January 20-27

A while ago, Olivia suffered a stair regression.  She was perfectly capable of climbing stairs, but refused to do so, preferring to be carried.  I am pleased to report that in the last few weeks, she has reremembered how to climb stairs and now does so willingly.

Olivia is officially drinking milk.  I let her try a glass back when she first turned one, but she had issues with it, so we went back to just water.  This last week, though, we've been giving her a glass of milk with dinner every night and she's been fine.  I guess her system just needed to mature a bit more.  Friday we moved her milk time to breakfast instead so that she can finish it later in the day if necessary.

On Tuesday, Olivia helped me unload the dishwasher the way she usually does.  Generally she unloads the silverware one piece at a time and hands it to me to put away.  About a month ago, I tried putting out the fork and spoon bins for her to put silverware into, and she just picked out all of HER silverware and walked away.  Tuesday, though, I tried again, and Olivia sorted forks and spoons into their proper containers as she unloaded them.  She got them all right until she got impatient with the last handful and just shoved two forks and two spoons sideways into the spoons bin.

We have names!  Bryan and I do, I mean.  Olivia calls me mama and she calls Bryan deeda.  Whenever she says "deeda," I say "daddy," and then she refers to him as "dada" for a while instead.  Her default name for him, though, is deeda.  Olivia doesn't really use either name to get our attention, but when she sees pictures, those are the names she uses.

We have a bathroom cupboard that is just Olivia's size.  In it is the trash can and various extra bathroom supplies.  Usually Olivia leaves this cupboard alone, but the other day I discovered her diligently pulling things out.  3 points to the person who can tell me what she got into.  There's a picture below; don't forget the brand!  After the first incident, I put our supplies in plastic tubs.  It slowed her down a bit, but she did figure out how to get one lid off (that's the second pictures below).  Luckily, there's not really anything that's a problem in that cupboard.

Last Saturday we visited the Kleins to help them rearrange rooms in anticipation of their little one's arrival.  The boys carried furniture while us girls went shopping.  :)  In fairness, it was easier to move things without the babies underfoot, and we needed to go to the store to get ingredients for lunch.  When we got to Kroger (side note: They have the most amazing Kroger I have ever seen.  I have Kroger envy.), we decided to put the little girls in one of those car carts instead of pushing two separate carts around the store.  They were super cute, and even made it through the whole trip with no problems.  Eva did bend down too far in the checkout line, getting her head stuck under her steering wheel, and we heard a chorus of "uh-oh!"s as Olivia tried valiantly to rescue her by pulling on Eva's jacket.

This week our dishwasher played "washing machine" (it's a common game; I'm surprised you haven't heard of it) and stopped draining.  Bryan ladled the water out, looked stuff up online, tinkered around a bit, and thinks it might be fixed.  Unfortunately, we have to run it to find out, so I'm saving that for next week's project and just did dishes by hand for a few days.

Pictures:

Our coat rack.  It looks like so many people live here:

Borrowing Eva's chair.  Olivia LOVES this chair; I almost want to buy one for her:

Making a mess.  Twice.

This is what happens when you take a ponytail out -- (no before, sorry) the after and the after after:

Smiling for the camera:

Reading books with Mommy:

Our poor dishwasher.  :(

All the rest of these pictures were taken by Jacob.  I shamelessly stole them from his site, which is a good place to look for other pictures (both of Olivia and of the rest of the family).  This batch is from Christmas at my family's house:

Just hanging out:

The Velveteen Rabbit from Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa Aufdemberge:

Oma made her an icon book:

She rescued William's plug from the floor, but wasn't sure she should give it to him:

Bryan and I were there, too:

Our favorite reaction.  Bryan was proud of this gift:

Oma and Opa might not be SO bad after all: