Happy 6 Months, Baby Girl!

Friday was Sydney's 6 month birthday and while we celebrated it with her, I didn't get a chance to put anything up on the blog.  I'm working on a little video for her, but wanted to put a couple pictures up here for now.  Oh, she is such a joy.  Her giggle is just the best.  And while her sleep habits leave much to be desired, I wouldn't trade her for the world.

Happy Birthday, Sweet Baby Sydney!

Sydneygrams

This sweet little nugget hasn't had enough face time on the ol' blog lately....

An oldie...I found this in my phone the other night and Instagrammed it.  

Oh, she was so little.

Handmade shoes her Daddy brought back from Venezuela.

#iheartbabyfeet

Yes, I let her sleep on me.  This precious time goes by too quickly for me not to.

First taste of real food.

I just love her!

And a Magnum for good measure...

#34

If you realize what I'm referencing in that title besides the number of months in Olivia's age, you are probably one of my best friends.  And, I love you for it.  {Jilllll.....}

So, yeah, back to Olivia.  Thirty-four months!  Today!  Which means we have two months left of the terrible twos and two months until the tumultuous threes.  It's kinda like that groundhog.  Either way he looks at it, it's not spring!

Ahhh, but those not-so-fun moments are not the stuff that good Olivia lovin' is made of, so I'm going to share some of the awesome things that makes being her mother so great. {And, it is, you guys.  It really is.}

+  Olivia is quite the little hoarder and it all ends up in her crib. It is not unusual for her to go to bed with 5 stuffed animals, 3 blankets, 2 light up books and an assortment of her little figurines.  We clear out her crib on a regular basis, but she just keeps piling it back up.  I have no idea how she manages to find room to sleep.  {And, yes, she's still in a crib.  For now. Until she's 21.}

+  The girl loves to be naked.  Like na-ked.  Mom and Dad came over for dinner last night and she was riding her tricycle in the house with no clothes on.  She came around the corner to greet them and it was all, HELLO! Here I am.  I'm not shy.

+  I am sure I say this all the time, but her vocabulary is just off the charts.  She knows and understands so much and is just such a social butterfly.  As long as it is on her terms, she has no problem approaching people and talking to them.  It is so fun having a conversation with her and hearing what she says.  When we picked David up from the airport on Tuesday, she immediately said to him, So, Daddy, how was Venezuela?!?

+ She does have a few conversational things that remind us that she's still a toddler.  The other day she said she needed to get on her baby suit, you know, how Sydney is a baby.  Her "th" words still come across as a "f" sound, thus her favorite snacks are chewy fangs.  

+ It's not always easy getting Olivia to do the things we want her to do - get dressed, brush her teeth, let us wash and brush her hair.  The best solution for this {that my wonderful mother came up with} is role playing.  So, we are constantly playing beauty salon, dentist office and modeling agency.  

+ She is really good at getting her big girl panties and pants/shorts on by herself.  Today, David was starting to help her get her bathing baby suit on and she said, Remember, Daddy, the words go in the back.  Those are the rules and you have to follow them.  The words go in the back.  Funny that she can remember some rules.  

+ I'm not sure how or why, but for some reason she is really in to spelling these days.  She wants to know how to spell all sorts of words.  If we are reading something or talking about something, she'll ask me to spell the word.  Maybe she's trying to figure out what I'm saying when I spell things I don't want her to understand.  Smart little cookie.

+ For everything we give her, she almost always says, I want TWO of them.

+ One of the cutest things happens when she is watching a cartoon on TV {yes, I'm human, she watches cartoons} and something scares her.  She will either run into the playroom or into the hallway, so that the TV is just out of view and will peek around every so often until whatever it is that has scared her is gone.  {Jungle Pete, she's not a fan.}  She did this same thing at Christmas time when we watched the Elf on the Shelf show.

+ While staying at Mom and Dad's over the last couple of weeks, Olivia managed to sort of memorize the book Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus.  Honestly, it only took a couple of readings before she had it down.  I took a little video of it and looking at it now, I see how much better she got at it.

Oh Olivia Cole, you have the ability to turn my hairs gray, but I still love you SO much.  You are such an amazing little girl and I am so blessed to be your mommy.  Happy #34.

Love, Love, Love

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hope your day is full of love!
David comes home today!!  Yay!  We survived.

More Pictures Than Words

I have two napping babies - one in a crib and one in the Ergo.  {Ahhh, peace and quiet.} Can you guess which one is where?  Here are those pictures I promised you...

Tadpole Swim Lessons

Thanks, Jill, for her hair inspiration!

Desert Breeze

Swimming with Poppy

You guys, it's FEBRUARY and she is swimming outside!

She loves to jump off the side of the ladder and into Poppy's arms.  She goes under a lot and it doesn't phase her at all!

Sending you some sunshine today.

Happy Monday from the Valley of the Sun!

My Baby is Crying and I Can't Think of a Title

Well, we have made it through to Day 12 without David and now that we've finally gotten into a little routine and are all feeling sort of comfortable with our new situation, he will be returning home in a couple of days!  We have been really fortunate and have been able to Skype with him a few different times.  On one of our last conversations, however, he told me that his dad told him that this was just a "preliminary" trip down there and that they would get more done on the next one.  You've never seen a face get so close to a webcam before.  You can tell your father that I don't plan on having you leave for two weeks again ANYTIME SOON.  This Mama needs a vacation of her own.  


Like I said, keeping busy and getting out of the house is KEY for surviving these days and after a couple of days of not doing that, we've been out of the house a lot over the last few days.

On Thursday, we went to the playground in our neighborhood and packed a lunch for Olivia.  Last Thursday, we met a little girl and her mom who have lunch there every Thursday and invited us to join them this week.  Unfortunately, the mom was called in to work, but the grandparents still brought the little girl for her lunch date with Olivia.  She is super shy, but that didn't stop Olivia from asking her a million questions and encouraging her to play.

This girl could swing for hours!

I think I've mentioned that Olivia's current naptime is way too late and it's been difficult getting it moved up.  Well, we must have worn her out at the playground because when we went back to our house she napped around 2.  That's progress!  In all, we gave Mom and Dad about a 6 hour break which I'm pretty sure was glorious - when we got back to their house, Mom showed me the million things she had gotten done for the day!

On Friday, we met up with some friends at the zoo!  It sure is nice having friends AND a membership to the zoo!  Olivia was great all morning - we played in the treehouse, rode the carousel {three times} and walked around a good part of the zoo.  We even ended up staying a little later than the rest of the crew, but I figured if I was going to do the zoo by myself and drive 30 minutes to get there, we were going to stay as long as both girls were being good.  Sydney took a nice long nap in the Ergo and Olivia stayed in her stroller while we moved from animal to animal.  I couldn't have begged, bribed or bargained for better behavior from either of them!  Olivia was properly rewarded with a small container of zoo animals from the gift shop on the way out.  This girl is LOVING animal figurines these days.

It's really sad that this is one of the few pictures I have of me and the girls.

But, I have about 100 pictures of her on a carousel.

My favorite part of the zoo - I love this open field where multiple types of animals roam free.

While I fed Sydney, Olivia played zoo keeper in the car.

We came home and Olivia took another glorious nap!  I really don't want to have to give up her naps if I don't have to.  Mom and Dad had dinner plans that night, so they ended up having almost 11 hours of free time!  Ha ha.  Knowing that, we headed out for a late afternoon trip to the playground for some more swinging.

With these precious kiddos as my view, I could push Olivia in the swing for hours too.

Olivia had her swim lessons again on Saturday.  I wanted her to understand that while she was at the lessons, she was to have fun, but also to listen to the teacher and follow her instructions.  We practiced several times through the week and a lot on Saturday morning.  She had fun playing pretend and kept saying, "You be Miss Melody!"  All that playing/practicing paid off - she was SO GREAT at swim lessons.  She listened to everything Miss Melody said and never wandered off.  I was so proud of her.

I have a few more pictures of swim lessons on my camera, so they may show up on another post as well.

She is such a water bug!  After swim lessons, we met up with Poppy who had just played in a golf tournament AND WON!  Woot Woot!  We celebrated with pizza and an early night!

Umm, yes, I'll take that wine off your hands.

And, this morning we met up with Mom after church at one of our favorite parks,  Desert Breeze.  I took tons more pictures with my camera, but here are a couple cute ones from my phone.  Looking forward to having David come back home, but am SO thankful for friends and family who have helped make this time fly by! (And so much easier)