Olivia had a fabulous Christmas. She was overwhelmed with the amount of people watching her open her presents. And she retreated to her bedroom a few times to collect herself. But she recovered and spent the day strolling her baby around in her new doll stroller and playing with her new kitchen.

A few evenings ago her daddy and I took her for a walk in her new wagon and she started drifting to sleep. Later as I was putting on her pajamas (she has the cutest way of saying pajamas by the way) I heard her repeating a phrase. I finally stopped my internal chatter and thought about what she was saying and I heard "i seepy, i seepy, i seepy". Wow! She was trying to tell me that she was sleepy. Hurray!

Now she's working on "hi mama" and "hi dada". I heard her practicing hi dada while sitting under the dining room table (one of her favorite hiding places).

Once Olivia adjusted to all the family around her it was time for people to start returning to their normal lives in their hometowns. Her auntie Boo Boo left on Monday but Olivia was still thinking of her on Tuesday. She would say Boo Boo and then point to me and say mama and point in the direction of her dad and say dada. I think that was her way of asking "where is Boo Boo?"

We took Olivia to see Santa. She's been talking about Santa for a month and we were curious to see her reaction to him. She didn't think much of him but she sure liked the Groovy Girls pink car that was in the shop!

Happy Halloween from Dorothy and Toto.

Olivia took a nice long nap today! Her Daddy said it was at least 2 hours.

Olivia would like to send out a big Texas hello to her 2nd cousin Kimberly!

Breakfast with Olivia

Liv and her dad went shopping and tried on hats.

One of my favorite things that Liv does now is to take my hand and lead me to the living room for us to dance to her music. She loves dancing and is enjoying music class every week. She still tends to hang out by the window and watch the rest of the class participate in the songs and dancing but she gets a little more involved each week.

Mommy's Day Off

We took Olivia to the park to ride the train, eat ice cream and play on the playscape.

Today was Olivia's first birthday.

There's something about celebrating your child's birthday that is so much better than celebrating your own birthday. Celebrating another year in my own life seems selfish and unnecessary, but celebrating a year of our child's life is pure joy. When my parents would say "I'm so proud of you" I would always think "What, I didn't do anything, I'm just living.", but now I know what they mean. I've never been so proud as I am of Olivia.

I think Olivia had a great day. I worked from home to spend the day with her. Chris and I played some of her favorite dancing music and took lots of video and pictures. We even all took a nap together. In the evening, Liv's Auntie La-la took charge of dinner and the cake and we had a great time. You see the results of the cake in the picture above. Happy birthday Olivia!

Olivia got her first big "boo-boo" yesterday. It was so big that it's still visible today. She was standing behind our Ikea chair that has a wooden arm-piece, and she lost her balance (even though she was hanging onto the chair) and she fell face first into the edge of the arm-piece. She hit her forehead on the sharp edge and it made a big red bump over her right eye. At first I thought it hit her eye, so I was relieved that it was only skin deep. But she cried like it was the worst thing that could ever happen to her. Now you can only see a red line going from the middle of her forehead down to her just above her eyebrow. Hopefully it will be gone by the time she gets birthday pictures!

Hide n Seek
Last night while eating dinner Olivia displayed her latest milestone...engaging others in a game of hide n seek. Okay, I don't know if that's an official milestone or not, but it was a pretty big deal for us.
While we ate, she crawled part way down the hall then turned and looked back at us with a "do you see me" grin. We let her know we saw her. She turned and hauled little baby butt down the hall and around the corner. Then she peeked around the corner to see if we were looking...well of course we were! So her daddy got up from the table and hid from her. The next time she peeked around the corner he jumped out and ran down the hall saying "I'm gonna get you" in that way that all parents tease their kids. Squeals of delight came from the hallway followed by oodles of giggles. We repeated this game for at least a half hour. Oh, it was so much fun!

At long last, an update...
Olivia attempted her first steps this morning. We suspected this was coming based upon other parents' stories of kids losing sleep right before hitting a big milestone. She's been losing a lot of sleep lately, Friday night she was awake and playing until midnight. Saturday and Sunday nights she stayed up until 9pm. This morning (Monday) she woke up in a cranky mood and was yelling at me and Chris. Chris wasn't getting her food to her fast enough and I wasn't cuddling with her enough. So I sat down to cuddle her on the couch. Then she squirmed out of my lap and onto her feet and just started to walk. But she landed in a face plant. Poor girl!

Olivia crawled forward for the first time on March 10th at 3:45! What motivated her? Angel food cake. She's got her mommy's taste.

Nine Months Old

What Olivia is doing:
mimicking the cat's meow
mimicking dog barks "woof"
feeding herself small bites of cake, muffin or bread
experimenting with sippy cups
turning pages of her board books
starting to pull up on furniture
still crawling backwards and in circles
growing a second tooth with two more not far behind
breaking wine glasses and calling dogs across town with her super-sonic, high-pitched squeals

What Olivia likes:
walks through the neighborhood
lots of tickling
story time
mommy's oatmeal cake
shopping with daddy at the grocery store
mirrors and pictures of dogs

What Olivia dislikes:
teething and Baby Orajel
getting strapped into her car seat
having her hands and arms manipulated
getting her face cleaned

Olivia had a very full social calendar for February. She went to Hollywood for 5 days and had a few star sightings, accompanied her family to a few vineyards and enjoyed a nice bottle of formula at a seafood restaurant on a pier in Santa Barbara. Since coming back home she has had a few play-dates with some of her friends and has attended a few parties, staying awake way past her bed time.

During the day she goes to the YMCA where she is starting to understand that Mommy and Daddy leave her to play with other kids while they go exercise. Olivia's decided that she's not too happy about it and sometimes the teacher has to come find her Daddy.

At home, Olivia has played on a blanket in the front yard while her parents plant pretty flowers; and she crawls backwards or in circles until she gets where she wants to be. One of her favorite books is Spring and she is most fascinated by the bright pink pages. She forms an "O" with her lips, breathes in and out very quickly and makes a whistle when her Mommy shows her the pink pages. Bathing has also become a favorite passtime and she really loves to see herself wrapped in a blanket in the mirror when the bath is over.

Olivia will most likely grow up to be a noise-maker like her daddy; she already mimics the cat's meow and is working on "cockadoodle doo". But of course she hasn't said "ma ma" yet. When I try to get her to say it she points at me and says "da da" which makes her Daddy howl with laughter.

This was Olivia's second photo session with my studio lights set up. Quite the easy subject! I was taking pictures of her in preparation for a job. I purchased the background you see in the photo to use in this upcoming job. Very expensive background. We thought we should take a few bare butt shots of Liv (for blackmail later!). Well of course once we put Liv on the background nude, within 10 seconds she leaked all over it! I guess that's the price of having a beautiful subject.

First tooth

Olivia got her first tooth on February 1st. I discovered it while trying to get her to take a nap. She had finished her bottle of apple juice and still wasn't asleep and I didn't have a pacifier around, so I put my finger her mouth. And there it was, poking into my finger from her bottom gum. What a sweet girl, she
hasn't even been complaining the past week while it was busting through.

Come on everybody put your hands together for...


While listening to children's music in her room with mom and dad, Olivia put her hands together and started clapping. It was quite a surprise. Her dad had been teaching her to put her hands together to clap once but she hadn't clapped repeatedly yet. I expected her to graduate from one clap to two, then three over time. But she just picked it up as if it was no big deal. She must have been inspired by the music.

Olivia is 8 months old today

What she's doing:
holding herself up on hands and knees
making inchworm movements on the floor
attempting to drink out of a sippy cup
smearing mashed banana all over herself and mommy - none of it gets into her mouth
blowing raspberries when she's tired and frustrated
team-work noise making with her daddy
keeping mommy and daddy up late

what she likes:
walks
the cat
dogs
pacifiers
food
other babies
swinging at the park
sliding down the big slide in her daddy's lap

what she doesn't like:
avocado

Olivia and her family found a new house shortly after Halloween, so please forgive the lack of posts. The dust has cleared and most of the boxes are unpacked so we can now get back to normal life and normal blogging.

Here is a summary of the things that happened in the past few months:
Olivia started rolling a lot in both directions on Thanksgiving day.
On December 8th she started saying "da da da da" but hasn't associated it with her dad yet.
She moved into her new house on December 16th.