Family Vacation 2014: Green Bay

This was a quickly planned family vacation.  We only started talking about it around the 4th of July.  Surprisingly it went well and was a great weekend!

We left early Saturday morning and our first stop was to the N.E.W. Zoo.

Tavin had fun "trying" out all of the foot massage chairs.

An awesome experience of feeding the giraffes!

Tavin actually getting his feet massaged with Uncle Tim!

Penguins with Roni!

Feeding the goats and sheep

Sunday we went to Bay Beach.  This place is better than a county fair!  Cheap rides, reasonable priced food.  It was a great day!

It was an overcast and somewhat rainy day but it made for a gorgeous picture!

Tavin's favorite ride...EVER!  I seriously had to run after and stop him from climbing the steps by himself.  He had weaved through a crowd full of people and was set on going down it NOW!  It was torture telling a 2 year old he needed to wait in line for the coolest slide ever!

Monday we got tickets to do the Lambeau Field Tour.  As a Wisconsinite, it's always awesome to see.  It was our first time doing it and it was very interesting.  

Getting ready to go out of the tunnel:

Tavin's ready to run it!!

Dear Olivia: Month 3

Dear Olivia,

This month has been a whirlwind.

You had your first Fourth of July/Grandpa's Birthday.  Since you had your shots the day before, you were passed out most of the day.  But you did wake up in the evening to capture some shots.

After the weekend of the Fourth, you started daycare.  As with everything else, the daycare transition has been easier since I know you are in good hands.

We also went to Grandma and Grandpa's again for the third straight weekend!  We had a volleyball tournament on July 12 so they watched you and Tavin...alone...at once....::gasp::  They said it went well.

The last weekend of July was your first vacation.  We went to Green Bay with the rest of my family.

Your likes:

• This Old Man.  Out of all the songs in my limited arsenal this is the one that puts you to sleep!
• Tavin.  You love to watch him and smile every time you look at him.
• Sleep.  Thankfully you inherited my sleeping gene!  You give a little fit every now and then.  But we find it's best to just lay you down so you can put yourself to sleep.  While it's good in the long run it sucks that I don't get to snuggle with you much.
• Your spa time (aka baths)!  Only fitting that a lady loves to relax!

Your dislikes:

• Tummy time.  You scream bloody murder every time.  But get this, you'll sleep just fine on your tummy.
• Hiccups.  You can only tolerate them for a couple minutes and then you start getting mad.
• Your head being touched.  Weird one for sure!  Hopefully you grow out of it so I can do your hair :)

Now that you are officially out of the "fourth trimester", I'm excited to watch your personality come out more!

Love,

Mama

Dear Olivia: Month 2

Dear Olivia,

Your second month has been a little rougher.  You started to the witching hour shortly after your 1 month mark.  At first it was awful, 4 hours of screaming/fussing/crying which usually happened from 5 pm-9 pm.  Unlike your brother, you did not even want to nurse/comfort suck.  The only thing that worked was being outside.  Thankfully, it has been nice enough outside that we can take you for a walk or sit out on the deck and chill.

We've slowly been moving your bedtime up as well just because of your witching hour.  It seems to have helped and you only get fussy for an hour now, usually 7:30 pm-9 pm.

Besides the witching hour problems, everything else has been going great.  You are still sleeping great.  Around 6 weeks, we transitioned you from your rock n play to the crib at night.  I was worried at first since you don't seem to like lying flat but you've done great.  You are only up between 2:30-3:30 and then again around 5.  There have been several nights where you skip the middle of the night feedings.  Okay with me until I wake up in pain and need to pump!

Since you are still too young for daycare (and I had to work on getting our budget in check), You have been spending lots of time with Grandma as she has been watching you several days a week.  It has been a win-win situation all around.  Grandma spoils and loves on you and willingly helps with our housework (which is AWESOME).  We keep telling Grandpa that we are going to keep her because it's nice having an extra hand around.

You've started smiling and cooing and Daddy is pretty smitten with that fact.

You still do not like your tummy time.  Despite that, you are doing pretty good with your head control.  Hopefully soon you'll enjoy it more.

We celebrated my birthday

and Father's Day (June 15).

You even had your first official babysitter, Uncle Keith and Aunt Syd, watch you while we took Tavin to a local festival on June 14.  Sounds like you had fun!  Tavin enjoyed his special time as well.

Your other first this month was a wedding.  Shaun's sister got married.  It was an outside wedding and thankfully a pretty nice day.

At your 2 month appointment on July 3 you weighed in at a whopping 11 lbs 13 oz!!!  Crazy to think you are growing so much since you aren't eating at night.  You are now officially bigger than Tavin when he was your age!

You also had your shots. :(  Like with Tavin, we wavered on whether to get them all or not but in the end, we decided to do all of them.  And as a shock to us you handled them very well.  You slept all night and pretty much the next day as well.  You ran a low grade fever the next afternoon but that was it.  We were very thankful!

Tavin had to get in on your pictures as well

Love,

Mama