A Mooooo-velous 2nd birthday....

We had a great (and big) 2nd birthday party for Olivia last weekend. She isn't much into any TV characters or anything like that so in thinking about a theme, I just thought to myself, "What does she like the most in the world right now?" Cows! It was the natural answer. She looks for them out the window everytime we get in the car so I did lots of internet searching to find all of the party plates, balloons, favors, etc. with cow prints. I even painted a few of them to put around the yard. (I included a few pictures of that stuff on the bottom of the blog that aren't along the left side.) We had 55 people here. It was way too much but very fun.

We just had our 2 year appt at the doctor and that went VERY well. First of all, she is now in the 80th% percentile for height which is a huge jump from her ealier appts. Her weight is in the 44th% so she is going to be tall and thin like her mother used to be. The doctor went through his usual list of tasks that she should be able to do and she breezed through those with flying colors. Then he asked about a few things that she probably is not doing yet and it went a little like this:

(Dr.) "Is she saying lots of words yet?" (Me) "Whole sentences and conversations with you."
(Dr.) "Can she use pronouns like I, You, etc.?" (Me) "Yes." (Dr.) "Hmmm." (Dr.) "She doesn't know her colors yet, right?" (Me) "Yes, she knows all of the basic colors, maybe 8-10 of them." (Dr.) "That's a 3 year old task." "She doesn't count yet, does she?" (Me) "Well, she can count to 11 but that's it." (Dr.) "Really? That's a 3 year old task." "She doesn't know the alphabet though, right?" (Me) "Well, not in order like to sing it. But she knows all of the letters if you show her one and ask her what it is." (Dr.) "Wow, that's a 4 year old task." "We usually do the screening for autism at this visit but I think it's safe to skip that with her." It made me very proud!

She loves being in the pool. She has become fearless when it comes to standing on the edge, laughing with excitement and then diving into Mommy or Daddy's arms. We love it. It's a little scary though so we signed her up for swim lessons that start in mid-September. She continues to love jumping on anything... bed, couch, floor. She loves to take pictures and actually got 2 of her own cameras for her birthday. Mike got up from bed one morning to go to the bathroom. When he opened the door to come out, Olivia was right there waiting and quickly said, "Cheese, Daddy!" and flashed it in his face. There aren't a lot of heads in her shots but she's just getting used to her new equipment. I'll have to share some of those pics when we download them onto the computer.

Some favorite phrases are currently...."How are you Mommy? (I'm fine, thank you. How are you, sweetheart?) I'm fine." She will ask over and over again. She is using "Excuse me" alot. "I almost tripped." "Be careful" And many more but like I told the doctor, it's just turning into normal conversation now. She has her 2nd trip down the aisle this weekend for my cousin, Diana's wedding. We're very excited but she has come down with a cold today. Maybe just be a reaction to the flu shot from Monday but this is becoming a bad, wedding habit for her. Keep your fingers crossed for a speedy recovery.

Sunny Florida....

You would think we do nothing but play with animals everyday, huh? Olivia does love animals so we took a drive to a local wildlife park. They have many cages of animals but the highlight is the safari tour that they offer. We got in the convertible bus with crackers in hand and off we went to feed the deer, moose, elk, etc that came up to the sides of the bus. Olivia had a great time until she saw the slide and swing set at the park and then the animals took a backseat.

Olivia took her first flight when we went down to Florida to visit Dad while he gets his cancer treatments in Jacksonville, FL. She did so well even after being delayed an hour and 1/2 or so. We must have walked the moving sidewalks in the terminal at least 25 times to pass the time. It was hot, hot, hot when we got to FL but it made for nice naps and sleeping. The Zoo was great and she particularly liked feeding the giraffes their lettuce from the stand they come to for food. Our trip to FL was unfortunately delayed though when Olivia came down with a full body rash and a 4 day fever with temps topping out at 104.4. Doctor said it was some sort of virus. When the fever broke, we re-booked our flight and got down there to visit Nanny, Brian, Babi and Didi. As our week was coming to an end, I noticed yellow goop coming out of Olivia's eye so we went to see a doctor in FL and it turned out to be pink eye. Oh wait, it gets better.....we came home and she just seemed to be struggling with a horrible cough that would keep her up for several hours every night. So we went to our doctor and both ears are infected. I was worried about everything she was getting but the doctor diagnosed it as being unlucky. Oh well. She's on her way back to 100% and hopefully she will be there for her big 2nd birthday party this Saturday.

She continues to amaze us with her language skills, intelligence and sense of humor. Some favorite phrases nowadays are, "yesterday" as in, "Olivia what do you want for breakfast?" "Ate breakfast yesterday." She also likes to say, "I guess so", "Stop it!" and "Look at this thingy." She is also very into telling people and things that she loves them. We all love this, of course.

Can't wait to post pictures after this weekend's big birthday bash. We'll miss all of you who can't make it!