Olivia the charmer...

Olivia has begun to realize that she is super cute and she can get a nice reaction out of people if she smiles big for them. Usually the stranger will walk up and say something like "She is the most beautiful baby in the world!" (okay maybe I'm exaggerating here slightly, but either way they say something to me about Olive). Olivia takes that as her cue to start the show, and throws out her smile, toothless gums glittering in the light, a sparkle in her eye...Then the stranger will really go gaga over her and Olivia will smile bigger, maybe throw in a little laugh....it's really an endless cycle, but it is cute none the less.

Why you askin' me?

So the day we've been waiting for has finally reared it's ugly head...Annie has discovered that there may be a purpose to life, and other random things that go on during the day. Everything we say is now questioned by Annie and her constant quest for knowledge...why, why, why. Actually it is kind of convenient for us because what Annie actually says is "why-because" one word. When I hear her say that, I think to myself, "Exactly! You just answered your own question...good thinking Annie!" But then I realize that she would probably benefit in some sort of explanation other than the standard because answer. The other day I told her it was time for bed...here is how the conversation went:

Me - Annie, it's time for bed.
Annie - Why-because?
Me - (exactly!) Because it's getting dark and your getting tired.
Annie - Why-because?
M - Because we had a long day and we need some rest.
A - Why-because?
M - Because the earth rotates around the sun and it gets dark out and time marches on and we get sleepy from being awake all day
A - Why-because?
M- Because you can only be awake for so long before you go crazy.
A- Why-because?
M- Because I'm going crazy right now.
A - Why-because?
M - Because...because it's dark outside and we go to bed when it gets dark out.
A - Why-because the sun went to China?
M - Yes! Why-because didn't I think of that? (It's a very catchy word, this why-because...I've started to use it myself. Very effective method of keeping the humor alive while you are driving people crazy with questions)

Update!

Olivia and her hip are fine. We had her ultrasound done yesterday and she did not like it one bit and showed just how strong she really can be. The doctor said she was looking good and no signs of any hip problems. I was really prepared for the worst but was relieved to find that she wouldn't be confined to a brace for months. There is still the question of why her joints are cracking so much, and one leg is clearly fatter than the other but her Ped. thinks it is just part of her development, we are going to keep an eye on it for the moment.

Annie is making huge strides in her potty training (I think mainly because we just bought a huge box of diapers for her). Yesterday she woke up with a dry diaper and went to school in a new pair of undies and came home still dry! I'm so proud of her, she really is doing a great job...finally! Now if we could only rely on her to take care of changing Olivia's diapers...

ps. I meant to tell you earlier, Annie and Olivia are getting a new cousin named Faith, you can read all about Mark and Faith's adventures here...
http://nuetzeladoption.blogspot.com/

4 more months under her belt!

Can you believe Olivia is already 4 months old! We went to her checkup today and everything was going well, other than the long wait. Didn't think that would happen since we had the first appointment of the morning. But anyways...She is up to 14+ pounds, at 75% for weight and height and catching up to her big sister and her big head, stretching the measuring tape to 90% in head circumference. She's doing great developmentally, rolling over, putting things in her mouth and being a good baby. The doctor noticed some movement in her hip joints and we are going for an ultrasound on Wednesday to check if there is a need for her to wear a brace. I'm a little worried but if there is something to correct it is good that they discovered it early! Other than that she is doing great (well not so great tonight, the 3 shots they gave her pretty much knocked her out for the day and she has a little fever) but other than that I dare you to show us a better baby than our own pretty Baby-O.

Bigger...Faster...Stronger!

The other day Annie told Tim that it was going to get colder and colder, and then it would snow, and then she would ski on the snow! Where does she learn this stuff? I'm pretty sure she doesn't remember the one time we took her skiing last year - if you don't remember, there is a video of it here on our website somewhere...maybe in the April archives. Anyways, in addition to that, not a day or two goes by without her telling one of us "I'm getting bigger and bigger, and someday I will play hockey!" Or baseball, or soccer, or swim in a pond. You name it, Annie probably already has plans to do it...once she is bigger that is.

Aye Chihuahua!

It’s days like today that one would wish Blue were a Chihuahua. That way we could easily “accidentally” run over her with the car or something like that. You know it is much harder to get rid of an 80 pound dog. If I have forgotten to fill you in on the saga of poor Blue and her stupid inflamed nerve, I just had an interesting conversation with her doctor. As it happens Blue has been suffering from neuritis in one of her front legs ever since Christmas. It took us over 3 months and a lot o’ moola to figure this out. Now she is on steroids and nerve pain meds and the plan was to wean her slowly off the steroids but that is not working. Anyways, to make a long story short her doc says what Blue is going through is pretty unusual and she wanted to do a biopsy of her nerve and do some other stuff to her to see something…didn’t quite catch everything because I stopped listening after she told me it would probably cost close to $5000!!! Then she went on to give me the numbers of a few people that do acupuncture on dogs…she didn’t recommend any chiropractic treatments (thank goodness, that would have really put us over budget!). Aye-yai-yai, I mean Blue is a great dog, but we could buy like 15 other dogs to replace her with the money the doc wants us to spend on her…or invest that money in training to turn Bailey into some sort of a super-dog that didn’t shed fur all over the place…or we could use the money to hire a hit man to knock off Blue and use the left overs for a sweet vacation…or pay for 2 months of daycare, but that is a different story. I guess there is always a silver lining though and I think the good news is that we decided to try out some other immune suppressing drug and that means a trip to Sam’s club to pick it up, and that means $1.50 hotdog combos!

Happy Birthday to Mambo!

I turned 32 today...I think. It may be 33, but I'm pretty sure it's 32, at least I hope it is...It seems the older I get, the harder it is to remember how old I really am. It turned out to be a great day for a birthday! I woke up to the best rendition of "Happy Birthday" I've heard from Annie, and Olivia smiled for the whole time she was singing it to me. I had lunch with some friends I work with, and made plans to get together with other friends later this week. This evening Tim, the girls and I headed out with a picnic dinner to the local Tuesday night free concert. It wasn't the best band that we've seen, but they were pretty good, and while we were their Olivia rolled over for the second time, and Annie got a spider painted on her arm by a nice lady...she was very proud of it.

We had actually started celebrating my birthday with cake and pizza on Sunday. In my endless quest to find Lima Pub style pizza we decided to give Frank the Pizza King a try. I had noticed this place a few months ago and since the building it is in looked kinda shady and the sign was definitely from the late 70's I thought maybe...just maybe it would be the flour-y crust and thick sauce and burnt cheese, cut into squares pizza that I've been searching for. We walked up and yes! it smelled just like the pub! We ordered and when the pizza came, well, not the pub but pretty good anyways. But don't worry, I've heard a rumor of a pizza place down the road that cuts their pizza into squares, we'll have to try that place next time. Later that night we cut into my birthday cake that Annie and Tim made and I'd have to say it was one of the best cakes I've had...devil's food cake with a jar of drained maraschino cherries mixed in, and a layer of cherry flavored whipped cream in the middle...now that I'm thinking of it, I think I should go upstairs and help myself to a slice before bedtime...Goodnight!

Cue the Music Please...

The older Annie gets, the less and less we get to listen to what we consider to be "good" music, or as Annie calls it "that's not my moo-gik" Everytime we get into the car Annie calls out "Please can I please have my moo-gik?" Since she is being so polite it is hard to refuse her so we are forced to listen too toodler music, which for the most part consists of songs about buses, and colors, and what sounds animals make...you know, stuff Tim and I learned about over 30 years ago...boring...Anyways, I've outsmarted her! We recently discovered that alot of the bands that we enjoyed while in college have decided to direct their attention to kids, probably because they have kids now and they were tired of learning about buses and colors and animal sounds too. Anyways, I have to admit that I am now hooked on the new music we got for her, particularly the one about never going to work by the band "They Might Be Giants". If you are familiar with the Disney channel, you may have heard them - they do the theme song for "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse". I'm also quite fond of the song about the #2...here is a clip from our archives of Annie dancing to it. Usually her dancing is alot better than just running in circles but she was in a groove that day and just went with it.

We're Rolling Now!

Olivia has been squirming around a lot lately. I put her down under her mat gym and a few minutes later she is off on the carpet chasing after another toy. A few nights ago I was awoken early in the morning by Olivia's mobile. Since I was pretty sure neither I nor Tim had turned it on I got a little freaked out. I woke Tim up so he would make sure there wasn't some crazy baby snatcher in the nursery. He came back and said Olivia was turned sideways in her crib and she must have kicked it and turned it on sometime in the night. Last night she started crying, so Tim went in to check on her and she had rolled onto her tummy! Apparently she didn't like it and couldn't roll back onto her back. That's one skill she has beaten Annie too, Annie firs rolled over at her 4 month appointment.

A Series of Unfortunate Events...

What does 3 stops for a puking Annie, 2 tire blowouts, and 1 dead battery all have in common? They all happened to us on our 4th o' July road trip. Not kidding here! We left Denver Thursday afternoon, only slightly behind schedule, made it all the way to Glenwood Canyon and then Annie puked all over herself. Minor setback, we thought. Cleaned up and changed clothes and off again! Made it another 60 miles and Annie threw up again. This time I was ready with a bowl to catch it in! As I was sitting in the front seat trying to catch all the puke, one of the camper tires blew out. Tim skillfully guided us to the shoulder and started changing the tire. The girls and I waited away from the truck, behind a guardrail...I was somewhat scared, cars and semi's going 70 are pretty intimidating! So back in the camper, this time we headed straight to the nearest Walgreens for some anti-nausea med. We also drove past a few tire stores but figured what were the odds that we would need another spare so we just drove on by... The rest of that day went by pretty uneventfully, we got to our campsite where we were meeting our friends Tim and Erin, at dusk and only 4 hours late. The next day the plan was for the 2 Tims to find us a camping spot close to Telluride were we would spend the rest of the weekend, and Erin, the girls and I were going straight to the town to check things out. Once we got there we hopped the shuttle to the center of town and checked out the 4th of July parade which consisted mainly of float loaded with the local kids squirting the tourist with super-soakers. Then we decided to grab some lunch and take the free gondola ride to the top of the ski resort. We ended up riding up with the Mayor of Mountain Village (the town at the top of the gondola) I don't know why that sounds impressive, he was a pretty boring guy. Anyways, here we are at the top of the mountain, and Erin gets a message from Tim - there's been another blowout! The camper spent the night up in some nice peaceful valley were there were no campsites, contrary to the map of campsites we had found online a few days earlier...We spent the night a few mountains down, in the land of the mosquito...lucky for us we had packed our tent! The next day the 2 Tim's set off on an epic journey to find tires...long story and another long day. We spent most of it in our tent, out of the rain and away from the mosquitoes. The next day, Tim and Erin decided they had had enough camping with us and took off. We got a camp site that night in Telluride Town Park. I thought finally! things are turning around! We set up the camper only to discover that the battery was dead...Oh well, it wasn't going to be too cold that night. As we settled around the table for a dinner of hotdogs, Tim raised his beer to a toast of nothing else going wrong. While we were toasting, Annie spilled her milk on me and Tim got up to get a paper towel and broke the paper towel/vanity. Oh well...we spent the evening checking out Main Street, eating tasty ice cream and generally enjoying ourselves despite all that had happened. The next day we packed up and tried to do a short hike to the top of a waterfall...guess what...trail closed due to unsafe conditions or something like that. Probably a good thing - with our luck if the trail had been open we probably would have been crushed to death by a falling boulder. Needless to say I didn't take many photos but here are a few for you to enjoy!

Oh yeah! Forgot, here we are on our 6th Anniversary...photo courtesy of Ms. A - budding photographer

We want cake, where's our cake!

Happy Birthday Uncle Tony! We tried to find some purple polka dots to send to you, but couldn't find any...

ps. Olivia says Happy Birthday too!

Our Girl is 2 and a Half