power surge!

I had hoped to post pics from our mountain trip, but.... when we came home we found that our computer had been zapped from a power surge that happened while we were gone. So sad. So I've borrowed Auntie Em's laptop to let you know I'll be checking back in hopefully by the end of the week. I have some really cute pictures of Olivia and her cousin Wyatt. Quick Olivia-ism: we are pretty sure that Olivia said her first sentence this weekend: "Wanna go outside!" Poor girlie - it was raining at the time or we might have taken her out.

Check back with us in a week or so!

Olivia-isms

I thought I would share a few things that Olivia is doing now in her 16th month:

Olivia has decided that she loves cherry tomatoes out of our garden (see pic below). The first few times she just spit them out.

Olivia likes to say, "ga-ta-ga-ta-ga", which means, "I want that! Give that to me!" (We do make her say please, usually.)

Olivia also says, "Peek-a!", as in, "peek-a-boo"

Olivia like to "help" me fold sheets. When I say help, I mean she likes it when I throw the sheet up in the air and it falls on her and covers her up. This is often when she says "Peek-a!" One day last week Bunny ended up playing with us. We both laughed so hard!

Olivia likes to "help" me sweep with my cool battery powered Swiffer Sweeper (see pic below).

Olivia LOVES going outside. She also loves that she can take Daddy her shoes and sometimes "talk" him into taking her outside.

Olivia loves to climb into the laundry basket, but often has to get Mommy or Daddy to lift her out. The other day she had her stacking/nesting cups in the laundry basket with her, just like it was the most natural thing in the world to play with her toys while sitting on top of a load of laundry!

Olivia LOVES drinking ouy of Mommy's cup with a straw. Yesterday I had her cup and my cup side by side - can you guess which one she made a beeline for? She also loves drinking out of Daddy's sports bottle.

Olivia loves it when I sing "Little Bunny Foo Foo, hoping through the living room, sneaking up to Livi and bopping her on the head!" I take Bunny and bop Olivia on the head. She laughs and squeals!

When we go for a walk around the neighborhood, Olivia often stops in front of the houses of people we know. Sometimes she'll even run up their sidewalk and bang on the door! We've had a few impromptu visits because I couldn't catch her soon enough!

Olivia has been trying to feed herself with her spoon in her left hand, even though she has better control with her right hand. She'll get frustrated because not much ends up in her mouth, and then dive in with her right hand and grab the food! Learning to feed yourself is messy business. *sigh*

What are your favorite Olivia-isms? Leave me a comment!

the play place

Today I decided I would finally take Olivia to the play place at the local mall. I have been meaning to take her there for a while now, but it just never seemed like a good time. I actually wanted to take her to splash in the fountains outside the mall, but they didn't have them on. :( No worries! I got a little shopping done and Olivia got to run around in the play area. The play area consists of gigantic Loony Toon characters (sans Bugs) on top of some sort of rubbery flooring (so it doesn't hurt if kids fall). You can climb on top of Speedy Gonzalez and his cheese, or slide down Pepe Le Pew's tail. I figured Olivia would love to climb everywhere, but once again, mom was wrong. She spent her time running around the characters, watching the big kids, and trying to escape. (No surprise there!)

Watchin' those big kids

Climbing on Speedy's hat

(I actually lifted her up onto the hat. I don't know if everything was too hard for her to climb because it was so slick, or if she just wasn't very interested.)

Checking out the Build a Bear Workshop

"Mommy, I love this tunnel thing! Watch me climb through it!"

Found a new friend! (This little girl's middle name is Olivia!)

new tricks - part 2

As promised, here is Olivia's other new skill that she learned this week:

new tricks and other non-news

This week has had some ups and downs. Olivia and I have been battling some illness. Mine is a yucky cold that I am afraid might be turning into an even yuckier sinus infection. I think Olivia's is just more teeth coming through. Either way, we've both been more cranky than normal this week, and that doesn't make for pleasant days!

On the up side, we went "swimming" with our neighbors earlier this week. This involved Jeanie (our neighbor) and I sitting in chairs while Alathea (Jeanie's 2 year old) splashed in her baby pool and we all tried to convience Olivia to join her. Olivia had fun: she pushed Abigail (Jeanie's 4 month old) in her swing, she played with some of the pool toys, and she ran all over the yard. She did not seem the least bit interested in splashing in the pool! A couple of times Alathea chased her, calling out, "Come back, Yeah-a!" and brought Olivia back by holding her hand. ("Yeah-a" is Alathea's name for Olivia.) It was so sweet! This is the only picture I got of Olivia in the pool. I had to pick her up and put her there. As you can see, she wasn't too happy about it:





Olivia has mastered a couple of new skills this week. I'll let you check this first one out:

I'll post her other new trick in the next day or so.

harvesting

We have a garden this summer. Well, Paul has a garden this summer. I just water it occasionally. We've been collecting many cherry tomatoes (which we didn't plant, incidentally) and yesterday we picked a carrot! (We did plant the carrots.) We also have some onions, which the local rabbits have found very tasty, some basil, spinach and maybe some peas. We have tried to grow cilantro, but so far no luck. Olivia thinks that the garden is a lot of fun - she loves to dig her fingers into the pots!

Paul with the lone carrot. Behind him are the tomato plants.

croc offs

Earlier this month my mom treated Olivia and me to some new shoes. (As she put it, it was "our turn" for her to get us a surprise!) I thought I would share some pictures of us enjoying our "croc offs" (as Paul calls them).

Olivia's are so much smaller than mine!

She is ready to get down and run around!

Okay, Mama! I've got our shoes; let's go!

We went to Latta Plantation Park yesterday for a picnic with some friends. Olivia and I both wore our "croc offs". We took a walk down to the edge of the lake there and Olivia and I waded in - with our shoes. I thought, Why not? It was a lot of fun for Olivia, as was evidenced by her soaking wet clothes! Good thing I brought her pjs with us! Unfortunately, I didn't have the camera with me, so I didn't take any pictures. You'll just have to take my word for it that she was cute!