Oliver's Baby Quilt

While I was pregnant with Oliver, I had these great intentions of making a quilt to use when we brought this baby home from the hospital. I had a pattern picked out and bought by the time I was about 4 months along, fabric picked out and bought by about 5 months along. Starting cutting fabric by about 8 months along and then Oliver was born. I worked a few times on the quilt in the first few months (at one point I thought we would give it to him for his first Christmas- that thought went away quickly). I would work on it for a bit and then it would get put back into a box and not touched for a few months. I had made a fair bit of progress prior to his first birthday and seriously thought we would be able to give it to him as a birthday present. Another fail :( His second Christmas passed and no quilt yet. After Christmas, I spent 3 nights working on the quilt and I finally had everything I needed to do on the sewing machine done. We went back to Iowa the following weekend and I worked on the binding on the trip there, along with 2 times working on it in Iowa and it was finally finished!! So Oliver got his baby quilt as a second Valentine's Day present. He smiled at the quilt and ran to it so I will take that as him liking it. He has been sleeping with it every night too. So without further ado, here are a few pictures of Oliver's baby quilt.






I have to say thank you to a few people who helped tremendously with Oliver's quilt. My sister Kathy let me use her sewing machine the whole time while I was working on Oliver's quilt. My friend Teresa Bartholomew helped a ton with the appliqué parts. She sewed the fish and starfish on for me. So thanks a bunch to both of you!

Saturday!

Oliver and I spent the day at home today. Eric spent the day on campus working on a paper. While we were at home, we did some cleaning and a lot of playing. I pulled some different toys from the basement to put out for daycare and so Oliver enjoyed all the different toys.
I have a video I took one night last week that I figure I will post since I didn't take any pictures today. Here is Oliver showing off some of his skills :)

Friday Dance Off

It is finally Friday! To celebrate we had a dance party :) We are all three ready to enjoy the weekend. We went out for pizza and then to Menards tonight. Not much else exciting to report, one thing about posting everyday is that I run out of things to write about. So I guess tonight will be a short one!

Trains!

After Oliver's afternoon nap, we got the trains and tracks out. Oliver had fun playing with them. He was somewhat amazed by the magnets on them. He does get a little frustrated when the tracks come apart and he can't get them back together. We are working on the frustration thing- he has started to get upset when he gets frustrated or doesn't get his way. I think when he starts talking, some of that will go away. He is still doing some sign language- he can do: all done, more, please, milk, thank you, and tonight he did up. As far as actual words, they all sound pretty similar. He is making a lot of the beginning sounds of works, but it makes it so milk, moo, mama and anything else that starts with m sound the same. But he is definitely trying and I'm sure he'll get it before long. We are excited for the weekend. We are going shoe shopping for Oliver, his are getting a little snug. Eric is still busy with lots of homework and projects for work so he plans to spend all day on Saturday getting somewhat caught up. Oliver and I don't have much planned for Saturday while Eric is working, but we may try to work on organizing some pictures. I am hoping to finally start Oliver's scrapbook, but my first step is ordering some pictures. :) Happy Friday Eve!

Wednesday!

Oliver and I ventured out in the cold to go to the mall for a bit. He got a haircut while we were there, it was getting pretty shaggy around the edges. Not much else to report about today. Oliver has been drinking out of a straw every once in awhile, but today we got out a straw cup we had previously bought for him. He was a big fan. He drank water in it even! When we give him a sippy cup filled with water, let's just say he is less than thrilled, so when he drank a cup-full of water, I was pretty happy.

Dentist Visit

Showing off his clean pearly whites.

Holding his 2 toothbrushes and flossers he got at the dentist. (Plus he is wearing a James sticker he got there too)

A very cheesy and funny looking picture, but it makes me laugh so I figure it might do that for someone else looking at it. :)

Oliver's first trip to the dentist went very well. The dentist did say there was some plaque build-up mainly between his bottom, middle teeth. She said that typically plaque doesn't form at this young of an age, but that it wasn't anything to be too concerned about. The dental assistant cleaned the plaque off and polished his teeth. They want us to start bringing him in every 6 - 12 months or if we notice any build-up again. Oliver let both the dental assistant and the dentist look at his teeth and clean them. He liked to point to the light they used and they gave him two toothbrushes to hold on to during the appointment. The appointment went smoother than I expected it to so I was pleased.

Later in the day, we went for a walk outside. It was only a few blocks, but it was nice to get out of the house and get some fresh air. Our snow is definitely doing a lot of melting and we can see quite a bit of grass. Hopefully the trend continues and we'll get to spend more and more time outside.

Have a great night!

Pizza Night

We made a pizza for supper tonight. Oliver enjoyed eating it. He wasn't eating very well and kept pointing to the table and making the sound he makes when he wants something. Finally we figured out he wanted a big piece of pizza instead of cut-up pieces. Once we gave him a slice of pizza, he ate 2 of them. A fair bit of pizza sauce made it into Oliver's hair, so much so that he had to get a bath on his off-bath night.
During his bath, I did my best to give him a mohawk. His hair is a little too long to do mohawks, it kept falling down.

Today Oliver and I met a friend of mine and her two kids for lunch at Burger King. Oliver ate chicken nuggets and french fries. He got a car that makes noise in his happy meal. After lunch, we went to an area church that has a large indoor play area. It is like a full-size outdoor playground, only indoor. It is open to the public and free! Oliver had fun running around the area, driving the cars, and climbing on the slides. It was a fun thing to do on a cold, rainy day. Tomorrow we are taking Oliver to the dentist to check a few things on his teeth. Hopefully he cooperates and lets the dentist take a look.

Oliver's New Job

Oliver has started to want to help with things around the house. One thing he started doing on his own was throwing his diaper away. He gets very excited about doing this. He is in his onesie for these pictures because he gets so excited to do it that he gets upset if he has to wait too long.

He also helps out with other things around the house. At supper, he brings the cups to set the table. He will pick up his toys if we encourage him. He gets very excited when I open the dishwasher, but I don't think he's quite able to help with that yet.

Saturday Morning Cartoons

This morning Oliver and I got up and watched some Saturday morning cartoons. He watched Playhouse Disney. He liked playing on a blanket I put out on the floor for him. He is also a fan of putting his head on the boppy pillow. Later in the day, the three of us went grocery shopping. We also went to Home Depot and Lowe's to do some preliminary looking for our upcoming kitchen work. We did some measuring at home and are getting closer and closer to being ready to start some actual "real" work.

Every night we read Oliver books and say prayers with him. One book we have added to our collection is Counting Kisses. Thursday night when we read it, he bent down and kissed the pages while we read. Tonight I got it on video :)

Friday night at the Shook House

We have had a pretty lazy night around here. We wanted to get out of the house for a bit, so after supper we headed to the mall. It was nice to get out. I need to be better with the camera if I am going to make it through 40 days. Pictures make my posts more interesting. I've been doing some research online to learn a little more about peanut allergies. Tomorrow we are going grocery shopping for our first time since learning of Oliver's allergy. We will definitely be reading lots of labels tomorrow. I hope to start calling around to a few restaurants pretty soon to find out which ones Oliver can safely eat at. Not too much else exciting to report tonight, so until tomorrow :)

Pictures

I needed to shovel Tuesday morning and Oliver decided he didn't need to take a nap that morning. So, he got to play in the snow while I shoveled. He seemed to enjoy it. He laughed a lot when I would throw the snow. He picked up snow and moved it from hand to hand. Overall, first true playing in the snow experience was a success.



Sunday was Valentine's Day and Oliver had fun playing with Danielle. This is pretty much the best picture I was able to get of the two of them. When we were getting ready for supper, we had both high chairs in the kitchen and as soon as they saw the high chairs, they were in the kitchen waiting to be put in one so that they could eat.


I made heart cookies for Valentine's Day. The little boy I watch decorated some to take home. Oliver thoroughly enjoyed eating them (as you can see in the previous picture). His favorite cookies were the ones with the red frosting. He had one with white frosting and put it down as soon as he saw Eric with one with red frosting. Apparently red frosting either tastes better or is more fun. Oliver also did some painting for Valentine's Day. He used a paintbrush and did pretty well, up until he decided to start eating the paint.



Oliver spends a lot of time playing with his little people. He has quite a few sets and a lot of people and animals. He likes to fill the airplane up with people and animals. I caught him playing with these while I was in the dining room so I zoomed in to get a picture without him knowing. He apparently has a sixth sense for cameras because as soon as I snapped the first picture, he looked right at me. So...
I got a cheesy grin from across the room. :)
Happy Thursday Night! We are looking forward to a quiet weekend without any plans :)

40 Days of Posting

I decided that for Lent this year instead of giving something up, I am going to do something. My plan is to make a post everyday of Lent. So hopefully I am up to the challenge, it seems easy at the end of the day to skip out on doing anything (as is evident in my lack of posting the last few months). So here's my start date.

We received a letter today from the allergy doctor we took Oliver to on February 8th. The results of his bloodwork show that he is highly allergic to peanut and moderately allergic to cat dander and egg. The doctor's instructions are to avoid any foods that contain peanut (using peanut oil, produced in a factory that also produces peanuts, etc) and to avoid any contact with cats. The doctor said if he is eating foods with eggs and not having any problems, he can continue to eat eggs, but if he does have episodes of rashes or other problems after eating egg whites, he will need to avoid eggs as well. While we are bummed out to know he has these allergies, we are somewhat relieved to know what caused the reaction he had and know to avoid these allergens and the steps to take in case of another reaction.

Last week for Valentine's Day, we had a fun time decorating cookies (and eating them) and doing a little painting for making valentines.

We went back to Iowa on Friday, February 12th for a quick weekend. My mom had surgery that day and we didn't have to work on Monday so we thought it was a good chance to get back to Iowa for a weekend. It was a pretty laidback weekend, we did enjoy a dinner at Doughy Joey's with a large group of my family on Saturday. On Sunday, we were able to visit with my niece Jessica and her family. Oliver and Danielle had fun playing together. We tried again to take a picture of the two of them and I guess you could say I succeeded in getting a picture, just not necessarily a good picture.

Apparently I am not able to post any pictures tonight, something isn't working quite right. So words are all you get. Hopefully tomorrow night blogspot will allow me to post some pictures of the little boy.

Where we have been

It has been awhile since my last post and it feels like a lot has happened. We headed back to Iowa on January 12th and stayed until January 30th (Eric went back to Illinois for 1 week in there to begin classes). During this time, we spent lots of time with our family, which was nice. It was a sad sort of nice though as on January 22nd, my dad passed away. We felt very lucky to be with both him and my mom (and extended family) during his last few weeks. We love him very much and will miss him.


During the time we were back in Iowa, Oliver had an allergic reaction to an unknown substance. His face, specifically his eyes, swelled up. Eric had left to go back to Illinois that day and that just added to the stress of the situation. I ended up taking him into the ER that evening (along with my sister Kathy and brother Dale). They gave him benadryl and a steroid to help with the swelling. By the next evening, he was back to normal. Luckily, his breathing never seemed to have any problems throughout this event.

We scheduled a follow-up appointment with an allergy specialist through our local doctor which we just had today. The doctor wanted to do a blood draw to test for multiple allergens. Here is a list of the allergens he is testing Oliver for:
almond
cashew
corn
oat
pork
sesame seed
alternaria alternata (I believe a fungus)
cat dander
cladosporium herbarum (a type of mold)
cockroach
cod fish
D. farinae (dust)
D. pteronyssinus (dust mites)
dog dander
egg white
milk
peanut
shrimp
soybean
walnut
wheat

The doctor said if we don't hear anything within two weeks to call for the results. He did prescribe an epi-pen for us to have with Oliver in case of another reaction. I think this made both Eric and myself feel a little better to have on hand in case we would need it.

Since getting home, we have been adjusting back into life. Eric is getting into the swing of things with classes. He is feeling like he is getting close to completing the class portion of his PhD (followed by a few years of research and writing for a dissertation). I have been doing day care and catching up around the house. Oliver has been busy busy busy!

Oliver is getting 4 molars in, had a cold, and his first ear infection. I think we are on the downward side of the cold and the ear infection, but we have a ways to go on the molars. He seems to be handling it all pretty well, other than at night, sleeping has been a little rough. Oliver loves playing with his toys and is now aware that his toyroom is upstairs and wants to go up there all.the.time.






Hopefully that catches people up on us a little bit and hopefully I post a little more regularly. We are expected to get 4-7 inches of snow tonight so maybe we'll get a snow day tomorrow. Stay warm everyone!