What did you say???

Yes, it has begun... The start of her communicating and the introduction to endless chatter. We "think" we are ready for it...if ever I need a break I will come back to this spot here and remember the feeling of wonder as Olivia begins communicating with us.

A few months ago (around the 5 month mark) I started signing to Olivia. Now admittedly I did a mediocre job of it but I have learned around 25 words that we refer to often...
- diaper
- dirty
- change (you can see a pattern here)
- hungry
- beautiful
- milk
- more
- finished
- jump
- walk
- no
- stop
- bath

As you can see, its words that we would use often and its our way of hopefully giving her the ability to tell us what she wants rather then the other way around.

So 2 days ago (Wednesday) Livy wasn't feeling well. Slight fever and cranky like I've never seen her. She would cry in my arms and wouldn't let me stop pacing let alone sit, put her down or heaven forbid I leave the room. I decided to give her just a little bit of ice cream more hoping that the cool spoon would feel good on her top teeth (that are currently bulging to come through). After having a taste she started crawling to the bowl for more. I, as usual made the symbol for 'more', put her two hands together in the best motion possible that you can do with an 8 month old, and gave her a bit more. We did this again and again. On the 5th or 6th taste I she did it on her own (amazing how ice cream is a great motivator).

Thus, she now tells us if she wants more. She won't make the gesture if/when she's done. We're working on 'finished' but its a bit more subtle although she does tend to smile when I gesture and say finished if she's indeed finished.

Here's today's video clip of Olivia asking for more (breakfast, toast with jam).

Happy Birthday Renee

So today is my birthday. Yesterday (since it was a Saturday) we had my party. After stumbling across a painting show (The Best of the Joy of Painting with Bob Ross) I told Dwayne that I wanted to do a painting party for my birthday. So we got a bunch of painting supplies and away we went. In the end we had 9 painters (a few more than I thought but we certainly made it work).

Here's a few pics of the process and the completed projects as of today (some still need to be finished but they still look great).
Here we are just starting out.













And here we are in the process...










































Singing Happy Birthday is sooo bitter sweet.














Here's everyone's finished and almost finished products.














Kayreen's unfinished painting




















Here's Alysha's




















Kurtis' unfinished product.




















Dwayne's masterpiece.




















Monique still needs to finish but looking great so far.




















Nora did a great job.




















Kristin's painting



















And finally here's mine.





















We had so much fun and we can't wait to do it again!! (beware to all those who know us because you'll be next).

Happy Month-Day Olivia

Yes, Olivia officially turns 8 months old today (calendar month that is) and we've included a video of her to showcase her cuteness.

A bit of a description, Olivia has started doing this squinting thing. She does it when she laughs and she does it when she fake-cries. Its much easier to get her to fake cry so that's what we managed to get on video. In saying that, she was doing it when I pulled out the camera to video her and once the camera was on her she stopped. It took a full 2 minutes of recording (and her looking into the lens) before she started her 'fake cry' (she's a camera glam).

She's Crawling!!

While I can say that on Thursday (April 8th) she did crawl a very short 'crawl' it wasn't until today that I will officially say that Olivia is crawling. Its wobbly but it was definitely a crawl (with intent and actual ground covered).

On another note, as of a few days ago Livy started clapping. Yesterday she was clapping on demand as well as waving 'bye bye'. While the wave comes and goes its pretty easy to get her clapping. Here's the video of her doing both.




PS - this is officially the 100th post and as such I think it deserves a glass of wine in celebration.

Growing up is hard to do

We're back with a short video clip of Olivia. Here she is debuting her efforts at standing.

Today saw both a few highs and lows as Livy took a nasty spill cutting the inside of her mouth and giving herself a bit of a bruise near her eye (tomorrow will tell how bad it ends up).

Here's a quick picture of the bruising a few hours after the crash.

You can see a line from the corner of her mouth where she hit the edge near her mouth and a few additional bruises along the rest of the face. The good news is by the time I got around the corner to pick her up (screaming at the top of her lungs with a mouth full of blood) there she was trying to pull herself up into a standing position again. AND, while we both waited out her cries of pain in my arms she kept trying to get down so that she could get back to standing/walking some more (suffice to say my hamstrings have been getting a great work out the last 2+ weeks or so since Livy has figured out "one foot in front of the other").



Here's our little trooper putting a show on for us after her crash. Fortunately she learned a few things - a little bit of caution and how to get down from a standing position properly.

Odds and Sods

Here's a bunch more odds and sods we've taken the last week or so. With such a great little model its so hard to not snap away (Olivia makes for an easy target too).

Here's a position we keep finding Livy in as she works towards standing. We realized it on Friday (April 2nd) when she was at her Aunties that she 'can' pull herself up as long as she has the right support (a sturdy ottoman). So on Monday we pulled our ottoman over to her play area and though we were gone until today she wasted no time in using it wisely.




















Livy happily playing in her play area.


































































A few shots of Livy which started out because I thought she was so cute with food all over her face. It quickly turned into a shot of her, uhem, doing her business at the kitchen counter.








































From April 5-7th Dwayne, Livy and I went up to the Callaghan Lodge for a few nights with friends. It was a 13 km ski in and we enjoyed some of the trails once there for a day before skiing out again the next day.




































































































































Here's a few more photos of Olivia after she took her spill today (see next post). She's a trooper - despite the bruises (not to mention the blood and tears) she still has a smile in there for when the camera comes out!