Today today today! There is no more counting down...no more, "just one more week, just one more day"....its here! Pat flies in at 8:23pm! I know I've said it before, but I just can't even believe the day has come. I have been waiting for this for a longggg time. Pat is so excited too. He keeps telling me that he can't wait to see Liv and I at the airport :). I'll have to bring my camera and document their first moments reunited!

Until then...here are some of their very first moments.

hello calgary

We're here! Yesterday was a long day, but I really can't complain. Liv slept the entire first flight and most of the second flight, which was 4 hours. It was nice, but not so nice to have a sleepy and sweaty 26lb baby on your lap for half the day. I was very surprised though. I thought that Liv would want to get down and get angry when she couldn't. She didn't try to get down once. I don't know if it was all the strangers or so much going on around her, but she stayed happily in my lap.
Liv was pretty funny at times. She loves air blowing in her face. Fans, wind, or even if you simply blow in her face....loves it. So she loved the air coming down on us! She kept leaning her head back and smiling when it would blow her hair! Every time we landed, I would say "we're here!" and Liv would wave, kind of like she was saying hello toronto and then hello calgary :).

Pat gets into Calgary tomorrow night around 8. I'm so excited that I can't think about it. I can't believe its here!

I haven't updated in awhile, and Liv had a well visit last Thursday with Dr. Mackie. This is the first appointment where Dr. Mackie said she was developmentally ahead of the curve. Obviously the fact that Liv is walking is most likely the reason he said this, but I was surprised because at no other did he say that...its just crazy how she changed so fast. It was my favorite appointment so far because there were no vaccinations! We also got the go-ahead to start mixing formula and whole milk at 11 months. Its something I've been considering so I was glad to hear Dr. Mackie was comfortable with that too. Liv doesn't have another appointment until she's a year...and you can bet I'm making Pat hold her hands down this time when she gets her shots!

I have a bunch of pictures that Dani took when she came home last weekend to see us before we left. The American flag bikini she is wearing is from my mom. She wanted her to have one for the 4th of July while she was in Canada :).

my pretty baby and pretty sister

there's that blowing that she likes so much

ha...they were pouring water from a bottle and she was trying to drink it

loving her pool!

silly girl

calgary bound

We will be on our way to Calgary in a little over 6 hours!! I'm super nervous for the flight. I have about an hour flight to Toronto and then a 4 hour flight to Calgary. Wish me luck because I may have made an 8 hour plus flight to Dublin, but I now have a mobile baby...I'm quite scared!

In preparation I have loaded the diaper bag full of snacks, formula, and a new vtech baby laptop. Now liv has one just like mommy and hopefully all of this plus some yo gabba gabba on the plane will allow for a nice smooth flight.

I will update once we get settled :)

my last few days

Last weekend was busy. Like I mentioned earlier, Taylr had his open house. For those of you that don't know, an open house is a party for highschool graduates. We have food, drinks, and display pictures and scrapbooks and such from over the years. Its a lot of work, but the graduate receives cards and such and makes some money to bring to college in the fall. Pat finds this totally weird, but thats because they don't have this tradition in Canada. I suppose when Liv graduates in highschool we'll have to come to Michigan to celebrate :). Anyways, congratulations Taylr!

This week is packed with things to do. We have family friends coming into town on Thursday and I have a friend and her daughter (Ang and Stella) coming up for the night too. I'm excited to see them again. Liv has a Doctor's appointment on Thursday (no shots!). My last day of work is Wednesday and our work party is on Friday. Dani and Mike will get here on Saturday and then I will need to get my pack on because I'm not ready quite yet. It sounds like a lot doesn't it? It seems overwhelming right now haha. It will go smoothly though. I am just a little stressed out about making sure we see everyone before we leave.

I have a bunch of pictures from the weekend, of course I don't have one of Liv and I together. Thats always a problem I have. OH...and Pat informed me last night that he's going to be home on the 17th, not the 18th! I don't know why I thought the 18th....actually I do, Pat changes plans all the time and forgets to tell me. Ha, but in this case it doesn't bother me at all :).

PS. none of these pictures are in order and I'm to lazy to do it.

Liv playing with her cousins...

Kissing my godmother, Judy.

Liv and the graduate, Uncle Tay

She originally started out in this outfit and had to change because it was too cold. I don't normally change Liv twice a day :)

running, literally

I took this because a.) it shows off the butterfly on her bum and b.) she couldn't figure out for the life of her how to get up this little step.

pretty girl

The Tyra over the shoulder (yes I watch ANTM marathons)

oh you know, eatin' grass