Happy Birthday Oliver

Today is Oliver’s 2nd Birthday.  We opened a few presents this morning.  Then we spent the majority of the morning at Deanna Rose Farmstead.

The new baby cow’s name was Oliver.

Bella looks like she is getting too big for the stroller.

Oliver loves his ducks!

And Bella loves to swing!

We did not color coordinate…I swear.

Oliver the butterfly.

Bella the caterpillar (might be mixed up, but doesn’t Bella look thrilled to have to put her face in there).

Learning to feed the sheep from the leftover food droppings on the floor.

Bella thinks we are spending too long of time with the sheep.

Bella holds her head up nicely for this photo.

But not when Oliver is in the shot.

And we topped it all off with an ice cream cone for the birthday boy!

Happy Birthday Oliver….hope you had a great day!

More Summer Fun

Family time enjoying the water slide.

BTW- Jesse and Oliver made me go down the slide.  Total peer pressure.  I was pretty sure I wouldn’t make it down and would fall off the side.  Ends up I did make it down, although both Jesse and I almost make it out of the pool on the other end with our momentum (a.k.a – more body weight than a child).
Oliver seems to have more fun watching us go down, than going down himself.  And no we don’t have any pictures of that, and I sure hope we never do!
Also does anyone else hang out in their backyard in their swimming suit and not own a pool?  I feel a little ridiculous, but especially with Bella, if we want to get her in the water, we have to go in ourselves.
Oliver and I made a trip to the library where they have a bunch of learning toys the kids can play with.  He was having a lot of fun playing with magnetic shapes…and surprised me by knowing the shape names.

In Detox

Jesse and I started our 17 Day Diet again.  We did it in the spring last year and were really successful.  Then over the course of a year we both put some weight back on.  Although luckily I only put half back on, so as far as diets go I would say this one was pretty good.  But since we had put some weight back on, we decided to try it again.

It’s day 5.  I have had a headache for all 5 days.  I think my body is mad at me for going cold turkey on carbs.  I am a carboholic!  Luckily this diet isn’t too crazy, only 17 days without carbs and then 17 days with carbs limited to every other day, and then you can put them back in your diet.

Since I am currently in the middle of this diet, along with continuous headaches and going to bed hungry (I could eat veggies if I wanted, but I would rather be hungry and just go to bed than eat a carrot at 7oclock at night), it pretty much explains why I have been absent from both of my blogs this week and most likely next week too.

Also Oliver’s 2nd birthday is around the corner, so we have some things planned for that.  If only I can ditch this headache and get productive….oh and we have a dining room with just a few details to finish…talk about procrastination!

Outdoor Toys

Another week has gone by, here is what we have been up to.

Oliver’s Birthday is at the end of this month, he got one of his present to enjoy now, with it being so hot out.

Helping Dad set up his new water slide/swimming pool.

Bella got a new lounge chair so she could enjoy the outdoors without having to lay on the ground.

Oliver trying out his new pool in the just added freezing cold water.

It came with a boogie board to ride down the slide, he calls it his boat.

He has been enjoying the pool all week.  Even jumping in with his clothes on one morning.  Bella has been enjoying it too, except she has to have mom or dad get in the pool with her (therefore no pictures).  But she smiles every time she is in it!

And so does Oliver!

Happy Father's Day

Trying to get the kids to say Happy Father's Day today.  Not much luck...I think Bella actually spoke more than Oliver did in her video.

We love you Daddy!

It’s Summer

Days are longer.

Bed time is later.

Bella is home more.

More activities seem to happen.

This all means that not a lot of posting gets done on the blog.  So at times I may have a few things to say, but you will probably see/hear less from us in the next couple of months.

Jesse’s birthday was last week, it was also corporate challenge track.

Jesse got a new pair of headphones for his birthday…here is Oliver sporting the new pair, and a bonus picture of Jesse when he was little sporting his dad’s pair.

Jesse did great in the track meet as usual.  His relay teams brought in Silver medals.  Oliver accompanied Jesse to the meet one evening, while Bella and I stayed home.  It was reported that Oliver was well behaved, and enjoyed his time playing around on the field.

And hamming it up with the team winners, even making his way on to the team photo for Jesse’s company.

That pretty much wraps up last week.  Now to see what this week will have in store for us.

Weekend at the Lake

We spent the weekend with friends at Table Rock Lake, who were nice enough to let us stay and entertain us at their house/cabin.

On the way down we had to hit up our favorite little ice cream place…Braum’s.  Can you believe that we can get 2 double dip waffle cones plus 2 kiddie cones for $6?  And it’s delicious!

For the first time ever, Bella ate her entire ice cream cone (minus the actual cone part). 

Saturday morning was overcast and rainy, so we decided to go see the fish hatchery (where they raise trout fish) and had a small exhibit of the natural habitat of Missouri, which included a lot of live examples.

You could even feed the fish.

That afternoon the sun finally came out, so we headed out on the lake.

Oliver loved being dipped in the water…even though it was freezing cold water.

We didn’t get a picture of it, but Bella absolutely loved being on the boat.  Especially when the boat was moving and the wind was blowing on her face, or when another boats wakes would rock the boat back and forth. 

What we also don’t have a picture of, is being pulled over by a water cop.  They were doing check points and making sure everyone had the correct number of life vests aboard and that no one was intoxicated.  Oliver thought the lights on the cop boat were cool…I’m sure he would have liked it more if they played their sirens, but with Bella and Audra (the friend’s child) sleeping, they didn’t want to make any noises.

On our way home we stopped at Braum’s again.  Nothing like an ice cream lunch!

It was a pretty good weekend.  The kids both really liked being at the lake.  Unfortunately we had two horrible nights of sleep with the kids waking up multiple times (storms the first night, and coughing and general fussiness the second night) so I’m not sure if we will be attempting a cabin/lake stay again soon.