July 8-15

I added a few photos and a video to last week's post about Florida.

This week...

I decided we needed video documentation of Olivia's most recent dances.  She was kind enough to oblige me by performing both types in quick bursts while I was filming.  The swaying that she starts with was her favorite dance for quite a while, but she's since moved on to favor the arm swinging that you see at 5 seconds.  You'll notice that this video, as do many featuring Olivia, ends with her trying to take the camera.

Olivia's Evolving Dance Moves

On Thursday, Olivia and I drove to Lima to visit my pianist friend, Elesha, and her son, Gideon.  Elesha and I had decided that we needed a new project now that the concerto competition has been done for a few months.  I packed up Olivia, my viola, and all my music, and off we went.  With 2 babies (Gideon is 6 months old), we didn't get much done.  We played through one piece twice.  It was fun to hang out, even though we didn't get to play very much.  We did listen to recordings of a few of the pieces and picked two to work on so that we're not mostly sight-reading the next time we get together to pretend to play.

Olivia was making faces at Elesha, and I kept telling her to do it again so that I could take a picture.  The one on the right captured the scrunched up nose pretty well, although the shadow kind of ruins the effect.

Still having little concept of size and space, Olivia explores every nook and cranny she can see.  She's wedged herself between the end table and the wall, between the stroller and the fireplace (quite rewarding, because once she gets through the space opens up into, well, a fireplace, and she can sit and play in there), and, pictured below, between the computer desk and the television.

Watch for a Bonus Post on Wednesday this week.  :)

July 1-8

We're back from Florida and none the worse for it!

Last Sunday we arrived at the airport to catch the first of two quick flights.  The weather was bad, so our flight was delayed by about 20 minutes.  After a very brief layover in Atlanta, we hopped on our second flight and arrived safely in Florida by about 11:30.  Olivia was too busy people watching to sleep, so she pushed her normally 7:00 bedtime back until we left Atlanta at 10.  At least she was happy.

Upon arriving in Florida, we were greeted at the airport by a helpful young man who ran right up to us and offered to help us with our bags.  Bryan gave him a strange look and declined.  The stranger then turned to me and said, "Your dad's waiting outside" before walking away.  Bryan gave me a questioning look, and I decided that perhaps that was my cousin, Nathan.  Sure enough, dad WAS outside, and we all hopped in the truck for the drive to the hotel.  Bryan looked up into the front seat and introduced himself: "Hey, guy I've never met before, I'm Bryan."  Nathan realized he had forgotten to introduce himself to us, dad was surprised that we didn't recognize Nathan, and I pointed out that the last time I'd seen Nathan was 6 years ago when he was 10.  It made for a good story.

Monday morning Bryan, Olivia, and I had breakfast with Uncle Steve and Aunt Donna before heading over to the zoo that was my grandparents' house.  Their house (as well as Uncle Paul and Aunt Char's house across the street) was full, so we stayed at a hotel until the last day.  Every night someone would take us back to our hotel and then come pick us up the next morning.  Tuesday morning we decided to walk back since it wasn't too far away.  Unfortunately, there were more turns involved than I thought.  That turned out to not matter much, though, since I started us going the wrong direction on the first street.  After walking for a bit, we called and asked if we were supposed to be passing City Hall.  No.  So we turned around, and by the time we were a few blocks past our hotel in the other direction, Nathan and Jillian had been dispatched to escort us the rest of the way.

Painted Toes

The week was filled with a lot of spending time with relatives (obviously).  :)  We attended a ceremony for the Rededication of Wedding Vows, went the the beach, swam in the pool, took pictures between the palm trees, walked to the pier to watch the sunset...  Bryan hung out with the boys, taught them Axis and Allies, went skeet shooting, participated in an air soft battle, and helped uproot a large plant that grandma didn't want in her front yard anymore.  Olivia refused to be held by people most of the time, which we blamed on the fact that she was too busy being nosy to sleep.  Her Aunt Jacque did manage to get her to sit still long enough to paint her toes, though.  :)

Dinner every night was after Olivia's bedtime, but she toughed it out.  She usually seemed okay when she was eating, but as Bryan pointed out, "She's not necessarily happy, but she can't cry when her mouth is full." She's going to be the roly-poly-est baby ever.

Saturday we were up dark and early so that we could catch a 5:30 flight home.  My mom drove us to the airport and we reversed Sunday's trip, complete with a sleeping baby and a short layover in Atlanta.  Olivia woke up from her nap for the second flight and we were home before some of the Floridians were awake.  We stayed the rest of the weekend at Bryan's parents' house and finally made it back to our house Sunday night, where we found a large tree branch blocking our front porch.  Fortunately, that was the only damage from the previous week's storm.

Jacob was playing with his new toy while we were in Florida, so he has quite a few pictures up on his website.  I stole a few for this post, but perhaps he will share a link in the comments so that everyone can see the rest.

Pictures and Video:

June 24-July 1

The Springfield Symphony Orchestra has an opening for a princess violist.  This is good news because it means I have something to practice for again, and I might actually get in.  This is bad news because it means I have to get my act together and practice.

The Olivia update:
Within the past two weeks, Olivia has been...
~Crouching and/or bending to pick things up from a standing position (instead of sitting down, picking up the object, and then standing back up).
~Grinding her 4 teeth together.  It makes a terrible noise and is very obnoxious.
~Sleeping through the night from 7-7 (or 6:30-6:30, depending on the night).  Yay!
~Using a clothes basket as a walker (pictures below).
~Standing by herself for seconds at a time.  She has no idea she does this, though.
~Trying to return things to their former state.  For example, she pulls her barrette out and then tries to put it back in.  Or she takes all the cards out of Bryan's wallet and then tries to shove them back inside.  She's not coordinated enough to actually fix anything yet, but she's trying.
~Opening and closing phones.  She's mastered my flip phone AND Bryan's slide phone.
~Climbing on things.  Little things, like violin and viola cases, laptop computers, and obligingly low parental laps.
~Combining sounds.  No longer content to repeat one sound constantly (dadadada), she now combines many sounds to construct sesquipedalian utterances of the unintelligible variety.
~Sleeping on her stomach.  Since she became proficient at rolling over, she's been sleeping like a little devoutly exhausted Muslim.
~Getting a tan.  Due to all the walks we take, her arms are getting quite brown, with the exception of around the wrists and elbows where her fat rolls create an interesting tan line.
~Saying "aught!"  As in "the gold medal class of aught 5," which is as close as I can come to spelling the sound she makes.  She learned it from Bryan, who says it whenever he walks into a room and sees her (or she crawls in and sees him).  Now we're to the point where she'll crawl into a different room and when I follow her she'll say "aught!" as soon as I come into her line of vision.  She also says it when she follows me (or Bryan) into a room.

Thursday night Bryan went to someone else's Man Night.  For those of you who don't know, Bryan began holding Man Night at our apartment when I had orchestra.  This now continues even when I don't have orchestra during the summer, but it's not always at our house since I'm around to stay with Olivia.  Bryan being gone meant that I needed a project.  Conveniently (I suppose), my wallet decided to fall apart earlier in the week, so my project was to make myself a new wallet.  It turned out rather well, if I do say so myself.  Pictures are below.

Saturday we went to the zoo with our friends.  It was Olivia's first trip to the zoo.  I remembered my camera and took pictures, but don't have time to upload them for this post.  I'll put them up in a later post.  Remembering my camera was more important than it might seem, because we noticed when we left that our car was close enough to 200,000 miles to roll over while we were on our way home from the zoo!  And we had the camera with us!  There was much excitement, and I took a video for those of you that want to appreciate the occurrence as much as I did.  :)

Next week's post might be late, as we leave today for a week in Florida with my Dad's family.  Should be fun.  And hot.  We're looking forward to seeing all of them, though, and should have interesting stories when we come back.

Pictures and Video:

June 17-24

The Promised "Day in the Life" Post:

6:45 - I get up and savor a few minutes of quiet.  During these minutes, I remember that I want to do a "Day in the Life" post, and grab my camera.  It's Thursday, for those who care about WHICH day in the life this is.

7:00 - Olivia wakes up in her room seconds before the alarm goes off in our room.  She is content to play in her crib until she hears Daddy walking to the bathroom.  "Other people are out of bed, I need to be out of bed, too!"

7:10 - I go in to rescue Olivia from her crib; she does her good-morning march from the corner nearest the door to the corner nearest the curtain that I always open before picking her up.  After a quick breakfast ("No pictures now, I'm famished!") we head over to the basket of diapers and ponder our choices.  Black it is.  Apparently this is a "shake before wearing" diaper.  Who knew.

7:25 - A new shirt for Olivia and then we're on our way to my bedroom.  We got distracted when we discovered Daddy brushing his teeth in the bathroom.  Okay, NOW to my bedroom.  Olivia explores while I get dressed.

7:35 - The three of us head downstairs for prayers.  Then we all go outside so that Olivia and I can wave while Daddy drives away.

7:45 - Time to make the bed and then write a brief shopping list.  Bryan had mentioned to me that he would be bringing a coworker home for lunch, so Olivia and I decided to walk to Kroger to get some salad makings.

8:00 - Shoes for me, pants for Olivia, and into the wrap we go.  (Side note: I don't like mirror pictures.  I find them difficult to take and unsatisfactory to look at.)  No pictures of the walk because I didn't want to bring the camera and my phone was dead.  Here's a satellite image of the route we took, though, courtesy of Google.

9:00 - We're back from our walk and one of us is cranky.  No time for pictures, just straight into bed for a nap.  I tidy up the house a bit and then head to the computer to check email and start the blog post.  I also pan fry some chicken for lunch and try out a new recipe I have for Yogurt Cake.

11:30 - After her longest morning nap ever, Olivia wakes up, ready to play.  I rescue her from her crib once again and we head to the kitchen to sample the yogurt cake.

11:40 - Time to play!  The best game is throwing a ball, pointing at it, and then chasing said ball.  Also fun is seeing how many different rooms one can explore in thirty seconds.  Bonus points if you explore the rooms while chasing the ball.

12:00 - Bryan thought he'd be home for lunch around 12:15, so I head to the kitchen to make some salad dressing and get all the toppings out.  My faithful puppy daughter follows me and plays with the refrigerator magnets.

12:05 - They're here early!  We meet Rafe and it's time for lunch.  Olivia's typical maneuver is to eat the Cheerios on her tray and toss everything else on the floor.  She'll eat whatever I put in her mouth, but she will only feed herself Cheerios.  In an odd turn of events, she will also eat things she finds on the floor while playing, even if those things aren't food.  Today, however, she eats raspberries, chicken, and yogurt cake off her tray in addition to the Cheerios.  She tries a lettuce leaf, but spits it out and then throws it on the floor.  Hey, you can't like all the food on the first try.  Your parents might get ideas.

1:00 - Olivia is being surprisingly crabby seeing as she just woke up from her last nap an hour and a half ago.  I clear the table while Olivia explores the cupboards in the kitchen.  She can't understand why some of them won't open for her.

1:15 - We go into the middle room to play for a bit.  She pulls all her books off her bookshelf.  Twice.

1:30 - The crabbiness cannot be put off any longer.  A snack and a nap seem in order, so I take Olivia into her room and put her in bed.  She plays happily for a bit, which is normal.  Generally this is my sewing or reading time, but I tend to wait until she falls asleep, especially if I'm sewing.  I read and wait and read and wait and read and wait...

2:30 - Nap still un-taken, but in a decidedly better mood, Olivia decides she's had enough of her crib.  There's only one thing she can really reach, and she's already emptied the whole basket of burp cloths onto the floor.  Time to be out!

2:35 - To the front door to check the mail!  It was not as picture worthy as I might have hoped, but Olivia always enjoys the daily adventure to the mailbox anyway.

2:40 - We head back to the kitchen where Olivia helps me unload the dishwasher and then plays Godzilla to the juice bottles' Tokyo while I reload the dishwasher.

2:50 - I have a few dishes to hand wash, so Olivia head back to previously explored cupboards and discovers a green bib to play with.

3:05 - Kitchen chores done, it's back to the middle room for some playing.  Olivia plays with her books, pull all the scarves off the bottom shelf of another bookshelf, chases some duct tape around the room, and discovers that the rubber bottom comes off of the 3-hole punch.  She also learns that those little circles that fall out aren't nearly as tasty as they look.

3:55 - We snuggle up on the couch for a bit. Olivia is worn out because she skipped her nap, so she is content to nurse and then just hang out on my lap while I read for a while.

4:30 - Enough snuggling!  More things must be explored!  For example, how do these wooden blocks of Daddy's taste?  And would you like to try one?  Also, I think Mommy organized this cupboard wrong.  Then it's more chasing balls around the living room.

5:00 - Time to go outside and wait for Daddy to get home!  We head to the porch to sit on the swing and enjoy the fresh air.

5:15 - There's the car!  And there's a foot.

5:16 - There's Daddy!  He and Olivia play a little bit before he goes in to change out of his work clothes.

5:20 - We follow Daddy inside and Olivia discovers him in the bedroom where she sits on the bed and promptly begins her late afternoon ritual of dismantling his wallet.  She's getting pretty good at pulling things out and handing them to whoever happens to be sitting nearby.

5:45 - Daddy brought a tuxedo cupcake home from work.  It is sugary and delicious.

6:00 - Time for a bath and then a little more playing with Daddy before bed.

6:30 - One tired little girl goes to bed.  Bryan does computery things while I make dinner.  We eat, watch some How I Met Your Mother, and wait for our overnight guests to come (we have some friends who live in North Carolina and crash at our house when they make the trip to Michigan to visit their families a couple of times a year) so that we, too, can call it a night.