Goofball!

I have realized this past week that I have been completely off with my time. I'm thinking, "Oh, I have two/the me weeks to get everything finished"..... WRONG!  I am down to less than a week. I have spent my last weekend in this house. Crazy! What a crazy thought indeed. Only 6 more days! :-)

I am so thankful for all of the help that I have received over this last week. My grandmother is in town and his help me a great deal with packing the kitchen and watching Olivia so that I can sort through boxes of old stuff. My sister Kristen has been in town all week as well. Her and I have pushed through all of the rooms to get as much done as we could. My other sister Megan came into town this weekend to help out with whatever she could. I am much further ahead than I was the last time that we moved, and it feels really good. I know that I could not have done this all on my own; although sometimes I like to think that I can.

Olivia has been a pain but a joy to be around all at the same time. As we pack, she likes to unpack. I was telling someone this week that she will really come in handy when we get into our new place. It is difficult to get anything done when both of us are in the house. She does not want to be away from me so she will do whatever is necessary to make sure that she gets mom's attention.

The fires in the middle of the state have created very unhealthy air in Spokane this last week. This meant that Olivia had to stay home while we tried to get things done and did not get to go to the park :-( this week, olivia has learned how to properly climb off of the couch all by herself! She can't even crawl off of mom and dad's bed. I am so proud of this little girl! Thankfully, she is nowhere near able to climb up things. While we were practicing one morning, I was trying to catch her climbing down on video but instead recorded her saying, "daddy"! I do not think she knows what she said but it was very exciting for me to hear. My heart melted. <3 <3 It really made me miss Mike even more.

Here are a couple pictures of our break time today. Hahaha! Aunty Megan got Olivia to smash her face into the side of the pack and play.

The best part of the day has to go to when we were in my room packing up the last few things. Olivia came waddling down the hallway and made her way into the room. Aunty Kristen picked up Olivia and would gently toss her backwards onto the bed. Olivia loved it! She would laugh every time she hit the bed. After a few times of doing this, Olivia decided to stand up while continuing to giggle, and then would raise her arms up in the air and throw herself backwards. It was hilarious to watch! One time, we saw her stand up, her arms go up, and then WHACK! Poor baby! Her head hit the wall. No tears, but a look of confusion as to what had just happened as her aunties and mom had to try not to laugh. Of course there was no way that this is going to hold her back. She took a moment and got back up and started doing it all over again. Not long after this, Uncle Jon showed up. For some reason, Olivia has a difficult time warming up to my brothers and sometimes even my dad. But after a few minutes Olivia decided that he was cool enough to interact with. They spent some time throwing a little soccer ball back and forth. Every time Olivia got the ball and through it she would giggle. She has some strange new last these days. Hahaha! You just have to hear them in person to understand. One of the new ones is the hoarse laugh, I really like this one. Then there is one that you can definitely tell if a class and all of my siblings have agreed that she gets it from her dad :-)

This is a picture of Olivia's first birthday present! Great Grandma Nunes and great uncle Mark got her a new car seat! This one is a 3 in 1 and will last us until she weighs about 100 pounds. We are so very thankful for this gift! It is something that will definitely be used on almost a daily basis.

As hard as Olivia makes it for me to get this packing done, I am so thankful that I have her to cuddle with in the middle of the night and a big, beautiful smile to wake up to each morning.

Overwhelmed and Trying to Stay Calm

So many changes and all at once. I am sitting on my bed with Olivia next to me as she finally drifted off to sleep. You see, it had been a rough night getting her to bed. I know that some people will say, "9:45 and asleep? That is awesome! What do you mean rough!?!" Well, when your child has been going down at 6:30pm, and no matter what time she goes to bed she is up between 6 and 6:30am, but she has been waking up earlier than that, and she doesn't like to nap... it is rough for me. But there are a lot of other things that also make it rough. I was trying for three hours to get her to sleep. I tried just about everything-- minus a bath and a car ride... no bath because she just loves to play and no car ride because she dislikes her car seat and fought me when she was in it for the walk we took to try to get her to sleep.

Moving in itself is stressful. Throw on a bucket full of other stressers and I cannot figure out how i am still getting out of bed each morning. Here are some of my current problems:

1. Packing to move, which happens to be to the other side of the state.
2. My husband has been gone since the end of June and I feel so alone (even though I'm not because I have had so many people come to help me out. But it just isn't the same as having Mike here).
3. We hired my replacement at work and she starts Monday. So I am busy getting everything set up for her.
4. While I'm talking about work, not only am I working up until we move, and thought it, but I have to stay in Spokane and work another week once I am out of this place (yeah, I thought I could handle it).
5. Great grandma Nunes and great uncle Mark are in town to help me so Olivia had to vacate her room. So not only is she not in her room, but she is sleeping in her pack-in-play in my room, and everything is disappearing ands being put into boxes. But she is too young for me to explain that to. 
6. I am not happy with who I am as a person these days and I find that I am letting myself come up with and use excuses to not do things. I am a complainer but I never used to let excuses get in my way. It is very discouraging.
7. We do not know where we are living yet
8. I do not have a job lined up yet :/
9. I  stressed and overwhelmed and I know that Olivia can feel that. I  just afraid that it is rubbing off on her.
10. Olivia is teething again (yay! 7 teeth now!)

My poor baby. I just want her to be able to sleep well. She is such a happy girl and LOVES to laugh. She is too smart for her own good these days :-) and fast!

Great grandma said it was a good day today. That made me feel better. I am glad that Olivia gets to spend so much time with great grandma and great uncle Mark.

Okay, cutest thing ever! We have been trying to teach Olivia sign language ands one of the signs is for milk. Well, for at least the last few weeks, she had been doing this thing where she stretches her arm out and rubs her fingers together. It is really cute but we couldn't figure out what she was doing. Then every time she would do it I would ask her if she wanted milk. She throws her head back and gets this adorable hoarse laugh and reaches for my chest. Ah ha! She is signing MILK! So the other night, I had nursed her and was bouncing her a little before putting her in her bed. They say that as you rock a baby to sleep to not make eye contact because it can give them a rush of adrenaline. So I was bouncing and had my face pointing to the ceiling. All of a sudden I feel these little fingers on my collar bone and then working their way up my neck as far as they could go while rubbing together. She wanted milk... :-) it was the cutest thing. One step at a time but she will be full in communicating in no time!

I want to give her the world and know that I need to work but I also don't want to leave her. With everything going on she is having some separation anxiety. Even when I'm home and someone is entertaining her, if I sneak off to use the restroom, she stops what she is doing, cries all the way down the hall, and bangs on the door until I open it. I love her so much! It really does break my heart to listen to her cry or to know that I played any part in causing her stress or anxiety. I just cannot wait until the three of us are together again and we can put this behind us.

Olivia and great grandma on the IPAD

Goofing off while drinking her bottle

We took aunty Lauren to a place called Wonderland Golf and Games to do some mini golf. Olivia lasted about a hole and a half before I had to take her back upstairs while Lauren and Ben finish the game. So these next few pictures are what Olivia and I did while we waited. She rode on her first carousel! It only has three horses, but it counts! Haha! She also rode on a Tonka Truck. Olivia rode each of them about 3 or 4 times. The first picture is a dancing games. It has bright lights and loud music... yeah, not quite ready for that one :-)

Alright, now that I have gotten that off my chest and pumped, I'm going to go snuggle with my little one.

A Quick Post

Olivia and I were able to go to the west side this past weekend for a friend's wedding. It was beautiful and Olivia loves playing with the gravel during the ceremony. We even got to see daddy this past weekend! He was still sick at that point so Mike and Olivia could not cuddle as much as they wanted. But it was still wonderful to see him :-)

Aunty Lauren came back to Spokane with us! We are so thankful for the time that we get to spend with her; not just because she is going to help with packing and babysitting, but because every summer for the last five or six, she has come to spend at least a week with me. We always try to do something fun every time she's here. She said that she would like to go to Cat Tales, which is a zoological park here in Spokane. I think it would be great to take Olivia to see the lions and tigers. She loves her kitties! Over the weekend Olivia also had the opportunity to meet some horses by Grammy's house. When I saw the pictures that the aunties took, I texted Grandma Sheila and told her that Olivia was going to meet her horse next :-)

Ugh! I had a huge paragraph or two written up and had to go to another page to look at something real quick and when I came back it was all gone... let's try this again.

I know that I had talked about Olivia figuring out how to use an old recorder that I found. The recorder was from an elementary music class that I had taken at Whitworth. It only took her a couple of time watching mom blowing it to figure out how to do it herself. I am so thankful for the musical talent that she has on both sides of her family. We are getting her started young!

Today my boss let me sit in on the interviews for my replacement. It was an interesting experience but really solidified that even if we were not going to move to the west side, it was time for me to pass on my position to someone else. It will still be hard to leave. The last few weeks I have really been thinking about what I really want to do when I get to the west side. I want to make sure that I'm going to do whatever is best for Olivia. I have enjoyed all of the time that I have gotten to spend with her over the last 11 months. However, I know that it would be so wonderful and is important for her to be around other children her age and that her developmental level so that she can continue to grow. Sure, as her mom I can teach you lots of things, but there are just some social cues that she needs to learn from other children. The idea of opening up an in home daycare has been coming up in my mind lately. That way I would be able to stay home, Olivia would be around other children, and I could even do a little bit of teaching in some way. I know that it is a big commitment and a huge decision that would have to be made with Mike and I. Lots of thinking to do.