Visitors

In an effort to keep our blog more up to date I thought I would write a little bit. I also am at work again and have nothing else to do, so why not. That is also the reason there are no pictures, though we should get some up this week as we had a lovely photographer take some during our adventures this week.

Livy and Amanda have both been a little sick recently. It started in the little one and carried into mommy who is getting the worst of it, hopefully, right now. With Amanda being pregnant it just makes everything worse, but she is a great sport about everything so she is fighting through.

We have been lucky to have my littlest sister Natalie come and visit this week. It has been fun having some company for a change, and Livy loves the new playmate. We are not the most exciting hosts and have mostly spent time watching movies and such. My work schedule also causes me to sleep through the day most of the time, so that hurts things too.

We did have a lot of fun on Saturday though as we went to the Dr Pepper Museum in Waco. Natalie is a big fan, and we enjoy it too so we though it would be fun. It was created in Waco, and it was kind of fun to walk through the original store and learn a little about it. I had no idea that it is actually the oldest of the major sodas beating Coke by a year, and Pepsi by 12.

The highlight of the trip came at the end when we purchased Dr Pepper floats made fresh from the soda fountain. Now if you have never had one where they put syrup in the cup and add the carbonated water, let me tell you, you are missing out. They also have a special type of Dr Pepper as it is made with pure cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. Besides it being more healthy it makes an already fabulous beverage absolutely amazing. Natalie referred to it as the necter of the Gods. We bought a few bottles and cans of the special recipe to take home, as well as Dr Pepper BBQ sauce and A&W BBQ sauce. The Dr Pepper sauce is amazing, and we have yet to try the A&W.

We will be sad to see Nat go on Wednesday, but she will be followed by my other little sister Mary on Friday. It is so fun to have other people come and visit. It is especially good for Amanda as I spend most of the time that she is home asleep. Hopefully we will get word from the Air Force soon and we can move on from this wretched schedule.

I really love the Wii Fit Plus! (and other musings)

Sorry there are no pictures, but I am at work and it is the middle of the night so I don't care to find any.

I thought it would make my wife happy if I posted something though since we aren't very good at it.

So as the title says I really love our Wii Fit. I spent about a month looking for a store that had one with no luck. Then on the night that I just said screw it I am going to get the EA Active instead there just happened to be a Wii Fit at BestBuy. Mind you I had been there earlier that same day and they did not have one then. Needless to say I was quite happy.

I have wanted one for awhile so that I have something I can do while Livy takes her naps since I obviously can't just leave her to go workout, and the weather here is so hit and miss. If it isn't raining, it is cold, and soon it will be too bloody hot. So this seemed like the perfect solution.

After a week of using it, I must say I am extremely happy with my purchase. I haven't had a chance to explore all of it yet as there is tons of different stuff, but it works up a decent little sweat. I have not gotten truly worn out, which I would enjoy, but I also haven't done a lot of the strength training exercises, and I think once I do I will feel more fulfilled.

It has been good though because the little games are fun, and the fact that it tracks your progress helps keep me motivated. I am also looking forward to geting more games that use the balance board because it is fun to use.

Now some other stuff...

As I mentioned in the beginning I am working again back out at the airport. We were hoping to avoid this, but the Air Force is taking too long and we couldn't go any longerif we wanted to pay our bills. So I am working overnight and taking care of Livy during the day. It can be brutal at times, but the peace of mind knowing our bills will get paid is worth it.

Livy is getting smarter everyday. She copies almost all of our words, and actually says please and thank you, most of the time. She can put all of the pieces in her alphabet puzzle in, thank you Aunt Andrea for the puzzle. She also loves to say hi to everyone which is fun because it brings a smile to everyone's face.

She has started to try and throw more tantrums but for the most part we are good about ignoring her when she does so hopefully that will start to go away.

We also decided to start to take away her binky. Saturday night she slept without it, but we also got home a little late, and she got worn out with her friends. We tried again last night but she just whined and talked for a little while. So we decided to try an idea other people told us about and we cut the tip off the binky, and then you just keep trimming it down until she doesn't want it anymore. We will see how that works, but I would love for the binky to be gone for good.

We are still waiting on the Air Force, but my physical has been approved so I can now be assigned a class date. The next set of class dates should be released in the next week or two so hopefully we will find something out shortly thereafter.

We are also excited to have Aunt Natalie come next week for a little visit. We love to have the company, so it should be fun.

Livy is growing up so fast now!

We have really been in awe recently of how quickly Livy has been growing up. Every day we just look at her and can't believe how big she is and all of the things she is learning. She loves to help with anything you do. From doing the laundry or dishes to throwing things in the garbage (we think we may have lost our DVD remote this way) she just loves to be a little helper. Even with other kids she is great. She loves to feed other kids snacks, and is surprisingly good at sharing most of the time. She still rarely cries, and the only real tantrums she throws is when you try and hold her hand while walking through a parking lot.

Her new favorite thing is talking. She almost never stops. We went by Amanda's work for lunch today and she had to stop and say hi and wave and blow kisses to everyone she walked past. It was quite adorable. She also loves to talk on the phone whenever she sees mommy and daddy doing it. She almost had a real conversation the other day. She said hi, then rambled for a minute then said bye and hung up. Unfortunately, we weren't done talking and had to call them back, but it is crazy how smart she is and all that she is learning.

She did get her first knee scrape today, but she fought through it like a champ. As soon as she grabbed daddy's sunglasses off his head she stopped crying, and then played with the scrape the whole way home. I was so proud of my tough little girl.

She has been able to climb up on the chairs for quite some time, and anytime we ar on chairs she has to be too. She will even drag them into the kitchen to help you cook. It is a little scary when the stove is hot, but we don't let her get too close.

This is her, "Daddy, I want to wear blue not purple and pink," face. I for one am sick of the limited color selection for girls.

Livy loves to point and make faces. She just has so much personality it is a lot of fun. She definitely has her mommy in her.

She loves to stretch with me after I exercise. She will bend down and touch her toes, and do all kinds of stretches. It is quite amusing until you try and do a pushup and she lays on your back, or a situp and she sits on your stomach.

Livy always makes us smile!

There are so many times that Livy just seems to drive me nuts, but then she pulls some funny stuff and you can't help but laugh at her. Even if you tried to be mad you couldn't because she is just so funny. One of her favorite things to do is to laugh hysterically when you laugh. She has been doing a lot more mimicking lately. The other day Amanda yelled at me jokingly and Livy turned and pointed at me and started yelling too. Then when we started laughing she just laughed like it was the funniest thing in the world. Enjoy some cute pictures.



Livy loves to eat like a big girl now. She often won't eat unless you give her a fork or a spoon. She loves waffles too, and this time she ate almost as much as mommy.

Apparently we don't feed her quite enough because she felt the need to lick her plate clean. Then again maybe she just liked the sugary syrup.

For some reason Livy was really frustrated and just wanted to take her clothes off. She didn't quite succeed, but it made her happy to know that she could look like her cousin Curtis. I think her plumber crack is cuter though.

I think Livy knew how special this blanket is because she picked it up, carried it to the couch and cuddled up with it. I tried to take it away when it was time for her nap but she got super mad with me so she took it in for her nap and has been sleeping with it ever since. I took my fair share of naps with it, as did my Grandpa Drechsel. It is a super special blanket that my mom made.

Livy has become obsessed with sunglasses recently. She likes to wear them even when it is dark outside. It is quite funny because she will take them off and then go to mommy and want them back on. This pose just shows that she knows how cool she is eating her popcorn and drinking her juice.. We all hope to be that cool someday.

livy!

So my daughter had one of her friends come over and dave caught this picture of them watching tv together. Apparently livy liked to sit in Nathans lap while he was in the bumbo because he was sitting in it which is quite funny. Then the other picture is of my adorable daughter dressed in a new dress from her Aunt Kristine. We just love it when we can get the cheesy smile out of her it makes life so great.

Christmas Trip!

So we just got back from our christmas at my brothers house and we had such a good time. Besides the fact of giving the stomach flu to all her family but they said it was worth it for us to come but we still felt bad. We got there on Christmas eve pretty late and woke up early to open presents. The kids got so much stuff and Andrea has no idea where to put it all and I don't blame her from having a house to an apartment is pretty hard. We ate tons of yummy food while we were there. Dave and I went on two dates together and Rhyan and Andrea got to go out to. We also got a babysitter one night and went out as couples. We played shuffle board, pool, and went to dinner. We did a ton of laughing that our stomachs would hurt because my brother says the most hysterical things especially on new years he is seriously a dork sometimes but I love it about him. Olivia and Brooklyn played so well the whole trip until the last day and Brookie just was not liking Olivia. The kids loved playing the Wii that Dave got for christmas that when we left yesterday there parents went out and bought one for them. I thought that was pretty funny. We saw some great movies at the theater Chipmunks, Sherlock Holmes, and Blind Side. They were all great and would recommend them to all. We went to this really cool science museum for kids and the kids loved this really cool burp machine of course. All in all it was very fun and not stressful at all. We did get stuck on the freeway for 3 and 1/2 hours coming there because stupid Arkansas (that I vow I will never go back to again) but it was great. Thanks so much for such a great trip!

Singing Time!

So my daughter loved the piano and sang while I played but then also sighed when I hit the wrong note you will see from one of the pictures she is not quite sure about my piano playing. It was nice being able to play the piano for a while as I miss it a lot.