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!

More summer fun...

We continue to be busy, busy, busy. There is a place not far from here that turns their farm into an "Adventure Farm" and it is great! The big draw is the corn maze they make but we didn't even get into that. There was just too much to do. Olivia's favorite thing was this giant inflatable pillow looking thing that is pictured to the left. It's like one of those inflatable castles but it's just open and huge. Even if it's not on an inflatable thingy, Olivia loves to jump. She'll just stop whatever she is doing sometimes to practice her jumping. It started at her 18 mos doctor's appt when the doctor was taking really long to come into the room. I was at a loss for ideas of how to keep her occupied so I said, "Ummmm, wanna jump?" She hasn't stopped since then. (Of course, now she is actually getting off the ground.)

We also made our first trip to a local amusement park. Olivia clearly loved the ride with the flying planes. But she also loved Duke, the dragon, that walked around the park. She talks about him all the time how she gave him a hug and a high five.

We're doing lots of swimming too. We were unsure if we should get a pool pass since we didn't know if she would like it but she loves it. I'm thinking swim lessons are on the list of things to do next summer.

Olivia is up to at least 13 animals and babies in her crib for nap time and bedtime. She organizes them just right, which is usually all lined up on one side of the crib, and then she wakes up in a sweat because she has 10 pounds of fur surrounding her. She repeats EVERYTHING that she hears, including "Move it, Buddy!" that Mommy said to someone who was taking his time crossing the street in front of our car. Sometimes I don't even think about what I'm saying until I hear it from her in the back seat. Today, we raced to the post office at the end of the day and Olivia would be happy to tell you that "post office closed, darnit!" She repeated a point that Bill O'Reilly was making on TV the other night which most of you know warms my heart tremendously.

We have many fun plans for this weekend so I will back to post those next week before heading to FL for a couple of weeks to visit Mom and Dad.

Weddings, carnivals, and more animals.....

Clearly, I'm bad at this but we are just having too much fun to sit down and write about it. It's been a fun start to the summer. We have a local family owned dairy that does this big "Farm Days" event every year. So Olivia got to hold chickies, pet pigs and cows and do general farm stuff which she absolutely loves. We also went to a local Carnival. We were apprehensive to get too many ride tickets when we first got there because what if she gets scared when she gets on a ride. Ummmm....NOT a problem. We left the carnival tired and VERY poor. She would get off of something and say, "Again, again!" Her favorites were the giant slide and (again) the bouncy castle. She kept falling flat on her face, literally, but would just laugh and laugh and laugh.

We also had our first of many weddings this summer. Olivia was the flower girl for my cousin, JoAnna. Unfortunately, she happen to get a bad summer cold the very day of the wedding so we had to cut the day short. However, she was a total trooper and made it down the aisle perfectly. Mike said it wasn't looking good in the lobby of the church but when he showed Olivia all of the people sitting in the pews, she turned on a huge smile and marched down to me, sitting in the front. I'm hoping to get some good pictures of that for you but I was too busy guiding her down to take any. So as soon as I get some of those, I'll post them.

Generally speaking, her speech continues to take off. She's really putting together some nice sentences. She loves to tell you when you are being silly..."Silly Mommy!" and everything is "nice" to her right now. "Olivia, how was the park?" "Nice" She also loves the phrase, "a little bit". I told her the other night that I couldn't rub her back until she fell asleep because she needed to sleep on her own. But she looked at me and said in the saddest voice, "A little bit?" So what am I going to do at that point, say no?

She's thoroughly enjoying galloping these days. She also plays hide and go seek several times a day. She's getting better and better at it. For awhile, I would let her know where I was looking by saying out loud, "Is she behind this door?" and she would call out from whereever she was, "Noooooo." Now she knows to wait quietly.

I'll leave it at that for now but if I don't post something new every 2 weeks from here on out, please leave nasty comments.

Our little animal lover....

Our community has a Spring Fling every year so Olivia and I went to that while Mike was at work. She really wanted to get in that blow up, bouncy thing that they have for kids at little events like this. I was a little apprehensive because she was by far the smallest one in line to get in and what if she hated it when she got in? Would I have to take my shoes off, climb in and get bounced around by 5 year olds while I make my way over to rescue her and get mean looks from the other parents because, "Why would you even put her in there in the first place?" But I put her in there anyway. She LOVED it! Because she was the smallest one, she couldn't really get her feet under her much. The other kids just kept jumping and it would knock her down but that's what she loved. She thought it was hilarious that she couldn't get up. I put one picture of that on the side but you have to scroll down to the bottom, bigger pictures to really appreciate her joy. Turns out I did have to get in the thing like I feared but only because she didn't want to come out.

We went to a local dairy with our Mom's Club and took a tour. Again, she loved it. She just loves "moo moos". Every time we drive to Mike's work to have lunch with him, we stop at one of the many farms along the way and check things out. Then she tells Mike all about it when we get there. "Mama moo moo,dirty, baby moo moo, water, horsey, brown, down, white, up, knee." For those of you that don't speak toddler....that means that the big cows were sitting in the dirty barn and the babies were drinking water. The brown horsey in the pasture was laying down (and always does, not sure what's going on with that horse) but the white one was up. He got up on his knee first to stand up. I swear her vocabulary triples every week.

We went to my cousin, Diana's, shower in NY this past weekend. My mom and I were a little worried about how Olivia would take the drive but she was perfect. She thoroughly enjoyed playing with her Babi in the back seat and singing "Happy Birthday" to every family member she could name, always starting with "Annette", my aunt. For whatever reason, that is her favorite name to say right now. "Diana" is currently running a close second. Anyway, she had a blast at the shower. To prove that she is my child through and through, she got inside of the cake box and "enjoyed" the icing that was stuck along the sides of the box. We do love our sweets, she and I. The picture I have is blurry but still funny.

Today, we went to a local Alpaca Farm. It was so fun. Olivia was totally freaked out when we approached the first one because I think she just didn't know what it was. I thought it was going to be a tough trip. But when we went into this storage shed to learn about their hair, she kept saying, "Again, again, again" because she wanted to go back to see them. So she warmed up to them and as you can see from the pictures, had a great time. A friend of mine took tons of pictures on a better camera so when she sends me those, I'll put them up.

She can now count to 6 although when I was counting out days for something to myself, I said, "nine" and paused to think about something and she said, "Ten!". Like, "I'll help you out Mommy since you always help me when I practice too." She knows most of her letters in the alphabet which has me floored. She has been playing this alphabet game on the computer many times a day but I didn't think about whether or not it was sticking. Then I started quizzing her with the letters on the fridge and she kept getting them right. It was so exciting. Otherwise she has just been busy blowing bubbles outside, going down the slide and loving life in general. We have tons of fun activities planned for this summer so I'll be updating more regularly.

Where's the off button?

My thought was to list the new words that Olivia has added to her vocabulary every time I add a posting. Um....that's not going to happen. She just adds words by the hour. She is even starting to put things together. A little boy rushed by her on the steps of the playground the other day. He stopped at the top of the steps to glare down at her and block her way. In her carefree, loving way she just said, "Hi boy!" She not only loves to talk but she is starting to amaze us with numbers as well. She can count to 4 already!

Olivia continues to love spending time outside so we got her her first bike. She pulls it out of the garage each and every time we go out. I was showing her how to pedal so I got in front of the bike, put my hands on her feet and showed her how to push down on each one as the pedal goes down. I said, "OK, now you do it." So she leaned over the handlebars and put her hands on her own feet to push them down for herself. It was so funny. Literal, but funny. We had some hot temps here last week so I experimented with pigtails as you can see in the one picture. She was a little apprehensive at first until I let her see a mirror and then she was SO excited. She had the cutest smile on her face and she just shook her head to watch them bounce.

Another cute story, we were in church and it came to Olivia's favorite part, the hand shaking, "Peace be with you" part. She always likes to shake hands with people around us. But last week, she got down from my arms and made her way down the entire length of the pew, shaking every hand along the way. She looked like she was running for office. It was hilarious.

Olivia doesn't really watch TV yet. She just has no interest in it. But I did have Dancing with the Stars on tonight right before she was going to bed. She LOVED it! She was just fixated on it and sat there trying to do the moves that she saw. When they finished, she clapped along with the audience and looked at me and said, "Again!" So of course, I let her stay up for another contestant to perform. I'm dusting off my old ballet shoes tomorrow!

Don't forget to check out the larger version of the pictures down at the very bottom of the blog. It is a long way down.

Quick note about the blog..

Just wanted to mention that I've heard from lots of people that the pictures are so small that they wish they could click on them to see them bigger. Well, you can't do that and I can't do anything about the size of the pictures because of the setup that I chose. However, everytime I add pictures, I will add those same pictures to the bottom of the blog too where they are MUCH bigger. You have to scroll quite a ways down to see them. When I add a new entry though, I plan on deleting the old pictures and swapping them out with the newest ones so you better be keeping up if you hope to see those big pictures at the bottom. Hope that helps!