Olivia Turns One!

Our littlest peanut turned one on Friday. We celebrated with some strawberry cupcakes (way too much work Martha Stewart but they were pretty) and a BBQ night with friends on Thursday. Friday morning we had a big breakfast with Daddy and then Daddy headed off to men's retreat and Aunt Gail came for some more partying. It is so hard to believe she is already one! Here are some photos.

We currently have a strawberry deluge. I made three big batches of jam yesterday, and have used them on cupcakes, in freezer pops, in salads, and on anything else I can thing of.

She's wondering what we are all singing about, but really enjoyed the treat.

The 'big' present - a girlie shopping cart. Abigail also enjoys pushing this around. Her and Olivia do laps around the kitchen/living room, Olivia with her walker and Abigail with the cart. It's pretty adorable.

Abigail really enjoyed opening all of Olivia's presents (but is still learning how to enjoy sharing them with her). She got some presents from the neighbor - a cool pair of sunglasses.

Olivia Walks & Abigail Rides

One might ask what in the world is Jeremy doing. Well, it should be fairly obvious....the red bouncy ball that I found by the side of the road for free and adopted as a backyard toy is also used by Jeremy as a method of toddler amazement as he throws it up in the air as high as it can go and then they all watch it fall. Unfortunately, this time it was thrown a little too high and ended up in the top of our tall pine tree. Jeremy was using the hose to try and blast it down, rather unsuccessfully. However, it continued to provide toddler amusement as the kids thought this was the greatest water adventure since the kiddie pool was invented. They quickly discarded clothes and were screaming around the yard like natives. Who even knows what the neighbors thought, but the mommies were entertained by this spectacle as well.

Abigail is into her Megablocks and this was a recent creation. There was a fort, playground, climbing wall, and swimming pool that My Little Ponies, Dora and Diego were enjoying.

Abigail also has claimed that Olivia said 'taco' the other night. She definitely says 'uh oh' but that's about it - don't know about taco. Olivia is also fairly obsessed with strawberries and watermelon and if they happen to be out and she sees them she starts pointing and making distressed grunting noises until she gets some. I think she ate three pieces of watermelon the other night at dinner.

Today Abigail was guessing where Daddy was at the moment, she guessed that he was out dancing. Well, I doubt that but he was helping some friends move. We are having a typical Saturday here, with a move for Jeremy to help with and a baby shower for me to attend. That's what you get for loving a church that has a sunday school of 30+ couples all having kids at the same time. Actually I love baby showers as they are a chance to celebrate the miracle of new life, spend some time in prayer with other ladies and catch up on life while eating really good food.

Olivia with her walker. She insists this is the best way to carry her baby around as well - looks a little unsafe.

The Heart

Abigail gets most distressed when we leave things out where 'someone might take them'. This includes being very upset when I forget to lock the car doors (which is most of the time) and displayed last week when I left four tomato plants out front to soak up the rain. We had just bought them and were going to plant them later in the week. Anyways she was standing at the front window looking at them and worrying that someone might take them and I was trying to reassure her that no one would and even if they did they probably needed them more than we did when she noticed the mothers day card that I had taped to the front window. She had drawn me a lovely card. It had a small heart on it and so she deduced that when the 'people' came to take the tomato plants they would see the card, look at the heart, and remember to be kind and would leave them alone. Don't know what they would have done from the rest of the card, which included a road (brown dots on the right), snail (blue spiral on the top), and pig (green/purple/brown picture on the bottom left). Did you see how good she is getting at writing her name! She has really progressed in the last few weeks. The letter "g" is tough to get.

We also have a new pet. It's name is Cupcake and it's a spider (or multiple spiders) that live in our living and dining rooms. Abigail named it the other week and gets most excited whenever she sees him/them. He's a pretty cheap pet so far.

Walk for Life

We had a great time at the Walk for Life last Saturday. It was a beautiful day and lots of Abigail's buddies were there to help spur her along. Actually it was more like commiserate together on the length of the walk (but she did make it the whole two miles). Miraculously when we got back to church for lunch and games all of the kids had plenty of energy to enjoy the bounce house. Olivia fell asleep in the carrier for much of the time but did manage a few smiles beforehand (see below). Thanks to all of the family who supported us through the event!

We were one of the last ones to cross the 'finish line' but at least we made it!

Crafts and Water

Abigail has been working on this 3-D craft creation over the past few weeks. Every couple of days she would add more items to the paper, such as feathers, five pounds of foam numbers, a rather large Styrofoam ball, etc. She started out by saying that this was Olivia's birthday card but then decided that it wasn't for this year, but for when Olivia turned 85. I was trying to decide what I was going to do with it until a neighbor down the road needed some cheering up and Abigail, thankfully, was willing to part with the card for a good purpose. I guess Olivia can read this blog posting when she's 85 and reminisce about what her card could have looked like.

One photo of my youngest, who had been happily playing in a puddle of water in our backyard, when she realized just how muddy and wet (and tired)she really was. This was taken at our last Thursday BBQ night. I was putting away food and didn't realize that she had found the puddle until it was too late. I guess this is what happens when you are the 2nd child!

The other photo is how happy we usually see our girl.