Putting up the Christmas tree

We put our Christmas tree up about a week and a half ago.  Olivia was a pretty active participant in the process this year and had fun . . . for the most part. 

Mike and Olivia put up the Christmas tree while I was at work so that it was ready to be decorated when I came home.  After they were finished, this little exchange happened:

 

Olivia (little hand out palm up):  Five dollars, please.

Mike:  What?!

Olivia:  Five dollars, please!

Mike:  What are you doing to do with five dollars?

Olivia:  Put it in my pocket riiiiiight here! (As she puts her hand in her pants pocket)

 

Getting out Christmas ornaments

 

Time to put the ornaments on the tree

 

Toddler tantrum!  I can't remember what caused it but it was short lived.

 

Carefully putting an ornament on the tree

 

Strike a pose!

 

Olivia hanging her little stocking on the mantle

 

Daddy is my best friend!

 

Ta-Da!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Wish for Sophie

I know it's been a while since I've blogged but life has been incredibly busy with work and school and chasing after our little crazy lady, Olivia.  I've got several posts to catch up, which I plan to do over the holidays . . . hopefully. 

Anyway, this post isn't about the Robinsons it's about the Vincents. Jenna is a childhood friend of Mike's and she and her husband, Laith, used to live in Austin, which is where I met them.  They currently live in Charlottesville, VA with their super cute kiddos - Lucas and Sophie.  Sophie is a few months younger than Olivia and a sweet, adventurous, and curious little girl who is full of life.  At the beginning of this month Sophie was diagnosed with a grade 4 medulloblastoma, an aggressive and malignant form of brain cancer.  She started a 6 month regiment of chemo this week which will likely be followed by brain surgery and radiation treatment.  The Vincents have a long road ahead of them but it's possible that Sophie can beat this cancer and we plan to support them every single step of the way. 

Jenna keeps us updated through texts, Facebook, and her blog and her unwavering optimism is inspiring.  She is an amazingly wonderful and nurturing person and mother and I know that her positive attitude will help kick cancer's butt.  Jenna and Laith's out of pocket medical expenses this year will reach $11,000 and they are looking at $35,000 in out of pocket expenses next year.  A friend of theirs has set up a fund to help alleviate some of the financial burden so they can give all of their focus to Sophie's battle and spending time with Lucas.  Their story hits painfully close to home for me.  The Vincents could easily be the Robinsons.  Jenna and Laith are no different than Mike and I, and Sophie and Olivia are the same age and both smart, funny, beautiful little people.  I'll ask that you visit the website below and learn about Sophie and her family, and if you can help them financially, we would really appreciate it.  If not this month, then maybe next month or the next month, anything helps.  Please also share their story with others who might be able to help and who will keep the Vincents in their thoughts and prayers

SOPHIE'S WEBSITE:  http://www.indiegogo.com/support-for-sophie?c=home

When Olivia and I say our prayers every night, we say a special prayer for Sophie.  Olivia obviously doesn't know what's wrong with Sophie nor do we discuss it with her.  That being said, she understands that Sophie doesn't feel good and we pray that the doctors will make Sophie feel better.  Olivia has taken to saying "Doctors give my Sophie lollipop and bandage, make her feel better".  Please join us in lifting Sophie and her family up in prayer as they fight for Sophie's life!

Pumpkin Patch

There is a church down the road from us that has a great pumpkin patch every year.  We usually try to get all the kids together and go take pictures but schedules didn't permit this year.  My friend Angie and I met up one Sunday when there was also a little fall festival going on, which is where the pony ride pictures come in.  You won't know by looking at her, but Olivia really did have fun.  On this day her "smiling" face looks more like a sneer.

Olivia and Angie's son, Miles.  Olivia is more concerned with the sticker on her hand than looking/smiling at the camera

 

My sister in law says that it looks like Olivia is sitting on a pumpkin stem in this picture :-)

 

Can I get down now?

 

She was eager to take a picture with a pumpkin in her lap

 

Pumpkin.So.Heavy.Mommy

 

Olivia and Miles in the little picture taking area

 

Olivia LOVED her pony ride!  Second one in a week.

 

"Smiling" on her horse, Bruno.

 

 

BONUS PICTURE...

This one is actually from a quick trip to the pumpkin patch with Granny one weekend she was at our house.

 

 

BLAST FROM THE PAST...

October 2011

 

October 2010

Olivia is 2!

Olivia finally had her 2 year well-check 6 weeks after her 2nd birthday.  I spaced on making her appointment at her 18 month well-check and didn't realize it until the beginning of August.  Whoops.  No shots scheduled for the 2 year well-check but she was tortured with her flu shot.  She took it like a champ and Mommy was quickly forgiven when a lollipop was produced once we were back in the car.  Here's a little bit of what is going on in Miss Olivia's life right now:

• She weighs 27lbs, 10oz - 55th percentile.  I'm skeptical because our scale AND my parents' scale says she's over 28lbs.  Oh well.
• Olivia is 35.5ins high - 80th percentile, going to be a tall girl
• Her head circumference is 48.5cm - 75th percentile, plenty of room for that big brain!
• Dr. Thorstad says she's a "good grower" and right on track on the charts
• Olivia is wearing some 24 month and some 2T clothing.  She picks out her shirt every day!
• She's wearing size 6-7 shoes
• We're using size 5 diapers right now.  No sign of potty training yet, she'll let us know when it's time.
• Olivia can count to 15, recognizes all of her letters and numbers, can spell her name out loud, knows her colors, shapes, animals/animal sounds, and body parts. 
• She talks all.day.long and says up to 5 word sentences
• Olivia loves her cats especially Ba (Bella) but is not a fan of dogs
• We have to jog to keep up with her as she zooms around the neighborhood on her bike wearning her Dora helmet
• She loves to run, jump, bounce, skip, and march and is a very energetic child
• She is very coordinated and is very good with her T-ball set and more recently, her little golf clubs.  She's got quite an arm on her and we're trying to teach her to wait until people are looking before she throws
• Olivia likes to color and LOVES stickers
• We read lots and lots of books and right now Olivia likes to hold the book and turn the page while Mommy/Daddy read out loud.
• She LOVES Dora the Explorer.  Loves.
• We sing lots of songs together - Old McDonald, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Rock-a-by baby, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Little Teapot . . .
• Olivia is a good eater and especially loves berries, nuts, and goldfish.  She only eats a few different veggies so we give her low-sodium V8 juice so she gets her servings of vegetables
• Most nights she sleeps 8:00pm-7:30am and she usually takes a nap from 12:00pm-2:30pm-ish **As I write this, it is 9:15pm and Olivia is singing Old McDonald in her crib*
• Olivia started dance class a few weeks ago and really loves it. 
• We still keep her at home but have decided she'll start pre-school part time around her 3rd birthday

We are so proud of our smart, funny, loving little girl!

First day of Kindertots dance class

I took dance classes growing up and LOVED them.  I occasionally wish that I had stuck with them but then realize how much I also LOVED playing sports.  Now I have the opportunity to live vicariously through Olivia as she begins her dance career.  Ok, that might be a little dramatic given that we'll allow her participate in whatever activity she wants (please by dance or sports, please be dance or sports, please be dance or sports) but anyway . . .

I signed her up for Kindertots at the Rec Center Mike and I are members of.  Kindertots is specifically geared towards 2-3 year olds who no dance background.  Olivia doesn't go to daycare and she doesn't spend any time in an instructional environment so I thought this would be a great way to see if she would enjoy dance enough to listen to the teacher and follow along.  The class is 30 minutes long, a perfect length for toddlers, and the teacher plays different songs that she adds very simple moves to.  It turns out that Kindertots is actually an organization that sends instructors to various rec center-like locations specifically to teach classes like this so Miss Kristen was very good at adjusting the activities for the instruction following ability of the group.  That being said, there were 2 little girls in the group who had been in the last Kindertots session and Olivia did almost as much as they did!

Thanks for tying my ballet shoes Miss Kristen

 

I'm on my purple spot, let's get this show on the road!

 

Learning how to point and flex her toes

 

These are my toes Amelia

 

 

Point like this?

 

Merry-go-round time

 

Up, up, up . . .

 

. . . down, down, down . . .

 

. . . round and round!

 

Olivia loves to twirl around.  She does it everyday and not just when she's wearing a tutu.  Olivia prefers to twirl around with her eyes closed, which get a little tricky given that we have furniture and walls in our house.  We tell Olivia she has to look where she is going when she twirls so here she is trying to look behind her and she twirls in circles.

 

Ok folks, what's next?

 

Actually holding hands when asked to!

 

Hands on your head for a sticker at the end!

 

 

They did do more than go around in circles.  At one point Miss Kristen gave them flowy pieces of fabric that were their "butterfly wings" and they ran around pretending to be butterflies.  Olivia did that and a couple of other activities pretty close to Mike who was the one taking the pictures.  Funny story - this morning Olivia decided to sleep an hour later than usual!  We don't set an alarm on the weekends when Mike doesn't have to work because Olivia rarely sleeps later than 7:30am.  Well I woke up at 8:30am and we hustled to get out of the house by 8:45am to get to the 9:00am dance class.  In all the commotion, Mike didn't grab his other camera lens so he couldn't take pictures of Olivia when she was close to him.  Meh, no biggie, Olivia did very well and had a great time.  Kindertots = success!!

Olivia's 2nd birthday party!

Well here it is, the birthday party post!  The amount of work that goes into planning and executing a toddler's birthday party is unreal but Olivia and her friends had a great time, which made it all worth it.  I didn't even have time to get emotional because there was so much to do but at the end of the day, my sweet little Olivia is 2 years old, pretty crazy huh?!  There are LOTS of pictures in this post, enjoy :-)

So everyone knows that I'm not very "crafty" but I got it in my mind that I wanted to make a banner that showed how Olivia has changed over the last 2 years of her life.  It took MUCH longer than I thought but well worth it in the end . . .

 

 . . . tada!  Now in addition to not being "crafty", I'm also not great with Mike's camera so this picture is a little dark but you get the point.

 

Olivia's cupcakes and the party favors that our friend Meagan made. Each pencil box is personalized with the child's name and filled with age and gender-appropriate items.  She put so much time into them and they were a huge hit!

 

 

Olivia's extra special party favor from Meagan.

 

The kids' craft table.  Cooper spent quite a bit of time taping paper bags over the table because even though we had washable markers, why tempt fate?

 

 

"Happy Birthday" Dora banner

 

Bring on the kids!

 

So happy that the cousins Jamie and Hayley were able to come to the party.  That's Cooper, Mike's son, in the green and he's standing flat-footed!  He'll be 14 next month and is almost 6'3.  He spent the week with us and is such a great kid.

 

Daddy, Mommy, and Olivia

 

That's us taking a picture of Jamie taking a picture of Nina and Olivia.

 

My sweet friend Laura and her beautiful girls, Avery and Reagan.  When Laura arrived, one of the kids at the party (4 year old MacKenzie) ran up to her and said "You have 2 babies!"  Laura gets it all the time but I thought it was hilarious.

 

Toys and babies everywhere!

 

Montana and cutie pie Sam.  Olivia loves the younger men and says "hi baby Sam!"

 

My dear friend Tonya and her son Hayden.  That's me behind the camera again as you can tell by the poor lighting.

 

Time for some lunch and coloring with Kennadi

 

And there's Cooper, typical teenager :-)

 

Hey Avery, you're cute and all but get your paws off my horsey!

 

Pet baby?  Olivia likes to "pet" babies.  Most parents are good natured about it.

 

Wonderful family!  Don't mind me stuffing my face in the background.

 

Not sure what Olivia is doing here but it appears to be a hit to those around her

 

Thanks Leigh for helping me put on my new bracelets

 

Cheeeeese!

 

I have no caption for this because I cannot for the life of my figure out what is going through her head.

 

Olivia blew out her candle all by herself!

 

Please take a second to note that Olivia is eating her cupcake face first.  This is because she didn't want to pick it up because she didn't want to get her hands dirty.  She HATES to get her hands dirty.  She finally gave in and picked it up but after a few bites asked Daddy to "wash hands, wash hands?".  Well we've played this game before so Mike told her that she could wash her hands after she was done with her cupcake otherwise there would have been at least 4 hand washing/wiping episodes per 1 cupcake.  About a minute later - enter Paw Paw (my Dad).  "Paw Paw, wash hands, wash hands?"  Paw Paw obliges because he's not as familiar with her tactics . . . and because that's what grandparents do :-)

 

Yup, that's a BLUE cupcake.  For about a month leading up to her birthday party, we have had the following conversation with Olivia:

Olivia:  Baby bike?

Us: Maybe you'll get a bike for your birthday

Olivia: Party?

Us: Yes, we'll have a party for your birthday

Olivia: Cupcakes?

Us: Ok Olivia, we can have cupcakes at your birthday party

Olivia: BLUE cupcakes?!

Us: Ok Olivia, we can make blue cupcakes

 

So we made blue cupcakes

 

More babies with more toys

 

Opening gifts was quite an experience for me.  One of the first presents we opened was a Dora doll that Olivia held onto for most of the present-opening time.  That didn't mean that I opened presents by myself, I had lots of help.

 

Olivia is under there somewhere!

 

Olivia got some help with her new Dora helmet . . .

 

 . . . to go with her new bike!!

 

And she's off!

 

At this point, the party had been over for at least an hour but the helmet was still on.  She put it back on first thing in the morning the next day as well.

 

My beautiful ballerina in the new dance outfit she got from her cousins in preparation for Kindertots, a dance class for 2 year olds at our rec center.

 

Well, that's it.  Thanks for sticking it out :-)

 

Happy birthday sweet Olivia!  Mommy and Daddy love you!