as promised...here's a blog about the girls. miss lucy and miss olive are growing up so fast! we've had such a good summer, and though we don't go to school (or work, for that matter) i still feel like we should by school supplies, new backpacks, and new shoes right now...but we won't. so here's a not so quick re-cap.

1. OLIVE is now 9 months. (i know, can you believe it!) in the past months she has started crawling really fast..and gets faster when she knows she's going somewhere she's not supposed to. i am blaming her friend nate for telling her about the little caps on the base of the toilet and how fun they are to put in your mouth (GROSS!!!) and play with...thanks nate. btw, baby gates are from hell. i am so tired of them already and they've only been up for a few weeks. at least i'm not really pregnant and trying to step over them like last year.

olive also now has 5 1/2 teeth. that's right...three and a half on top and two on bottom. she's an excellent biter. i'm thinking of getting one of those step counter things...but have it changed to count how many times i say "what did you put in your mouth" in a day. oh wow...it's insane...lucy was not this bad. she is also, pulling up on everything. she'd rather stand at the coffee table all day and dance than do anything else. she's so funny. she's started waving and trying to blow kisses, and even doing this weird winking thing. she is also making lots of sounds...which mostly sound like "mama," of course :)

we had a little scare last week when olive woke up, trying to breathe, was kinda purple, face swollen. and i totally freaked out. it was about 11 at night, so we woke up lucy and ran out the door to the ER. by the time we got there, of course, she was mostly fine...but she was barely breathing...and i wasn't going anywhere till we found out why. so after a fun night in the ER with two sleepy girls (and a sleepy daddy, who fell asleep at one point) we found out she had croup. which is usually taken care of in a steamy bathroom or by going outside. that would have been a lot cheaper than the bill... jk, she had to take a steroid to reduce the swelling of her airways. so it's all okay. and she was better off than the guy who came in who had just been stabbed...wah, wahhh.

2. LUCY is as crazy as ever. she's totally obsessed with the grinch and watches it maybe once a day or at least once every two days. yeah...it's a problem. her new favorite things to do are: stealing olive's pacifier, eating desitin (well, that's not new), not want to sleep in her bed....you know, the usual. her most recent favorite sayings are "i need that," as in "i need olive's pacifier i just stole from her." and "I want take it," for when she grabs anything in site to take in the car with her every time we go somewhere, or when she needs to pick up 5 sticks to take with her in the car. apparently she's a very needy and greedy child... not really. she really is sweet. she is picking up on everything and saying so much.

she loves going to library storytime, a small cherry lemonade from sonic, and long walks at the park. ha. she is very adventurous, meaning she's taken off up the climbing things at the park...and i've got to crawl up in there and get her down. not fun or pretty. or she'll just hang on the bars and i have to rush over, while holding olive, and save her from crashing to the ground...she is very brave. and i cannot even express how much she loves dressing up. i know she gets it from her aunt ann. it is absolutely ridiculous.

3. I am currently staying busy with the girls. And with my etsy stuff. I am coming up with new ideas and actually making a little money at it...not bad. i've also done a few cakes here lately. i really enjoy it, even though i have A LOT to learn. I'm enjoying figuring out how to do all this fun stuff...and they taste pretty good too! sad note...prepare yourself...don't cry...my iphone is dying. and very slow and painful death, well, at least for me. it has gone crazy and will only work when it wants and then just randomly shuts off all the time. it's so frustrating. i think lucy is having a hard time with it as well..she had at least 10 games she loved to play on it...

most exciting right now...i am getting ready to start a new business with one of my dear friends, cara beth. i am not going to give too much away just yet...but our website should be up in the next couple of weeks! we've already got business cards and all...super exciting.

4. RYAN is really busy with all the new church stuff. we've had our first few gatherings and are planning for this month. he did a fabulous job designing the website and i am so proud of him. we have a lot of exciting things happening with the church and are so excited about the people who are coming on board with us. it's so great to actually have others who share our vision for what we moved here 2 years ago to do.

he also is the best husband ever (i meant to blog about this, but haven't had time) because he planned a surprise anniversary trip for us! we celebrated 6 years on august 16, and we went to eureka springs for the night and had a great time! it's so nice to get away and spend time together...which we never get to do. we had a great room at the basin hotel (which is apparently haunted...we didn't see any ghosts though, i was disappointed), and spent the day walking around taking pictures and going into quirky little shops. it was a much needed break from life.

well, that's all for now. i will post some pictures soon...i promise. a little at a time, please. i would add a few iphone pics...but again, my phone is dead.

I'm back...yeah, i know. I've been so behind on my blog. trust me, i know. however, i have been busy! you know, two little girls named lucy and olive. my real baby byrds. and cakes, and etsy, and new etsy ideas...i'm about to explode! i have new pictures of the girls i need to get up here soon, don't worry, they're still here. they are the reason i can't find time to blog...about them. anyway...

so please take a few minutes and check out my new etsy pieces. I'm really excited about them! I had three orders within the first 30 minutes they were up! i am getting the girls and myself ready to start going back to church for women's bible study mornings. i work in childcare and they get to go socialize with other little people...which they love. as i was thinking about getting back into the routine of things and being there by 8 am, three mornings a week...and them possibly having different teachers every day...i got this brilliant idea!

we've had moms in the past bring a chicken scratch little note about "what to do with my kid if he freaks out"...which we never find, or can't read it, or whatever. so i thought about creating a simple, easy to access way of letting caregivers know what the heck to do with my kid. i mean, it can get a little hairy with 10 babies, or 16 two year olds. i've created a diaper bag tag with your child's name on one side...and "directions" on the other side...brilliant! why didn't i think of this sooner. the "direction" cards are interchangeable and can be switched out depending on when and where your baby is that day. there are 12 different designs and the colors can be changed to match your diaper bag. you can also request custom orders. and, shipping is FREE!!!

these are great gifts for new moms or yourself! you can let your nursery worker or daycare teacher know if your little one is teething, potty-training, has a special blanket, or has an allergy...anything you want.

Click here to order.

so yeah, i haven't blogged now in over a month. i am just not good at this. when i do have things to say, i don't have time to blog about them. so i am now on twitter, so you can follow me on there if you like my sarcastic comments or thoughts on potty-training. so i just thought i'd give you a rundown of what's been going on in our lives lately. a lot has changed. and i got an iPhone, so you will have pictures along with your blogging pleasure!

1. we have moved! we moved the beginning of march, across town to the quapaw quarter. we love it! we have a nice yard for lucy to play with her "elmo bubbles." lucy and olive have started sharing a room, which is going fairly well. lucy sleeps a lot better in this house anyway, so they don't bother each other much.

2. lucy is doing great with potty-training. she's almost mastered it! yeah for being a big girl. she got some elmo panties, i had to use that word because ryan thinks it's gross. he will only use the word underwear, which lucy can't say. so she loves wearing them and saying "elmo panties." (just had to throw that in there again.) she is also saying so much! she's repeating everything you say (not always a good thing) and putting together words. she has grown up a lot over the past month. i mean, she'll be 2 in may...what happened! we're trying to break her of the pacifier right now. yeah, it's way past time...i know. she's about got her room all set up. the other day she had a tea party...with her ugly dinosaur. i'm glad to know she loves everyone...



3. olive is growing as well. she's 4 months old now. she is so pretty and just so sweet. she's laughing now and playing with toys. she can pull out her pacifier and tries to put it back in. one of these photos is her when she got it back in by herself...upside down. she is still so good...sleeping through the night and just generally being quiet and not causing any problems. lucy got a little bored the other night and decided to decorate olive with the laundry...at least it was clean!



4. we went to the zoo this past week with my parents and ashten. lucy loves animals, so she had a blast...except when she just got so sleepy and turned into a little monster. other than that, it was great. i carried olive the whole time, which was fun! shocking...we both got a little sunburned...me and my pasty white kids!



5. this weekend we had some friends come visit from paducah. my friends beth and terri, that i used to work with came to visit us for the first time. i wish the weather had been better, but we had fun shopping and hanging out...minus a little puking incident in the car...haha.

well, that's all for now. i'll hopefully be back soon with more updates. and maybe more pictures!

here's little olive sleeping next to me while i'm blogging.

i must say, my favorite times of day are in the morning when everyone is waking up and in the evening when it's time to go to bed. mainly because in the morning, we all pile into our bed, where we watch mickey mouse clubhouse until ryan can't take it anymore and changes the channel. we mainly have to keep lucy from kicking olive in the head because she can get a bit silly. we are not morning people, so we stay in bed as long as we possibly can. this leads to a lot of crumbs in our bed because we let lucy eat breakfast in our bed. however messy it may be, it's always nice to spend that time together.

ryan always calls me an old person because i've started going to bed so early. it mainly started when i was pregnant and went to bed at like 8:30 every night because i was so exhausted. now, i love to lay with the girls in our bed before we make lucy go to bed. sometimes she just crashes and falls out completely. other times, she could be so near sleep, but if ryan comes to get her she gets up and tries to run away from him on the bed. and eventually gives in. in the bottom picture, you can't see it, but lucy is also holding her nativity figurines. apparently mickey and goofy were at jesus' birth. btw, nice hair lucy.

here are a few pictures of olive i took today. don't worry, olive wasn't harmed in any of the ones with lucy. they were being closely supervised! lucy just loves her little sister...a little too much sometimes! to see the whole set, go to my flickr page.

thanks to my wonderful husband, who just happens to be an excellent photographer....we have great pictures from olive's birth. i have clearly had no time or motivation to take pictures, so he has picked up the slack in that area, and they really look great. i'm so excited about them! i will take credit for the picture of him holding olive right after she was born, only b/c it's my favorite! these are just a few, to see the rest, go to my flickr page.

also, check out ryan's blog for more updates!

yes, as my first bog entry on our new site, i thought it should be something fun and entertaining. but apparently lucy thought it should be gross and entertaining. so, this morning, lucy got up as usual and acted completely fine. never let on that anything was wrong. we got her ready for church and she was a little whiny and crabby, but we just thought she was sleepy.

so we get to church, check her in to the nursery. but just as i was about to take her in, i noticed she was shaking a little and just wanted to lay on me. so i decided to take her in to church with us...which i'm totally against. so she laid on me all throughout the service nodding off and then waking up, just being weird. so finally i decided to take her out for good after she cried out.

and then it happened...literally as we walked out the doors to of the church service and began to look for a place to sit down.......she began puking uncontrollably all over the place. and by place, i mean me. b/c as a mom, you try and catch as much throw-up as possible in your shirt to avoid anyone else having to clean it up. however, this did little to control the mess. as it went all over me and the floor and her. not to mention we were standing in the food court type place, where people were enjoying their coffee and bagels....and a kid puking everywhere.

it was quite a show. so as i said a few words to myself that i really hope were to myself, since we were at church...i took off for the bathroom. but the puking continued on the way to the bathroom, over my shoulder. and some sweet lady offered frantically to help and helped us into the bathroom. and then she went and found some other very sweet ladies to clean it all up. oh wow...yeah it was as bad as it sounds. the smell was horrendous as i realized that it was all milk she'd had at breakfast. so there i was absolutely drenched in throw-up, in the bathroom floor with a crying baby trying to text ryan who was in the service to come help. luckily, he got the text while reading his bible on his iphone...convenient. and he and ann came to assist, as did other ladies in the bathroom who felt really bad for me and weren't too grossed out by the smell.

thankfully, lucy and i were both wearing tank tops under our clothes, as the throw-up had soaked through our shirts. ryan took lucy out, and passed the nice ladies who were cleaning up the mess, i'm sure about to puke themselves. and ann found a coat in her car, which, of course, wouldn't go around me. but we somehow managed to get one button buttoned around me and we got out of there as fast as possible, without causing anymore drama. now, if this had been me...i would insist that we never go back to church there. but since it was my kid, and completely out of my control...i guess we'll go back. i'm just so glad that we left the service when we did. i just keep imagining how they would have had to evacuate the whole place if we'd have stayed another 2 seconds...it was that bad. poor lucy.

welcome to babybyrds.com! this is the new home for all things, well, baby byrds. this is where you can come to check up on lucy and olive...and all other byrd children to come. and, in the process, you'll get a little glimpse of what's going on with christen and ryan.

mainly, christen will be blogging and giving updates on the girls (although this is ryan writing this post). i'll be on here from time to time, but this will mainly be christen's thing.

also, do a couple things for us:

1. bookmark/subscribe to our rss feed. you'll notice a link to the right in the sidebar. it will help you keep up and it makes us feel important... :)
2. check back soon/often. right now, as you can see, we don't really have any other pages up right now. we'll probably have, at least, an about us page and maybe a photo album page. for the time being, i just wanted to get up the home/blog page to get the ball rolling (because we very well might be putting this site to good use in the coming days if olive decides to pop out).

so, enjoy the site!