Olivia & Co.

Well, we have a new baby! Audrey Belle arrived on July 6 at 7:38 PM; weighing 7 lbs. 5 oz. & 18 inches long. She is a beautiful baby, she looks a lot like Olivia did when she was born. Anyway, I haven't blogged in so long, I don't really know what happened. I'll try not to go that long without an update again. I just wanted to make sure I announced the baby's arrival, and I will get some pictures posted soon!

My wonderful friend Stephanie took Liv's pictures today, here are some of my favorites.

Have I mentioned that Olivia is totally potty trained? I think it's worth mentioning, because it's fantastic! I am so proud of her, she is doing so well and luckily she took to it pretty quickly. She also gave up the binky about 2 weeks ago. It was about time! I think it was just as hard for me as it was for her to give it up. We talked about doing it for a while, and just the thought of not having it to soothe her to sleep at night was enough to send both of us into a panic attack. But we came up with a good way to let them go. I told her that if she left all of her binkies out on the porch for the "Binky Fairy" to pick up, she would leave a present for Olivia. So we put all the binkies in a bag and wrote a note to the "Binky Fairy" asking her to deliver the binkies to little babies that need them, and the next morning Olivia found a present from the fairy right where she had left the bag of binkies. It totally worked! She was so excited and proud of herself for giving up her binkies and she doesn't even ask for one anymore. My little girl is growing up!
Another thing I'd like to mention is the tentatively scheduled arrival date for our new baby girl (Lola Belle? Haven't decided for sure yet) I am scheduled to be induced Tuesday, July 7. That is a week earlier than my due date but because Olivia was so big when she was born (9 lbs. 11 oz.!) we're hoping that having her a week early will produce a slightly smaller baby. Anything smaller than that will be a breeze I'm sure. I'm measuring normally as of right now, so hopefully she won't be too big, but as long as she's healthy we'll be happy!
We also painted the baby's room and the playroom over the weekend, so I can cross that huge task off my list.
Anyway, I never know how to properly end a post, so I hope everyone is enjoying this warm, warm weather! Goodbye for now :)

This week is a busy week for us. Yesterday was JJ's 24th birthday, Tuesday (the 5th) was our 2 year wedding anniversary and then Sunday is of course Mother's Day. For his birthday yesterday, I cooked JJ a roast for dinner and we baked his favorite cupcakes. He didn't want anyone to sing Happy Birthday to him, but Olivia did anyway. She's the only one that could get away with it :) And of course I didn't get any pictures of him because he hates the camera. What a party pooper! But in honor of our anniversary and his birthday, I found some pictures from our wedding to post....

Today is my hubby's 24th birthday! Happy Birthday hun, I love you!! You better appreciate the meal and cake I've been cooking up all day ;)
And, like I mentioned, my life would suck without you

Alright, it is looking much better now. I recovered most of the friends and websites I had before and I am actually kind of liking this new simple layout. I'll keep working on it and I should also have some more pictures to post soon :)

Quick update: JJ was out of town for work all of last week, and I had a long list of things I wanted to get done around the house. Needless to say, I only crossed one thing off of the list. Oh well, the long list of chores and piles of laundry aren't going anywhere. Unfortunately. There's always next week! But we did get to spend some time with G-ma and G-pa Zaccardi, so that was fun :)

Now I might go tackle some laundry. Or I might just color with Olivia for a little while. That sounds like more fun!

Will post again soon, sorry for the technical difficulties.

Don't mess with a good thing.

Sincerely,
Me

So I was playing around with my blog because I wanted to do something different, and I totally f-ed things up. Pardon my french! So I had to start over basically, and am now in the process of rebuilding. So forgive the mess that is now my blog, hopefully it will be fully functional in the near future.

Ok so obviously I'm a little slow. I meant to post more last week, but haven't had the chance. Anyway, here's some more pictures from the Easter egg hunt at great grandma's on Easter...

I never thought it would happen, but I can actually write a post with pictures! I love my new camera and we took lots of pictures over the weekend. So this post will be mostly pictures :)

First, we dyed Easter eggs at my mom and dad's house on Saturday

Pretty girl in her Easter outfit

I've been slacking on the blog lately, sorry! Like I said before, we finally moved into our new house and we have been busy getting settled and used to our new home. But we still don't have internet yet, so I haven't been able to get online or blog very much. I did get a new camera today though, which I'm excited about. Hopefully I'll get a lot of use out of this one so I can post pictures for once! Anyway, we have pretty much got everything put away in the house, except for the baby's room which I am currently working on. We had SO much cleaning to do before we moved in, the old owners apparently didn't know how to clean. But I am a clean freak anyway so I scrubbed the whole place. It's all good now! And we pretty much painted the whole house. It's amazing what a difference a fresh coat of paint makes! Which leads me to me to this.... the orange wall. My husband insisted on painting something in the house orange because it is his favorite color. The swatch I approved was like a burnt dark orange-y red color, but somehow we ended up with traffic cone orange. It's on the biggest wall in our TV room, where we spend a lot of our time. So that room is still pretty empty and undecorated because I am at a loss about what to do with it! I need to figure out how to make the orange not so neon and a little more cozy. If that's possible. If not, I'll be changing it. He's lucky it's even orange still! He has a pretty darn nice wife if I dare say so. Especially since I'm 6 months pregnant, I don't have much patience at this point!
On another note, I think Miss Liv deserves an update. She is growing so fast! It makes me sad but I love seeing her grow and learn new things every day. She's a smart cookie. Our latest thing has been potty training. It hasn't turned out to be the nightmare I thought it would, thank heavens. She was almost potty trained in December before we moved, but I think moving in with grandma and grandpa threw her for a loop. But I am happy to report that since she's gotten used to the house, she is almost completely potty trained! In just a few days she went from asking for a diaper instead of a pull-up to telling me every time she has to go, and being excited about it. She even picked out Hello Kitty panties at the store (she's really into Hello Kitty lately). The last hurdle is pooping in the potty, but once she does that I think she'll be all set. I am so proud of her!! I really think it will make all our lives a little less stressful (and less expensive!). My goal was to have her trained before we had the baby, so I'm happy it has gone smoothly so far. She is a little over 2 1/2 now, but sometimes she seems so much older. She is so observant and she picks up on every little thing we say or do. It amazes me how intuitive little kids are. She's always listening and watching me, sometimes I forget that I am an example and role model to her 24/7. I just pray that I can continue to be a good example to her and that she grows up with good self-esteem and a strong sense of self-worth. I love her so much, and I can't wait for her to be a big sister. I'm getting a little anxious about having another baby, I hope I can handle two little girls! But we are very excited, I hope July comes soon! By the way, we haven't picked a name yet, but my favorite is Lola. I have started calling her Lola most of the time, so hopefully I can talk JJ into it, but we'll see!
Anyway, I will post again as soon as I can, hopefully with a few pictures!

I'm just going to give you a quick update since it is after midnight. We FINALLY got our house this past week!!!! We are so excited and we have been cleaning and painting all weekend. I have some before pictures and I will take some after pictures once we get things more-or-less put together. Anyway, thats the latest, we have been and will be busy with that for a while so I will try to write, but don't be mad if it takes me forever!

Other than that, we are doing good. Olivia is so excited for her new pink room! She is just as cute and silly and dramatic as ever! Little baby (in utero) is also doing good, growing well and kicking a lot :)

I hope everyone is doing well, Happy St. Patty's day on Tuesday!

So today is Wednesday. Well, technically Thursday since it is after midnight. I can't sleep. Which has become a common thing for me. Between being pregnant and being sick with a cold, I can't get comfortable or stop coughing for long enough to relax. At least I've got my laptop and late-night television to keep me entertained! I am a little annoyed though. I turned on Lifetime network at 11 to watch Golden Girls, which I do pretty much every night, and it wasn't on! They have been playing Desperate Housewives all week. It's stupid I know, and I have the whole Golden Girls series on dvd, but I am still a little peeved. Thanks for the heads up Lifetime! Wow, I'm sounding a little pathetic.

Which brings us to the Lonely part in my post title. JJ is out of town for work again, and I am a little lonely. But tonight I actually got to see several of my best friends. My wonderful friend Sarah colored my hair for me, AGAIN! I keep changing my mind about my haircolor. Thanks Sarah, for being such a good friend and putting up with my crazy haircolor requests :) It is always nice to just be with girlfriends. Also, two of my best friends from high school stopped by the house to visit tonight, and it made me realize how much I miss having girlfriends around all the time. (Thanks Steph and Melissa! And thanks for the milkshake :) you know how to please a pregnant woman!)

Anyway, I love my husband and my family, but it would be nice to go out by myself with friends once in a while. But then, just like most moms who put themselves at the bottom of the list, I end up feeling guilty for even thinking that I need to leave by myself for a few hours. I know it's not a foreign dilemma to any mom, so I'm making it my new goal to make sure I get a little ME time more often. Whether it's a quiet drive around town, a trip to Target by myself for an hour or an afternoon to go to lunch and a movie with girlfriends, it makes such a difference in my attitude towards my family and gives me much more patience to deal with every little thing at home. And my husband gets a little one-on-one time with our daughter, which is also much-needed for both of them since he works so much. I'll let ya know how it goes, hopefully I can make it happen!

Well anyway, I'm going to watch E! News and listen to everyone rant about the Bachelor (the jerk!!)

'Night.

So I got this note on Facebook and I thought it was kinda fun so I'm posting it on here. Lets see how well I know my crazy husband.

Well there ya go! I hope you learned a thing or two about my hubby!

Girl!! We had our ultrasound yesterday and we found out that we are having another baby girl! We are so excited, we all thought it was going to be a girl so we weren't too surprised. My poor husband, maybe next time he'll get a boy. If I decide I want to do this for a third time. Anyway, the baby looked perfect, she is developing normally as far as they can tell, so that is a big relief. I was getting so anxious before our appointment, I just wanted to know that she is healthy.

Also, I wanted to scan the picture from the ultrasound on to the computer but the scanner and card reader thing is still not functioning. So, still no pictures. Of course as soon as I start taking more pictures to post, the stupid thing breaks and I still can't post anything. Sorry! Maybe someday I'll figure out how to make it work.

In other news, we are STILL waiting on our house. I'm not going to get into it because it will just make me even more mad and frustrated than I already am. So I'll let ya know if we ever get to move out of my in-laws and into our own house again!

We did have a pretty good weekend though. Olivia made little Valentine's for all her friends and painted Valentine pictures for her grandparents. We tried to deliver them to everybody, but we still have a few that we need to give. JJ and I went out to dinner that night. We wanted Outback but it was a 2 hour wait. Same at Olive Garden. So we ended up at Pizza Factory. Their 15 minute wait was more appealing than a couple hours anywhere else.

We also took Olivia to Build-A-Bear in the mall a few days ago and let her build her own animal. She was SO excited, I wish I'd had a camcorder to record her. She chose a Hello Kitty stuffed animal and dressed her in a sparkly white and pink dress, complete with silver shoes and a purse and Hello Kitty panties. She said she wants to go back to get her Kitty (who she named Sparkle) some pajamas and slippers so she can sleep with her. That was the first time she had been there, but we'll definately be going back soon, she absolutely loved it.

Well that's the latest, I hope everyone is doing good and had a fun Valentine's day :)

So for whatever reason I can't get my most recent pictures to upload to the computer. I've been using the computer at my in-laws and apparently I need to have my mother in-law help me. So no new pictures. But thats not really surprising, since I've never really been on top of uploading any pictures anyway!

In other news, we find out the sex of the baby in about 2 weeks! I am getting really impatient but we are very excited! We've been asking Olivia what she thinks it is and she says "boy" more than "girl." Although the last few days it has been a "sister" so we'll see.

Also... we FINALLY got the approval from the bank for our house!! After a month of waiting we were about to give up. So hopefully we don't run into any more obstacles in the next couple weeks. Cross your fingers!

Oh, and one more thing! Unfortunately, the salon I've been working in for the last year is going out of business. Tomorrow is our last day. It is going to be weird not going in everyday, it becomes like a little family. All the girls have been so great, and a lot has changed for all of us in the last year, so hopefully we can keep in touch. But I am hoping to put a small salon in our new house, so I will still be taking a few clients at home. We probably won't be in our house for at least a few weeks so if anyone needs their hair done, just call my cell phone and we can work something out :)

Gotta go start dinner, I'll try to post again soon!

So I just found these pictures from the summer of 2008, and I thought they were so cute and funny. I wanted to post a few until I get Christmas uploaded. Enjoy!

I HATE MOVING.

That pretty much sums it up.

We've been trying to be a house for a while now and it seems like nothing is going to work out. We are living with my in-laws for the time being and I'm so grateful that they are letting us stay. But we don't know how long we'll be here and how long the house deal will take. I'm about ready to give up.

Sorry to be a Debbie Downer, hopefully the next post will be a happier one! I'm just so frustrated!!!! I wish I could fast forward like 6 weeks and be done with everything! Anyway, I'll let you know what happens, if anything does.

P.S. Christmas pictures are coming..... one of these days!