The Greatest Show on Earth?

Last Friday, Olivia and I had a mommy-daughter day.  We both attended our very first circus.  I don't know that I would agree with their claim about it being the greatest show on Earth, but we did have a good time!  She got bored with some of the acts fairly quickly and kept asking if it was going to be over, but then a new act would start and she would become interested again.   It was really long...longer than I expected...like 2 1/2 hours.  That's a long time to sit in one place...even for this 32 year old!

We went early so we could see the pre-show, meet the clowns and see the animals up close and personal.  I think Olivia may have enjoyed the pre-show more than the actual show!

The closer the clowns would get to her, the closer to the edge of this bench she would get.  I think she was ready to bolt at any moment!

She *loved* this girl clown.  She's still talking about her and her red dress.  She would spot her down on the floor thru the entire show and get so excited that she found her.

I promised her when we got there that we would get cotton candy (aka "candy cot" to Olivia).  Little did I know that I was going to have to pay an arm and a leg for candy cot....$12!!!  Seriously.  Ridiculous.

We did get free clown noses during the pre-show.  Olivia's nose is so tiny she can barely keep it on.  I have no such problem.

We spent about 15-20 minutes at the extremely overpriced souvenier line.  I normally avoid those lines, walk fast and pretend I know nothing about all that stuff that's for sale! lol.  She's getting too old now and very aware.  I decided we only attend our first circus once.....so we ended up coming home with this lovely horse.  Hey, at least Barbie can probably ride on it. 

Swimming with Friends

We really don't have much to write home about for this weekend.  I went to bed before 8pm last night with a migraine and have been in a fog much of the day today.  I woke up at 5am and volunteered at my food co-op.  I just drank lots of water and was praying it was really gone!  When I got home around 8am, we took Olivia to feed the ducks at a local pond.  After that, we just stuck around the house.  I've had a minor headache all day and just "blah".  Hoping for a better Sunday!

Last weekend, we headed East to visit Clancy and Nicole and all of their kiddos.  We went to the neighborhood pool in Aunt Katie's neighborhood.  Nicole's cousin came with her new baby, but I failed to get a picture.

All of these are from my phone, so not the greatest quality.

Olivia and "baby" Harper...as she still calls her.  She wants to be baby Harper's mommy.  Baby Harper wants to run from her! lol

Olivia and her boy Hudson.

Playing Ring around the Rosie (or Rosey?  hmmmm...not sure about that one)

The pics of these two are going to be so cute at their rehearsal dinner one day :) Hudson, make sure you do well in school and get a good job!!!!!

"sweet" Harper.  They say she's mean.  I didn't notice her being mean at all!

Where there are toddlers and pre-schoolers, there are SNACKS.  Lots and lots of snacks!

After swimming we went back and spent the day at Nicole's house.  Olivia continued to try to mother Harper and hold her.  Harper wanted nothing to do with it.  She's 15 months old....so she's on the run!  And Olivia thinks she should just be her baby doll and sit there! :)

We had a great weekend with you guys.  Hope to do it again soon!  We miss you all already!

We're Alive! Really, we are!

I don't think I have ever gone this long without blogging!

I don't know what's up, but for some reason, I just haven't felt like sitting down and being on the computer much.  My work has been very stressful the last few weeks, and I guess I just don't want to sit in front of this screen anymore than I have to!

Olivia turned 3 1/2 on July 20, so I thought I'd write a little about what she has been up to.

WEIGHT

 I think around 32 pounds.

HEIGHT

Somewhere around 36-37 inches per my measurements

SIZE

Starting to transition into more 3T.  For the most part, she has been in 2T bottoms and 3T tops, although she still wears a lot of her 2T tops from last summer.  I know for Fall/Winter, 3T will have to be required for length.  I can't have her walking around in high waters!  She isn't petite, so I don't know why the 3T summer stuff has been too big, but she's not been able to wear several outfits that I had purchased :(

MATH

She can count to 30 (with some assistance.  She usually gets 1-2 wrong in the teens, but then is good).

She does simple addition/subtraction (and when I say simple, it's SIMPLE, but it's still addition/subtraction! lol).  2 examples from this week:  I asked her how many waffles she wanted.  She said one.  I told her to go ask Nana.  She came back and said Nana wanted 2 waffles.  I said "ok, so how many do I need to make?" and she said "THREE!".  I thought that was pretty good!  She also subtracts at night when we sing songs.  I'll tell her we will sing 4 sounds, and as we sing one, she announces how many we have left.  She'll say, "we already sang three so only one mo" (and yes, it's MO, not more. lol).

I think she's exibiting early math skills. :)  I actually don't know if it's early or not as I don't know what the other kids are doing, but I like to think that she is, as I hate that only boys are suppose to be good at math!  I was always good at math young, so I hope she will be as well!

LANGUAGE ARTS :)

She never stops talking. Ever. I think she has a decent vocabulary...you'd have to in order to talk every waking minute of every day :)

She asks "what is that?" and then "why?" about 1,873 times a day.

She can write her name without any assistance.  She LOVES to do this and show she is a big girl.

She recognizes nearly all of her letters.  She gets stumped on a few, but I'd say she knows 85-90% of them. I'm confident we'll get the few stragglers down soon.

Some "Olivia-isms"

Like her mom, she's a chip addict.

She calls tortilla chips "quesadilla chips".  She's like "ohhhh, I want a quesadilla chip".

Jason likes to "count her ribs"....which tickles.  She'll lay on her back and say "Count my ribbons!".

I tend to post sayings or conversations on facebook...not so much for everyone else, but because I want to document these things and not forget.  And since my phone is always around, it's an easy place to do it!  Plus, I'm sure the grandmas like reading!  Here are a few from the past couple of months.

A couple others that I couldn't screen shot, so had to copy/paste:

Olivia brought me her bible last night and said "I need to see God. Can you show him to me?". Ummmm. So I showed her a picture of Jesus ascending into heaven. Told her he was God's son and was going to live with God in heaven. Not good enough. She said "well show him to me. I want to see him". Really really hard to explain to a 3 year old that is never satisfied with the answers I provide!

"After I killed a tiny little spider, I got the following lecture from my 3 year old..."Mommy, We DON'T kill God's creatures! A spider is God's creature." (all very sternly). Then she looked up and said "God, my mom killed a spider". I didn't know what to do other than ask God for forgiveness for killing the stupid spider!"

O: Mom? Can I go to China? You have to fly in an airplane to get there" and then proceeds to sing a song about "I'm going to China! I'm going to China!". My baby is trying to leave me already ;(

Me: Olivia! Stop the whining. Use your strong voice to talk.
Olivia (really whining now): But I am not a boy!!!!!

Olivia: Chips are not growing food.
Me: huh?

Olivia: Chips are not growing food. They don't help you grow big. First you eat everything else THEN you can eat the chips.
At least she understands they are the least healthy thing on the plate...even if she is still planning on eating them!

I'll end this very unorganized post with a few random pictures from this past month!  Gosh, I still can't believe I haven't posted in a month!!!

 

(the above was a Pinterest fun project I found.  It occupied her about 3 minutes. POINTLESS)

(almost) Picture Free

Well, I'm not sure I took a single picture this weekend.

I'm really not keeping up with my paparazzi mom status. I might get fired.

On Saturday, we laid low.  We went to Gram E's and went swimming for an hour or so.  Olivia swam like such a big girl....insisting we let go of her so she could do it herself.  She did so good!

On Sunday, we went to a friend's 3 year old birthday party.  Again, no pics.  They had a big blow-up bouncy water slide thing...Olivia was really hesistant at first, but she ended up loving it.  Maybe we'll try out a waterpark again this summer after all!

We did have an exterminator come Friday.  After last week's false rat scare, I just wanted to make sure we didn't have any unwelcome guests amongst us.  I'm VERY HAPPY to report that the exterminator was quite confident that there were no signs of any rodents living in our home or garage.  (I knew our home was free...was NOT so confident in the garage).  I walk in the garage with much more peace now! 

I'll leave you today with a pic from last weekend of our lovely daughter in our "lovely", yet rodent-free garage.

Just another day in the Dominy house

Since getting back from the beach, we haven't done much of anything.  We spent last weekend trying to get this house in order and trying to dig out of the dust in this house!  We were way overdue for a cleaning!

I did manage to snap a few random pictures....so did Olivia!  I bet you can pick out which ones she took!

Isn't he handsome?

Pretty girl's ears ALWAYS need to be brushed

Oh....let me tell you a story about these two dogs.

Last night, they killed a rat in our backyard!  Right in the middle of the yard!  And when I say last night...I mean about 8pm...it was still daylight.  I was freaking out.  I have what is probably an abnormal fear of rodents.  I just don't even want to know they exist.  I suppose my parents shielded me from knowing rodents existed growing up!  I saw my first mouse & first rat in college and the fear started there.....and has never left. 

So...needless to say I was screaming at them to get inside.  I could see the rat dead in the yard.  I yelled for Jason to go take care of it and just kept hoping it was really a possum (I don't know why I'm not quite as freaked out by possums).  NOPE!  It was a rat.  NO!!!!!!!!!!!!   I was dying.  I immediately posted on facebook requesting recommendations for exterminators.  My mind was racing. Where else they could be?  Are they in the house?  The garage?  The attic?  Do they have babies?   OMG.  I can't handle this.

So Jason went out, bagged it up and said he would take it to a dumpster somewhere.  He got back home a few minutes later.  I sat on the couch texting a couple of friends FREAKING out.  I probably should see someone about my rodent fear.....it's probably irrational....but it's real.

About 9:30pm, someone rang our doorbell.  Hmmm...that's weird.

Jason goes to the door, where a lady & her teenage daughter are standing.   I'm still in the living room on the couch (after all, rats might be on the floor).  So I hear the following "Um, this is going to be a strange request....but we are housesitting next door and her pet rat got out..."

WHAT?!?! NO WAY!

(and I felt immediate relief knowing a wild rat wasn't in my backyard!)

At this point, I get up and go to the door to help Jason out. 

The teenage girl is crying.  She said she could see it thru the fence and was pretty sure it was dead.

Then:  "Do you have the remains?  We would like to bury it".

WHAT?!?!  NO WAY!

Um....So Jason had to tell her that he disposed of it in a dumpster!  She started bawling!  I did feel bad for her, but seriously....who takes their pet rat housesitting???? And then let's them loose??? As my mom said, maybe it should have had a collar on so we would have known it was someone's pet! 

So.....

1.  YAY!!!! I don't have rats afterall (but I'm still skeptical about that garage).

2.  If I DID have rats, my dogs would protect me!!!  And people think poodles are sissy....jokes on you! :)

So.....there's your lovely rodent story for the day.

Hope you enjoyed.  LOL

I can write my own name!

I'm posting for the first time from my phone, so forgive any formatting or spelling mistakes!!

Today at lunch, Olivia wanted to write her name. Normally I write it for her and then have her copy it....but today, I looked down and she had already written the "O" and the "l" before I even started calling the letters.

So no copying today...just me calling out the letters and her writing them. Not too bad for a 3 year old. I was very proud of my big girl! Now we just need to work a little more on that penmanship!

Texas Beach Vacation

We went with Jason's family to Crystal Beach this past week.  Jason and I went down Tuesday and came back Sunday. We have to cross the ferry to get to Crystal Beach, so that added a little to our time, but I think it took us about 6 1/2 hours to get there (shorter on the way home since we didn't have a ferry wait).

We shared a 5 bedroom house with the rest of his family and had a really good time.  There's always varying opinions when you have that many adults in one house for that long, but overall it went pretty well! 

Here's a few thousand pictures to document the trip!

Long car ride = short nap :)

Super excited to get on the "big boat" aka the ferry.  We ended up taking the ferry 4 times and she loved guessing which color we were going to get. 

First day on the beach.  Daddy built her a big hole, but she wouldn't get in it....and didn't want him to either.

On Friday, Jason and I took Olivia into Galveston and went to Moody Gardens.  We thought she might enjoy the small waterpark they have there.  We thought wrong.  We thought very wrong.  I think we spent about 20-30 minutes there, then dried off and went to see some other exhibits.

We went to the Rainforest, the Aquarium & we saw Dora & Diego in 4D.  That may have been the highlight of the trip!  She LOVED it (Jason and I enjoyed it too).  In addition to the 3D experience, there were bubbles in the theatre, and our seats vibrated and we got splashed on when Diego and Dora went thru the waterfall.  We only wished it had lasted longer!

More random beach pics....

Olivia wanted a BIG sandcastle.  I was unsuccessful in getting ANYONE to participate in helping build it, so this was all I came up with.  I'm sorry Olivia.  Maybe next time!

Her favorite thing about the beach was finding seashells.  This morning, she saw them all on the counter and said "Oh mommy!  You brought my seashells home!!!".  It's the little things... 

We had a photographer come take our pics on the beach.  I'm anxious to see how they turned out, but I loved this one of Olivia and her daddy (and of course Griffin who refuses to look at the camera!)

Emily & Wayne

It rained Saturday, so we spent quite a bit of time indoors.  Olivia had to "read" the directions to Hi Ho Cheerio to me.  She was so funny.  I have it on video, but figured a picture will suffice for the blog :)

This was as close as Olivia would get to the water.  She was TERRIFIED of the ocean (and to be honest, I'm kind of ok with that).  I am not a big fan myself.  Sharks DO come in close sometimes.  Not often, but stranger things have happened and I'd just assume play it safe.  That being said, I did want her to at least let the water come up on her feet or sit and play close to the edge to cool off, but she wouldn't have anything to do with it.  These pictures are from the last night there.....it took us 4 days to get her this close to the water!

Love these two running.  I might have a little runner on my hands!!!  She ran about 1/4 mile down the beach and back...going full force!  She was like "Let's run!!!" and take off.



On our last ferry ride (with Emily and Wayne).

We saw lots of dolphins on this ride. Several were really close to the boat.  I wish I had known to look for them on the other rides!  Oh well!

Our vacation was a good start to what I hope to be a great summer!