Easter and Baby Dedication April 2010

Here are some new pictures from Easter and Olivia's church dedication day.

Olivia Jayne 14 Months.

Olivia is 14 months old now! I really can't believe it. She is such a joy and I thank God daily for trusting her to me and Sam and adding her to our family. Her are some fun things about Olivia. She says hi to everyone! Especially old men and young (4-8ish) kids at Walmart! It is so funny. Today at Flap Jacks (hers and our favorite breakfast/lunch spot) she was mesmerized by this cute little boy sitting at the table next to us. Some of her other favorite things are dogs. I'm not quite sure why this is. We are total cat people (we have two cats) and she likes our cats, but LOVES dogs. She can hear a dog bark houses away and in response will bark. She also loves loves loves this you tube video Sam found of dogs and asks for it by barking first thing every morning. We have to limit the amount of times she can watch it and do so by saying one time Olivia and she will show us one finger. Then at the end we say bye bye to the dogs. Olivia also loves to be outside. This has been consistent since she was a baby. Many of you know she was a very fussy, colicky baby and one thing that did calm her down was taking her outside even in the cold March weather. She would just look around and stick her tongue out and taste the wind. She still loves to be outside. We have a slide for her and she loves to pick flowers and eat mulch. Her and I have been trying to grow a watermelon plant that we will eventually transfer into our garden and some snap dragons. We also go to the park frequently where she loves to slide. Some other skills she is developing is her ability to feed herself. She loves it when I let her use her spoon on her own. Accuracy is another story, but she gets the concept. I am 4 1/2 weeks away from my due date. We have the new baby's room about 75% done. We have weaned Olivia off her bottles in preparation for this little one. She is sleeping through the night about 85% of the time. When you ask her where her brother is she pulls up my shirt and loves to hug and kiss my belly. I don't think she has a clue actually what a "brother" is and will be in complete shock once I bring home this little baby, but for now she loves him. :) I'm worried about how having this new baby to care for will effect her. She is still very demanding of my time and sometimes will bawl at my legs when I'm cooking in the kitchen or something and can't pick her up or devote 100% of my attention to her. It breaks my heart, but I know she needs to learn to be more independent. (First child syndrome I suppose). I pray for an easy transition for her. I will keep you all posted.

What's in a name?!?

Ok. I guess I should explain the title. Mind you I hadn't really thought about it until I was mid blog set up, so it is just what came to me when I thought of my kid(s) and things I would be blogging about. It may change someday, but for now it is fitting.
Terms of endearment. (Does this thing spell check for me? I hope so) I generally refer to Olivia with a variety of terms of endearment.... sometimes a string of multiple ones. Princess, peanut, pumpkin pie all together is a common one. Plus I call this little boy in my belly peanut too. (I know this could be confusing and cause identity crisis in the future, but I'll figure out who is who later.) Obviously Olivia is princess, baby boy Drisko is peanut and pumpkin pie kinda ties it up. Living, loving and learning as we go is my mantra right now. Olivia has proved to be a wonderful blessing and challenge and I don't always know what I'm doing or even where to start but we just try to live our life, always show her love and learn the trick of the trade as we go. It is great to see things we are trying to implement actually working. Such as, I have been doing sign language with her since about 6 months. Forever and ever she showed no interest or desire for using this and I gave it up for a while, but all of the sudden in the past month or two she is really functionally using several signs. This is great to help her express her needs and wants and decrease the crying, fits and meltdowns. She is learning new signs every week and it is great for her to be able to communicate a little bit even though she doesn't talk yet. I'm so proud of her. Anyways, we are in full force get ready mode for Peanut. Bedroom was painted this week, crib is up. Clothes are being separated/washed and digging out some "gender neutral" clothes from Olivia's tubs. 6.5 weeks to go!