:: POTTY TRAINING ::

Olivia and I were walking through walmart when she saw these Minnie Mouse underwear.

Now I had planned on just waiting until she was around 3 to start, but she wanted the panties, so I bought them thinking she would just play with them.

NOPE. She wanted to take off her diaper and go on the potty great grandpa made.

after a full day of her peeing and pooping on the potty with no accidents I thought, "hey! we might actually be doing this!"

I just left her without any bottoms on and I never had to ask if she needed to go.

I would come into the room or turn around and she would be taking herself potty :)

Then next day we put the panties on and she had an accident. Panties off, Perfect.

After she had two accidents and one poop in the panties, She tells me every time and we have gone tree days without any accident.

When we go somewhere I'll go looking for her and find her without her diaper sitting on the big potty. What? Just go on your own? Isn't this supposed to be hard and frustrating?

So basically my child is potty training herself.

We did get her a new Minnie Mouse Potty, The wood one that Great Grandpa made was hurting her bum...

I have heard stories of children reverting or getting sick of going potty, but for now, we'll just enjoy the fact that I don't have to change a stinky diaper!

"Who loves you, Olivia?" "LUKE DOES!"

This girl of mine absolutely loves her cousin Luke right now.

She'll tell me very often how much she loves Luke, and how he is her best friend:)

In the morning she will ask if we are going to "chessa's" house or going to see "yute"

Yesterday, she was very please to find out that Dad had to go down for work and we got to go to Lukes house.

She played all day with him and LOVED every minute of it.

The weather was amazing, so Jessica and I packed up all 4 kids and went on a walk.

*side note: Luke loves to dress up, he was dressed as this lion from 8 a.m. to 7p.m and we even went to target and on the walk with this "MEAN Lion!" :) I can't tell you how many people we passed that would comment to the other.... "did you see that kid!"

Oh man! I laughed a lot at him yesterday!

 This is how the Lion started out. Going strong and super funny to watch riding his trike with his coustume!!!!!

 Got a little tired from riding so fast and crazy so he and to pull his bike instead.

 Gave up completely on the riding or pulling and jumped in the stroller.

we then had to carry the lions bike and push the strollers:)

 Aren't they the cutest of friends!

 "oh hey, Lion!"

We finished the fun night playing on "lions" park in his back yard.

I love watching Liv play with other kids.

She is learning to interact very well and no longer just plays beside them.

This made me Soooo excited for summer to come.

PLEASE HURRY!

::: SICKNESS :::

These last two weeks have been something else. Olivia rarely gets anything other than the usual winter cough or once she had a pretty bad fever. So to say the last two weeks were stressful and full of worry is an understatement.  

It started a couple of Sundays ago when she threw up in sacrament meeting:( Don't worry, i noticed what was going on right away and it didn't get on the floor. That's all the info I'll give on that :) she was so sick all that day and for the next 3 days. To add to it it was all coming out the other end just as bad. 

Getting a little worried, I took her into the dr Wednesday and he  said she was fine just a gastrointestinal virus and it should slow down soon. 

Luckily the throwing up stopped but the other problem was just getting. Worse. So I put up with it for a few more days until this showed up

                               

                               

                                 

Little circle rash that was just coming on like crazy. As soon as this showed up so did the cough and runny nose, so into instacare we went for the first time. The dr we saw wasn't to worried about it and gave her some steroids to help. They should only last a day or two he said.

So when I woke up two days after going in there and it was 10x worse I called her pediatrician. 

                                 

He walked in the room and said "holy cow!" As soon as he saw her! He then had all the nurses and PA's come into see. So sitting there in the office with 7 other people looking at her was crazy :) it was just a reaction to the virus taking over and was not contagious. He got us onto new medications that started to help within minutes. He even called a few days later to check on her:) he is a great dr. 

So after all the pokes she got the last few weeks and all the fun play dates we missed; we headed to centros pizza and got a Nutella pizza!!!! She was the best lunch date!!

Thankfully her skin is all better and the "other" problem is slowly getting better :)

::: OLIVIA AT 28 MONTHS :::

I love this girl!

She makes me laugh, she makes me mad, she makes me tired, but most of all she makes me happy.

This last couple of months it seems like she has turned into a little girl and not my baby anymore.

She talks and talks and talks!

Some of the things I have no idea where she heard it!

I am constantly surprised by the things she is learning and picking up.

( I'm going to have to start watching what I say now )

Here are some of the things she tells me....

O: "Mom, listen."

M: "what"

O: {screams} I LOVE YOU!!!!

Playing dolls with Livi ALWAYS goes like this:

O: "Hi! What are you!?"

M: " I'm (insert whatever doll i haves name), Who are you?"

O: "I'm Mickey mouse ( or whoever)..... Save me!"

M: "Good morning Liv! How did you sleep?"

O: "Dood morning mom, I seep dood in my moo bed"

Or if we are at grandmas, 

"I seep good in donna's moo bed"

O: " Mom, all i want is a moot snack"

Today I was being silly and playing around with her.

Olivia laughing: " Mom! You are so funny!" 

She is absolutely obsessed with her little toys.

They go EVERYWHERE with us!

She will play for hours with them. She destroys the house in the process too.

Everything I own is used as something to play with her toys.

I start cleaning in the back to come to a front room COVERED in toys.

All the toys dumped out of bags and all mixed together is how she rolls.

It's funny because I'm OCD about the toys being put in separate bags and all put nicely away so nothing can be seen.

So after sorting them out and getting the front room cleaned, I'll come find her in the back in a pile of things she has gotten out back there.

I can never win:)

She is still in love with Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

She branched off to sofia the first and doc for a little while, but to my dismay, she has returned full force to mickey :(

She still takes a bottle.

Shame on me I know.

She LOVES the thing.

She gets excited for bed because she finally gets her "bauble!"

I have no idea how i'm going to take it from her.

I told her one day that she was my big girl now.

She replied with....

"No Mom, I a baby. I not a big girl"

I guess she knows how hard it is to become a big girl:)

Man! Can this girl throw a tantrum! 

Luckily if we are at home it will only last about two minutes when I stick her in her room, but oh boy! if we are at a store..... Those are the times she makes me mad:)

She is such a sweetheart though.

Her curls still make me smile.

Her fake smile makes me laugh.

And her kisses melt my HEART

::: 2013 :::

I cant believe that 2013 is already gone.

It was a wonderful year for our little family.

We had the best ups and very few downs :)

Here is a little bit of the main points of our year!

* Josh completely excelled at school, he worked his butt off and passed some of his most challenging classes with A's and B's!

* We took a family trip to PA, OH, NY, and DC

* Olivia went from my baby to my little girl :(

*  Had a fun Borrowman reunion this summer in Enterprise.

*  Spent MANY of our summer hours in Jessica's new pool. Olivia is a major fish!

* Played at parks and watched olivia fearlessly tackle slide after slide.... even a two story one that makes me a little nervous!

* Watched Olivia come alive with her talking. I love having full on conversations with her :)

* Found out we were expecting baby #2 after months of trying.

* Also found out that we Miscarried Baby #2 a week or so before Christmas.

* Got the courage to start leaving Liv with babysitters and had some super awesome dates with each other.

* Got our family pictures taken by someone professional for the first time!

* Found out how much I love to take pictures and worked and worked on my skills. I was lucky to have so many people who were willing to let me practice on them! I'm gonna need people this year too!!

* Olivia turned the big 2 and got her first bike.

* Spent Holiday after Holiday with our amazing families!

2013 was wonderful to us. I am so lucky to have my little family. Josh works so hard to make sure all of us are taken care of and happy. Olivia is the best thing that has happened to us and make our year so much fun and entertaining!!!

2014 is starting off on a very good foot! We have some very hard semesters of school ahead of us, but I know how lucky we are to even be in school and can't wait to see how much we grow and become and even stronger family:)

Wish us luck!

::: BREE COMES TO TOWN :::

Bree got the coolest gift of all for Christmas:

Round trip tickets to see the family for a week sans kids!!!

Of course this means that I packed up and headed to St. George for the week too!

I loved every minute of her being here.

we had a fun girls/cousin lunch at pizza factory

 Got a VERY rare picture of all 8 kids together. 

It's been years since we have all been in the same place at the same time :(

 My favorite was the girls Pedicure! Just the five girls and Mom.

The only thing that would have made this better was if we could have found a place that would have fit the full 9 of us girls. Sorry newer sisters :(

 We had a BLAST!

 not to mention we had pretty toes after!

We need to make this a yearly thing BreeAnn!

I loved every minute of our fun filled week.

I think I have a full 8 piece setting of Yogurtland spoons:)

::: CHRISTMAS :::

MOM FAIL:

I Normally do really good at making sure I have my camera with me or at least take pictures with my phone.... This year I failed HORRIBLY :( Christmas morning was caught on video and then the camera didn't come out again.... so sad.

But, I did catch some events from Christmas eve:)

This year was my families year.

All year long I watched my Mother work her little heart out making the most wonderful gifts for her grandkids!

The woman and her skills are amazing!

Not to mention she has almost 30 grandkids now.

 The fun part is she hands out the gifts and counts down.... from there it turns into a whirlwind of paper and excited squeals from the kids!!!!

3...2...1... OPEN!

Lol i should put the video up, but just know Olivia was so excited about the darling stick horse my mother made.... we didn't see her for the rest of the time we were there.... the kids had a round up and played all night.

Chris made the most delicious prim rib in the world!

I love our christmas traditions:)

My parents started the christmas festivities early so the whole family (besides bree.... we missed you!) could be there.

So we thought Liv would love seeing Santa and Josh's grandparents house.

LOVE is a huge understatement!!!

This girl started in the line up just like the rest of the kids, waiting patiently for her name to be pulled out of his bag.

 Her name was not at the beginning. So excitedly she moves a little closer.

 Come on Santa..... call her name!

 Finally "Olivia" is called out and she Pops up and excitedly jumps on the guys lap!

 "Josh" is called out.... ooohhh!!! Another chance for olivia to sit on his lap!!!!

I love that my child has never been scared of Santa and has always looked forward to her turn.

We traveled home that night and waited for santa to get to our house.

3:30 we both wake up and have to make ourselves go back to sleep.

6 rolls around and josh gets up for a while

when he returns to bed I notice that his hair is wet and all styled

" your taking a video.... I don't want to have bed head!"

Oh man, what have I turned him into?!

I give in and we wake our little girl up.

We shook and shook her and she did not want to get up.... who could blame her, it was 6 a.m!!

"Olivia, Santa came!"

She sat straight up and said "oooooh!!!!"

she LOVED every minute of opening her presents.

Grandma and Grandpa Meacham Spoiled us all.

She made a cute little doll house for livi.

How did we end up so lucky to have two very talented grandmas?!

Christmas was so fun seeing all the family.... but man were we tired by the end of the day!!!

We are so blessed with such wonderful Family and Friends:)