Party

We really wanted to have a birthday party for Olivia. We decided that Olivia would probably have the most fun just having a little celebration with her 2 favorite friends.


I started hanging up some decorations in the morning. Olivia looked at me with a huge smile and said "Thanks for putting up decorations mommy." Later on she thanked me again for all the decorations...those sweet comments definitely made staying up to finish making flowers and balls out of tissue paper well worth it.


We played pin the nose on the clown. The girls loved this game so much we also played pin the button on the clown and pin the hat on the clown. If it were up to the girls this game would have gone on forever, but we ran out of big red circles to stick on the poster.

The fun didn't stop with the clown poster though, and Olivia enjoyed an impromptu game of hind-and-seek.

Next it was time for the pinata. When I made the pinata I had tried to use as few layers of tissue paper as possible, but after 2 rounds of the girls whacking at the pinata they still hadn't made a dent. We decided it was time to take out the scissors and help them along. The girls were so excited when the pinata broke open and all the of surprises came out.

We let the girls frost and decorate their own individual cupcakes before we sang to Olivia. This made the biggest mess ever, but the girls loved it.

After that the girls danced and played and had a great time. Olivia didn't want the party to end.

Olivia's birthday

We really tried to make Olivia's birthday a special day and I think she really enjoyed it. After spending the morning dancing we headed into the city to have breakfast at McDonalds. We haven't been to McDonalds that much, but the few times we have gone Olivia has absolutely loved it. It's not the food that excites her, but it's the huge statue of Ronald McDonald that she loves.


After breakfast we hopped on the subway to the Bronx Zoo. Olivia loves animals and going to the zoo seems to be a birthday tradition since we took her to the Central Park Zoo on her first birthday.



Before we left I asked Olivia what animal she wanted to make sure she saw while at the zoo. She said the zebras. However, when we went to see the zebras she said she wanted to leave because they scared her. I asked her why she was scared since she hadn't shown any fear to any of the other animals, including the roaring lion. She said the zebras where going to eat her,which may have had to do with the fact that the zebras where eating grass at the time and she must have thought she was next. The picture above is Olivia trying to scare the zebras so they wouldn't eat her.


The Bronx Zoo was really amazing and we all had a great time. While we were leaving I asked Olivia which was her favorite animal. She said the hippopotamus, the only problem was that we didn't see any hippopotamus at the zoo. There were some large red river hogs that she may have mistaken as a hippopotamus. Judging by her reactions I would say the animals she enjoyed seeing the most were the lions and the tiny monkeys that were swinging all over the trees-she thought the monkeys were so funny.
For lunch we went to the buffet at the grocery store next door to our apartment. Olivia is always excited at the opportunity to eat at the grocery store. We explained to Olivia that since this was her special day she could look at all the food from the buffet and choose whatever she wanted for lunch. This is what she chose-tilapia, mashed potatoes, carrots and strawberries. She ate everything except the carrots, there was a lot of pepper on them and she said they were too spicy.

Olivia had banana cupcakes and rainbow chip frosting-her choice.

The frosting all over face isn't really from her eating the cupcake as it is from the fact that she wanted to make frosting mustaches.

We got Olivia a tricycle for her birthday. Her legs aren't quite long enough to make a full rotation on the tricycle, but she still enjoys being pushed around and she loves ringing the bell.

4th of July

Our little patriotic girl may have been born a day early, she loves to talk, sing and learn about America.

We bought her an American flag, which she loves. We didn't bring it with us on our way to church, but as we were walking to the subway Olivia would get sooo excited every time she saw the flag and she would say "American flag, I have the same one!" I asked her where her flag was and she told me she left it at home.

Happy 2nd Birthday Olivia!!!!!!

Olivia is now 2 years old! I can't believe how quickly time has passed. There are countless things that we love about Olivia, but we wanted to remember 10 of the things that we love about Olivia at this stage of her life. We asked my sister to come up from North Carolina to take pictures of Olivia to document the beginning of Olivia's 2nd year. We are so grateful that she was able to come up and take these wonderful pictures.



1. Olivia is the most loving little girl. Olivia loves to give hugs and kisses and she always tells us that she loves us. I love when we will be in the middle of doing something and all of a sudden she will stop and say "I love you."

2. Olivia loves to say "thank you." She doesn't miss an opportunity to say thank you and says thank you for everything. Sometimes when she says thank you she gives a look that she knows she is doing something good and she is pleased.

3. We love Olivia's beautiful smile, but we also love her fake smile, which includes showing every tooth in her mouth and squinting her eyes as hard as possible.

4. Olivia has a great love of learning. Olivia is very eager to know what everything is- she has always been this way. She likes to have you explain everything to her and simple explanations will not do, she asks for details.

5. This little girl loves to sing. Throughout the day I am always hearing her sweet little voice singing a song. Some of the more frequent songs we hear her spontaneously sing are "America the beautiful," "Popcorn popping," "Jesus wants me for a sunbeam," and "If you're happy and you know it."

6. Olivia loves to have everyone included. I think her favorite words are "together" and "everyone." If dad gives Olivia a hug, Olivia wants dad to give mom a hug and then mom to give Olivia a hug. If Olivia is jumping, drawing, drinking water,....she wants us to do it all together.

7. Olivia is very silly. Olivia loves life, loves to be silly and loves to make us laugh.

8. Olivia has a wild imagination. Just today we spilled water on the floor and Olivia started wiping up the water with a towel using her feet scooting back and forth. I said "Olivia that is so nice that you are wiping up the water." She said "No, I'm ice skating."

9. Olivia is crazy about dancing. If she hears the slightest beat she starts dancing away. I love when she's in her stroller and someone's cell phone goes off, someone drives by with their radio on or someone walks by whistling...I know when I look in Olivia's stroller she will be rocking out.

10. Olivia likes to give explanations. She says "like this" as she gives you an explanation. This week Olivia was drawing a picture, and I asked what she was drawing and she said "swords" and then she said "like this" as she grabbed an empty wrapping paper tube and started showing me how to use a sword.

Olivia we love you so much, these last two years have brought us so much joy!

Visiting Cousins

Olivia was in heaven last week when her cousin Belle came to visit. They had a wonderful time together. There was a lot of laughing, copying each other and dancing.


I wish I would have grabbed my video camera when Belle was reading this book to Olivia. Olivia was laughing so hard I was worried she might fall out of her chair.


Olivia didn't want Belle to be out of her sight for one second. If Belle started walking toward the kitchen or anywhere else Olivia would start to chase after her and repeat over and over "come Belle."
As an added bonus Olivia's other cousin Ruby came to visit for a couple of days. Olivia also enjoyed Ruby's company...she liked to try to carry Ruby around, give her hugs and alert us when Ruby was crying. Since we were lucky enough to have family visiting we had an early birthday celebration for Olivia. Olivia was sure excited to have so much family in town-she loved every minute!