Here's a funny story. I took Liv to the Family Connections library where we borrow books and toys. For the first time I let her pick out her own toys. I hadn't done this before because we can only borrow 3 toys at a time and I didn't think she could handle that limit. I was wrong; she handled it quite well. If she picked out more than 3 I asked her if she would like the blocks or the farm animals. Each time she chose the farm animals. The next morning I was getting ready for work and Chris got my attention to come look into Liv's room. She was riding the 6 inch plastic horse. It was such a funny site! You could barely see the horse under her thick cloth diaper; and I think she was completely supporting her own weight with her thighs. But she really was getting a kick out of riding that horse.

Olivia had a wonderful July 4th at the coast. Even before we arrived she talked incessantly about waves, sandcastles, and seashells. When we got to the beach she could not stop squealing while she was knocked off balance by waves. At one point her daddy headed farther than she could go. She cried until he came back with seashells and then she told him to go back.And for the sandcastles, her idea of building them is to let someone else try their hands at construction while she destroys it. And she really loved the fireworks. I thought that she might be scared of the noise, but she embraced it. She would hear the pops and say "I see them, I see them" before the lights were even up in the sky.
Over a week later she is still talking about the trip.

Olivia is now two years old!
A few months ago I tried to list all of the words she uses and after a few days I realized that I was fighting a losing battle. Every day I would go home and hear at least 2-3 new words from her. Her vocabulary is expanding exponentially and she surprises each of us on a regular basis. Either Chris or I will turn to the other and say "Did she just say that?!".
She still loves to read and one of her favorite places to go is the library. And she knows to be quiet in the library because we've been reading her the Charlie and Lola book about borrowing books from libraries and how you have to be quiet when you are there. When we're reading books to her at home she will hum along with us mimicing our speach. Then at the last few words she'll chime in with the correct words. When she looks at the books by herself she flips through the pages (careful not to skip any) and mentions several words or phrases from the book.
Her other favorite place to go is the pool. We either ride our bikes or drive (if it's too hot like it has been lately) but either way she loves it. If we don't move quick enough to get her from the car to the pool she says "Come on guys, pool!" She likes to stand on the edge and try to jump in while holding our hands. She also loves to play with the other little kids on the steps. She enjoys kicking her legs and splashing her arms while we hold her on her belly. She also likes to blow bubbles.
We can usually keep her entertained at home with music cds like the Biscuit Brothers or just singing Twinkle, Twinkle little star. She loves to sing along and knows many songs like Row your Boat, Baa Baa Black Sheep, Frere Jacques and the abc's.
Her favorite foods are fruit (except peaches). The other day she ate a kiwi and when she cleaned her plate she raised her arms and said "Yay kiwi". We got her another kiwi! Bananas, pineapple, apple and strawberries are also at the top of her list. In the morning she likes to sit in my lap and eat cereal with me. And for dinner she sits at her own little table with a plate and a big girl glass of milk. And she loves to help set the table. She puts a napkin at each person's place, then puts the forks on top of the napkin. She's a very organized young girl.
I will post pictures from her 2nd birthday soon!

You can't tell here but she's had her first hair cut. We took her to Bird's on Burnet road in either January or February. She sat in my lap and was very still while the stylist cut her bangs and trimmed the back. Chris took some great pictures. I'll try to get them uploaded soon.

Chris passed this picture on to me. I couldn't remember when it was taken but he did. This was from July 4th 2008. We woke up early and made our way over to the neighborhood parade. You can tell that Liv was still pretty sleepy. Her hair isn't curly but it kinda looks like it is here.

We went to Mayfield Park today to see the peacocks. A few weeks ago Olivia was intimidated by them. Today she was running toward them. And they were running from her, or flying onto the roof of the house to escape.

Olivia partied at First Night Austin until the late hour of 9pm. She watched aerial dancers perform at city hall, Batman float down the river, large butterflies parade along Cesar Chavez and danced at the Biscuit Brother's hoedown.

The resolution clock made quite an impession upon her. It did for me too. Chris and I heard someone mention that the plan was to burn it at 8pm. It was too pretty to burn but since it wasn't our decision we just took a lot of pictures. After it was gone Olivia seemed confused. She would say clock and raise her right hand with the palm up as if questioning what had happened to it.

Happy 2009 everyone!

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!