Tagged: 8 fun things

8 Shows I like to watch...

1. The Amazing Race
2. Grey's Anatomy
3. Brothers & Sisters
4. Law & Order (Jeff's dad calls them my "shoot 'em up" shows)
5. Criminal Minds
6. Bones
7. Without a Trace
8. QVC & HSN (It's pathetic BUT it's nice to have adult voices talking at me in the house during the day. . . and no, I haven't ever bought anything. . . and no, I don't talk back either.)

8 Restaurants I Like...

1. Texas Roadhouse
2. Outback Steakhouse
3. Ruby River
4. Olive Garden (except while I'm nursing because EVERY single item but 1 on the menu has either onions, garlic, or tomatoes in it!)
5. IHOP (hey, I never claimed to be fancy)
6. The Garden House
7. Noodles & Company
8. Pizza Factory

8 Things that happened yesterday...

1. Parked in a parking spot perfectly straight and even (that never happens).
2. Bought Fenugreek to help my milk supply increase so that Elea can gain some weight.
3. Talked to my mom on the phone.
4. Talked to my sister on the phone.
5. Filled out job applications in Northern Utah for Jeff.
6. Paid a couple of bills on-line.
7. Took Elea's picture.
8. Read Wuthering Heights.

8 I things I'm looking forward to...

1. Flying to Kentucky on Saturday to visit Ma & Pa.
2. Ang, Derek, & kids coming to visit in December.
3. Twilight Movie on Friday night.
4. Friday Night Lights coming back on in January.
5. Finishing Wuthering Heights because I don't really like it and it's taking me forever to get through it.
6. Every weekday at 3:30 pm because that's when Jeff gets home now that football is over!
7. Jeff getting a teaching job.
8. Christmas Eve in our own house for the first time since we were married.

8 things on my wish list...

1. Jeff to have a teaching job.
2. Elea to gain weight and stop having a stuffy nose all the time.
3. The AZ house mess done and over with.
4. Every book I have marked on "Goodreads" that I haven't read yet.
5. To own a pair of jeans that fit me right now.
6. To be more patient with my sweet husband.
7. To have white socks that stay really white.
8. To have a car seat that weighs 2 lbs.

I tag. . .
1. Gwen
2. Angie
3. Becca
4. Mel
5. Amanda
6. Maddie
7. Tricia
8. Anyone else who wants to do this tag!

Not good. Not good at all.

I finally got around to calling a real estate agent on Tuesday (thanks Maddie!) and found out some bad news. I wasn't expecting good news- but it was worse than I thought. Houses in our neighborhood in AZ are selling for between $139,000- and $170,000. No, wait, I phrased that wrong, they are listing for that much and selling for even less.

So considering that we still owe a whopping $240,000 it's not looking so hot for us. Not at all. My first reaction was to think that we should just hang on to it until the market improves. But that could be YEARS and even with renters in it we are still paying out $900+ a month. So my second reaction was to just not think about it at all (which is kind of what I've been doing for the past few months). Jeff, on the other hand, called his dad for advice. He said that we should just let it go into foreclosure since the loan is only in my name (thank goodness!). His words were "quit feeding a dead horse." Initially I was really against the idea- I'm not a big fan of trashing my credit score. But being able to save that money every month would be fabulous and maybe it'll keep me and jeff from making some crazy quick decision to buy a house in the next little while because heaven knows we aren't great at holding off on things once we get the idea in our heads.

So who knows. Dumb house. BUT silver lining or whatever is that if we hadn't moved there we wouldn't have gone to the fertility doc and so we wouldn't have elea right now-- and she is definitely 100% no questions asked worth it.

Elea's 4 month check up

Yesterday afternoon was Elea's 4 month check up. She only weighed 12 lbs 8 oz and she is 23 1/2 inches tall. So she dropped down to the 25th percentile in weight and moved up to the 50th percentile in height.

She is still wearing the same clothes that she started wearing at 6 weeks old. It just hit me today that she is 4 months old wearing 3 month old clothes. I think this is a first in Oliverson family history.

** I just looked up her 2 month checkup and she hasn't even gained a full pound in 2 months. She's a happy baby and sleeping good so the doc wasn't worried but it's definitely not what I expected!

Smilestones

After reading Lori's blog a week or two ago I realized that I need to post about Elea's little things even if no one else gives a rip because otherwise I'm going to forget. (She's a lot better at recognizing the little developments because she's got a degree in early childhood development- but I'm doing my best!)

Elea has squealed a few times when she's gotten excited. Angie and Jeff have been able to get some good squeals from her.

Jeff has gotten her to giggle a few times too-- it's just as deep a sound as her cry/yell.

She has discovered her left foot. She likes to grab her left foot with her left hand and then can get ahold of her right knee or ankle but usually she just leaves that leg out swingin'. She can't quite get her toes into her mouth yet-- but she pulls her sock off a little and hangs onto it. It cracks me up when she loses her grip because every limb shoots out straight like a star and she looks half terrified and half surprised.

Lately Elea has been attempting to shove her entire fist in her mouth. She is constantly gagging herself but hasn't mastered getting just her thumb in her mouth.

She wants to be sitting up looking around all the time. The only time she will recline is if she is in her bouncer (and even then she tries to sit up) or getting tired/relaxed. She isn't able to hold herself up yet, but if she is reclined then she attempts to sit upright (and then tips over).

She rolled herself over from her tummy to her back in her crib today for the first time. Then later I was on the floor with her and she was laying on her tummy again. She pushed herself up and flopped over onto her back. I don't know if that counts because it was totally on accident-- but it was pretty fun to watch.

She is less cross-eyed now-- but if the camera flashes a bunch of times in a row she goes cross eyed.

Elea still loves her bath time. She can go from ornery to happy in about 2.5 seconds if we put her in the tub.

And last of all-- she smiles really easily now. It doesn't take much to get her to smile. My favorite is when she smiles really big and balls up her fists and starts squirming-- like if she tried to smile any harder she would burst. I can be having a rough day and then she does that and everything seems a lot better.

The past 2 weeks in pictures

My mom and I stopped at my Aunt Maxine's before we left the Uintah Basin on Sunday the 26th. Elea didn't find us nearly as funny as we found ourselves.

How we spent our Halloween: Elea loves to sit straight up so we got her this bumbo chair. She loves it. Especially now that she has figured out how to twist herself sideways so that she can gnaw on the sides of it.

I guess I lied when I said she wasn't cross eyed anymore.

With Grandpa Sullivan.

Check out Jeff's new pearly whites!

Elea's first attempt at cereal

In an effort to get Elea to sleep through the night we gave her cereal on Tuesday night. Talk about your all time back-fire-- instead she just got a really bad tummy ache. So we are waiting a few more weeks before we give it to her again and I am doing my best to fix the night time waking up situation other ways (see previous post). BUT she was cracking me up because she was so dang excited-- I think she was just humoring Jeff and me because we were getting such a kick out of the whole process.

17 day catch up

It seems like I am tempted to title every 3rd post "catch up" so this time I got creative and actually numbered the days I was "catching up" on. So thorough.

• My mom was in town from the 21st- 27th. It was awesome to have her here again.
• My Aunt Maxine went through the temple on the 25th so my Mom and I went to Roosevelt and Vernal for the weekend. It was really cool to be there with a lot of my mom's brothers and sisters.
• On the night of the 25th some of my cousins on my dad's side of the family got together at my Aunt LouAnn's house. It was a lot of fun to hang out and watch everyone be "moms & dads"!
• We stayed at my Grandpa's house for 2 nights. I hadn't seen him since my Grandma's funeral last August. I was glad that he was able to see Elea. It cracked me up because some of the phrases he used and his tone of voice sounded just like my dad.
• On Sunday, the 25th, we stayed the night at Tricia's house. Her little Keaton is a cute baby boy. She took some pictures of him and Elea together since they are just a couple of weeks apart. So cute.
• Monday after I dropped my mom off at the airport Elea and I went to Lori's to visit her and Gavin. I didn't have a lot of time but we were able to fit in the important conversation points with what time I had. ha. Gavin seemed HUGE to me compared to Elea and he is only 1 and a couple of months!
• That night we went to Thriller with Amanda & Tyler at Tuacahn. It was the first date-date that Jeff and I have had since Elea was born-- we went to lunch once when my mom was in town a few weeks after she was born. It was really good-- it's a dance show with different halloween themed skits. A couple of the dancers were from this last season of So You Think You Can Dance so that was pretty cool. I was stressing out the entire drive home from Salt Lake because I didn't have a ton of time to get home and feed Elea before we needed to head down to St. George. On the drive Friday she was really good and slept most of the time. On the way home she woke up after about 2 hours-ish and then would start crying. So while dislocating my shoulder to put her binky back in she would stop crying, but then she would start again. So I would take the next exit so that I could feed her and before I could get stopped and to the backseat to get her out, she would be asleep. This happened the rest of the way home. But I can't complain-- she did really well considering how many miles we covered in such a short time, plus she was in and out of her car seat all day every day that we were gone. (Now she just HATES her car seat).
  
• Wednesday the 29th was Jeff's work Halloween party. I went as someone from the 80's, Elea was a punk rocker (with much guidance from Auntie Gwen), and Jeff was one of the Beijing Olympic Swimming Relay Gold Medalists with 3 other guys from work. I have a picture of Jeff (which isn't really appropriate for mass distribution), but didn't manage to take one of myself or Elea-- I will get one of Elea easily enough since it just involves a onesie, pants, and 2 sweatbands on her wrists but my costume was disposed of within 24 hours.
• On Halloween Jeff had a football game and it was cold and/or windy outside so I didn't go. So Elea and I just hung out at home with the front porchlight off because I totally spaced buying candy for the trick or treaters. (That's one of those adult responsibilities I have yet to master).
• This week I went down to St. George a couple of times- jeff's parents gave their kids their christmas presents early this year-- they paid for us to load up on food for our food storage. Monday my two sis-in-laws and my mother-in-law went to Costco. We were pushing the big pallet type carts (like home depot's) and they were getting really full. So between the 4 of us there were three huge carts, one normal size cart completely full, and 4 kids 3 years old or younger (and shan's pregnant). Needless to say, we got some weird looks and one guy asked if we all lived in the same house. Another girl asked if we were planning on living underground. I'm crossing my fingers I will never have to be 100% dependent on what we've stocked up on, but it's good to know we could last a little while if absolutely necessary.
• Jeff caught a cold towards the end of last week, then Elea caught it, now I have it. I took Elea to the doc on Monday to make sure she didn't have an ear infection or anything and luckily she didn't-- she's just really congested. She only weighed 12 lbs 11 oz.! I knew she wasn't getting big quickly but I thought that she at least weighed 13 lbs. But it isn't a drastic drop percentile wise so her pediatrician isn't worried.
  
• The past week or so-- maybe shorter maybe longer-- Elea has been waking up two or more times a night. I haven't been sure if she was hungry or just waking up for the fun of it or what, but by Thursday morning I had had enough. So I pulled out the Baby Whisperer book again (which I failed miserably on my first attempt when she was a few weeks old). So yesterday was the first day of her napping in her crib and it went a lot better than I expected. It's called the Pick Up/Put Down method-- you don't rock your baby to sleep, but you don't leave them alone to cry it out either. When she cries hard I pick her up, then once she's stopped crying I immediately lay her back down. Over and over and over again. Her first nap yesterday I did that for over an hour. (Thank goodness I only have 1 child!) But then by today her first 2 naps I didn't have to pick her up and lay her down more than once. This afternoon was a little more rough but at least she is sleeping in her crib while it's daylight! BUT the best news of all is that after doing that yesterday she slept through the night last night!! I didn't wake up once. 8 blissful hours with no stupid nightmares about spiders and demons, no Jeff snoring, no baby crying . . . it was fabulous!
• Cedar played Park City tonight and they were ahead until the last 3 minutes of the game. They lost 11-8 so Jeff is officially done coaching until February. I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't excited that he's finished. It will be nice to have him just working a normal 40 hour work week without school, coaching, etc.