Box Climbing

Brooke decided to braid Olivia's hair last night. It turned out well and she wore it that way for quite a while. I loved it.
This morning I was cleaning up after Olivia's breakfast and looked over and saw her on my winter clothes box that I moved to the living room temporarily. She was very excited to be up there so I had to take a video.
Olivia has been doing fine keeps learning stuff everyday. Still no words except for goya goya goya, her favorite phrase. I wonder what it means.
Tonight we are going to a Christmas party thrown by Alecia and Fernando (in the Psychology Dept.) We are hoping Olivia will take good naps today and be well rested for the party. We don't want an angry baby tonight.

**Something is wrong with the blog uploads so no video, I will try again tomorrow. Has been uploading for 4 hours. Blah....***

Learning

Olivia is proving to us more and more each day that she actually can learn and does know thing, she just chooses when she wants to display these skills. She is very good at going and getting her little pink purse when we ask her to, she can get certain objects out of it that we ask her to get. We say "get your lipstick" and she will grab her little lipstick and rub it around her lips like she is putting it on, or we say "get your keys" and she gets them out of the purse. If we tell her to get her comb, she grabs her comb and rubs it in her hair like she is combing it. All in her own time though, not every time.
Our electricity went out around 5AM today and since we have a lot of things in our house that beep when the power is out, we woke up, Chili started shaking and Olivia started stirring. Though she fell back asleep, it wasn't a very sound sleep, so she was kind of cranky this morning. She was also very hungry because she threw up half her dinner last night. She isn't sick, but just had a bad coughing spell while eating and decided that throwing up would be the best way to stop the cough I guess? I didn't sleep much after the power went out either and am feeling it today... I am struggling!!

Trees

Sunday was the day we went to get a Christmas Tree. We went to the same place we went last year. This year we took Olivia (last year she was at Mima's for the weekend.) We bundled Olivia up and headed to the tree place. After looking for a short time, Brooke found a good tree. It went a lot faster this year than last year for some reason. Olivia had fun exploring the trees and blank staring at the people that ran the place. They tried to talk to her but she put on her shy face and just stared at them. If I didn't know Olivia, I would be a little creeped out by having this small person just stare blankly at me.
The tree place delivers, so they followed us to our house and dropped off the tree, then I put the stand on it while it was lying in the driveway and Olivia explored all the fallen leaves and had fun playing with the driveway lights. After the stand was on I carried the tree around to the Sun room and set it up. Decorating comes next weekend.
Olivia has been doing much better at not throwing her cup. If you remember I said that she liked to sit in her high chair and take a sip, then throw the cup off her right side. She could throw it pretty far actually. Sometimes she would throw it over her shoulder and hit the wall. We started catching her arm and say NO and maneuvering it back to the little cup holder spot on the highchair and have her drop the cup there, then we would clap and cheer. We didn't really know if it was getting through to her or not until Sunday morning when I gave her her food and walked away for a minute. I saw her grab her cup and take a sip, then she lowered it to her cup holder, put it down, smiled and clapped. It was so cute. So I cheered right along with her. She kept doing it. She would take a drink, put the cup down, then clap. Wow, she really can learn stuff, and here I thought she was just put on this planet to defy me. She has also been getting good at following simple commands. We tell her to get her fish and she goes and gets it, then we tell her to put it in the tank, and she puts it in, then of course, she claps, which we do as well. That is her new thing, putting thing inside other things. When we brought the Christmas tree stand down, Brooke had given her her Pepsi bottle to play with. As soon as I put the stand on the ground, she came over and put the Pepsi bottle in the stand, smiled, did her little laugh and then clapped. Now if I could just teach her what poop goes in all will be good!!

Parade

Today was the annual Clinton Christmas Parade. It was colder than we expected but at least it didn't rain. Olivia was totally bundled up and sat nicely through the whole thing. She didn't really care about the floats, but loved the parade of dogs. Everyone kept coming up and giving her candy, she was popular that way.
Olivia has another bad case of diaper rash today. Woke up with a diaper so bad and leaking that she needed a bath first thing. Poor little Livi, but at least once she's in a fresh diaper, she feels good, it is just the changing her that is the problem. Oh, and we also finally put her in her little Gap Bear outfit. She did not fit in it well, but was very cute!!

Cold Livi

Thought I was back in Albuquerque when I saw this one.

Yikes!!


Double YIKES!!


Not sure I understand this picture. Family appropriate?


Another float

Angels and Demons

In the video you will see below, you will see a happy fun loving Livi. I guess at Young World, you will see the opposite. On Wednesday when Brooke walked into YW to pick up our baby, she could hear her shrieking as soon as she walked in the door. She went to the normal room to get her but she was not there, she was in the baby room where they were rocking her and trying to calm her down. Turns out that when they turned the lights out for nap time Olivia freaked (she didn't want to nap.) She was disturbing all the other kids in her room so they tried to calm her in the other room. As soon as Brooke walked in she stopped, but did her little hiccup breathing all the way home. The YW people also have to feed Olivia first before the other kids because she will get upset if she doesn't get her food right away. Poor Livi is having a rough time. Who does she think she is, Mariah?
Yesterday Brooke asked Ms Janice if Olivia was ever happy there and the answer was no, but then she recanted and said that she actually will play for an hour sometimes and then realize where she is and it is all over from there. We hope that this is only because she has not gotten used to it there yet. When you think about it, she started out her first 2 days fine, then got sick and was out for a while, then came Grandpa day so that was only a 3 day week, then Thanksgiving where she went for 2 days only. She has not gotten into the groove yet. However, no sickness yet since that first time. Come on immunities, go go go....
Tomorrow is the Clinton town parade, with floats and everything (Clinton version of floats at least.) We are planning on taking Olivia there, and possibly Lu. Hope the weather stays nice.
We happened to let Olivia have her little blankey out of her crib for fun (which we never do) and she loved it. She was so excited to be able to squeeze it and walk around. It was fun to see her run all around.

Banana and Magazine Morning

Olivia wore another one of her soft jammies last night, this time it was frog themed. She is so cute in them, and I am sure she is toasty in there as well. Brooke went out last night and bought her all kinds of new "real" food. She has been living off of baby ravioli and it has made her breath and poops stink. The poops I would expect, but the breath was like she ate a clove of garlic. She got some oatmeal, Lima Beans, yogurt, turkey cubes, cheese cubes, cereal, and other fun stuff. No baby food. She is really good about trying everything we put in front of her. Can't wait to see what her favorite is. Right now bananas are her favorite still. Anytime you get a banana out she starts laughing and getting excited. This morning I decided to let her eat the banana herself with out me breaking it up or holding it for her. It went well, but she still doesn't understand about taking little bites, so after she was a little over half way through it (3 bites) I took it from her and broke the rest up. You can tell from the picture that she is rethinking the speed at which she was eating it.
She also got excited this morning because I left my bike catalog on the table last night and she was able to reach it. She saw it, smiled and immediately went to it and picked it up and started looking at it. I think it made her morning. Oh the little things in life!!
P.S. Please excuse the morning hair. As it gets longer, it gets crazier in the morning. This morning's was especially wild.

New Month

Ok, November was the month of sickness. We were all sick for most of the month. I ended up getting a mild version of Brooke's stomach bug, but nowhere near as bad (but if you saw us together, you would think I had the bad version, because I am a guy and we are dramatic when we are sick.) I am hoping for a healthy December and New Year.
Mima got Olivia some new jammies at Thanksgiving and last night Brooke decided to put one of the pairs on her. They are so soft and snugly. When she put them on her during the normal night routine, Olivia kind of froze (in a good way) and looked at each arm as she put them in the sleeves. Then she preceded to put her face in her arm and bury her face in the softness just like it was a fuzzy blanket. She loved them, and she looks so cute in them.