the daily

just stuff from our daily adventures. like olive waking up and running her bare feet across the slats of her crib. she goes to sleep with socks on. i come to find her with them off. usually one sock beside her and one sock under the crib.

she loves taking baths. this day we decided to try it without water. just for the fun of the bath toys.

verdict is...

just as good.

if not more fun.

first thing in the morning olive likes to hit the books.

before even getting dressed for the day.

she says "umm... yeah this book is a keeper."

she just recently has taken an interest in her stuffed animals which before might as well have been furniture. now she loves them. we have named them zeek the zebra and lilly the leopard. they happen to each be from her grandmas.

she is obsessed with zeeks mouth, mane and hat.

and lily's everything. she is so soft olive just loves tossing her, squishing her and smooshing her face into lilly's head.

good pals.

on this day i set olive up with some green beans and went to the counter to fix her some sweet potatoes.

i turned around to find this mischievous grin.

because she figured out that when she is done with what is in front of her, she can just toss the rest in the floor and no one will ever know the difference.

too smart for her own good.

olive loves going through the recycling.

she is so environmentally conscious.

and plus it's just fun looking at all the colors, words and pictures. and she can flip it all.

look at this silly grin.

anything and everything is fascinating. including my lens cap.

olive is just too beautiful for words.

she still loves reading.

and she still loves strings. here she has pulled one off the office chair.

olive gets a hold of the tiniest string and you would think she has found treasure. she won't lose it. if she drops it she finds it and picks it back up. the string gets put on everything just to see how it looks. especially zeeks mouth. olive thinks that is hilarious.

sigh....clover

poor ol clover. 

why does everyone want to hold olive and not me?

if i give her kisses will you hold me too?

dad, remember me? your first daughter?

you too can support this poor pitiful dachshund for only $10 a day. your contribution will pay for the hourly wages of someone to come hold clover all day and feed her chicken, carrots, ham and peas. but not lettuce, she hates lettuce.

moving and grooving

the name of the game recently has been movement. olive wants to move so much. she does what she can, and what she can't frustrates her. 

she has learned that propelling herself forward, oftentimes landing flat on her belly, and reaching at her full capacity gives her some extra distance to reach what she wants.

go arms, work for me!

about mid march olive just started rolling from her back to her belly. unheard of before, she avoided being on her belly like the plague. 

she just started rolling to her belly and pushing up.

once she figured it out she did it like 10 times in a row. she was so excited. but she also had red arms and elbows from moving so feverishly.

belly....

to back....

to belly. wow, i must be a big girl!

here is olive's other new thing. looks like a preemptive strike to crawling.

it is mainly rocking forward, putting her weight on her hands, letting her legs slip back, and streeetcccching as far as she can.

it gets the job done for now. at least while she is on the floor.

and of course she still likes standing.

but wishes on every shining star she had the know-how and balance to walk.

come on feet, get moving.

the other day she did something amazing. olive rolled onto her belly and started pushing herself backwards around the room. not on her knees but flat. just pushing backwards.

all around the room she went. like she had been waiting on it forever. she checked out her crib....

under the rocker (don't know why, must be daniel's child), and all the way around to her bookshelf where she stopped and pulled off a book. it was unbelievable. she has not done it much since then. she must have just wanted to prove it to herself for the time being.

and olive is cruising. she will walk all the way around this music table.

check out the sly face on this one!

she will walk from object to object as long as she has something to hold onto.

and if she doesn't have something to hold onto she will hold out her hand to ask for help. you give her your hands and she just keeps going. she weebles and wobbles and... well, sometimes falls down. but she gets back up and that is what is important.