Another tooth is on its way

It looks like Annika's 3rd tooth will make an appearance sooner rather than later. Her upper middle right gum looks ready to show us her next chomper.

I find it funny that Annika isn't even a year old, and I already find myself mourning her childhood. Not a whole lot, but a little bit. A few nights ago, I sorted through her clothes (I really do have a love affair with plastic storage bins!) and put the items that she has outgrown into their respective size-sorted bins. (Did I mention my obsession with my label maker?) As I put her wee little clothes away, I reminised about her wearing them ... and not wearing them. (Many were given as gifts thinking she'd be a bigger baby than she was. By the time she was able to fit into them, they were very much out of season.)

Now that she's sprouting teeth, crawling around like a champ, and pulling herself up on things, I get a little teary thinking about how she isn't going to be a baby forever ... let alone one for much longer. She's going to be a toddler before we know it.

Time sure flies when you have a little one to keep you hopping.

More of Annika's modeling pictures

Thanks to Jen at Figheadh for letting me know Annika's modeling pictures are now on her pattern site. If you want an incredible knitting pattern, I highly recommend going to Jen's site. She's an AMAZING pattern writer!

http://www.figheadh.com/List_Baby.html

(There are additional photos if you click on the thumbnails.)

Counting down to vacation

Next week, we're off to visit my sister and her family at their cabin. I can hardly wait. The cabin has become one of my happy places in life. It is a place to reconnect with family, relax, play in the lake, and just be happy. This will be Annika's first trip to the lake; it amazes me how our packing list has changed from 2 summers ago! (We didn't go last year because I was VERY pregnant.) Two years ago, our packing list definitely didn't include a travel crip, bottle warmer, johnny-jump-up, a blow-up pool, or diapers. Our car will be fuller than ever before en route to the cabin and I wouldn't have it any other way.

We're hoping to out-wit Annika by driving over at night. The goal is for her to sleep the majority of the way over there. Fingers are crossed.

Last week, we experienced some vacation drama. Our company is moving into a new building and we got word that the move was getting bumped by a week... yup, the week we were supposed to go to the cabin. After much work on coming up with plans B through Q, we decided the best approach was for Eric to stay home and Annika and I would go to the cabin on our own. Friday afternoon, one of the owners of our company told Eric that her heard about the timing glitch and offered to postpone some of the move so Eric could go on vacation with us. HURRAY!!!! Needless to say, he and Eric's boss are definitely getting cookies or a cake! :)

Marking life's stages through purse contents

I just pulled my cell phone out of my purse (in case the day care calls, of course) and took a gander at the contents of my purse. It hit me that my purse contents have greatly changed over the years. When I was in high school, I had a house key, wallet, Carmex, and countless pictures of my friends at various dances.

Now I carry my wallet, my cell phone, a pen (that I can rarely find when I'm looking for it), an eyeliner, and my Zune... all normal stuff. Now for the things that I NEVER imagined I'd lug around with me ... that is, not until I became a mother: a bottle of teething tablets, 2 pacifiers (in case 1 gets dropped at any given time), a nasal aspirator (aka a booger sucker), children's Tylenol, bandaids of various sizes, a small package of Kleenex (ok, I should have probably carried that before, but it didn't occur to me until I had a child who can projectile sneeze), and baby food coupons. Who says motherhood isn't glamorous??

Father's Day weekend

We spent the weekend up with the in-laws on Whidbey Island and had a great time. We even had a croquet tournamet. Lots of fun! The most amazing thing was the sun decided to make an appearance. Who knew that could happen??


Eric & Annika on the ferry

Knitting Modeling Pictures

As promised, here are a couple of pictures from Annika's Figheadh Yarnworks modeling gig. Enjoy!

Pictures!

That's some bed head!



Annika showing off her two bottom teeth.




Playing her new piano (thank you, Gage!)



Fun with Daddy and Mrs. Butterworth

What a week!

Last week was rather chaotic for the Olson Trio and a bit of an emotional roller coaster.

Eric was frighteningly busy with work and some network issues that kept him hopping. Fortunately, the bald spots from him pulling his hair out will fill in soon enough.

While pulling into U. Village last week, I found a PRIME parking spot and realized karma was smiling on me. Later that night, I found out why. There was a certified letter with a cease and desist order in regards to my business' name. I thought this matter was resolved 2 1/2 years ago, but it reared its ugly head and I found out from my lawyer that it was a no-win battle for me. So, I shed a few tears, cursed the woman who was making such trouble for me, and then made the decision to move forward. I'm proud to announce that my editing business is in the process of changing names to The Savvy Editor. Ta-da!! We (we = Eric in this sense) still need to transfer the website over to the new URL (www.savvyeditor.com), which will hopefully happen in the very near future. I've secured updated city and state business licenses - yippee!

As for little Miss Annika, she's now waving and clapping like a pro. She was (once again) quite the source of entertainment at church and even got our priest laughing at one point. That's our girl! She had a play date with her friend Gage on Saturday while Eric and I went to a movie. Gage will be 2 in September and has lots to teach Annika; it's always good to have a mentor! :)

Annika's 1st trip to the zoo

On Saturday, Annika and I joined my friend Caroline and her little boy (Gage) at Woodland Park Zoo. This was Annika's first trip to the zoo and she did splendidly. The tiger seemed to be the animal that most caught her attention; I think the stripes and the fact it was walking around and making noises helped. The bears were napping (one with its tongue sticking out), as were many of the other animals. We got rained on (hey, it is Seattle!) but not too bad. Annika even petted goats and a rabbit in the Family Farm area.


After 2+ hours at the zoo, Annika was wiped out, so we headed home. She was asleep before we reached the car and napped for almost 3 hours. I snapped these pictures right after we got home. Talk about a tired kid!