Olivia's 1 year check-up

Due to a thing called Ike (you may have heard of him) Olivia's 1 year doctor visit was postponed until today. She is doing great and was right on target with everything. She was a happy girl waiting for the doctor to come in.

She is 30 3/4 inches long and weighs 29 pounds!!! My little chunky monkey!

Unfortunately my happy girl got sad really quick when she had to get 2 shots and do a blood draw! I opted not to do the flu shot today because she was already getting pricked so much! We will go back in a week or two for that. Next check up is 15 months!

Still smiling

Can I just say that we are still smiling over here? We are still so happy to have our power back! I truly have a new appreciation for modern "comforts". Getting our electricity back on late Friday afternoon, started our weekend off to a great start! Before it had come back on, some friends had invited us over for dinner knowing that cooking was difficult at our house. So after unplugging all the cords from the generator (and man there were a bunch!) we headed over for a fun night of dinner and just hanging out. Saturday we just spent the day around the house...I was loving being able to wash clothes, vacuum, run the dishwasher, etc. to get the house back in order. I hadn't been able to do any of those things so it actually felt good to get it all done! Then Saturday night we went to a going away party for some dear friends who are moving up to the DFW area :( We had a good time that involved lots of wine and a few tears! We will certainly miss them and Jacob will miss playing with his buddies! He and Andrew gave each other the sweetest hug good-bye it made us cry!!! Good luck Roberts Family on your new adventures up north! And then today we just spent the day around the house (again enjoying the A/C)! Craig of course had to watch the Cowboys game, which unfortunately did not end well....and I finished up the laundry, ran to the grocery store and then did a few other projects around the house. Olivia has been busy pulling up on anything she can find and is still enjoying playing with all her new toys she got for her birthday! Jacob has been obsessed with his football lately. He carries it with him everywhere and asks Craig every chance he gets to throw the ball with him! He is anxiously awaiting the arrival of our neighbors. They evacuated once the power went out and will return tomorrow. Jacob has missed his friends and is anticipating them being back so the cul-de-sac won't be so lonely! Hopefully, tomorrow will start our first "normal" week that we have had in quite some time. And we are keeping our fingers crossed that Jacob's school is open on Tuesday! Craig took him last Thursday only to find out they had major flooding from Ike and were closed...!

POWER!!!

Did you hear that???? It was me SHOUTING FOR JOY!!!!!!! After 14 long long long days we FINALLY HAVE POWER BACK!!!!!! I cannot even begin to tell you how elated I am! I have never been more thankful for A/C and lights in my life!! Here's to a GREAT weekend :)))))

Hurricane IKE Pictures

In case any of you are still wondering......no we do not have power back. And the latest report from Centerpoint was that it will be back on by Sunday. This is the third date we have been given and they just keep getting pushed back further and further. Yesterday I had a meltdown. The generator got low on oil and went out the night before around midnight. So we slept in a house that was 83 degrees. Needless to say, it made for a long hot humid night. And since we had to open the windows, we also invited tons of mosquitoes in the house. Poor Olivia woke up the next morning covered in bites. With all the rain we have had, they are really bad and just lurk at your door waiting to come in as soon as you open it. Anyways, with all this spare time on my hands, I thought I would post some pictures to document our "adventure" with IKE. Since this blog serves to mainly capture our memories as a family, I want to include them. Olivia won't remember all this and Jacob might remember a little, but hopefully these pictures will capture an idea of what we've been through...the good and the bad!

the calm before the storm

Craig camped out watching the live reports as Ike makes landfall. Power was out already and we are using a battery operated TV/weather radio.This is the view from our front porch early the next morning..LOTS of wind and sideways rain.
Another view from our porch..
Some of the tall trees behind our house swaying in the wind and rain...scary!
Late morning on Saturday, still raining, trees are blown sideways in our yard.

The rain lightened up and we were able to get out and survey the damage in our neighborhood. It didn't take long before we came across this tree in the road. We soon realized just how lucky we were! Trees were uprooted everywhere and even through some roofs. Thank goodness we were spared! (These were taken on my phone so the quality isn't that great)

This poor family had trees go through their roof in two different places.

I was astonished to see this huge pine tree completely uprooted!
Other than our trees pushed over, we had some damage to the fence. Several boards gone and it is leaning in the back.

So, after realizing that power would not be on anytime soon and the house was getting hot very quickly, we headed to MeMe's house! Little did we know 12 days after the storm, we would still be without power! Here are Craig and Jacob heading to the lake to go fishing. Meanwhile, Olivia and I hung out on the pier to watch them.
After 5 days of hanging out in the hill country, we headed home in hopes that power would be on within a day or two. After all, that is what we were being told! But again, that wasn't the case so we headed out once more. But this time, we stayed a little closer to home and camped out with some family in Magnolia. We were about 30 minutes from home so we could easily check on the house and monitor how things were going. Jacob had a blast playing with his cousin Taylor. I think they spent just about every waking minute playing outside. Here is Olivia at the door, waiting for them to come back inside to play with her!

After another 5 days of being gone, we got some wonderful news! Some friends of ours had a generator and window unit that we could borrow! We could go home! We were so excited to get to be back home in comfortable surroundings and so grateful to our friends for helping us out!! We have now been home living on generator power for 3 days. Here is what life looks like now that we are back and coping with our situation.

The fridge all cleaned out...

We have blankets hung in the arches to keep the cool air in the living room. It is totally ghetto, but works! At this point, we will be ghetto as long as it keeps the house cool! And speaking of ghetto, check out my new method for drying clothes! Notice, the ones hanging from the light fixture? You're jealous, I know! And the trusty generator..oh how we could not live without you!
We have cords all across the house. Olivia sleeps in a pack-n-play in the master bath and Jacob sleeps on a pallet on the floor of our bedroom. We are making it work. Thankfully, the kids have handled the whole thing remarkably well, better than us adults! Jacob finally goes back to school tomorrow so hopefully we can start feeling like we are back in our old routine very soon! Not sure how much more of this I can take!!!!

Still without power :(

Well, we are still without power. It has been 10 days. Last night we spent the night at home for the first time since the hurricane. Thanks to the generosity of some friends who have their power restored, we have a generator and wall unit that we are using. It was so nice to sleep in my own bed last night! And so nice to just be back in comfortable surroundings. It is so true, "There is no place like home." Everyone we know has pretty much gotten their power back on, including half of our neighborhood!! So I can only hope we are next on the list. You will probably hear me shouting for joy when the lights do finally come back!!!!

I don't like IKE!

Well I guess I should start by saying that we are all healthy and safe. Thank you God!! We were very very fortunate and only had some damage to a few trees and our fence. Others weren't as lucky. We did manage to weather the storm but it will be the first and last hurricane we ever experience again!! It was the scariest night of my life!!! And for once, I am not exaggerating. I had the hugest knot you can imagine in my stomach and feared for our lives. The winds started howling hours before any rain ever came. We lost power around 12:30 Friday night and it is still not on. It is amazing how life changes in an instant. And how many things you take for granted until you no longer have them. We have been staying with family since the storm which has been such a blessing. I feel lucky to have a place to go. There are thousands in shelters who did not. The kids have handled the whole thing amazingly well, considering. It is starting to take its toll on Jacob a bit and today for the first time he asked me when we were going to be able to go home. Power is being restored all around us but there are still several places without and several businesses closed. You just have to drive around to see what is open. Some things are, some things are not. It has been an eye-opening experience to say the least and really makes you stop and think. Makes you grateful for what you have. I never thought things like bags of ice and bottled water would be hard to come by. And lets not even talk about waiting in line for 2 hours to get gas for your car (IF you can find a gas station open). We are being told power should be on sometime between Friday and Monday. We are keeping our fingers crossed!!!
**Thank you for your thoughts, prayers and well wishes. We appreciate them very much!**

Ike

Well, we are preparing for Hurricane Ike which is expected to hit Galveston in the next 12 hours or so. We are at least 80 miles north of the coast and feel safe. Our fridge and pantry are stocked, batteries and flashlights ready, candles lined up and ready to be lit! We are most worried about the winds and all the trees behind us, but hopefully everything will be fine. The kids will be sleeping in our room tonight, just to be safe :) Keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we get ready to "hunker down" and weather the storm! I will try to update after its over and we have power. (We are expecting to lose power but we don't know for how long)!! See ya on the other side of the storm.....

Barely one...

Barely one and already trying new tricks. Today when I went in to get Olivia from her nap, she was doing this...

Yep, standing in her bed. Good thing Daddy had just lowered her crib on Sunday!!!

Birthday Party Pictures

We celebrated Olivia's first birthday on Saturday with lots of family and friends. It was so much fun! The theme was polka dots and everything was pink and green.

And of course, the birthday girl had an outfit to match!! Here she is with Daddy.

Kids and adults alike all had fun in the backyard. The bounce house was a huge hit!

Emma having fun playing on the slide. Isn't she cute?

Then it was time for cake and ice cream. Olivia thoroughly enjoyed her first piece of birthday cake as you can tell! She had her hands full of icing!!!

And now it was time for presents! She had so much fun tearing into the paper and finding out what was inside. You would have thought she had done this before, the way she was ripping open her presents :)
Mommy and Daddy gave her a house and she absolutely loves it! You can crawl in and out of the door, ring the doorbell, turn the light on and off and all kinds of fun things! Here she is checking it out for the first time.

Crawling through the door

Playing with friends and all her new goodies!

All that partying is hard work! And eventually it was time for bed. The birthday girl was worn out!

Thanks to all our family and friends that helped us celebrate our little cupcake turning 1!

Happy 1st Birthday Olivia!

Happy Birthday Olivia! Today you turn one years old my baby girl and I can hardly believe it! How do I even begin to tell you how much you mean to us and how grateful we are that God gave us a beautiful daughter? You are truly an answered prayer. When I was a little girl, I always treasured the relationship that I had with my mom and hoped that someday I would be able to share that special bond again. And then God gave me you one year ago today! What a blessing!!!

How did you go from this


To this


So quickly?????


Someday in the future, you will say, "Tell me what I was like when I was a baby" and I will say........

You are beautiful, smart, and curious.

You have such a fun spirit!

You love people, love going places, and love your big brother to pieces.

You are strong. You are determined.

You can laugh & cry at the same time and it is the cutest thing ever!

You love your bunnies that hang over your bed and reach up to touch them every morning when you wake up.

You say "da" for duck and "ba" for ball.

You love giving open mouth kisses.

You know the sign for light and every time we walk in your room, you look up to the ceiling and do it.

You scream "ahhhhhhh" when you want our attention.

You love other kids, especially little girls!

You are our snuggle bunny.

Your smile is contagious and lights up the room.

You are a good listener, are attentive and don't miss a beat.

You love to take a bath and splash in the water.

You have beautiful eyelashes that attract attention wherever we go.

You have a mean army crawl and can get anywhere fast!

You love to be outside and laugh when the grass tickles your feet.

You eat anything and love your bottle (especially before bedtime).

You love music and when you get fussy, Mommy can sing your favorite song to make you happy again.

You love your baby dolls and will give them kisses.

You love anything that you can shake to make noise.

Your favorite buddy is your brother.

You are loved by many.

You are a momma's girl through and through.

But you love your Daddy the way little girls do.

You are our first girl and our last baby and will always be our Livvy Lou.

Happy Birthday our sweet sweet girl!

Pre-K

Jacob started Pre-K today!!! He was very excited to go and looking forward to hopefully seeing some old friends. We met the teacher last week and luckily he has had her before, so that makes the transition easier! It was a little rough this morning getting back into the routine of me getting everyone ready, lunch packed, diaper bag packed, etc. but we managed and even got there on time! Here are a few pictures we took this morning before we left. (I always make time for that!)



I think he was most excited about his new SpiderMan Backpack and lunch box!

Here he is with his teacher. They are both looking at Olivia who was next to me!


And one last picture of him sitting down to work. My big boy!!!!!