Lots of Fun Things!

This will be another big post. We couldn't find our camera for a week so I couldn't upload any pictures until I found it. We had pictures of a lot of fun things that we have been doing. We took another trip to the Zoo with Olivia. It just never gets old. She loves the animals so much it is like a new experience every time.




Another fun thing is that I gave been trying to take Liv to some new parks. We go to our local park nearly every day, it is only a few blocks away. However, it does get a little boring (more for me than Liv) so I have been taking her to some new places. This park was great because it had a few playground areas and then it had a petting farm and a train raide around the whole park. It was only $1 for the train and $1 for the petting farm-what a deal! So we had a good time and Liv loved being up close and personal to the animals. I have to say I always felt a little bad for the animals at the zoo (not being in the wild) but these petting farm animals have it much worse. They get followe around by masses of little kids and cornered against the fences but they are very gentle. They do get unlimited amounts of hay so they seem to be kept happy with that. Olivia just kept laughing an dgiggling the whole time. She was in heaven! We will definately have ot take her back.






Our other big adventure was when we went to Breckenridge for the day. We went to pick up my birthday present from Drake- A new Bike!!! He found a great deal on ebay so we drove there to get it and to see the town. It was really cold because of the higher elevation but it was fun. We just walked around the town and grabbed some lunch. It is a really cool town and we would like to go back and explore some more.





This is how Olivia says "cheese" for the camera now she always closes her eyes...


Isn't my bike great? I wonder when Olivia will let me ride it...

Grandma and Grandpa Visit!!!

We were so happy to have my Mom and Dad come and spend some time with us. It gets a little lonely out here and it felt so good to have people here who love us and who we love. Olivia loved having her grandparents here, there was lots of attention and always someone to play with! We did lots of sightseeing and went on some great hikes. Olivia has been loving our hikes, she sits in the pack behind Drake and has so much fun she will stay in there for up to a couple of hours quite happily.. Sometimes she will even take a nap in there. On one of our hikes with Mom and Dad we actually saw a wild coyote. We also went to the childrens museum which is such a great place. It was Oliva's first time there and she had a lot of fun. We ended up buying a membership so we can go anytime we want. Thanks for coming out here Mom and Dad we love you!

Ode to shoes...and other Fowler happenings

Since my last post we have made some decisions... I am going to keep stying home with Liv. We feel it is the best thing for our family right now. I had interviewed for a full time job at my hospice where I do on call work and then a week later I told them I wanted to withdraw my name. Drake has long hard hours at work and for me to try to work full time would put such a strain on our family. It is a huge sacrifice financially but it is the right thing for us right now. I am going to start working toward my pre-requisites for nursing school. I am looking at an accelerated program that would allow me to transfer my bachelors degree to get a nursing degree in a year. But I have to get some science classes done first. It is hard for us to make plans right now as we don't know how long we will be in Denver. We have decided we just need to start making plans and be prepared they could change. We have to walk with faith and not sight because life is so topsy turvy right now, that is all we can do. We are so thankful we are healthy, happy and making ends meet. Olivia is amazing and in the next year or two we hope to add another little fowler, but not right now, unless we were pleasantly surprised :)

On to Olivia- she is changing so quickly now. She is adding words every day, she talks CONSTANTLY which I love. Not all of it makes sense yet but more and more every day does. She loves being outside. We spend much of our day outside and she loves looking at dogs, birds, squirrels, ducks and geese at the park. On our walks she stops at nearly every flower and stares and then sniffs in and out to "smell" the flower.

We did have a difficut adjustment to sandals for the summer believe it or not. She had this one pair of shoes we bought her in January and she has worn them all winter. One day I realized that they were way too small, her toes were curling at the end. I bought her a pair of sandals, thinking "no big deal we'll just move on to sandals and put these away." Well Olivia was having none of that. She wanted her shoes that she wears every day. I ended up buying multiple pairs of shoes trying to find some she liked. Every time we put on her shoes she would cry scream and try to get them off. It took weeks and a trip to Asheville before she got over it and started wearing them. Toddlers are SO particular it is just astounding!

THE Shoes


Playing with the new ones in her crib... A.K.A her "happy place" hoping it will cast them in a more positive light....




Shoe options...


I also had to post a few pics of Olivia's lunch time one day. She had a week where she was not feeling well (I think she was teething her molars)and she would not eat much. One day after 3 days of almost no eating I offered her every snack I had. She eventually ate a few raisins and a little yogurt before crying until I gave her warm milk and layed her down for her nap. Luckily she is back to normal again...

STILL busy.....

Ok, so I thought that after my last post life would calm down but there are still lots of happenings it seems like. First of which, Drake and Olivia went back to Asheville for the week! He had the opportunity to go back and work on a project there for work. I had some nights I was on call so I couldn't necessarily do that with Olivia because if I got called in in the night (which I did) I would have no one to stay with her. kevin and angela were kind enough to watch Liv during the day while Drake worked and she got to spend time with her cousins, which it sounds like she loved! When my parents found out Olivia was going to be a mere 12 hours away from them rather than 24 hours, they had to come see her. So my Mom switched around her work schedule so they could come for 3 days. It was quite the reunion and I was sad I missed it but I did enjoy my time alone. I got some tasks done that I often find difficult with Liv around. I also just enjoyed the ability to sleep in a little and do things in my own time. I took a lot of long 2 hour walks around the lakes at Wash Park, watched "chick flicks" and ate popcorn for dinner once or twice :)Anyway, it was nice but it wasn't as great as I thought it might be- I love Drake and Olivia so much that life is so empty without them around. don't get me wrong I definately enjoyed my "vacation" but I am also glad its over.

The other happening is that I have been considering going to work full time again. I have a possible opportunity at my hospice and I have been thinking about it. I know Olivia is ready for more social interaction and I think she would really enjoy some of the really nice child care places I found. We just aren't sure if full time is the way to go... BUT we feel like we need to get into a better position financially. I have been considering nursing school which would be a huge investment of time and money. So I spent a lot of time this past week looking at child care centers and really contemplating the right thing for our family. I always felt the best thing was to be with Liv all the time. When she was younger that was definately the right thing. Now, though, I think she also seems to want/need another environment to learn and grow, inaddition to home. Only time will tell what will happen. It is just so hard right now to make decisions. we feel as though wew don't know whats around the corner... will Drake get laid off? will they want us to relocate somewhere else?if I take the prerequisites for nursing school, will I get in? When will we try for another child? all these things are in our thoughts and we are ever the planners trying to figure out life.
Well that was a lot, but that is where we are at. On a lighter note, we got Olivia a little T-Ball set for outside and I have some pics of her trying it out. She is pretty funny with it because she likes to hold the bat from the end and push the ball off. Pretty cute!!!

Just catching up with Life

Well life certainly seems to ebb and flow. Itseems it was only a few weeks ago that I wrote about how slow and quiet life is.... then it got very crazy for a little while (hence-no blogging). First we had my Dad visit us at the end of March which was so awesome. It let me get a few things done, Drake and I get out alone and most of all brought some much needed company for me.It really boosted my mood to have you here Dad. Unfortunately I don't have very many pics of Olivia and my Dad together. WE had so much fun, I often just didn't think to pull out the camera. These are a few shots that I got though, as this was how Dad spent most of his time here: reading to Olivia!





While my Dad was here I interviewed for a job with Namaste Hospice here in Denver. It was for a night time on call Social work position. Perfect for me to continue to stay at home with Liv but also to make some much needed income (its a tough economy right now-covering some of the mortgage in Asheville and paying high rent in Denver). Anyway- I GOT THE JOB!!! So exciting. Only it meant that I had to attend 2 weeks of orientation and training during the day. I got a taste of working full time and being a Mom in the last few weeks and it was HECTIC! I like working outside the home a little bit but with botyh of us working full time it lef just flew past us. I am so grateful we make the necessary sacrifices so one of us can always stay home most of the time with Olivia. We were fortunate to find some awesome ladies who do nannying to come to the house to watch Olivia in the mornings and Drake came home in the afternoons to watch Liv. We did have a big snow storm last week and Liv and I went out in the winter weather. She was not too sure of being outside with the snow falling so hard.







To top off the crazy time Olivia got pretty sick over Easter weekend and we ended up in the urgent care on easter sunday finding out she had pneumonia-poor little sweetie. Needless to say Easter was not so great. We did have an easter basket for her with some bath toys, a bubble maker and Grandma and Grandpa Hayes got her some easter gifts too. She also had an easter egg hunt in the house- each egg had a raisinette or an M&M in it. She had fun collecting the eggs in her basket and eating the candy. Most of the day was pretty crummy though. It ended with Drake and I trying to eat our roast dinner with some quiet- so we did what any bad parent would do- we put her in front of the TV with a few pieces of the chocolate bunny Grandma and Grandpa Hayes got her for easter. For 10 minutes we all enjoyed our easter...


Not feeling so good on easter morning

Mmmmmmm

On Saturday night Drake and I got to go out for a night on the town while my Dad watched Livie. We made the most of it! We left at 5 and didn't come home until 1 in the morning. We went downtown to get some enjoyment out of living in a big city. With a child we don;t get to do that too much. Anyway, we spent a couple of hours wandering around in stores and along Denver's 16th street mall, which is an awesome place. We went to dinner at this amazing italian resaurant. We spent more than we should have but it was worth it. We seldom eat out (i think twice since we have lived here)but when we have dinner is quick and sometimes a little stressful with a toddler. So we took our time (2.5 hours to be exact). After we went to a movie downtown and then headed home. It was such a great time. The next day we brought out our leftovers for lunch and gave Olivia some of the leftover shrimp linguiine(minus the shrimp because we already ate those) in white whine and butter sauce with tomatoes. This was probably the most expensive meal she has ever had and she enjoyed it, spending most of her time going "mmmmmmm".She had a lot of fun eating it as you can see....