Olivia and Her First Princess Doll

Thanks to Aunt Becky, Uncle Mark and the kids, Olivia is enjoying her very first princess doll. She loved her right away and seemed to know just how to play with such a special little girl treasure.

Her own vacuum

Thanks to Aunt Suki and Uncle John, Olivia can now vacuum with her very own vacuum!

Christmas Eve photos

Just thought I would post a few photos from Christmas Eve.
For the midwest, it was a sunny mild weathered day. Sure a welcome relief!
 Olivia loved her knit Christmas Eve outfit. We think she thought it was her Elmo Costume.

Silly Silly

Olivia has had the worst case of the sillies lately. We keep trying to figure out who is giving her the silly juice. We hope you enjoy and maybe even laugh along.

Olivia is a WALKER

Olivia has been walking for about a month.  PT thought it would take another 6 months for her to get strong enough, but a couple weeks off gluten after her celiac diagnosis and she was off to the races. This is a longer video, because I wanted to share how long of a time Olivia can walk all over the house.  She very quickly learned her way around the house and all its ins and outs.

Some new photos

I know I don't post much anymore (reasons to many to list)  hopefully I will do better in 2012.

Here are a few photos and some thoughts (Olivia is 2 1/2 now and is a walker inside the home but she has not yet generalized the concept of walking to other locations, except therapy).

Here is a typical dinner or lunch plate for Olivia.  She is a healthy eater.  She will eat nearly all on her plate.  What you are seeing is pureed peas and green beans. She will not eat meat so we do this power protein puree.   Peaches, steamed broccoli, canned organic green beans,  cooked carrots.  Then she will eat about a cup of dry Rice Chex cereal  which we like because they are gluten free and fortified.  (Olivia was diagnosed with Celiac Disease about 5 weeks ago.  I will write about that later.  The diagnosis was  a God Send and her development has taken off in the past month!)  She also drinks fortified Almond Milk with her meal.

Olivia loves her sand table (we use moon sand) and she loves putting it on the floor and "cleaning up".   Funny how a toddler makes more mess when they "clean" than if they just left the mess.   No, the vacuum doesn't actually work. But I sure wish it did!

We bought this two stepped step stool for bathroom handwashing.  A small stool would have been disastrous at this point, but Olivia kept telling us she wanted to wash at the sink, so we bought this wonderful helper.

She still needs adult supervision so that she remembers which end is up.

The BIG smile indicates that Daddy did a really good thing in buying her this stool!
 Independence! With help of course!

Olivia and her New Bike