Words and new hats

Words, words, words. At Olivia's 1 year check up, she was saying 4 words regularly: Da-Da, Uh-oh, Ma-Ma (OK, that one was sporadic), and the lion noise (animal noises count as words right now!). She has since added: Hi, Bye, Ball, Hot, Daddy, and a snake noise (haven't caught the hissssss on tape yet). She is babbling like crazy. She will look us straight in the eye and talk and talk. We have no idea what she's saying, but she has great facial expressions! She's also repeating, or attempting to repeat, everything we say. It's really funny, because she can't quite get the right sounds, but she does the voice inflection. We're working on "doggie" right now. I will point at the dogs and say "dog- EE." She will look at me and say "ah- EE." Too cute.



I'm also proud to announce that she has hit 15 pounds (and 1 ounce)! When her pediatrician saw her weight, he said "Well, she now weighs the same as an average 4-5 month old!" She's small, but healthy! She still gets lots of comments from strangers. A woman at the library stooped down to her level and said "You're the smallest walking person I've ever seen!" Olivia blew a raspberry at her and ran in the other direction. My feelings, exactly. :)
I finally finished a pumpkin hat that fits!







I added ties to this one. She likes to pull her hats off, but when we got outside last week and she felt how cold it was, she left it on!

I'm having way too much fun with these hats:







I finished this one last night. I think it's my favorite so far- I like the top:







I got another set of circular needles, so I can now work on 2 hats at once! I think I'm going to have to work on hats for friends, though. Olivia has enough for now!

We went to Chuck E. Cheese with our Mommy's group Tuesday. It just re-opened after being remodeled and it is the biggest one I've ever seen. She loved it- there was a whole area sectioned off for toddlers. The best part? We went at 9:30 a.m., so it was deserted and too early for pizza. I spent less than $10 and left with extra tokens for another visit. I love cheap entertainment!







I also got her a pair of Squeaker Sneakers. It took her a minute to figure out where the squeaks were coming from!



See the shirt she's wearing in that video? She wore it to the library and I still had 3 people ask me what her name was.



I've been working on putting all of our pictures and video on DVD's, using Windows Movie Maker. I finally finished her first year in pictures and am ashamed to type we had over 4000 pictures from her first year! Don't worry, I didn't put all of them on the DVD! However, it is 18 minutes long... Now, I'm working on the videos and found this one. I took it when she was 2 days old and still in the hospital. It was around 3:00 a.m. (I kept her in the room with me after she was out of the NICU).



I love how small and bundled up she was!

Mischievous?

Who, Olivia? Never! She's not mischevious AT ALL. I can leave her by herself (well, not really by herself- the laundry room is right beside the kitchen) for 2 minutes while I switch the laundry from the washer to the dryer. She would NEVER find her diaper bag behind the couch and pull out EVERY single item. Including all the wipes. Then hide behind Avry's highchair when she sees me. Not my child...



Ha! That was only part of the mess.
Talk about testing boundaries- she will pick up a piece of food from her tray on the highchair and hold it over the side. Just to see if I say anything. I ignored it a couple of times, until she actually started dropping it on purpose. Actually, I even ignored it then, it was when she started throwing it (usually at me) that I started putting her in "time out" when it happened. Time out is the pack and play set up in a corner of the dining room. She hates it. She can see everything and everybody and it drives her crazy that she's not in the middle of it! It's funny how fast they change and catch on to things. Sarah was telling me a few weeks ago that she and Tyler would put Liza (she's 5 now) in time out for throwing food when she was 1. I remember thinking that Olivia wouldn't intentionally throw food. She sure proved me wrong! Oh, and time out started after an unfortunate biting incident (Avry's cheek!). You would think she would start with pushing or hitting, but no. She went straight to biting. Luckily, the food throwing has decreased dramatically. The biting only happened one time, so we're hopefully on the right track. I'm actually really pleased that she's testing boundaries, so we can actually set them!



Oh, and guess what came in the mail this week? Yep, Photoshop Elements. Of course, I had to take some new pictures to test it out! I wanted to get some action shots of her in the pettiskirt after the crying episode she had with Rebecca Marr in TN. A new family moved in across the street from us last week. I hadn't had a chance to meet them until the mom was driving down the street and saw me laying on the sidewalk trying to get some good pictures. What a way to make a first impression! She was really sweet and offered to let me use the flowers in her backyard for some pictures. How nice was that?
I had lots of fun with these! I need to figure out when to stop messing with them, though. I don't want to OVER edit them.









She's going to hate me for this one some day:





The new game she plays with Daddy:



Hope you're having a great week!

Tiny Town and a pumpkin head

We took Olivia to Tiny Town on Labor Day. It's another attraction that's open Memorial day - Labor day. It's in Morrison, about 15 minutes from our house. The whole park is full of miniature buildings (perfect for kids) and a train. Olivia LOVED it. She loves anything outside, but this was right up her ally!









This church was her favorite. We started walking to the next part and she turned around and went back. It was the first building she could actually fit inside. The buildings start out small and get bigger- big enough for her to walk inside anyway.







Peek a boo:





Train ride:





We had a great time! She seems to enjoy these excursions more, now that she's walking!



I started and finished my first knitting project last night. In hindsight, I probably should have spaced it out a little. My eyes were crossing by the end!





A pumpkin hat was the reason I learned to knit around this time last year! It's taken lots of practice, but here it is!



Unfortunately, it's a little small for Olivia. I tried to combine 2 patterns and I didn't add enough length. Fortunately, I know someone it will fit(hopefully!)...



So, I started another hat for Olivia tonight. I think I'll try and spread it out at least over 2 days this time!

Something to smile about

We've all got something to smile about this week. Me? I'm smiling because I ordered this on Amazon:



Photoshop Elements. We had a trial version of Photoshop that recently expired. Michael had a class in college on Photoshop and I need a class to figure it out! Photoshop Elements is a smaller version with less bells and whistles (that I wouldn't use anyway!), but still does great things for pictures. AND our library has a few books to help. The best part? It cost about 1/10 of the full Photoshop. That's why I'm smiling.
This is why Olivia is smiling:



I found this little bike at a garage sale for $6. She looooooves it, even though she doesn't do much besides sit on it. She sits on it and I push her around- usually by propping her up on the back wheels, so her feet don't drag. The blue part on the bottom flips up and around and makes a handle, kind of like a stroller. Sarah next door, also let us borrow a ride on toy that Olivia and Avry both love. I haven't gotten any pictures of them on it, because I'm usually trying to keep peace! Have you ever watched 2 twelve month olds fight over a toy? They're still figuring out the whole "conflict" thing. They only know that they want to sit on the Tonka truck and something is preventing it from happening. So, they do whatever they can to get what they want. Avry usually just tries to sit on top of Olivia and Olivia tries to push Avry (with BOTH hands), while screaming. It's comical. We're working on sharing at our house. :)
Michael's reason to smile? College football started this weekend. Go Vols!







Olivia is still helping me with the dishes:



And loving sitting in the computer chair (with her hair bow in her mouth- it's a constant struggle to keep her hair out of her eyes! Mainly because she always removes whatever is keeping it out of her eyes):



I was looking through her closet yesterday and found a few things she hasn't worn this summer. Including this dress:



The last time I put it on her, she wasn't walking yet. It's too fitted to crawl very well, so I put it up and forgot about it. And she looks so cute in it! There were a few other outfits she hasn't worn. They're on the clothing agenda for the week. We don't have many summer days left here! I even had to pull out a few Fall outfits for a couple of cool days we've had. Including these overalls:





Kids and pregnant women are the only people that look cute in overalls. In case you were wondering.
One last thing. Olivia's new trick:



We're hoping to hit a few fun places tomorrow if the weather cooperates. Hope you're having a great Labor Day weekend!