Nanny practice....

Aunt Christy and Oliver having fun in the car while we are getting ready to do some serious shopping. She is really good...she changed his diaper on her lap! She is going to be a perfect nanny this summer!
She is really great at feeding him too!

Christy is really afraid of gnomes. Larry put this in her shower to scare the daylights out of her. I am sure she wasn't as afraid of this as she was of the one he put in her bed. It was 4 times the size of this and it was wearing a Purdue outfit. He put it in between her sheets so that when she crawled into bed the first night, she would see it. She was so tired that night that she laid on it! What a ding dong! I went in her room right after she laid down and didn't hear anything. I said, "I think Larry left something in here" She said that she had felt something digging into her shoulder but was too tired to move it to figure out what it was. She sat up and I pulled back the pillow she jumped to the other side of the bed and was almost screaming. I think she curled up in the fetal position and was shaking! We meant to slip this little one into her luggage for her trip home, but we forgot. bummer! Needless to say, I think she was scared!
Christy and I watched High School Musical 2. We both have seen 1, and knew that we were out of the loop at work as far as that goes. Oliver was having a semi-bad day (tooth number 2 was super close to erupting!) but as soon as we put him down to watch the movie, he was instantly quiet. We couldn't believe it so much, we had to take a picture. We aren't sure if it was the music or the pretty girls. He has a tendency to check them out at church.

A day at Solomons

We went to eat lunch/early dinner on Solomons Island. It is a small island that has really great seafood. Christy and I both had tuna. We order it well-done, just like chicken! It can't taste remotely close to seafood. Gag!
Christy and Oliver posing for the camera. It was a beautiful day! See that bridge in the background? I used to have to drive across that everyday for work. Thank goodness I don't have to any more!
Here is all 3 of us. Christy had to tip her camera upside down to take this picture. We almost didn't get Oliver in it. whoops!
Aunt Christy and Oliver standing under the restaurant sign. This is one of Christy's favorite places to go when she comes to visit. I think it is Grandad's favorite place too. We always take our guests and visitors here so they may get a taste of what real seafood it like! Their crab cakes were ranked #1 in the Washington DC area. Anyone want to come and visit? Come on down!!! They have cute little shops and boutiques too!

Aunt Christy is here to visit....ALMOST.....

Christy came to visit for her week of spring break. We left in ample time to get her from the airport. We parked, walked in, checked the status of her flight. She was flying from Detroit into DC on Northwest airline. Oliver was hungry from his long nap in the car so we fed him, burped him, checked the status of her flight again. It was delayed 5 minutes. Finally we get a call from her saying that she had landed! We were so excited!!!! Due to the wacky layout of the airport, we decided to meet her at the luggage claim. We waited for her to get to there but it was taking her forever. We called her to see where she was and she said she was waiting at luggage claim 2. Finally we figured out what was taking us so long to meet each other....she was at the wrong carousel. According the the status board, her luggage was coming into number 14. We told her to meet us there but she insisted that there were only 2. We tried to convince her for 5 minutes that she needed to walk down the hallway to get to 14. Finally Larry piped up and asked for her flight number......we checked it against the status board and we couldn't find it. There was one flight from Detroit to DC on Northwest at 11:50. What was the problem????

A beautiful picture of Dulles Airport. We are so excited to get Aunt Christy!!!
A close up picture of the airport. We are taking lots of pictures to add to the blog so everyone can see what we did the whole week. Larry thinks I am crazy for taking these pictures, but if he only knew how funny this entry would be, he wouldn't have had such crazy thoughts!
This is Regan airport.........
Finally we meet up with Christy. Now you are wondering why there are two different airports pictured in this blog??? We went to the wrong airport to get her! Silly Mindy. No wonder she was waiting at luggage claim 2. Good thing we are not very convincing. Luckily the airports are only about 30 minutes away in Saturday traffic! The bad part was we had to s-t-r-e-t-c-h the truth to mom who was calling every 10 minutes asking if we had seen her yet. Christy was dodging her calls so she wouldn't have to tell her that we were at the wrong airport. The really bad part of the story...I booked her ticket for her!

TEETH!!!!

Oliver has grown his first tooth! In the dental world we call it tooth letter O. (O for Oh my gosh, he has grown his first tooth!!) He had a really rough night last night and felt a little warm to the touch all day. I dismissed it as still getting over being sick. This morning he was chewing on his blanket and his clothes. As we were sitting together while I ate my lunch, I noticed that his nose was runny. I thought...hmmm, all of these signs would lead me to believe that he may be getting teeth soon. So, I did as any mother would, laid him in my lap and tipped him back and struggled with him to look into his mouth. I put my finger in his mouth to check first and he immediately stopped squirming when I rubbed it across his gums. I was shocked and more eager to get a good glance. Finally after a few seconds I was able to see the beginning of a little tooth breaking through his gums. I called Larry at work to let him know. He was very excited. I told him we only have another 20 teeth to go!!! I'll try to get a picture soon.

Funny face

Oliver has recently begun to make his new favorite face. We laugh when he does it. It wasn't until I was looking through all the pictures that I realized that he did it this much! What a silly little boy!

Making his face at Ryan's birthday party on Saturday. Ryan turned two and we had a zoo party!

He just finished eating dinner Saturday night. Check out his pj's...they have helicopters on it! Thanks Amanda for a great Christmas present.
Still making the face. We just got home from a walk around the neighborhood.

Hanging out on the floor. We are trying to get him to crawl, however, he is more interested in making faces.

Larry picked him up from Heather's house on Tuesday. I just got home from work and they were having so much fun together!

Our Goddaughter

Larry and I officially have a Goddaughter! We are so proud to announce that Maya was baptized today! We had a private ceremony officiated by Msgr O'Connell. Steve and Amanda asked us to be her Godparents while Larry was away on travel. Amanda called me one night and then put me on hold. I thought...hmmm? What is she doing? A few seconds later she was dialing in my ear. Then I hear, are you there? It was Larry's voice. We were both so confused that we could hear each other. We had just hung up the phone from one another about a half hour ago. They put us both on three way and asked us if we would be Maya's Godparents! I was so excited, I started to cry! We feel so honored that they chose us! We promise to be the best Godparents ever!!!
Here is Maya in her beautiful dress. You can't see it in the picture, but it has little pearls around the neckline. What a gorgeous little girl. Check out her long fingers. I can't wait until she is old enough to paint her fingernails!
Larry and I outside of the church. Oliver was sleeping in the car, so we were having fun outside in the beautiful weather (74 degrees today) until the ceremony started.


Our family after the ceremony.

Maya is wearing the cross necklace that Larry and I gave to her. We hope that she can wear this when she gets older to remember this special day.

HOPPY EASTER!!

We hope everyone had a wonderful Easter full of family and friends! (and a lot of food!) We woke up to a phone call this morning. It was a special delivery man, but he wasn't dressed as the Easter Bunny. He was dressed in an US Airways delivery outfit! Larry's luggage arrived at 7 this morning. He was very excited. He came upstairs with it and I started to sing the song "Reunited and it feels so good!" We both got a chuckle out of it.
After getting ready for church, we wandered downstairs to see what goodies the Easter Bunny had brought. Oliver had such a good time with all of his new gifts. Larry took Sophie out this morning and noticed that we had been egged by the Easter Bunny! There were little colorful eggs outside in our yard. Some of them had candy, one had money and a few of them had little messages in them.
Bob and Kim came over for a yummy dinner and lots of dessert! We spent the afternoon eating and talking. What a relaxing day! Here are some pictures!

This is Oliver with his Easter basket!

Oliver with his Easter basket again.

He is trying to eat the card that Grammy Pam got him.

Can you say fortunate? All of these gifts are for Oliver. These are from both Grandma's and Grandpa's, Aunt Christy, Great Grandma Lois, and Mommy and Daddy! What a lucky boy!

He loves this ball from Aunt Christy. He can put his fingers in it to hold it. He played with these at the play gym when we went a few weeks ago. I mentioned it to Christy that he really enjoyed them and what do you know....they showed up in his Easter basket from her. She is a really good listener! Can you tell that she is a teacher? A good teacher!

Daddy, Sophie and Oliver posing with all of the eggs outside! It was cold!

The bunny napkins that I folded for dinner today. They took a lot of starch, but were really fun and festive!

Daddy and Oliver at dinner. Oliver still has his Easter clothes on.

Mommy and Ollie ready for church.

Oliver posing so we can see his Easter clothes. He has a hat that matches, but apparently it didn't make it in this picture, neither did the really cute sandals!

There is the hat and the cool bib that Grammy Pam sent. He is all ready for his Easter dinner. Rice cereal and prunes! MMMMM!

Happy Birthday Ryan!

Today is Ryan's birthday! I can't believe that he is two already! He is so precious. Today at church, I asked him how old he was. Instead of answering "2" he yells "Ryan" and holds up 3 fingers. What a goof ball! Here is a picture of him. I swiped this from his website. It is a few months old, but you can see how stinkin cute he is! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Easter Eve...

Today we spent the day just haning out as a happy family. We got things ready for Easter tomorrow. Sophie was very happy that she was able to go for a walk around the block. Since Oliver wasn't feeling well lately and the weather was a little cold, she was unable to get her exercise. She was very happy! We went out to lunch and then made a trip to the store to get some things that Larry needs since his luggage is still MIA. I can't even count how many phone calls we have made today to try to track it down. Ugh! The last phone call was productive. They said that is has been located and it should be delivered tonight. It is a few minutes before midnight and no luggage. Maybe they meant tomorrow night. Who knows?? We also stopped by to see Maya today. It was Larry's first time seeing her. He got to hold her! She had a beautiful little headband on. She is going to be a girly girl for sure!!!!

We handed this egg to Oliver and he couldn't figure out what to do with it. It was too big to fit into his mouth......

So....he tried really hard to hold onto it, but ended up dropping it!

Very happy to help color the eggs. He liked the purple plastic egg better than the real one.

I am not sure who is having more fun. Mindy or Oliver? or is it Sophie?

We are having friends (Bob and Kim) over for Easter dinner tomorrow. This is the carrot cake that I made for dessert. I hope it tastes as good as it looks.

The table is all set! I can't wait for all the good food tomorrow! I thought it would be festive to hang Easter eggs from the chandelier. (Okay, I stole the idea from Martha!)

Daddy is home!

Daddy is home!!! He arrived home around 11ish this morning! He tried to sneak in the front door, but the guard dog caught the car driving up the driveway! Good dog! He was very tired from his red eye flight! After 5 minutes of calming down the dog, he was able to hold Oliver and give him lots of kisses! I think I grabbed a few too!
Larry and Oliver playing. Sophie has to be right next to daddy. I don't think she is going to let him out of her sight for a long time!

A little snuggle time!

Oliver had such a long day. He can barely finish his bottle before drifting away for the night.

Daddy's coming home early!!!

Daddy called last night and said that his trip has been shortened by one day. That means that he is coming home a day early!!! We are so excited! He is scheduled to land at the airport Friday morning instead of Saturday night. We didn't do much today. We made a trip out to go to do some errands and to go to Target. The humidifier I had was getting very hot so I decided to get a new one just to be on the safe side. We had to pick up the dry cleaning, swing by the post office, and pick up Oliver's Easter basket that I had embrodiered with his name.

The tree got its make-over today. I was putting them up as Katie was walking by. She said that she had been waiting for the eggs to go up. Good thing I put them up this year. I almost didn't.

The weather convinced me today. I think it got up into the mid 70's!

The Easter bunny has arrived a little early. haha If you look closely, there are two faces in the picture. One belongs to the bunny and the other one belongs to Sophie. Do you see her? She is in the window on the left.

I put Oliver's 5 month picture in the frame that Aunt Christy got us as a shower gift. I sat him next to it just to get a picture. He decided that it was within reach and you all know what that means.....time to eat it!!

I was attempting to get a picture of Oliver. However, whenever Sophie is within sight, there is no hope. He will turn completely around just to keep his eye on her. They are best buds!

On the up swing

I think Oliver is feeling a little better today. He has been on the antibotics for 24 hours. He is coughing a little less but there is still a lot of noisy air still in his chest. He sounds like a kitten purring when he breathes sometimes. I have the vaporizer going in his room right now. The entire upstairs smells like Vicks! It reminds me of when I was younger. My dad used to put the Vicks vaporub on our chests and then he used to take his finger and touch our noses! I went to work today and he stayed with my good friend Heather. He just loves to be there with her. She said that he didn't cry at all today. When I picked him up, he took one look at me and started to fuss. He did the same thing last week. I guess he misses his mommy!

Grandma and Grandpa Byorni gave this little inch worm to Ollie for Christmas this year. He really gets a kick out of the sections that sound like crinkled paper.

He loves to eat his feet when he isn't wearing any clothes.....

....and when he is wearing clothes.

I was taking pictures of Oliver and I said, "smile for daddy!" This is the huge grin that he gave. Only 4 more days until he can smile at daddy all day long!