sixteenth month recap.

This has been an interesting month!  Andy was gone for 2+ weeks of it and then when he was home he was sitting alert so he was only home for about 30 minutes each night before Baby Girl would go to bed.  We have also had a black eye, vomiting, a bloody mouth, a bad cold, the time change, and major sleep disturbances. Combine all of that with daddy not being around, and Baby Girl has become even more of a mommy's girl than before (if that was even possible).  However, good health (and having daddy around a bit) has come back into our lives and things are looking up for the start of month seventeen.

Weight: 25 lbs

Height: TALL!  34 inches

Napping: I successfully converted her to one nap this month!  It was a struggle, but we have came out on the other side better for it.  She goes down around 12:30 and sleeps for anywhere from 1.5 hours to 2.5 hours.  Her norm is becoming 2 hours!  Praise God. 

Night: Bedtime remains 7ish.  Baby Girl sleeps for about 12 hours.  She does wake on occasion through the night by crying out for a few minutes, but typically resettles herself.  However, while she was sick we were  I was up with her every hour on some nights.  She couldn't sleep due to her congestion and was really only able to breathe upright in the rocking chair.  Also, she took a full week to adjust to the time change.  Some mornings began as early as 5:30 there for a bit....it was brutal to this non-morning person of a mother.

Food: The list of foods she used to like, but now refuses has grown - green beans, peas, carrots, cantaloupe, and strawberries.  She loves any form of pasta, grapes, oatmeal and cheese.  She drinks whole milk and water only. (she refused any form of juice the few times we tried it for constipation) 

Motor Skills: Baby Girl can independently feed herself with both a fork and a spoon, and can get rather serious/focused about it. Runs and jumps. Slides off our bed independently.

Language:  This girl has lots to say!  surprise, surprise ;)  New words are bubbles, nose, eyes, door, buball (for basketball), yeah, mamen (for Amen), raaa (for rock as in the rocking chair), down, and mamower (for lawnmower). Her biggest language development has been the emergence of two word combinations!  She surprises us every now and again by saying things like "dada bye-bye".  She repeats a large nubmer of the words we say every day, but the ones I list are the ones that are part of her independent vocabulary. New signs include: dog, shower, fish, and elephant.

Fun Facts: wears size 4 diaper, size 6.5 shoe, and size 18-24 month clothes (unless its a one piece or footed pj's, then they must be 24 month),  is very particular about where things go (e.g., will put the crayons away one by one making sure each one is put back in the box in the same direction; will find the remotes on the floor and put them back on the coffee table before she can go on with whatever she was doing), is helpful when cleaning up toys!, likes to give hugs and say "ahhh" as she pats your back, the more children around the happier she is, is very attached to her blankets (or 'bah-bie' as she calls it), asks for "melmo" to be on the TV about every third minute, has decreased the time she cries when I leave her at the church nursery, loves to wrestle and rough-house with daddy, likes to run around while screeching loudly, her current favorite books are Row Row Row Your Boat, God Made Us, and Goodnight Sweet Pig, likes to dance, enjoys putting things into containers (and getting them out), isn't a fan of sitting in the shopping cart anymore (unless it is her toy one!), loves to push her baby stroller, would be happy if we played outside from morning till night, and amazes us daily with how quickly she is turning into a little girl!

priceless.

A window into our Sunday evening. 

Its as simple as a baby girl and her daddy in their gray sweatpants, but we hope your home is filled with just as much laughter and love.

O-L-I-V-I-A

Who knows their name when we spell it out? Yep, that would be our girl! Okay, I'm going to have a proud mommy moment for a minute.....

It happened the other day while we were out to eat. I was helping her color and I wrote her name on the place mat. I said O-L-I-V-I-A when I was done and she looked up and me and said 'Aiya' (her word for Olivia). We thought it was a fluke, so we tested it the next day. From across the room, Andy spelled the letters of her name and she looked over at him and said 'Aiya'. We were amazed!

I always write her name out for her when she is coloring, but I don't drill her on it or anything. I am completely amazed at what she picks up on without direct teaching; when I don't even think she is paying attention. She is impressionable, that's for sure!

cake making 101

In honor of her daddy's birthday today, Baby Girl made his birthday cake!  Here's how it was done....


Pour in the mix

 

Disregard any that didn't make it into the bowl!

 

pour in the oil and water



hold onto the Kitchen Aid while it
mixes just for good measure



check it out and make sure its all mixed

every good cook has to taste their work

get angry with Mommy because you want the bowl back

be happy again because you got your own toddler size bowl

get every last bit!

 (and look ridiculously cute while doing it!)

Look, Mom, my tongue fits right into this hole!

 We would invite y'all over to enjoy the finished product, but we aren't sure the cake is appropriate for sharing!  However, we hope that Daddy is very happy with the cake that his baby girl worked so hard on making!  More birthday fun will surely be shared, but I had to post this cuteness immediately.





Halloween picture overload!

Happy Halloween! 

It was hard to get her to slow down
long enough for a photo!



She had trouble smiling because
there hasn't been much to
cheer about this football season!

We carved a pumpkin this afternoon and then dressed our little girl up as the cutest cheerleader we've ever seen!  It's been a great day for us.  We hope you can say the same!

Baby Girl enjoyed cleaning out the pumpkin



Daddy and Baby Girl work on getting the perfect face.



Daddy tries to make a Jack-O-Lantern
face out of Olivia's drawings.

proud girl!

and last but not least.....the ND football player and Purdue cheerleader console one another on their lackluster seasons!   haha!  (this is the neighbor boy Wyatt;)

the Fall blues.

Olivia desperately wants to accessorize for Fall, but the temperatures here are in the mid to upper 80's with high humidity.  Yuck! 

We are tired of summer.  We want to put our shorts and tanks away for good so Mommy Olivia can wear her new scarf!














How's the weather in your part of the world?

Absent, but accounted for.

Yes, I have been MIA when it comes to blogging.  Not sure why.  Sometimes I go through phases where I just don't have much to say.  I think this week it has been prompted by single parenthood.  The evenings come and I just don't have it left in me to do much of anything other than catch up on some shows, read, or peruse the Internet.  Those hours are my opportunity to have some time to myself and I haven't felt up to blogging.

Also, Olivia has been all over the map this week when it comes to napping, which is stressful.  Nothing gets me worked up more than a baby that will not nap!  She has successfully refused either her morning or her afternoon nap for the past five days.  I think we are in the transition stage to one nap, but the length of her one nap doesn't really give her enough rest.  However, I am hoping to do a little sleep training and stretch one nap out for two hours (or beyond) so it can be enough to get us through the day.  A twelve hour work day with only an hour nap is too much for mommy (and baby, too!).  Today we skipped morning nap and I put her down at 12:30.  We will see what that does for us.

Bundled up for one of the few
cooler morning we've had.

So, what have been up to?  Well, we spend a LOT of time outside these days.  Olivia starts her day asking to go outside and it really doesn't stop until she goes to bed.  Therefore, I spend my mornings and afternoons wandering around our yard wondering what I am going to do to pass the time when winter comes! 

Creating yet another masterpiece.

Two of our neighbors have all kinds of toddler toys so we use their playhouse, sandbox, trampoline, wagon, big play set, and plastic cars.  I think we spend more time in their backyards than our own!  However, we don't have to have that stuff sitting in our yard, so that makes Andy happy.

Taking my baby (and her baby) for a ride!

Andy should be home in time for Halloween (and his 30th birthday!!  oh my!)  This week we have something every day, so that is great.  I keep the neighbor baby on Monday afternoons, Tuesday morning I start a new Bible Study at the same church I go to for MOPS, Wednesday I have traffic court (ugh.), Thursday we have a Halloween play date, and Friday we have Gymobree and a lunch date.  Hopefully from some of those events, I will have something to blog about!  I know you will all be anxious to hear how traffic court goes......haha. ;)

 Until then, Olivia says "rock on".....