Peanut Butter, Play Date and New Job

Hello everyone! Let me get you all caught up! So I started my new job this week! I am now officially the Manager of Commissioning and Qualification Projects at Vantage Consulting Group here in Raleigh as of this past Tuesday! Yeah! Things are going well. But my first project is out in Greenville, NC (which is about a 1 1/2 hour drive east of here - so looks like I'll be driving back and forth quite a bit here in the next several months!).

Other than that. Olivia had a couple of doctor's appointments last week to fill you in on. She had her 3-week post-op for her eye surgery last Wednesday. The doctor said that her eyes looked GREAT and the tubes were staying in place really well. So, we made an appointment for the week before Thanksgiving to have them taken out. Now we just have to keep our fingers crossed for a little longer to hope they continue to stay in place.

Friday she had her 15-month checkup and here's her latest stats:

Height: 31 inches (70%)

Weight: 20.85 pounds (20%)

Head Circumference: 18 1/4 inches (50%)

Looks like she is still our tall and skinny little girl! But she has grown and gotten a full pound heavier. So all is well!

Grandmom Susan came to visit for the night last weekend, as well! We had a good time hanging out with her. She wanted to come see Olivia while Alan went off hunting.

We have also discovered that Olivia is not allergic to Peanuts so I decided to let Olivia have a good old American classic for dinner the other night: A Peanut Butter Sandwich! Check it out:

What is this stuff???

Want some, Mama??

mmmm, this stuff is pretty good!

Now my belly is full and I'm worn out!

We also had a play-date with our friends Logan and Masyn on Saturday morning at Masyn's house this past weekend. Masyn and Olivia had a fun time pushing each other around in the "doll" stroller.

I also got a chance to go over to see my friend, Cynthia on Friday and visit with her sweet little baby girls, Evelyn and Jessica. I am so thrilled that they are all home now safe and sound under one roof as a family. We had a nice time catching up and look forward to the next time that we can hang out again! Aren't they soooo cute??

Now that Olivia has finally gotten some hair and can wear some bows, I got my hot glue gun out and made her some. I think they came out pretty good! Take a look:

I made sure to make a BIG RED NC STATE bow for the football games we have lined up to go to this year. She hasn't actually worn any of these out and about yet, but we have tried them out on her and both Susan (Grandmom) and I approve!

Here's just another cute picture and video of Olivia sitting (and bouncing) on the ball that some of Grant's family had gotten her for her birthday. She has decided that it is PERFECT for bouncing on!

The only other thing that we have going on now is that we signed Olivia up at The Little Gym. It is sort of like toddler gymnastics/play class. Her first class is tomorrow morning (it's once a week) and we are really excited about it. And what's even cooler is that Gracie will be taking the class with her! How fun is that! I'll try to take a couple pictures tomorrow, but it is a parent participation class, so I'm not sure how much time I will have to take pictures, we'll see what I can sneak in. Wish us luck!

Until next time - take care and keep in touch!

Parental Rights

Hello Everyone! Well, here is a little different blog entry. I usually try to stay on topic here and keep my entries geared toward little Olivia - but this one sort of still is. My friend, Amy showed me this flyer that she was given the other day that informed her about a new law that was about to be passed by the United Nations that just upset us both! Now for those of you who know me pretty well (as most of you do . . .), you know that I NEVER get involved in politics. However, I felt moved to at least inform people since I was completely unaware - as was she! (and yes, I know - some of you have already received an email from me about this - please read the email and pass it on if you want to help me get the word out!)

SO please, whether you are a parent, want/plan to be one some day or just have children in your lives - please read my email below and decide if you would like to help - but at least inform yourselves of what is going on out there.

I wanted to make you aware of a a new law on the horizon that is being brought up by the United Nations to be voted on shortly - "Best Interests of the Child Principle"

This law will GREATLY limit what rights parents will have to discipline their children as they see fit. Now I am not talking about just reasonable spankings here, but also even groundings!!

For example - a teen in another country where this law already exists was upset that her parents grounded her for using a drug that was legal in her country (though - still a drug!!) and her guidance counselor referred her to this law. She took her parents to COURT under this law and WON. Her parents had to lift the grounding!! Do we really want our children (and the government) to have that much power in deciding what punishments should be allowed for OUR children??

There is a solution - there is an amendment out there that removes this portion of the law for only the United States (since the law contains many other things in addition to the "Best Interests of the Child Principle"), that are fine. There is a petition that I am asking you all to review and sign if you agree with trying to stop the government from removing parental power from the parents. You don't have to be a parent to agree with this or sign it.

Here are a couple of the bulleted points you need to know:

• The best interest of the child principle would give the government the ability to override every decision made by every parent if a government worker disagreed with the parent’s decision.
  
• A child’s “right to be heard” would allow him (or her) to seek governmental review of every parental decision with which the child disagreed.
  
• Children would have the right to reproductive health information and services, including abortions, without parental knowledge or consent.
  
• Parents would no longer be able to administer reasonable spankings to their children.

(You can get the whole list HERE)

Please go HERE to sign the petition if you want to protect the parental rights in the United States and help protect our children from falling victim to one more *circumstance* that hinders them from a bright future!

Ok, that's my rant for today - please help me get the word out on this. I mean, isn't it immensely important to keep the power of raising your children with YOU, the parent!?!? How can we let the government come in between you and your child and allow the child be able to run to the government when they don't *like* the way you've grounded them! Besides, isn't that an incredible waste of governmental resources? That would give children a 3rd parent to run to when they don't like your answer (first ask mommy, then daddy and now the government??)

Great Wolf Lodge

Hello again everyone! So sorry that it has been a couple weeks since my last post! It has been getting quite crazy around here! Let me catch you all up!

Since the last posting we had a nice visit from the Nelson's. We had a good time with them and took some family photos:

We even took a nice tip to the Natural Science Museum here in Raleigh. Here's Olivia checking out the deer exhibit:



Here we are in the bat cave . .


Then last weekend we were invited to go out of town with our friends Randy, Sara and Gracie. We all decided to visit the Great Wolf Lodge up in Williamsburg, VA. It is a water park inside a hotel! How cool is that! They even had a toddler area for the girls to play in!

We had gotten a room with 2 queen beds and a living room area separated by a half wall. I (with Sara's help) came up with a brilliant idea to create a fort (of sorts) to separate the girls pack-n-plays so they wouldn't be able to see each other at night so *maybe* we'd be able to get some sleep at night. We were also hoping that by hiding them behind the half wall from us with the TV in between, we would keep them asleep when we were up past them at night, too. At least that was the plan!

It actually managed to work! Most of the time we tried to get Gracie to sleep first (since she slept like a rock once she was asleep! But we even managed to get them to go to sleep at the same time once for a nap - amazing what wearing them down at a water park can do! (like my craftsmanship?? - my dad would be soo proud!)

Anyway, we had a really good time - but let's just say that this is NOT what you'd call a *relaxing* vacation! Even the car-ride was a chore! We all crammed in my Honda Pilot. It can seat up to 8 (that is sans-luggage). SO needless to say, with luggage (especially packing for 2 toddlers, it was very tight for the 6 of us!). Since we had TWO car seats and they had to be on each side of the middle seat leaving almost no room for an adult person to sit in between (hence the reason Sara and I had to trade off that seat). The other of us had to trade off the single seat in the third row (which, by the way, you could only get to by climbing in through the trunk - over the luggage - since you couldn't fold down a seat with the car seats in the middle row!). Yeah, not a ride for the claustrophobic! But we made it there and back!

Here are some fun pics and videos of the trip.

Gracie has a bit of a shoe fetish - here she is helping Olivia with her shoes:

Here's Sara posing with the girls in their cherry swimsuits:

Here's a video for Americas Funniest Home Videos. The girls really enjoyed running up and down the REALLY long hallways to and from the water park. Just watch what happens to poor little Gracie as she tried to catch up with Olivia:

Here's at the Water Park in the toddler area. There was a toddler water slide and Olivia LOVED it! She even learned the word "Slide" to ask to go down it again and again. Every time she was up there she had a huge grin on her face! What a little dare devil she is! Gracie wasn't quite as sure about it as Olivia was, but still had a good time (once she was part of the way down on it!)

While the girls were playing in the toddler area, us adults traded off to go do the big kid rides and have a good time, too. Sara and I had a good time on the Tornado! We even got to take the girls on one of the bigger water slides later in the day - but no-one told us that they turn the lights out in them at night! Both girls still did really well on the ride, even with the lights out for the little bit of it that was dark. The ride was a more gentle tube ride and Olivia was a pretty big dare devil anyway. I'm sure she would have liked it a lot more in the daylight - but still seemed to be ok even in the dark.

Splish Splash!

The last morning there Sara and I managed to sneak away from the guys and get some pedicures from the hotel spa! Ahhh that was nice! Then we all went down to the hotel arcade after we checked out - to play around a little more before we left. The girls had a really fun time on this one little car:

It was really fun to see the girls hanging out like little friends now that they are getting old enough to really interact with one another. Can't wait until they are old enough to go back and do some of the bigger kid stuff.

Ok, so to catch you all up on all the other stuff that has been going on with me . . . so I told you all that they were closing my division at work, right . . . well, last Thursday (right before labor day), I was laid off of work! No worries, though! I knew it was going to happen at some point and we had a plan in place for when it happened. My group at work and I more or less saw this coming and had been working on a back-up plan for a little while now anyway, so when this all started happening, we just had to move our plans up. We managed to find a company (out of NJ) that was willing to fund us to open an office down here. So, needless to say, I have already accepted another job offer to work for the same boss (he was going to be out of a job, too!) at a company called Vantage Consulting Group doing pretty much the same thing (though, I'm going to be getting a promotion out of all of this mess!) and we'll be opening an office here in Raleigh. So, sorry that I haven't told all of you guys, but I didn't want to worry you all until it was all settled. (besides, I even had another interview with another company last week for a different job - which I turned down - as a backup) - so everything here is going to be fine. I should be starting back up to work sometime this coming week.

So that is the main reason I haven't blogged - they took my laptop and that was my main source of blogging (I hate my desktop - it is slow and I don't like hanging out in the room it is in for as long as it takes to upload pics!) so sorry!

So now that you all are up to date and hopefully I'll be getting a new work laptop soon, I can start blogging more often again soon! Until then, keep in touch!