reporting to you live from Alabama...

Olivia is once again a 'traveling girl', but this time was by car rather than by plane! We are in the south - even more so than when we are in Charleston. We are in Montgomery, Alabama where the temperatures are hot and the humidity is even greater! However, I am handling it much easier than the wives that I have spoken with that have traveled here from the north or the west. We are here for a month while Andy attends Squadron Officer School. I have never attended a TDY with Andy before; I believe I am one of the few wives who has never experienced Altus, OK (thankfully!). However, with me still being on maternity leave, Olivia and I decided to come along and take in the experience. Lucky for us, this program loves it when wives and families come along so there are lots of activities for us to participate in and we have already begun to make friends with other families from across the world.

Andy & Olivia get some quality rocking time in thanks to Cracker Barrel somewhere in Georgia. Can you see where Olivia gets her brow line?! She gives me this same wrinkled eyebrow look many many times each day! haha.

Olivia has taken to our new accommodations, which (in its entirety ) is roughly the size of our master bedroom at home. We have a kitchenette, a room with a bed, a sofa, and a desk, and a walk through closet that leads to the bathroom. Luckily, her pack and play fits perfectly on one side of the closet (by about an inch) so she has her own "bedroom". We bought a tension rod and a curtain and hung it in the door so that it stays dark in "her room" when needed. This saves me from having to have the lights off and curtains drawn all day long for her frequent naps.



We traveled through North Carolina on our way here to drop off Vegas at Andy's parents. It was a great detour because we got to spend time with them as well as introduce Olivia to some special people from Andy's past.

Andy shows Olivia off to Mrs. Ingle - she wanted to keep her for the entire evening!!

Dennis & Susan spent some special time with Olivia, and Olivia even left a special surprise on Susan's pants! oops.....good thing she has lots of grand kids and wasn't startled by the incident!

Andy's godparents, Bob & Joyce, were thrilled by our surprise visit on our way out of town!

With nothing pressing on my agenda, Olivia and I have been able to start each day with a long walk to help me lose my baby weight. And, from the look on her face in this picture, I think she likes to exercise too!! It is never too young to start a healthy habit ;)

I followed the trail down this road hoping there would be a special reward waiting at the end, but I wasn't so lucky! darn.

Olivia continues to GROW and change quickly. She is smiling more and more and has begun to make some babbling noises as her vocal development kicks in. She still likes to suck her fingers, loves bath time, likes to be snuggled and swaddled in tight, and eats like a champ! Her head control is quite impressive as she can support it herself for longer amounts of time. She continues on her 2 1/2 to 3 hour routine through the day of eating, playtime, and then nap time and is a much happier baby when she gets enough sleep. However, nap time has been a bit of a challenge lately, but we are working through it. We do continue to have success with her nighttime ritual and sleeping - she goes to bed around 7:30 or 8:00 (after her bath and a feed) and then I give her a "dream feed" around 10:30 before I go to bed (she is still sleeping, but I wake her just enough to initiate the suck reflex and she eats), she sleeps about 5 1/2 hours from that feed before awaking to eat, and then sleeps until we wake at 7:00am to start our routine all over again. And, for anyone interested, we are still in full bottle crisis mode around here. Any suggestions are welcomed....I go back to work in early September and really do not want to leave every 3 hours to go nurse her!!