Oliver's Dangling Feet

So we are in the kitchen, hoot belly disappears for a few seconds, and then we hear water running.  We go into the bathroom and find his little legs dangling and him slurping the water.  If we are out someplace and he spots a drinking fountain he points at it until I hold him like a football and let him get a little drink. 

Oliver got some gift cards for his birthday, he got this little car and he loves it.  There are a ton of buttons and knobs that make noise on the dashboard.  He drives all around the living room and has a ton of fun. 

Doro gave him some cool whip the other day and now he points and yells at it whenever the fridge is open.  Once we take it out he stands there with his mouth open like a little bird waiting for a worm.

Oliver vs. The Residency Retreat

We went on a residency retreat this weekend.  It was all of the residents and staff with their families.  Oliver just entered his tantrum phase and it turned into a hootbelly containment session at multiple times during it.  Overall it was very fun.  He found this faucet by the water front  and it went like this:  1. fill up the hose with the drips 2. try and drink them out of the hose 3. Daddy look at how good I did it!!

This is Doro kayaking.

Oliver was eating cookies when the dogs discovered it.  He was so interested in feeding them.

He also discovered that picking up rocks by the water and throwing them in was really fun.  He did this over and over laughing after each time.  It was really cute.

Doro got him these striped pajama pants.  She loves them.  We ended up leaving a night early because he had such a difficult night the one previously.  He wouldn't sleep unless he was tree-frogging.

Oliver's Roseola

This are pictures from last week that I wasn't able to post because he got sick.  Doro has been building him forts with the couch cushions and he loves to knock them down.  He also loves to sit in the sink now, turn on the water and play.

We went into our backyard and were picking blackberries and he toddles around usually doing laps around my truck.  There are almost too many to pick and we don't have the time to do it.  I hate to see them not get picked and go to waste. 

Last week on Sunday he wasn't feeling very good so we took his temp and it was high.  We watched him, tried to make him feel better, but it kept going up and on Monday we took him to the ER.  We spent the entire night there, finally were able to get his temp to come down, and then he started feeling better.  The next day he broke out in a faint red rash on his body that was pretty characteristic for Roseola.  Its funny because when his fever was 104.9 I was thinking to myself, "I hope he has Roseola."  I had never seen it before outside of textbooks and everything I knew about it was that the kid gets a high fever for a few days, the parents and the doctor are worried, then the fever breaks, the rash starts and then they are relieved.  It is exactly how it went with him.  He is back to his wiggly hooting self now.

Oliver's First Trip to Pike's Place

We walked onto the ferry and went to Pike's Place Market in Seattle to get some crab legs. It was a lot of fun to walk there with hoot belly in the stroller instead of driving and having to deal with traffic and parking.

We got a hot dog along the water and Oliver loved the mustard. He was so interested in poking it one second, and then looked like this the next second. He was ok when we picked him up and started giving him little tastes of the hot dog toppings.

On the ferry ride back there were three killer whales swimming by. They are just to the right of the sailboat. It was really cool to see them.

He started giving us this smile and squint today.

Doro cooked up the crab legs that we got at the market and they were so good.

I was putting together some drawers for a dresser that we got at Ikea and hoot belly was super interested in it. He grabbed the other screwdriver and started trying to put in the screws with me. It was really cute. Then he went to every drawer and started pounding on them.

Here are a couple videos that we have been meaning to put up.

Oliver's First Fever

Oliver had his first fever this weekend.  He is ok, and his fever has resolved, but it was sad to see him sick and sleepy for a couple days.  All he wanted to do was cuddle with us.  It worked out nice for me because I got home from working nights and I was super tired too.

He discovered this box in the recycle pile, and then discovered that he could put it on.  He was so happy about it, until he tried to walk and tumbled over, then it was, "MOM!!!  THIS BOX IS EATING ME, GET IT OFF!!!" in so many screams and grunts.

Oliver's First Hoot Hike

Yesterday we took Oliver on a hike into the Olympic National Park with some of the other residents from the hospital. We got him a backpack to sit in, packed some other supplies and hoped for the best. The drive to the beginning of the trail was about two hours and he was fussy the whole way there so we were worried at the start, but once he got in the backpack he started looking around and was hooting up a storm. It was about eight miles round trip, with some pretty steep declines into a valley where there is a glacial lake.

This was the start of the trail. Great view of the Olympic mountains..

He got tired and took a nap just before we got to the lake. Then he slept in the backpack while we ate lunch and rested. I'm so glad that we decided to get a pack with a frame so that it could stand up like this.

This is Evi, one of the resident's wives. They live right around the corner from us and we were really excited that they were on this hike too!

After he woke up it was time to explore. He hooted around all over the place, picking up rocks, climbing on everything, he was so cute.

As we were leaving a family of three white mountain goats strolled past. I've never seen real mountain goats before and I was amazed at how beefy they were. I was hoping they weren't going to try and ram us from behind during this picture.

This is Oliver's victory picture. He got fussy about 2/3 of the way back, but did awesome. The return hike was tough with steep switch-backs up the final ascent. Doro and I drank glacial fresh glacial water out of a stream that was the best water we have ever tasted.