All about my 8th Month Young Ollie

I know, I know I'm obsessed! I'm sure my FB friends and followers on insta gram have seen enough Ollie photos and Ollie updates. But this will not stop me from writing a post all about him. :)

Ollie is now 8 months old! Can you believe my sweet little baby is 8 months? Last week he figured out how to crawl in an attempt to maul Gnarly Cat. It made me proud!

I love watching him sit up and play with his toys. He talks so sweetly to them and sheiks with delight. He loves the details in carpet, cloths, toys and is always pinching at these tiny things.

He loves his Dad. It thrills him to watch josh juggle, or to pull his hair or to listen to him talk.

Ollie no longer wants his diaper changed. It's such a pain! He rolls over, sits up and then tries to push himself over thr edge. It makes it really challenging when there is a poop log in the mix.

He also has been having trouble sleeping through the night for the past 6 weeks. This is due too teething. It was SO nice getting a full, uninterrupted 8 hours of wonderful sleep every night. We were starting to feel human again. He will sometimes wake up 4 times in the night. Its hard when that happens. However since this past weekend he has slept through the night 3 times. I attribute it all to our new fridge ( to us, was my parents old fridge) that doesn't make weird noises like our old one.

We have also given him a pacifier. He wasn't interested until now. I think it helps his teething issues. He is much calmer and less fussy with his pacifier which is nice for everyone. :)

Work these Days

I started week #2 at MM doing contract work for them. I can't tell you how great it feels to be back at my old job with different people in charge who know what they are doing! Plus I have missed my friends who are still there and it's fun to be working with them again. For now it's temporary month to month, but if the company does well it could turn into full time again. I hope it does.

So in the meantime I have been doing freelance work as well. I fell so blessed to have great friends who have helped me out or connected me to people who needed some work done. Networking and maintaining relationships pays off! It has been so great to be associated with so many people who are talented in what they do business wise. I'm excited to show off my work once it's completed from some if my clients.

I also got a job offer with a great salary , but I turned it down. It would have been quite the commute everyday and that's not including traffic. It just didn't feel right. And it's not always about the money. I felt it would have taken too much time away from Ollie and that is the last thing I want. I have learned my lesson from accepting a job where it doesn't feel completely right. Cough, cough, you know those horrible people I worked for last.

Even though I wish I was still doing my dream job of taking care of Ollie all day I am content with being back at work. The financial stress was not fun. I feel at ease now.

I just feel so blessed because of the freelance work I have been given and how things for now are working out. I have appreciated all of the prayers and uplifting conversations from family and friends lately. I really have a great support system. Oh and I have to throw in FB too. How would I ever be able to stay so connected to everyone!

I can't finish a post without a cute photo of baby boy.

City Creek

Beautiful. Amazing. Wonderful. These are just a few words I would use to describe the mall. Yesterday was opening day and we (mom, sis, Ollie and Josh) HAD to be there. They projected 50,000 people would be there yesterday. I'm not sure what the final count was, but it was for sure the place to be. There were musicians, and performers everywhere. Excitement was found everywhere!

We found a parking place really fast and were able to get into the mall easily. We got there around lunch time and met josh and ate at kneaders. I have only seen a food court as nice as theirs as fashion valley in SD.

After we ate we went shopping/ my mom spoiled us. They have some great stores. The Disney store was a big hit for Michelle and Ollie. Ollie loved it which made me happy. It was his first disney experience! H&M was huge. I wish I could have gone wild, but I was a good girl and held back. They had a live DJ so Michelle was singing all the songs and dancing which was entertaining. The nordstroms was awesome too. They have such beautiful clothes. My mom said she finally feels like she is home. :)

The mall grounds were super nice. The creek runs through the whole thing and it's outdoors which I really love. The weather was 70F which made the day even more perfect.

It was so nice to have a REALLY fun day. I have been in such a stressed funk over finding freelance work/job search. But something finally worked out! I will post about my freelance work and my new old job next.

Cooking

So since I'm in this strange place in my life I have started cooking, A LOT. I'm talking like every meal. We are cutting our spending way back and eating out is off the list. Josh and I used to have designated nights when we cooked back when we were both working. Since josh works late a lot and I don't want to eat at 8pm I have started cooking. The other week was a record week where I cooked 6 days straight. I have NEVER done that before.

I'm finding that I actually enjoy it where as before it was a chore. It was annoying to me to have to cook dinner after working all day and feeling drained. Now that I have the time I really enjoy it. Plus I think I'm good at it because following instructions is easy!

While I still miss eating out learning some new recipes has been fun and saving money is always positive too.

And to finish off here is a cute photo of my baby kangaroo Ollie. He loves this jump up!

2012 so far....

I have mixed feelings about the way this year is panning out. I know it's barley March, but things are so different.

That "great job" that I had at the start of the year went south real quick. I have been debating about posting a post I wrote about back in January, but I keep stopping myself from posting it. It's a not very nice post where I go into detail about how that company and it's owners are dishonest terrible people. The gist is: they wanted/expected me to work 24/7 for them (nights,weekends, holidays) even after I put in my 40 hrs, which when you have a baby is impossible and I'm not an on call Design Doctor. So they let me go, which was for the best. I just wish I could have quit on my terms. The dishonest thing is that they only paid me for 2 weeks and not the full month I worked. So I'm out 1,600.00. Which sucks because, hello, I earned that money, it was horrible working for them and I'll never see the money!

I'm trying to put it behind me, but it just sucks because not having a job is hurting my family financially. I really feel like I was swindled into that job. Needless to say I hate them and they deserve the bad karma that will some day hit them. It always does. :)

But on the flip side I have spent 2 months staying at home with my Ollie Boy. It has been wonderful to have this time. I just wish I wasn't so stressed about finances and when one of these job interviews will turn into a job.

Ollie is a lot more fun now that he is older. He is 7 months! He laughs, rolls all over the floor, squeaks, squeals, loves to eat solid food, jumps and spins in his exersaucer, is interested in buttons, zippers, tags, cats, finger nails, snow. The list goes on and on.

I would still love to work from home, but freelance work right now is hard to find. So I have been applying for in house jobs (office jobs). I hope something works out soon. I know I just have to put my trust in God because it's his plan and I have to be patient to see what He has in store for my family.

PS being poor sucks because I miss going out to eat, shopping and getting my hair done.

Day 1: View

I'm doing the photo a day challenge on instragram. I figured I might as well post it on my blog too.

My view is the side of Ollie's face while I'm nursing him. I get this view during the day about every 3-4 hours for 40mins at a time (20mins on each side). I have been nursing him for 6 months now. I'm proud of us for sticking with it. For the pumping at work, sacrificing not being away from my baby for long periods of time and when together not going out somewhere where I can't feed him in 2 hours. Nursing is a huge commitment. Bigger then I initially thought, but I'm happy to be doing it. So much planning is involved! It still works for Ollie and I and I will continue to nurse him when he's done or if he hits a year or if he bits when his teeth come in. :)

Twins!

I'm lucky to have the best husband and cutest baby. Im also lucky that this family loves stripes so much that it's easy to match!

I love that josh completely loves being a dad. He is so cute and funny with Ollie. He was very happy they were matching today. Ollie loves josh and always has the biggest grin when josh walks into the room.

Family

It has been so nice having my family by me. 7 years of living about 1,000 miles apart was hard. I am very close with my family and I'm excited that Ollie will get to have the same grandparent experience that I had growing up. Which means lots of time spent together and lots of spoiling!

Today my mom and Michelle came over. We went to lunch, played with Ollie and hung out. Later my dad came over and then josh came home. We all dined at Pei Wei for dinner and called it a night.

Oprah

I think it would be nice to post something positive everyday. I'll try it out for a week starting today.

I have a weird fascination with Oprah that started last summer. I watched her behind the scenes show from her 25th season. It was so interesting to learn what goes into an episode. All of the work, planning and team work.

What I love about her was the way she treated her employees. TV production is a stressful industry. Sure they showed the great stress free moments and the magic of the show. But they also showed the chaos. I was pleased to see how she dealt with people and the situations. She treated people with respect and dignity no matter how bad the problem was. She also gave praise for their hard work. I think CEOs and presidents could learn from her example. She could have the biggest ego in the world, but she doesn't. It was so refreshing to see people happy doing their job and wanting to do their best.

If Oprah is hiring I want to work for her!

I think we can all learn to take a moment and not get all crazy when something goes bad and treat people with respect.

Merry Christmas 2011

Neighbor/Josh's Co-Worker Gifts

Gnarly, always curiously watching what we make in the kitchen

This christmas was a lot of fun. We were able to spend it with both sides of our families! The Ormonds invited my family to come up and spend Christmas with them, which was so nice of them. My family had a great time. I love that it was Ollies first Christmas too. We didn't make too much of a fuss over presents because he is set right now in the toy dept so we/Santa gave him some books and the Loin King. We need to start building up our Disney Collection.


To kick off Christmas we all headed down to temple square to see the lights. It was crowded, crazy and cold as usual.

And Josh has a beard. I want it to go away.

Wallaces

Hansens

Wyrick/Ormonds and Carrie . . . not sure what happened to the big group photo!

 Christmas Eve we did the traditional reading from the bible of the Christmas Story while the kids acted it out. Ollie was baby Jesus. This was his 3rd time. 
Side Story: Our family was asked to be in the ward christmas play. It was performed once at the old peoples home and once at the ward christmas party. The story was a modern take on the birth of Christ. I was super nervous about the performances (I don't like public attention and I'm not an actress), but it turned out great and now I can say I have been in a christmas play. 

 Josh also made a nice presentation highlighting each family's highlights from the year. It was cool to hear about what everyone had been busy doing all year and all of the change that occurred.

 Christmas was on a Sunday this year so that meant we went to Church. We had Michelle's Over Night French Toast when we got back and then opened presents.

Michelle Excited to open presents!

 Ollie sported my Christmas outfit that I wore as a baby. Good thing its gender neutral! It fit him perfectly and he was a very cute Santa baby.

Max and his Captain America mask we got him.

Ollie just wanted to put everything in his mouth.

Ollie was worn out. All of those presents!

I got Josh a new Classic ipod and he got me a new 27" iMac. It was time for an upgrade. I am so totally in love with my new computer.

Our Dads

Love his face!

One finger in Mouth at all times.

Uncle Daren or "the Closer." He put Ollie to sleep like a pro. Ollie loved hanging out with him.

New Years! Yes Ollie stayed up.

We went to the Macoroni Grill downtown with my family and Kristen. Then we came back to our house for fondue and Just Dance 3. Fun night! 2011 you were great!

Ollie and I hanging out after church. We like to have fun.