Olivia Developments

Olivia's just over 9 months now and doing more every day! We have been working on your baby sign language. I have been impressed with how quickly you have picked up "more" and are inconsistently using "all done", "water", and "eat". You are a fierce and intense little person and the sign language is definitely helping your frustration level since you are not able to speak words yet.

I am loving seeing you focus in on a task that you find interesting. Usually, you take all the magnets off the refrigerator and feel accomplished. Now, you're trying to figure out how to put them back on! You worked at this one for a long time...putting it up the wrong way, it falling off, and trying again and again. You finally mastered it and I caught it on camera.

Talented Girls

I am so blessed to be able stay at home with you girls every day. Your daddy works very hard and without complaint. He is so thankful that I am teaching and loving you two all day long. What's nice, is that he recognizes the difficulty of my "job" and thanks me often. I'm not sure what I would do if I missed your developing personalities and talents during the day. Here are some of your recent tricks:

Olivia plays peek-a-boo very well and thinks it's quite funny.

Charlotte is practicing her jump rope skills with daddy. A life vest adds to the difficulty. We wondered if she picked this practice up at our gym, where we sometimes wear weighted vests.

You girls love the musical instruments. Charlotte is now trying her hand at singing while playing.

Gma and Papa Visit

Boy have we enjoyed having Gma and Papa in for the weekend. The last time they had seen you girls was Christmas and they just couldn't stand it any longer. They came up Thursday night and stayed until Sunday afternoon. We are so thankful we live close enough (7 hours) for them to drive up and see us!

With the warm weather, comes my little hose monster.

Daddy and Papa worked on my flower bed for me! Beautiful day!

Olivia's getting really good at standing up on everything!

What would yard work be without a wheel barrel ride?

The garden fairy came and decorated our front porch for spring.

Olivia's classic sleepy sign: middle fingers in mouth and snuggling burp cloth. Gma said daddy did this too!

Chasing a kids fishing lure as I reeled it in. Apparently great fun!

Moving and Music

Those are the current favorites right now...moving and music! Olivia suddenly has this crawling thing down pat and is chasing and following everything.

You girls are also loving anything musical. Charlotte has figured out that drums, horns, and pianos are all instruments. All you're missing is a guitar and you'd have everything you need for a band.

Caught you doing this...

You made it work!

Focusing now

Both of you drumming away!

Charlotte found a funnel in the kitchen drawer and came out doing this and I was able to catch it with the phone...

You two are so fun together!!

Valentine Fun

I remembered Valentine's Day is this week and figured I would use a little creativity and fun to help Charlotte make valentines for her preschool classmates. We have lots of crayons around and this is what we did!

Charlotte really liked peeling the crayons.

Chop them up! Charlotte put the chopped ones in the bowl.

Fill the mold with crayon pieces.

Put them in the oven at 230* for about 20 minutes.

Let them cool and harden.

While waiting, glue the valentine pieces together.

Pop out the new crayons. Such pretty colors and patterns!

Some personalization on the back.

Beautiful, useful homemade Valentines!

Girl, we had so much fun making these! I had the idea but worried that you wouldn't be able to be very involved but you jumped right in! You found ways to help me at each step of the process. You thought they were so pretty and named people in your class that you would give them to. It is so much fun being your mom!

Silly Girls

You two are so silly together. I didn't anticipate you interacting with eachother so much so soon! Today, when we were playing in Olivia's room together, Charlotte thought we should all have 2 bows. I let her put them in our hair as best she could. You're getting better at this girl! I had to show all three pics because they tell the story of you two!

I managed to get everyone's attention!

And the silliness commences.

Olivia enthralled with big sister.

Another example of you two playing together happened this week! When I take Charlotte to the bathroom, Olivia ends up coming too or she cries if we leave her in another room. So she sits on the bathmat while Charlotte does her business. Afterwards, Charlotte noticed Olivia playing with the shower curtain and wanted to play peekaboo. You two were both cracking up!

Seeing you have fun together brings me so much joy!

Just Us Girls

Well sweeties, it will be just us girls for the next month. Your hard-working daddy is in California at the National Training Center (NTC) for pre-deployment training. While I never look forward to his time away, I know that it is part of his job. We are truly fortunate to have had so much time with him home since 2008. I always try to make sure he knows we enjoy him being home; I never want to cause him stress or heartache for doing his job so well. He won't deploy until later this year but this time away is required and we're looking at it as training here at home too. I am full-time parent with zero breaks and it can be exhausting some days. However, I can honestly say I find joy in every day I spend with you two. You amaze me...everyday. Here are a couple videos of what you two have been up to this week.

Charlotte, you still love to hang, climb, slide, and swing in your "garden", as you call it. You're thoughtful, inquisitive, and so independent.

Olivia, you're getting more and more determined to increase your mobility each and every day. You're 7 months and you're low crawling through the whole house, sitting up from your crawling position, and have even tried pulling up a couple of times. I see you get intrigued by something across the room and crawl out of eye sight of me but if I leave the room your burst into tears. So I suppose you're independent on your own terms. You love your mama so much and it warms my heart! Notice what you do when I say, "See ya later", in this video.