I was just reading back through some posts from 2 years ago (when we found out we would be parents), and I really went out on a limb making some wild assumptions about the type of parents we would be. Well, call me crazy, a fortune teller, or whatever, but we’ve actually stuck to our plan. We do not celebrate things that are unwarranted, we do not buy our kid toys, silly expensive shoes, or feed her junk food. Sure she gets to play with sticks and rocks, but thats what all the spoiled kids do. Olivia really enjoys picking up scraps in my shop and throwing them into a bucket or into the trash. Thats just her personality, and she’s been like that since she started to develop one. She likes things tidy, and I’m pretty sure that her mom and I didn’t teach her that, because we’re not the most tidy people.
I’m really happy that Olivia plays with other kids, she’s speaking english and german, she can almost run, and doesn’t care about the tv (other than watching the same 2 episodes of elmo over and over. no kidding, i’ve tried to show her other episodes and she won’t watch). I’m also pleased that she’ll eat anything that we put in front of her, even the stuff that Kathy and I hate. On her 2nd birthday, we’re taking her out for some sushi .
It took a lot of convincing on Olivia’s part, but Stan (the cat) finally gave in and he’s officially friendly with Olivia. Also you might notice that Olivia is wearing little girl panties. She’s doing pretty well with the potty training and she does her best to tell us when she needs to “pee pee”.
We went to the doc yesterday for Olivia’s 15 month update. Here’s the short of it. She got a couple of shots, one in the leg and one in the arm. She didn’t like that. She got her finger pricked twice to check for anemia, and her red blood cell count was lower than ever (26/8.9). We had to go to the lab to get more blood drawn (from her arm). She didn’t care for it, but seems to dislike shots in the shoulder even more. We’ll know more on the results on Monday. Until then, we have no idea the consequences or path forward if she is anemic. I’m fine being ignorant for one more weekend… so no questions and no advice about the subject please. I’ll pass along more information when I find it out.
She was super happy last night though, and slept very well. It was a big day for the both of us!
UPDATE: Olivia just needs even more iron… The doc will check her again in 3 months, but this should go away on its own.
So… I got bored and started eating a little better in August. That went well, so starting the last week of September I started going to the gym. I started 2 days a week, then 3, now 4. I’ve lost 21lbs, 4″ from my waist, and dropped from 26.% body fat to 17.5%. Believe it or not, but by clinical standards I was considered to be obese in those first pics at 26.5% (25% and over is obese for my age). I hope to hit 10% without losing much more in the lbs dept, but that probably won’t be an easy task. I don’t want to be skinny, but I do want to fit back into 32″ pants! 34′s are loose so it should happen any minute now… until then, here are some progress pics from Oct and some from this week.
Note that I am sucking in for the pic in glasses
Also, its difficult to tell because of the facial hair, but my double chin is gone.
We leveled and trimmed out the upper cabinets on one wall. The keen eye will see some wiring hanging down behind the cabinet. That is part of the in-cabinet and under-cabinet lighting that I mentioned the other day.
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We’re moving right along with the kitchen. We leveled the base cabinets, installed toe kick and filler strips, and did some metal working to put in that nifty HVAC vent (yes, I’m going to paint it black). I’m starting on the upper cabinets tonight. They’re a little more involved than the base cabinets. We’re putting lights under each of them for the counter top, and inside each of the glass faced cabinets. Its a little silly, but we spend a lot of time in the kitchen, and really like it there. We will have 39 light fixtures in the one room though. 17 cans, above table fixture, above bar fixture, and the rest are a mix of the puck lights in and beneath the upper cabinets. It should look nice. Each set of lights is on a dimmer. Really, this is just us seeing what we like so that we can improve on the design in the next house. I will probably go with an automated lighting system to control the lights in the new home. Anyway, here is a quick peak at what its looking like. I’ll post more pics tonight after we do some of the upper cabinets.
Kathy and I put our new tile down this weekend. Yes, we have a lot of tile in our house. I’ll have more pics soon with the cabinets reinstalled, new sink, and hopefully new counter tops also. Olivia snuck into the video also.
I decided to upload some videos to youtube (instead of vimeo like we normally use). The quality isn’t as good, but its a much simpler and quicker process.
Dad and I picked this up last week to assist in the many projects that we want to tackle. These are pics right after it was delivered, and it looks 100x better now after dad put some elbow grease into it. Once we get it all cleaned up I’ll put up some new pics of it.
For those of you that care… here are the features:
4wd
4 in 1 (clam) bucket
9000+ lbs of lift on front bucket
25mph forward/31mph reverse
Heat & AC
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