19 May 2010

{ update : orva }

Here's an update on Orva (more for me than anyone else - she's in such a fun stage right now and this is the only documenting I do).

- Talking like crazy and putting two and three words together. She talks VERY loudly (another mom in her Little Gym class put it nicely - she has a great outdoor voice) and repeats everything several times.

- Loves to be dramatic. She has a love/hate relationship with messes. She secretly loves them because then she can dramatically hate them. "Oh no! No, no, no! Mess, mess, mess, mess, mess! Oh no!" (she really does say "mess" that many times in a row).

- Says "okay" all the time. She'll say something she wants, like drink, eat, book, etc. and then when I say, "You want a _____?" she nods her head and says, "okay".

- Loves prayers. If she sees anyone standing with their arms folded, she demands to say a prayer. You'd be surprised at how often she spots people folding their arms.

- Loves hats. Everything can be a hat. There's a bald man in our ward with a fringe of hair around the edges and she thinks the bald part on top is a hat. Hopefully he doesn't realize why she's yelling "At, at, at" over and over during sacrament meeting. There's also a water tower off the freeway by our house. She thinks it's a hat (it's a large cylinder basin on top of stilt-looking legs) and never misses it. She always spots pizza delivery cars with the advertisement signs on top and thinks they're hats, too.

- Loves shoes almost as much as hats.

- Loves stars. She gets a stamp at the end of her Little Gym class and she always demands that they're stars (not matter what they are). Since Little Gym is only once a week, we have to draw stars on her hands (two!) every other day.

- Loves to count to ten, but only says her favorites - three, five, six, seven, ten. She used to say them all. Oh well.

- Loves the color blue. In fact, she thinks it's the only color. She used to know several colors but now everything is blue. Here's a typical conversation, repeated about everything she comes in contact with:

Orva: blue! (pronounced "boo")
Me: actually that's yellow (or whatever color the item is)
Orva: blue! blue! blue!
Me: do you just need it to be blue?
Orva: okay

- Gets really confused about questions. She's at the age where we ask her things all the time...how old are you, what's your name, who's that, what's that, what color is it, how many are there, etc. Since her obsession with blue, that's become her answer for all of the above questions. I'm sure people get confused when they ask her how old she is and she says "blue", and then they ask who the baby is and she says "blue" again. They could ask her any question they wanted and her answer would always be "blue". I guess her little mind is just all consumed with blue.

- Loves her stroller and pushes it around like crazy. Loves her babies, too (including Ford). Especially when they're "gakie" ("nakie").

- Loves singing. I sing to her all day, every day. Really.

- The only thing she likes more than singing is swinging. She can spot a swing from a mile away - even in people's backyards as we drive by. She calls them "weengs" and yells it at the top of her lungs (over and over again) every time she sees one. I think the record for the longest I've pushed her in the swing is an hour. Believe me...that's a REALLY long time to stand there and push a swing.

- Her grandma taught her to yell, "hooray" and it's about the cutest thing ever. She yells it when she swings and also loves to sing, "If you're happy and you know it shout hooray". She even yells it from her bed when she wants to get up (I think she knows it's the cutest thing she does and thinks we'll come get her if she yells it loud enough).

And now, if you made it this far, here are LOTS of pictures. They were all too cute so I had to post them all.

































* Note: as I'm finishing this she's waking up from her nap...and I can hear her in there very enthusiastically yelling "blue!" *

{ aj and lindy's wedding }

Although I don't recommend going to a wedding two days after giving birth, it was actually really fun to be there and see everyone.

Brad had to work right up until the reception, so my sister Laura stayed with me at our house and helped me gather everything and get myself and my two children out the door. She was barely pregnant and recovering from a very long and very late flight. Between the two of us we made quite a pair but managed to get ourselves showered and dressed and both kids bathed and dressed. We also packed up two suitcases full of my clothes and shoes for some of my other sisters to wear. We made it to my mom's house in time for family pictures and the reception. I'm sure I never would have made it without her (thanks, Laura).

The sealing was the next day and it was actually really nice for Brad and I to sit in the sealing room and think of our own little growing family. Thankfully, the temple staff allowed my cousin to watch Ford in a room all by themselves (I didn't want him in the main waiting room with all the other kids). They let me wait with him until the last minute and then came and got me to go up to the sealing room. It worked out really well.

Enough rambling...here are some pictures, in no particular order:



















* I'm one who usually enjoys getting dressed up - this was one time that I had absolutely no desire to do so and wasted NO time changing back into pajamas *

11 April 2010

{ raeford johnson gibb }

Instead of posting pictures of my 39-week pregnant belly, why don't I post pictures of my almost 2-week old baby?



On March 30th, we welcomed our sweet baby boy into the world - three weeks early! It was rather unexpected, but we're thrilled he's here. He weighed in at 6 pounds, 8 ounces and was 19 inches long.











It ended up being the best possible timing and the worst possible timing.

Worst...My younger brother got married on April 2nd, so we attended his reception when Ford was 2 days old and his sealing and luncheon when Ford was 3 days old. Fun!

Best...Because he was born far enough in advance of the tax and audit deadline (April 15th), Brad was actually able to take some time off work. It was heaven!

Another disadvantage - my mom was all wrapped up in wedding stuff and was there for the actual birth but didn't get to come help out until several days later. I was supposed to be all wrapped up in wedding stuff, but was in recovery mode instead. She missed me and I missed her!

Another advantage - my sisters were all in town for the wedding and got to see him.









The actual labor and delivery went phenomenally well. I woke Brad up at 2:00 in the morning and he tried to talk me into going back to bed. I convinced him that wasn't such a good idea and we went to the hospital at about 3:00. Ford was born at 4:45. Brad was glad he hadn't made me go back to bed. *Someday I'll post the whole story - so that I'll remember it all - but for now, those are the basics*







As happy as we are to have him, we weren't at all ready for the little man to come. His crib is half-way sanded down to be refinished...his crib bedding is half-way made...all of his clothes were still in boxes in the basement...we had almost no boy blankets (I'll admit - he's been wrapped in pink a few times) ... my baby shower ended up being when he was a week old rather than two weeks before he was born. Oh well?

Aside from just his stuff not being at all ready, I was in the middle of a million projects - a complete living room make-over with all new furniture...the old furniture going downstairs...a new playroom going downstairs...old furniture downstairs going out...loose ends to tie up in the nursery. All of those projects are still up in the air - and probably will be for a while. Again, oh well? I'm sure it's good for me!





Overall, we're doing great. Ford's been a great baby and Orva seems to be adjusting well (mostly). I'm feeling great and loving being a mother of two! I'm sure Brad will be a lot happier when work slows down and he can actually come home once in a while!







*Sorry for the picture over-load...I figure I post so rarely that I may as well make this one very worth-while*

10 January 2010

{ grandma orva dress }

This dress belonged to my mom as a child - it's so fun to have Orva wearing it now! I would love to have a nice, classy picture of her in it but she was much too wild during our photo shoot. We'll try again another time.















{ bubble bath }









* Sorry for the sideways video...I don't have a program on my computer that will rotate it and I always forget to turn the camera while I'm actually shooting the video. *

[ announcing ]

I tried to post these pictures six weeks ago when I was actually 20 weeks along, but had some glitches getting the pictures off my camera and have not made another attempt until now. So, these pictures are now entirely inaccurate (I'm much bigger now at 26 weeks) but I'll post them anyway.


Baby BOY Gibb is due on April 19th.




* Also, I know (hope) most of you already know about this pregnancy, but I feel more official posting it on the blog. Don't ask why - first, if things had to be posted to my blog to be official, nothing in my life would be official. Second, I've been sick enough to be very officially pregnant (feeling better now). Third, my belly is very big and quite officially pregnant-looking. *

02 November 2009

{ halloween }

I'm pretty sure I have the cutest bumblebee ever...









She doesn't walk by herself yet, so we had her trick-or-treat with her wagon. She loved all the walking around but was so busy pushing her wagon that she just walked right by all the people with treats.





This last picture is of her taking a break in our trunk at the ward Trunk-or-Treat. I do love this smile, but wish we could document her real smile at least once in a while...she flashes this gem every time she sees a camera. Lovely.

20 July 2009

{ alive }

We are alive. And well.

A complete computer crash in March and April, extreme busy-ness in May and June, and laziness in between can account for the lack of blogging.

I'm pretty sure I have now forgotten how to post.

I'll try to remember.

Oh, and until I can pull myself together and do a real live post, with lots of pictures and such (first on the list - 4th of July), here's one picture of my cutest baby ever.



Okay - that wasn't so bad. Consider me back on board with blogging.