Happy Anniversary

Three years ago, John and I were married in a small ceremony overlooking Gantt Lake.

Our wedding was followed up with an amazing trip to Jamaica.

We swam.

We ate.

We kissed.

And we sat in the water

so a Jamaican man could take our picture

and then charge us an arm and a leg to purchase it.

In the years John and I have been together, we have been on many adventures.

The Bahamas.

Atlantis.

Snorkling.

The top of Mountians.

The haunted lighthouse of St. Augustine. My favorite, of course!

And our greatest adventure of all.

OPD

Through it all, we have been together, and I couldn't ask for anything more.

I look forward to many more adventures!

Boogie and the Beach

A trip to the beach was all we needed!

John has been working at Eglin Air Force Base for the past few months but starting this week, he will be there 3 days out of the week. Although Eglin is relatively close to home (especially compared to most of his other jobs) Ft. Walton is much closer.  Lucky for us, my parents have a condo in Cinco Bayou. Ollie and I decided we would make life easy on John and stay at the condo for a few days. We shop and swim and have a big time. Ollie loves it! The video below illustrates why O loves it so much....CARPET! She has been walking all over the place with no fear. Although she looks somewhat like Frankenstein, we are super proud. Our little Boogie is quite the entertainer!

Lynsey

Gimme 3 Steps....

Gimmie me 3 steps baby!

Ollie is finally walking.

We'll, she is taking steps, but doesn't that classify as walking?

She has finally become brave enough to walk

back and forth between people,

always ending it it with a laugh

and clapping for herself.

We are so proud of our little Boogie!

She is such a big girl!

(sorry the video is so dark-we don't use a lot of light)

Live,

Love,

Breathe!

Hangin Tough

Blogging is tough.

Finding time to blog while chasing a 14 month old is tough.

As I type this post, Ollie is rubbing her cheesy lips all over my clean shirt.

We just indulged in a few Doritos.

Ollie is almost 14 months old now.

She has 5 teeth and her back ones are starting to make their debut.

She cannot will not walk. She insists on crawling...everywhere.

Wood floors, concrete, bricks, dirt, everywhere.

She has great balance and can go from sitting to standing all by herself. She can walk really well while holding onto your finger, she just hardly does.

She started crawling at 6 months, so she's been doing it almost a year now and boy is she quick!

They say that the longer they crawl, the better hand-eye coordination they have and the better readers they will become. If this holds true, she should be reading any day now.

Ollie is also quite the talker.

I have no idea what she is saying but she sure does.

Her favorite word/thing right now is bird (buurrd). To her anything that flies is a buurrd. The other day, while eating lunch, a fly flew over our table and Ollie pointed to it and said buurrd.

Her favorite show is still Dora the Explorer and she's fond of Jack's Big Music show as well.

Her sleeping schedule sucks and we need a bigger bed!

To say she is into everything would be an under statement.

Case in point;

I have been working really hard on our annual poker run fundraiser. Several of the Ollie's Army items are stored in the attic and I needed to get them down. I pulled down the 12' ladder and headed up into the HOT attic leaving Ollie playing in the living room. I could hear her banging around and saying, "mama". As I searched through the many boxes of junk, I could still hear Ollie talking so I knew she was OK.  As I made my way over the boxes  I again heard "mama", only this time much closer. To my surprise, Ollie was at the top of the ladder! I about pooped my pants! I did however remain calm, not shouting, but talking softly. The last thing I wanted to do was scare her into letting go. My mom asked me how I got her down the ladder and all I can say is it's true about adrenaline in emergency situations. I don't remember going down. I had so much adrenaline I could have flown down.

On a CF note:

Currently all is well!

No news is good news!

Ollie continues to have breathing treatments twice a day.

She is on albuteral (to open lungs) and Pulmozyme (preventative maintenance).

We are also taking part in the Hyper tonic Saline study and Ollie receives HS twice a day. This is a breathing treatment as well. We are not sure if she is actually receiving the HS or if she is just inhaling a low salt content placebo. We will not know until the end of the study which lasts 1 year. Not knowing kinda sucks but someone has to do the study in order to make progress in the battle against CF.

These breathing treatments are followed up with chest PT's.

These combined take about 45 minutes in the morning and 45 minutes in the evening.

Not so bad.

Ollie has been Pseudomonas free for 8 months now!
Woooo Hooooo!

LIFE IS GOOD!!!

LIFE IS AWESOME!!!

Beach and Birthday for Big Girl

When Ollie was born people would always tell me to enjoy her while I could because time flies. I blew it off, thinking that time would continue to go by the same as it always had. Boy was I wrong! There are not enough hours in the day to squeeze in enough kisses let alone get everything done that needs to be done. I cannot believe that a year has passed since her birth. The only good thing about time passing so quickly is that it all gets better everyday.

Ollie becomes more fun with each passing minute. We can see more personality (which is mine made over so it might not be the best trait I could pass on) everyday. She is a, well, we'll just say "determined" little girl. She is very independent and gets mad when you attempt to assist her. Ollie is quite the climber. The other day I walked into our living room to find her sitting on the bottom shelf of our book case. She can also now climb up and down stairs. Ollie has yet to take any steps and doesn't seem to be interested in walking any time soon. Why should she when crawling gets her from point A to point B in record time. The only problem is I now have to stain stick the knees of all pants before washing, but that won't change even once she is walking.

With all this beautiful weather, we have been visiting the beach. Turns out, Ollie is a beach babe, just like her mama. She plays in the sand all day and doesn't seem to mind when it gets into those "sensitive" areas. Ugh!

Ollie also loves the water. On this particular day, a small sandbar formed right off the beach allowing a small pool of water free of waves to form. Although the water was super cold, we couldn't keep her out of it.

On her birthday, Ollie got her hair cut. Lindsey did a wonderful job and even little O sat through it like a champ. No more mullet!

For her birthday celebration, we had a few friends over for a little fiesta. Everyone enjoyed chips and dip, juice pouches, ice cream and cup cakes. Ollie and friends played in little pools filled with balls, a sprinkler and water table.  

We all had a blast! Our family is truely blessed to have such wonderful friends.

It's A Great Day To Be Alive

This past week has been a long one. It was off to a bad start when I came down with a terrible stomach bug on Sunday and was out of commission until Wednesday. It then moved on to John who was sick through Friday, only to be followed up by Ollie getting it. Ollie is a trooper. She was sick all day Saturday and by Sunday, even though she was still running a slight fever, she was ready to go play. So were we!

John, along with my dad and our friend Hal played in a golf tournament (and won) in Elba. This is a tournament in which they play in ever year. The best part about this particular tournament is that Hal's wife and my very good friend, Laura comes to visit. Laura and Hal are our friends from Freeport and we miss hanging out with them (we're working on getting them to move here).

It is mine and Laura's little tradition to go antique/junk shopping. Of course we hit Peterson's for a little wheelin and dealin and also the new 3 Notch Emporium where Lesley and I have a booth. If you have yet to visit the Emporium, I suggest you go, but that a whole nother post.

On Sunday, since Ollie was feeling better, we headed up to Gantt Lake for a little boat riding. It was a beautiful day. Ollie loves the water but HATES wearing a life jacket. I am still working on finding one that is a little more comfortable (I am open to suggestions). 

The life jacket is "on" her.

All in all, we had a wonderful day and we are looking forward to more.

We're too Busy...

Playing outside!

The weather has been so beautiful lately and our family loves to play outdoors. Ollie recently got a little red wagon (passed down from her older cousins) and we have been taking rides in it several times a day. She loves riding in that wagon and is quite the dare devil standing up in it as we stroll along. Although Ollie can stand up while holding onto something, she has not yet taken those first steps. She actually couldn't care less about walking. She can get from point A to point B rather quickly by crawling so if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I would love for her to begin walking. I'm not trying to get her to grow up too quickly, I just think by her walking, it would make my life a little easier. I wouldn't have to scrub the knees of her pants quite as often. She could finally wear the dresses that I made her (she can't crawl in dresses). All in all, I'm thinking that she wouldn't get quite as dirty. Oh well. 

Besides riding the wagon, Ollie's other favorite past time is water. She helps me water my flowers and tends to get more water on her than the plants actually get. Yesterday, I had so outdoor painting to do (if you ride by, check out our new pinned in house along with new flower beds) and John was working on our new brick walkway. I wanted Ollie to be outside with us so I got out her new/old swimming pool. Just a word of advise; At the end of each summer, Wal-mart puts all summer stuff (pools, floats, toys, etc.) on clearence. Last year, at the end of summer, I bought Ollie's pool on clearence for just $3.00. It's a $30.00 pool! Be sure to keep your kids in mind at the end of this summer and go ahead and splurge on their next year's summer toys. This time next year you'll be glad you did. Anyway, she loved it. She played in the water for an hour while I painted. She had so much fun and is beginning to get a little suntan. I do believe we will be out there again today.

Happy Spring!