four generations.

great grandpa chet. grandpa august. great grandma verna. grandma joni. great grandpa leon.

oliver at three months.

home on the mind.

less than a week until we travel back to iowa soil. i have home on the mind. i am going on blog hiatus until we return from the trip. i will leave music to soothe your soul while you await the entertaining stories of our adventure.

blue-eyed peas & a goatee.

i have some random photos i don't want to overlook before we take our big trip back to iowa. i'm going to be busy getting ducks in a row for the flight & trip this upcoming week & 1/2. and since i haven't gotten any feedback or tips on flight travel with a youngster...i will blame you bloggies if i do anything taboo. just kidding. i'm doing my research. here are my thoughts so far...
ONE. obviously, i hope oliver takes the flights okay.

TWO. i hope he doesn't poop on any of the flights.

THREE. i hope they serve refreshments...i'm gonna need caffeine!

AND FOUR. i hope i don't stand up too soon & catch the flight attendant on his last nerve, make him go wacky, announce his resignation & leave the plane to have beers with his boyfriend (yikes! you've seen the headlines!). anywhoooo...onto the photos & videos.

blue-eyed (w/) peas...all over his face!

olly want a cracker?...oh c'mon you knew it was coming sooner or later =)

first taste...he's probably not going to appreciate me sharing this one ;)

just checking out the scene.

and this is how i found oliver napping the other day...so exhausted he just curled up hugging ox.

this photo refused to rotate so it looks like he's sleeping vertical. tilt your head to the right.

and a goatee...now tell me this isn't a michael face?! wow!

giggle man.

loves his tunes.

more with peas.

eightynine.yrs.

my grandpa. oliver's great.

is celebrating eighty-nine years today.

enjoy your cake & ice cream.

happy birthday.

we love & miss you so much.

see you soon.

love l m n o.

nine.mo.

oliver grows.

crawling...cruising...everywhere!

pulling up to standing position on everything.

exploring more & more.

loves to crawl under or over things. and unfortunately...we have now entered the stage where there will probably be a constant bruise, scrape, scratch, etc, somewhere on your little energetic body.

laughs outloud more often.

i swear he has said his first word... mama ;) ask mike!

has started eating real steamed veggies, cheese, crackers, puffs.

loves greeting daddy when he gets home from work & insists that he picks him up...no matter how dirty he is =)

plays follow the leader.

loves peekaboo...or 'peekies' as mama plays it.

dances by bouncing on his little butt when music is on.

loves petting dogs.

flirts with women strangers all the time, especially in the grocery store.

loves watching older children run around & play.

still prefers the outdoors.

tries to mimmick when mama slaps her knees & claps her hands.

enjoys listening on the phone to family...still doesn't really 'talk' back yet, more so tries to lick the phone.

started working with a sippy cup.

loves being clothes-less...that's why the majority of the photos you see, he has no clothes on, it's just easier that way sometimes!

has all of a sudden hated getting his diaper changed...no patience or time for it i guess?!

loves snuggling in bed & sleeping between mom & dad.

hates napping.

i only added these last two because when you get older, i want you to read this just for fun. haha. and seriously, the kitchen has gone to the birds & there are mysterious little finger prints on everything...we love you little squishy man & love watching you grow & develop your personality =)

cycling on the ceiling.

poor olly must get used to the bicycles hanging from the ceiling now. up until mobile oliver, we have had our bikes stored in our kitchen. for lack of a better storage space & for the convenience, it worked. now that oliver is obsessed with travelling over to the bikes & standing up on them, we knew one of those times, it was not going to be a good outcome. i love the freed up space...& the relief that oliver isn't going to take a sharp spike to his face!

saying goodbye.

up...up & away...

it's a great conversation piece & adds some flair to the place =)

happy birthday aunt brittany.

happy birthday aunt britter.

we love you.

love l m n o.

snowmass co plates & new routines.

we headed up to snowmass again to see tab benoit perform on fanny hill. we love our thursday night concerts! it's just too bad that it rains every time! it dumped just before the show, so other than the chilliness, we weren't threatened by lightning & raindrops all night. you just can't beat free outdoor entertainment for oliver, beautiful colorado skies & a cheap bottle of wine =)

i recently became an official colorado driver. despite the numerous states i have resided, i have always kept my iowa license plates, so this is huge! but i guess it's time for the old plates to be retired. hello co!

this weekend, i plan to officially oliver-proof our home. and we are going to keep working on our naptime/bedtime routine. we have adapted the ferber method. it's more of a quasi-ferber method. i hate the idea of letting your child cry it out...of course, the second i heard my child's first cries i never wanted him to have to cry (so i'm a first time mama & a giant sap, whatever!). mike, on the other hand, has always wanted to try to ferber-method. so, after deciding we needed to do something about the fact that oliver spent more time in our bed than we did, i finally broke down. i read up on it & we started a couple of days ago. luckily, he has adapted to it quite well. the first day/night was horrible though! he has his daddy's stubborness ;) & he will cry an entire 10 minutes if you leave him there. it makes my chest hurt & i end up pacing around until the exact second i can go in to comfort him! but like i said, he is getting used to calming himself & he has slept so much better through the night. i give him a lot of credit because we're giving him a lot to take in right now. we have started giving him a sippy cup, so he can explore & hopefully figure out some self-service. also, we have tried some new foods & snacks to broaden his palette. he does so good eating, but we are going to have work a little harder with the avacados =)   

and there's also another wedding in the future...congrats to our friends paul & sonya, who are now engaged! last weekend they left for a vacation to nantucket.  mike & i were aware of the proposal already though, as paul had a couple too many mango margaritas at mountain fair a couple weeks back & spilled the beans to us ;) i really don't think sonya had any idea, so we can't wait to hear all about the proposal & the rest of their trip! congrats you two!!!

nantucket beach.

happy birthday papa hanny.

we love you dad & grandpa!

looking forward to seeing you soon!

happy birthday!

enjoy!

love l m n o.

when life hands us lemons.

you have a choice. we all have a choice. we set up a lemonade stand right?! unfortunately, the lemons have been plentiful around here. we've been finding oliver inhabiting the intersection of cranky st & whine ave lately...ya know...it's kitty corner from napfighting circle, between the fusspot shop & the sourpatch, and across from the giant headache store =) yeah, there. oliver has taken his napfighting to a new level. we don't know whether to let him fuss & cry for an hour fighting it or let him run around being a cranky little man?! both are stressful for everyone involved. and stress is NOT what this household needs more of. i do believe that this is just a little sour patch & he will figure it out, soon i hope!!! on a side note, he naps the longest & the best on our bed. but the other day, after i heard him stirring & making noise after a good nap...i went into our room & scanned the bed, only to find oliver at my feet, crawling around on the floor & not in the bed at all!!! he apparently found an easy landing from up there because he wasn't crying or hurt in any way. just happy to see me after his nap. now, i am so narotic about letting him nap on our bed. i make a giant fort of pillows around him (as if that would even really stop him?!). omg!

next figurative lemon. for the last 6 weeks, at no fault of his, michael has been without work. not unemployed but not working. their job they were working on was shut down. it's a long story & for the sake of me ranting & raving about it, i will try to make it as brief as i can. michael's boss & the homeowner they were working for, i'll just call them sally & lucy for namesake, have been in a...how do i put this nicely? a month & 1/2 girlie-man cat fight. it's been a long battle between smug egos & conforming to the authorities. lucy refused to have a building permit & sally went along with it. six weeks ago, for lack of their official title, the building permit police showed up on the job demanding the permit. when they couldn't provide it, they shut them down. so now it's been a proooooocccccccccceeeeeeeesssssss to say the least!!! and mike just went back to a full day of work last friday. so now, we are playing catch up...big time! i even started looking for jobs again with that fiasco going on, which wasn't even going to be an issue until maybe oliver was 1 or so-ish. but, we just weren't sure how long we were going to have to wait for the go ahead back to work...& to our dismay, had to survive on very minimal income! we threw around the idea of just living in our cars down by the river ;) i am trying to make light of it, but really i am seriously sad. now that we have the relief of mike getting to go to work everyday, we have had to reorganize everything, including our trip back to holstein we planned for the end of august. we weren't even sure that it was going to even happen anymore. but oliver & i are 99% sure we will still be able to still make it. my cousin is getting married. we had oliver's baptism planned & we were going to have michael's father's day photo shoot! and now, although mike is being financially responsible by forfeiting his ability to go home...it saddens me. i had to postpone his baptism and the photo shoot. now the two of us will travel back....alone...which brings on another whole bag of wet diapers. i have no experience in air travel with a nine-month old! and...since we will most likely be taking off out of aspen, we will have a layover in denver... so, i will gladly offer you all the lemonade you can handle for your advice on that obstacle, because we're kind of swimming in it! but on the other hand...we are moving back up the hypothetical valley.

but i don't want to completely make this post a bummer, let's end on a more funny note...oliver loves loves loves to play with the pedals of mike's bikes. we try to deter him from that, but you tell a newly-cruising exploring near nine-month old not to do it. we will be putting the bikes on the ceiling!!!

i mean...why wouldn't you want to play with this?!

another new item in o's life is organic apple puffs. we are working on tuning the fine motor skills of his forefinger & thumb. he's gotten better, but he still sometimes gets the puffs stuck on his hands. or else he just licks them & places them on the carpet or mom's shirt...& then she runs errands with puffs unknowingly all over her =)

so when life hands us lemons...

all we do is turn to this guy & all is better =)