Olivia-isms at eighteen months

One sided conversations I've been having with Olivia lately:

"Olivia! Mommy's pants are not a napkin! Please do not wipe your mouth on me!"

"Use your spoon, please. Oatmeal is not a finger food."

"Oh, Olivia. I love you even when you hug me with your lasagna-y hands."

"What are you ga-ta-ga-ing?" (Ga-ta-ga is her word for, "Give me that".)

Some new words Olivia says: hello, bath, bye-bye (also followed by her blowing kisses), night-night, go, sit (she know this one because we tell her to "sit" all the time!)

New things that Olivia is doing:

She likes to turn herself around in circles.
She can climb out of the bathtub (she still needs some help)
She can climb onto our bed (I fear the day she can climb out of her crib is coming soon)
She sorta helps me make the bed
When something is split on the floor, she sometimes will get a rag or a towel and wipe it up

Our little girl is growing up so fast! It seems like she is learning a new word a day. She still loves to go outside, still loves her bunny and still loves to cuddle up with Mommy, bunny, paci and a good book just before nap time (I love cuddling with her!) I hope she won't outgrow that anytime soon!

On another note, Olivia's diaper rash is gone! Ya'll must have been praying hard, because we started to see immediate improvement on Thursday. Thank you!

life is never boring...

Well, life at the Abernathy's hasn't been boring! We now have boxes all over the house. I considered posting a picture of our living room, but I decided that would be pretty depressing for me. Just take my word for it; it's a mess. Olivia, on the other hand, has enjoyed the boxes. She drags them around the house and puts her toys in the empty ones. We are currently packing an average of 2 boxes a day. Maybe I should up that count a little... I don't want to get overwhelmed the last week we are here. It still doesn't seem real that we are moving - it probably won't hit me until I stand in this house after it is completely empty. Remind me to leave some tissues unpacked; there'll be waterworks!

In addition to packing, we are also dealing with a diaper rash that just won't go away. We are going on 3 weeks now. (Her dr. checked it out last week, but we may end up going back.) It starts to clear up, then it comes back. Now, you know that the best thing for a diaper rash is lots of air. (Do you see were this is going?) So, we have established "bare bottom time" at least three times a day at our house. As you can imagine, this can be, well, hazardous. Maybe not to our health, but definitely to our sanity! Ya'll please pray that Olivia's bottom heals up quickly. Quite frankly, I'm tired of sanitizing the kitchen floor.

And if boxes and diaper rashes didn't constitute enough excitement, we are still waging war with some local ants. Now, I have nothing against ants in general, but these particular ants evidently were never taught any manners. Specifically, the rule about never going into someone else's house unless you're invited. Things are getting better, and we hope to have them completely evicted by the time our renters move in.

So that's what's currently going on at our house! Hope things at your house are a little more tame.

Olivia update

Today I took Olivia to her 18 month check up. She now weighs 23 lbs 4 oz and is 33 inches tall. That puts her in the 30th percentile for weight and the 85th percentile for height. In other words, she's tall and skinny. But we already knew that. :) She is also above average in language development. She can say between 15-20 words pretty clearly and sign a few more. Of course, she's saying a lot more than we can understand right now, but pretty soon we'll be having conversations!


On another note, Olivia has figured out how to scribble! It was pretty exciting the other day - I taped down a sheet of paper on the kitchen floor, gave her a couple of colored pencils and let'r at it! She had a blast!

Olivia - the budding artist

The final product

As you can see, Olivia also took it upon herself to alter the shape of the original page design (i.e., she tore the paper off the floor). That's about the time Mommy ended her first art session. Eating the pencils also influenced my decision. I did write her name on her paper; I was trying to show her that you could write words on paper, too; she wasn't impressed and just ended up pushing my hand away. I guess I did get a little ahead of myself. I bought her some crayons this week, so we'll have another coloring session soon.

happy "birthday" Olivia!!!

Today Olivia is 18 months old! We can't believe that she has been with us for that long; at the same time it feels like she's always been around. I can't imagine life without her! Paul and I decided to celebrate a little bit, so we took her out for lunch at Chick-fil-a. She really enjoyed it! She pretty much ate her whole lunch, with the exception of one or two bites she shared with Mommy (okay, that Mommy snitched). She wasn't too sure about the apple juice, which really surprised me because she normally loves it. She did enjoy squeezing the box and watching the juice squirt out of the straw. She loved her fruit cup! She also finished her 4 piece chicken nuggets! Below are some pictures from today. Enjoy!

Chowing' down on that fruit cup

Trying to decided what to do with her ice cream cone...

Daddy showing her how it's done:

Deciding that she doesn't really like ice cream;
she pushed Paul's hand away and went back to her fruit!
(Don't worry; Mommy and Daddy finished it for her. :) )

Olivia got a book in her Kid's meal! She was pretty excited about it! I eventually had to take the book away from her while she was eating because she kept chewing on it as well as her food.

Playing in the playground at Chick-fil-a:

I would have taken some more pictures of her in the playground but my camera batteries died. I barely got these pictures! I think Olivia had a blast, but she was ready to go home. She didn't fuss at all when I told her it was time to leave. She told everyone in the playground, "Bye" as we where leaving. What a sweetie!

playing catch-up

As promised, here are a bunch of pictures from the last month (while our computer was sick and in the hospital)...

Me and Livi all decked out in our Independence Day duds (we actually took several pictures; this was the only one that even came close to being good of both of us)

Olivia having a blast with her cousin Wyatt

(Wyatt is actually wearing Olivia's sweatshirt on his head in this picture. She thought it was hysterical when he tickled her like this!)

Olivia wearing Wyatt's Groucho Marx glasses

We saw cows while we were in the mountains! This was the best one I got of Olivia and her Daddy. They were both saying "cow" and "moo".

This was taken one day back home after Olivia "helped" me water the garden:

Olivia "reading" to her baby:

Our friends the Dutys came to see us! They used to go to church with us, but now live in Texas. Olivia and Beckett were too busy checkin' each other out to be bothered with taking a picture.

Kathryn came over to play! I'm not sure that they really know how to play with each other yet; Olivia just kept following Kathryn where ever she went. I'm not sure if she wanted to play with Kathryn and didn't know how, or if she was just concerned about her toys. :) They did have a blast with those boxes.

Alathea also came to see us one day. At some point, Alathea decided that Olivia needed to eat her lunch. (I had tried to feed her earlier, but Olivia was too excited about her friend that she didn't eat much.) Alathea took Olivia by the hand, lead her into the kitchen, and proceeded to feed her split pea soup:

The same day Olivia found both her bunnies. (We keep a back up handy, in case we misplace one or in case one needs a bath.) She was pretty happy.

Granddaddy came to see us one day because he needed some cheering up. I think Olivia worked her magic! (Grammy also came the same day; I don't know why I didn't get any pictures of her! This was the day we all piled into Mama's car and drove over to the new house so Mom and Dad could see it.)


Now I know my little girl is growing up! She's already learning to walk in heels! Next, she'll be wanting to borrow my jewelry in addition to my shoes...

And, finally, we celebrated Paul's Birthday! Happy Birthday, sweetheart! I'm glad God put you on this earth 29 years ago!

we're back!

Well, we officially have our computer back, and now I can get back to keeping you all up-to-date! We have been more than a little bit busy around here. As some of you know, we have been trying to sell our house since last September. After nine months on the market and no bites, we decided to just stay here and make this house work. The week we decided to take our house off the market, we had 3 parties interested in renting our house. So, we thought, "Hmm... maybe God is trying to tell us something..." We now have a lease with a couple we met through some friends at church. Since we are going to rent our house starting the end of September, we've been searching for another house to move into. We put an offer on a great house a mile from where we live now, but it was rejected. So we are moving a little bit farther out to an older house in a quiet neighborhood that has a great back yard and plenty of room inside. We are excited! We are also more than a little sad to be leaving our friends in this neighborhood. It has always been great to know that there are 3 couples within 2 minutes walking distance from us that we can call on if we need them and vise versa. We will miss you guys, but will still see you often! (After all, we know where you live!) :) Please pray for us as we go through inspections, closing, packing, cleaning, painting and moving. We'll keep you updated!


As for that sweet Livibug, we've been having lots of ups and downs. She is still teething (#8 came in this weekend!) and we are trying to go to one nap a day. This has made for quite a bit of crankiness and temper tantrums. (She must have got her temper from her Daddy; I am sure I never threw such fits! JK... ;)) But Livi has also learned some new words. My favorite is "uh-oh". One day last week she was outside with Paul and she picked up the water hose. At the same time, the air condintioning unit went off. Her eyes got real big and she said, "Uh-oh!" I guess she thought she had broke it! She also has really bonded with her Daddy lately. When she hears the office door open, she says, "Daddy!" and goes running to find him. Sometimes she bangs on the office door and yells for him. It's pretty cute. And she has recently figured out how to help me unload the silverware from the dishwaser into the drawer. No, really, she's helping, not just playing! It is so sweet! I can honestly call her my little helper now. :)


Later this week we will post some pictures. I haven't had a chance to upload them to our computer yet.