Merry Christmas!

Fall Play - Winter Play

This fall was long, but way too short. The days were pleasant and beautiful. The leaves seemed to fall late, which made it seem like it was lasting longer that it really did.

I did a lot of raking at my mom's house. Oliver loves to help in the yard, and he's a pretty good helper too. This was the first year he jumped full on into the leaves and completely loved every minute of leaf pile play! It was so fun! (Can you find him in the gigantic pile?)



But then, all of a sudden, and way too soon, winter came. We got quite a bit of snow Thanksgiving week. Luckily Oliver was all geared up and started playing in the snow almost as soon as it came.

So far this winter he has had fun shoveling snow at my mom's house (in the wrong direction however - see, he's scooping it onto the sidewalk), sledding with dad and cousins after Thanksgiving dinner, and building a snow castle at our house.

Hopefully the rest of winter will be this much fun!

A Little Bit of Pink

There is a little bit of pink hanging in Oliver's closet as of the last 2 days, and I LOVE IT! It has been so much fun to be in stores and, rather than look at the little girl clothes longingly, actually have a baby girl to shop for! Between my mom and I taking separate trips to Carter's and going to Old Navy together we have gotten a good start on baby girl's layette. I'm so excited to have her here to put in all of these sweet, tender, ruffly, girlie clothes! They will be so much cuter with her in them. :)

The perfect pink crib bedding that I bought a few months ago (in hopes and because it was on clearance and I didn't want to miss out on it) is still hiding out under the crib. I think I'll leave the blue bedding in for a few more months for baby Aydan's sake! I love watching (and holding and loving) my adorable baby nephew, so we'll keep some things in baby boy mode for a little longer.

Halloween

Pumpkin Patch:
We made our way out to the pumpkin patch mid-October. This year Oliver really loved climbing on the tractors and pushing the pumpkins around in his wheel-barrow. For us one of the highlights of the afternoon was that Oliver recognized his name on a sign that said "Oliver Parking Only" next to the Oliver brand tractor (the sign and tractor are in the little picture in the top left of the collage). He also really loved running through the corn maze and scaring/getting scared by his dad.


Preschool Halloween Party:
For those that don't already know, I am doing a little preschool class for Oliver and a couple other kids his age, just one day a week. The Tuesday before Halloween we had our class Halloween party. All of the kids came in costume: Oliver the Doctor, Avary as Captain Jack Sparrow, Adam as a Train Conductor, and Ian (a visitor for the day) as Spiderman. We made Halloween pictures with foam stickers, colored Halloween pictures, played pin the nose on the pumpkin (the one in the picture with Oliver), had Halloween muffins, and read Halloween books.


Pumpkin Carving:
We didn't actually carve pumpkins until Friday the 29th. Oliver was pretty grossed out by the guts at first, but eventually got into it. Nate did all of the carving this year. Oliver chose the circle eyes and nose and pointy teeth. Don't worry, even though I didn't do any carving I still got into the mess... I cleaned up the seeds and roasted them (and then proceeded to eat most of them - yum!).


Parties and Trick-or-Treating:
Saturday the 30th was the day of most of our festivities. We had a Trunk-or-Treat party at the ward. Went to our friends Halloween party, which included some Trick-or-Treating. Then went on to visit some friends and family and do even more Trick-or-Treating with Adelyn and Eleanore. On Sunday we made our way up to Pete & Camille's house for dinner and games with their family as well as Pud & Ude and Mallary (this is Nate's aunt, uncle, cousins, and grandparents).


Halloween in Sum:
Oliver really loved Halloween this year! He was way into every part of the holiday. He and I were both very proud of his Doctor costume. We had a lot of fun, fit more stuff in than we thought possible, and now we can't wait until next year!

The Majority Wins!

7 guessed girl.

3 guessed boy.

7 were right!

It's a GIRL!!!

Oliver was right. I guess I should have just trusted him all along. She looks wonderful. Everything looked good and measured right on. Hooray for a reassuring visit! And Hooray for a baby Girl! :)

A Disconcerting Realization

All in one day I have discovered that several people whom I thought were in the range of 3-5 years older than me are actually in the range of 0-1 year older than me.

From my perspective this could mean 1 of 2 things:

1 - I'm a little too immature for my age
2 - I'm older than I thought I was

I'm not really OK with either of these. So, as a solution, I'm just going to try to view the above mentioned people as being younger than I thought they were (meaning my age, which really isn't old right?). Hopefully that will work.

Summer Adventures

I'm finally playing a quick game of catch up for our summer. We had a lot of fun this summer, so I feel I need to document it, even if that means cramming it all in to one long overdue post.

In June, Kevin & Michelle & Kendall & Grace came to visit from New York. (Kevin is Nate's cousin) We love to have them visit. Since Oliver didn't have any 1st cousins until last month, I've always loved all of the time he gets to spend with his 2nd cousins. Grace is only a few months younger than Oliver and it was especially fun to observe the way they interacted at this age.

For us, the highlight of their visit was a trip to the Zoo. It was our first time seeing the baby elephant (so cute!). Oliver totally loved the bird show! Nate's other cousin Jacob and his family (Amberly, Adelyn, Eleanore & Bridger) also went to the zoo that day. We made a good sized crowd and had lots of fun.



The last week of June was my stake's girls camp. I finally got my dream calling this year of being camp director. I had a blast and I hope the girls had a good experience too. Camp in this stake is a lot different than the camp I grew up going to. It took a little adjusting, but by the time it was over I really appreciated the way things work in this stake. The following picture shows all but one of my girls, and both of the leaders that were there the whole time with me (I know not everyone is looking at the camera but it's the best picture I have of the group). These girls were amazing, they impressed me time and time again. I hope I get to do camp again some time!



Right smack dab in the middle of July Oliver and I got to go to Lagoon with Jacob, Amberly and kids. Lagoon is Lagoon. In the first couple of hours I took Oliver and Eleanore to most of kiddie rides while Jacob, Amberly and Adelyn did a few of the best big rides. I didn't really go on any rides because I hoped I was pregnant and didn't want to take any risks - and well, I was, so I guess it's good I stuck to observing. Oliver's favorite rides were the carousel (no surprise there) and the Dinosaur Drop (or egg drop in his words).

We had hoped to go camping several times this summer, but only made it out once, for just one night, and not until August. We went up into the high Uintas with Josh and Sara. It was drastically cooler up there, which was a wonderful break from summer heat. Josh helped Oliver do some fishing. And I think this was Nate's first time actually fishing for real, meaning not at a fish farm. No one caught anything, but it was fun anyway.

There was more to our summer, but this all I have pictures of, so this is all I'm going to write about now. It was a good summer. A busy summer. A fun summer.

Snow Such Luck

I was hoping it wouldn't snow... really hoping.

This was the view from my door around midnight last night:



And it is just way too cold today!

Still hoping for a rain free Halloween though. Please!

Another Plea to Mother Nature

First, thank you for holding off on the snow.

Second, still not happy about the fact that it is supposed to snow this afternoon and tonight.

Third, I'm begging - please, please, please change the forecast for Saturday!!! Rain plus Trick-or-Treating is just a downright bad combo. Please make it not rain on Saturday!

Thank You!

Sincerely,
Me

What Happened to Fall?

One of the things I like least about living in Utah is the fact almost every single year it snows before Halloween. It's supposed to snow tonight into tomorrow. I do not like this AT ALL!

What about Autumn Mother Nature? It's my favorite season, so why won't you let it last a little longer?

It is my official opinion that the proper time period for snow is between Thanksgiving and Valentines Day. It should begin no sooner and last no longer.

So, Fall, please come back. I'm begging you. Please! At least for a few more weeks!

Graduations

Brita Michelle Ball

Master of Nutritional Science

BYU

William Ryan Roberts

Doctor of Pharmacy

Idaho State University

Brita's graduation was in April. I made Oliver sit through 2 ceremonies of this graduation, and he did pretty darn well. Then came Ryan's graduation. It was only 1 ceremony, but a long one. If you ask Oliver "Ryan's graduation was boring!" Aren't all graduations a little boring though? It doesn't matter how excited you are for the graduate, they can be long. But then there's the rest of the outing... meals and/or hanging out, visiting with family, staying up late in the hotel lobby watching NBA playoff games, etc. that make the overall event rather fun. And of course they are worth going to.

Hats off to the graduate school graduates in our family this year!

Spring Highlights

We had a pretty eventful spring this year.

March:
* Oliver and I went to Discovery Gateway (the children's museum) on St. Patrick's Day. We had never been because, quite frankly, it's expensive. But occasionally they have free days. This was one of those days. It was crazy! Soooo crowded. But very, very fun. I think he'll be able to have even more fun when he's older, but a chance to sit in a real helicopter was pretty awesome!

* We also went on a Daybreak adventure with Jonah and Kathy. We got to see the new Oquirrh Mountain Temple. It's beautiful. The boys had fun climbing the stairs and checking out the fountain... even though it was really cold and a few snow flakes even fell that day.

* Near the end of March we began our Easter festivities with a neighborhood egg hunt. A couple days later Nate tried to take Oliver to the egg hunt at This is the Place park, but it was so chaotic that they missed the time frame for Oliver's age. Oliver had tons of fun playing on the wooden train and checking out the pioneer buildings though.

April:
* Oliver and I started out April with a trip to St. George for Easter. We were there for a whole week and it was a great vacation. My Grandpa got Oliver a toy golfing set that Oliver loves to play with.

That Friday we went to the St. George art festival. One of my favorite traditions.

That Saturday we went to the Bloomington Country Club egg hunt (the one I always went to growing up). My cute Grandpa Ball took us. My aunt and uncle, Brad and Tracy, as well as Tracy's parents, also came over to watch Oliver collect candy. This egg hunt was a success! He got a lot of loot. Like any 2 year old though, I had to keep reminding him to wait to eat his candy after the egg hunt was over. That afternoon I also hid eggs (and toys and books) for Oliver to find in my Grandparents back yard.

On Sunday the Easter Bunny delivered! It was Conference weekend, so no church. We dyed eggs in the afternoon. It was a beautiful and relaxing day.

* The other (sort of) big event in April was the Salt Lake Half Marathon. My time was a few minutes slower than last year, but still good, and considering my lack of training and some other factors I felt like I did great! The funnest part of the Half was that it was a family affair this year. It was fun to have the Ball's in town, as well as the Dalton's (we consider them family too, although very very extended...). It was a fun weekend!

I Lied

I said I'd get back on top of this blogging thing. And well, another month has gone by.

I want to blog, I do.

But we're just having too much fun this summer. And maybe some day I'll stop long enough to post about it all. But for now, at least I've checked in briefly...

I've been...

... a serious blog slacker! Catching up to commence soon.

Worth Bragging About

I have a best friend, and well, she's the best!

She does amazing things for me. She goes above and beyond constantly. She trusts me and I trust her. She laughs with me and cries with me. She cries for me. She worries for me and prays for me. She lifts me up. She makes me happy. She is genuine. She takes care of me and Oliver in ways she may not even know. She is creative. She is smart. She is driven. She is beautiful. She facilitates friendships of others. She is an amazing friend.

Since our friendship began my life has been ever more full.

I love my best friend!

a HUGE accomplishment

In my real life of super-small-space-living my kitchen is not just a kitchen. It is my office, my laundry room, my pile collector, and pretty much my only real work space. While the piles on my counter are consistently changing they are consistently there. Driving! Me! Crazy!

So on Monday I decided to take on the huge task of pile consolidation, project completion, organizing and deep cleaning.

The finished product:


Just to give you an idea of how bad it was... Oliver's response to the clean counter was: "Where everything go? Put it back." Oh yes, my 2 year old found security in the mess. Luckily he's getting used to the clean-ness. Also, I filled the paper shredder 3 times - yikes!

And yes it still looks like the picture 2 days later. Let's see how long I can keep it up!

Breaking the SAND Barrier

We doubted this possibility. We wondered if he'd ever get over it. We laughed at how tight of a little ball he became upon encountering sand at Bear Lake and Newport Beach last year. I was so excited (and I also knew that Nate wouldn't believe me) that I just had to take pictures to prove it!

Oliver is no longer afraid of sand!

Oh yes. He got sand in his sandals, in his pockets, even had some thrown in his face!
And he only had 2 minor freak-outs.

He played in the sand box (with Jonah - if you haven't noticed the trend here Jonah is Oliver's best buddie) for a good half hour, or maybe even more.

And he loved it!

Catching Up: Winter Fun

In January Oliver discovered the fun that is painting! I got these wooden shapes at the craft store. When the paint dried I glued magnets to the back so he can play with them on the fridge - which he does quite a lot.

We had a lot of fun in February:

• We decorated Valentines Day cookies with friends at the church for Adventure Days. We spent Valentines Day delivering little Play-Doh valentines and visiting with friends - ending the day at Pete & Camille's for fabulous chocolate covered strawberries and fun games.
• Oliver and I went to tour the new fire station in our neighborhood. Oliver got to "drive" a fire truck and an ambulance. It was so much fun that I had to call my friend Kathy so she could bring Jonah over. Oliver loved when Jonah got there, because that meant that he got to do everything again! It was very exciting and actually quite cool!
• We went snow-shoeing, which I'm wishing we had gotten into earlier in the winter, it could have made for a faster funner winter. Oliver had a blast even though he got cold fingers - he loved running around in the snow, sliding down the snow banks, and he made his first real snow angel.

2 Years Old

Oliver turned 2 on January 5th. Hard to believe I have a 2 year old. But a fabulous one he is!

We kept the day pretty low key. Nathan works nights, so while he slept Oliver and I ran errands, such as getting PINK balloons. And did other things to get ready for his party, including decorating PINK cupcakes.

Oh yes. Pink. He wanted pink, so we had pink. Funny, but I figure it's harmless at 2, right? We also went to a toy store with my mom in the morning, where Oliver got 1 early present. Then while I was busy doing stuff around the house he got to open 1 other early present - I figured that would help the whole day feel more special.

For dinner I made Oliver's favorite food: PIZZA!It was my first real attempt at homemade pizza and it turned out pretty good.

The party was low key too. In attendance were my mom, Ryan and Ashly, Nathan's mom, Caitlin, and Pud and Ude. We sang "Happy Birthday" which was a little intimidating for Oliver. Had cupcakes, he wanted the one on top. And opened presents. Oliver had a blast. He wanted the packages with pink bows first, but enjoyed opening them all. Among the loot: 2 puzzle sets, The Ant and The Elephant, Harold and the Purple Crayon, a Cars "find it" book, sheets for his "big boy bed" (he knew exactly what they were for), new PJs and jacket, new shoes, a Little People airplane, and a roll of quarters to put in his bank.

Resolved

I'm not a person that makes new resolutions each year, but I'm in the mood, so here I go. There are a few things that I really want to accomplish/get better at this year, all of which I know I am capable of.

1. Get back into a more regular exercising pattern (walking and something new) and do at least one race (probably a half marathon)... mainly I want to maintain my physical endurance

2. Practice piano more and challenge myself more - and start to learn (or at least attempt to learn) to play the guitar

3. Cook more meals at home and eat out less - this requires more planning... hmmm...

4. Go to the temple more (this won't be hard considering 2009's attendance) - I can't say monthly, because for me that's just not realistic, but somewhere in the range of 10-15 times would be good, more would be better

5. Stay ahead of the bills and work down that debt!

6. Complain less/try not to be bothered by menial things as much

7. Have more days where I actually "get ready" and feel cute - it's good for me

8. Try not to stress out so much about laundry and dishes and cleaning - the best way I think to do this is to stay more on top of them - the goal here is to keep it under control without letting it control me I guess (and always remember that Oliver and Nathan are more important than finishing what I'm doing - this stuff can wait)

9. Read more, sew more, create more

10. Get Oliver engaged in more stimulating, productive, learning and social activities

But the most important goal is to remember that the purpose of having the aforementioned goals, what I truly resolve to do, is to strengthen home, marriage, family and yes myself, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. If those things aren't happening, then the goals are defunct.

Don't tell Oliver, but...

... there's fruit in there!

Oliver is generally a pretty good eater. He definitely has favorites that he prefers, but if we all sit down for dinner he'll usually eat what we eat, and he even likes brocolli. However, he doesn't like raw vegetables and the only fruit he likes (and will actually eat) is grapes and an occasional banana. I have felt a need to broaden his produce consumption lately, particularly when it comes to fruit.

A big shout out to my friend Danielle, whose blog post about her own picky eater, inspired me to finally give smoothies a try! The first 2 tries were hits - the 3rd, not so much, but I didn't like it that much either so I can't blame him. So far this week he has eaten peaches, raspberries, and strawberries!

Our Little Croft Christmas

This Christmas was a really good one. Despite my (somewhat failing) efforts at a festive holiday activity filled advent calendar, it didn't really feel like Christmas until it was here, but that's OK.

On the 23rd Oliver and my mom made Christmas cut-out cookies. For some reason that turned the table for me (and my mom I think) and made it actually seem like Christmas. It was fun, it was cute. Oliver had a blast and couldn't make more cookies fast enough. I've honestly never seen him so happy to be such a mess, he had flour all over himself and didn't care (normally he would freak out about that). The cookies were charmingly imperfect.

Christmas Eve was a busy and fun day. While Nathan slept, Oliver and I went to my mom's house to decorate the cookies, make other Christmas treats, and such. When Nathan woke up he came over and he and Oliver made the cutest little snow man ever! Immediately following which we went to Pud and Ude's house for dinner. Nathan's family and the Mauerhans were at dinner and we had a nice, fun evening together. From there Nathan went to work (yay for overtime pay!) and I went home, put Oliver to bed, and finished "getting ready" for Christmas.

Christmas Day:

Oliver was very excited about the basketball hoop Santa brought him - he literally skipped across the room to it! He was so excited to finally open the presents under the tree. Other gifts he especially loved were his Transformer (and Nathan's too) and the remote control bus Uncle Jason & Aunt Shelley sent him. I was excited to get 4 seasons of Scrubs from Nathan - he must love me.

In the afternoon Nathan's family came over to visit for an hour or so. Oliver had fun playing with Steven and Caitlin - was excited about the "candy book" (the Candy Cane book) and movie he got from Grandma Pam and Grandpa Dave.

The late afternoon/evening was spent at my mom's house - where we opened presents and then had a huge and delicious dinner. Oliver was super excited to get a great big Mack that carries his cars, as well as his fire truck jammies, and another (smaller and easier) Transformer from Ryan and Ashly. Nathan and I played a card game with Ryan and Ashly that lasted forever but was really fun, while my mom kept an eye on Ollie. By the time the game ended we were all tired and it was plenty past Oliver's bed time so that's where the night ended.

It was a good, happy, fun, busy Christmas.