Happy Halloween

Olivia was finally initiated into the Halloween club.  Last year she was too sick to be able to trick-or-treat.  This year she finally did it.  And she was GOOD at it.

In Clinton, the city decided to do Halloween on Saturday instead of Sunday this year.  I am sure religion is the driving force behind this, but they also say because Sunday is a school night.  There was a party at a friends house starting at 4:00, kind of a pre trick-or-treat party.  A bunch of kids came in costume and played and ate before going and getting candy.  Olivia had a great time with all the kids, and they tolerated her pretty well.  Brooke also made her traditional monster cupcakes.

After partying it up, we headed out to get some candy.  That is when Matthew put his mask on and I finally saw raw terror in Olivia’s eyes.  She caught one glimpse of Matthew running in the yard with his mask and screamed and then the crying began.  I took her inside and calmed her down.  After a few minutes we went back outside where she saw him again and screamed and started saying “inside, inside.”  I tried to keep her head turned towards me, but she knew he was behind her somewhere and kept trying to turn her head left and right to see behind her.  It was sad because she would scream then the tears would start rolling down her face.  We decided to head out a house behind the other kids so she would not see him.  The strange part was that she was holding the mask in her hands earlier saying “spooky, spooky” but I guess when the mask was in action, it was just too much.

We approached her first house and things were so confusing that she didn’t even bring her pumpkin up.  She had to be coached as to what to say, and got a few pieces of candy, but it was a successful first time.  After about 3 more houses, she was walking right up and saying either “trick-or-treat'” or saying “happy Halloween” like a champ.  By the end of the night every house we went by she would say “this house, this house.”  Even as her pumpkin got heavier and heavier she never put it down or switched hands.  Next year she will be a pro.

After the night was over we headed home and did her normal routine (about an hour later) and then put her to bed.  We looked at the pictures and watched the monitor as usual, when we heard a loud cough (more of a burp) and then saw a spot on her mattress.  We knew what had happened from experience, and went in to change the puke.  This time it was in her eye as well as hair.  Poor Lee was crying like crazy so I rushed her to the tub while Brooke removed and changed the sheets.  Too much candy we assumed but she really didn’t have that much.  Well, I say what good is your first Halloween if you can’t put yourself into a candy coma and then throw up from it!

(She never took her eye off the clown)

Happy Halloween!

Time Out.

Odd day today.  When Brooke went to pick Olivia up form daycare, Olivia was sitting in the corner in a chair, not moving or crying, just sitting in the corner.  Turns out she had been hitting another girl in class and was therefore put into “time out.”  We are kind of amazed that she sat there with out moving.  We are sad that Livi was a bad girl, but the daycare woman said that she gave them all way too much sugar and that could have been the problem.  We have noticed that Olivia has taken to “fake” hitting recently.  She looks at you and goes “uuuhhhhh” and swings her hand at you.  It is time for the pushing of the boundaries I guess.  Get ready for a bumpy ride Livi!!

Today PC had a Halloween carnival in a big grassy area at school with tables of goodies setup and all kinds of activities.  Olivia ran around non stop and had a blast.   Tomorrow night is a friend’s Halloween party and a down town festival.  Very busy weekend, lets hope Livi can stay well until the weekend is over, this will be her first active Halloween.

One other thing we have done is install a mirror in the hallway.  She LOVES seeing herself in the mirror and dances and stares at it.  The mirror is her best friend.  Take a look at the second video below that we made for Brooke’s Psych class.  The first part of the video is from May 2010 (18 months old) and she should be self aware (meaning she should recognize that she has something on her head, not that there is a person in the mirror with something on their head.)  As you can see, she was not self aware until 23 months. Ohh slow slow Lee!!

 

Under The Bed

First things first, Olivia’s new chili pepper necklace looks awesome on Chili.  He wears it well and didn’t seem to mind too much.

Olivia, as usual, just keep learning more and more, and surprising us more and more with what she knows.  Last night during her nightly routine, she was drinking her milk and we were watching The Dog Whisperer, when Brooke said “Ready to go to bed?”  Olivia replied with “Bye bye Cesar, bye bye Cesar.”  I didn’t realize that she actually picked up Cesar’s name from the show, but I guess she pays more attention than I thought, all the more reason to keep an eye on what she is watching.

Tonight after dinner she was walking around with a concerned look on her face saying “find it, find it” so I said “show me what you want Lee.”  She took my hand and started walking with me, then immediately stopped and ran to the little red table where her puppy was lying behind her pumpkin.  She then started saying “I found you, I found you.”  This led me to initiate a game of hide-and-go-seek with Olivia since she understands finding things.  I hid behind the couch and called her name, she was confused at first but got very excited when she turned the corner and “found” me.  We had fun with that for a while longer until the dogs ruined it (par for the course.)

Below is Olivia in puppy heaven, it doesn’t get any better than this.  She also had fun playing with Chili under her crib.  She decided it was a good idea to see what life looked like from his point of view when he went under there.  Apparently life looks pretty good.

Another Halloween Box

Olivia received another Halloween the other day, this time from Grandma and Grandpa.  We didn’t have time Wednesday night to open it because we had a Psychology party to go to, and Thursday night was a bad night as well.  So finally, Friday night we were able to bust into it.  Olivia got some new Halloween shirts, some necklaces and a basket.  She thought that the little balloons on the necklace was a “pop” and tried to eat it, but discovered it wasn’t as good as the real thing.
This morning she has been carrying around her bunny in the Halloween basket.  She loves it.  We will have to get some pictures later of her in the new shirts.  She will probably wear them to school this week.  Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!!

Pumpkin Patch Part II

I just figured I would post a few more pumpkin patch pictures for all to see.

Livi was excited to see that tractor going by us for the hay ride.

But got scared when it was coming back the other way.

Livi posing on the hay ride trailer (which we did not go on) Livi posing with her favorite junk-cat-art Livi showing her teeth and exhausted face for the ride home

Pumpkin Patch 2010

Sunday was our second trip to the pumpkin patch in Lexington.  It was a 1 1/2 hour trip down to the patch and Olivia started to get a little antsy near the end but we got there just in time.  Mima met us there and pulled up about 5 minutes after we arrived.  We let Olivia run around in the play are with the other kids for a while then headed down to see the animals.

Olivia loved seeing the goats, and especially liked the emu.  She wanted to pet its head, but we were worried it would snap at her, so I gave her a quick 2 second window to get a head poke in and she took it.  The emu didn’t seem to mind and Livi love it.  After that Olivia was more interested in running around where she shouldn’t be than actually looking at the animals, but that is just Lee.

After seeing the goats, chickens, peacocks and emus, we headed back up to buy a pumpkin.  We found a good one, bought it and headed back to Mima’s house to relax for a while.  After spending some time in the back yard and letting Livi run around more, we headed out to dinner at Applebees.  Olivia was a pretty good girl, but growing more tired by the minute.  We finished eating and got on the road back home around 7:00 which would put us home about an hour past her bedtime.  Though she was tired, she was a good girl on the ride home and during her bath.  It was another great year at the pumpkin patch, and the weather was beautiful.  We can’t wait to carve our pumpkin!   

Halloween Package From Indiana

Saturday we received a Halloween package from Gail and Merle.  It had candy-o-plenty.  Olivia got some lolipops, and Brooke and I got various Gummies.  We are going to save them all for Halloween though.  It won’t be easy, but I think we can make it.

Thanks Uncle Merle and Aunt Gail!!  Happy Halloween!

Livisms

Since Olivia’s birthday is fast approaching and everyone will be getting together, I wanted share some Livi-speak with everyone so you won’t be confused when she talks to you.

1- Chicken:  She likes to throw out the word chicken for no reason in sentences. Don’t be alarmed, there is most likely not a chicken around, nor has she been playing with a chicken.

2- Peas:  If she asks for puppies peas, please don’t give her her stuffed animal and a bowl full of peas.  She does not want any peas, this is just the way she says please.  And thankfully she uses this word A LOT!!

2- sim-ee: This took quite a while to figure out.  She would stand at the baby gate outside our home office when I would get home from work and be changing out of my work clothes and she would just keep saying over and over sim-eee peas… sim-eee peas…  I racked my brain trying to see what in the room looked like a sim-eee.  Then it hit us, a few times when I got home from work and she would stand at the gate crying I would say “want to come see me?” and lift her up into the office.  So, sim-eee means “lift me over the gate so I can come see YOU…(see me)”  Actually, more like “Lift me over the gate so I can terrorize the office and get into things I shouldn’t but I will act like I want to be with you just to get my way”

3- Gorgeous:  I know you would normally be flattered if Olivia came up to you and said gorgeous, but in this case, for Olivia, it means garbage.  She will typically come up to you with something dirty or gross and say gorgeous peas.

4- Moneys: Don’t worry, she is not being greedy if she approaches you and says moneys peas continually.  She just wants her bunny.  She can’t get the “Bu” sound down, so it is “Mu” instead.  I have worked with her on this and said “bu bu bunny” emphasizing the “bu” sound, so what did she do?  She said “bu moneys”.  Perfect “bu” sound, but followed up with moneys.  She just doesn’t get the point yet. I have a feeling that even if I did get her to say bunnys and not moneys, that in about 10 years the whole “moneys please” will be returning with a vengeance.

5- Plural: Well, she doesn’t know the word plural, but you will find that everything she has or wants in plural.  Again, not that she is greedy, it just comes out that way.  Moneys, grapes, puppies, etc, it is all plural.

6- Waamaa: Watermellon.  Only her favorite fruit.  And yes, it stains.  She must wear a bib when eating waamaa.  I have learned this the hard way with a brand new shirt of hers.  It is a daddy thing I guess.

7- Mana:  Banana.  Typically followed by “hold it” because she does not like eating a banana from anyone else’s hand but her own.

8- Reba:  AKA Olivia

9- Ice:  Her little fruity ice popsicles that she occasionally gets for dessert.

So hopefully this has caught you up on some simple ways to communicate with Olivia.  Oh, and remember, she may not pronounce a lot of words correctly, but rest assured that if you use any profanity or words you don’t want her to know, she will repeat them with perfection.  There will be questioning what she is saying in that case!

Here is a quick video of some of her babbling right before bed.  This is the time she gets the most talkative.  Video quality is bad because it was dark, but I mostly recorded this for the audio.

Fall For Greenville

This past weekend was Fall For Greenville time again!  It is our favorite Greenville event of the year.  We left after Lee’s nap, which as is usually the case when we have a big day scheduled where she needs to take a normal nap, she took forever to fall asleep and therefore she woke up late leaving us to head out much later than we wanted.  We got to Greenville around 4:00PM and took a while to find parking.

We walked down Main street looking at all the food vendors.  When we reached the end, we saw an amusement park area where they had  a bunch of kids rides.  We stood in line at one ride, but then saw the carousel and decided that would be more fun for Livi.  We gave our tickets and Olivia got to experience her first ride.

 

 

 

After the ride, we let Olivia run around in the grass behind Mass General Store.  She loves that little strip of grass and there are always kids to play with there during events.  She immediately found some kids to run around crazy with.  She couldn’t get enough!

This year with the Zaxby’s Chicken.

Last year with the Zaxby’s Chicken.

We took a quick video of Olivia running around with her new friends.  She loves it.

 

We also saw a father with his son sleeping on his chest.  We thought it looked cute, but also a little bizarre being in the middle of all these people.  Obviously Olivia and her new found friends found it odd as well as they gathered around them and watched from afar.

We later went and ate pizza for dinner where Olivia was a very good girl through dinner.  We were stuffed, but we love that pizza place.  We headed back down Main Street to meet up with some friends from work to say “hi” before heading home.  By now it was 7:00 (1 hour from home) and her bedtime is 7:00 sharp.  She was holding up very well though, and had a good ride home.  She was very tired when we got home though and fell right asleep.   We had a fun time as usual.

Wide Array of Footwear

Included in her assortment of footwear are sandals, tennis shoes and now rubber gloves and high heels.  Livi has recently become the owner of her own pair of heels, and she walks in them pretty well.  The rubber gloves are something that she loves wearing on the rare occasion that I let her into the kitchen.  When I do, she goes strait for the cabinet where they are and immediately get them out and puts them on.

The Name Change

Well, Olivia informed us that her name is not Olivia, Livi, Livi Lee, or even just Lee. Her name is Reba. Anytime we ask what her name is it is always Reba. Grandpa Rob is still Boto, however Auntie Steph is definitely Stephie, not Dogo. Mima is Mino, Grandpa and Grandma are pronounced correctly too.

It is ok Reba, you will get these names right someday real soon!!

Dancing With Elmo

Livi got some big girl panties to wear.  They fit perfectly.  We put them on her the other night and she started dancing around with them on.  I guess she likes wearing panties over her diapers instead of just the diaper.  No, this is not a every day thing, it is just for fun now and then.

Dora P.J.’s

Marcia and Rob got Olivia some new pajamas last weekend.  They were her favorite, Dora!!  We put her in them Sunday night and she LOVED them.  She ran out of the room after her bath dressed in them to show me.  She ran up to me, stopped and put her arms out laughing and then said “Dora.”  She already knows how to model clothes, scary!

Here was a bug and she was trying to “Touch” it.  She loves her bugs.