Olivia Loves....

1. Olivia LOVES to day dream, this occurs a number of times on a daily basis.

As she dreams she races back and forth between between the windows and couch, this activity has been know to go on for over an hour stretch. If you want her attention you almost have to jump in her path, because repeatedly calling her name has no effect, she definitely enters her own little world. When I do get her attention, I will sometimes hear her say "Mom can I please finish this dream." or "Mom can I dream for 5 more minutes."

2. Olivia does not like things to be thrown away, she is a saver on the verge of a hoarder. I have learned that it is better to not ask Olivia to thrown anything in the trash for me, because not only will that item not make it into the trash, but a few other items will be taken out of the trash. Olivia thinks everything should be saved, strawberry stems, scrap paper, rotten food, broken things, pretty much everything. To her credit when I explain to her that that certain item should not be saved she immediately comes up with an explanation of what she plan to do with it..."I'm going to use that in a concoction, I'm going to make an art project with it..."

3. Olivia loves cook books, they really bring her alot of joy. She frequently asks us to get some down for her to look through.

For a while, every night at bedtime she would ask to look through cookbooks with us instead of read stories and would even request that she sleep with one in her bed. That habbit was quickly stopped when we realized she wanted to keep the cook book in bed so she could try to look at it in the dark.

Lyla Loves....

1.Lyla loves her little stroller. She strolls outside with it, takes it on errands, but her favorite is to zip around the house pushing her stroller at quite a fast pace. She  loves to collect random treasures from around the house and take them along with her. There have been a number of times where I am looking for something and finally find the missing item among the many items Lyla has collected in her stroller.

 

2. Lyla LOVES baby chicks, I would have to say it is actually an obsession.  For whatever reason she just loves chicks, and because of the similarity this love also extends to yellow ducks and a small yellow seahorse on one of her puzzles. Whenever she sees one of these animals she becomes so excited and immediately begins clucking. We were walking home a while ago and all of a sudden we heard Lyla clucking, we weren't sure why until we finally found a small stuffed chick toy in the window of an apartment across the street.

 

3. Lyla loves to read books. I feel like we read a lot of books during the day, but even still Lyla can frequently be found by the book shelf flipping through books or collecting a pile of books to bring to me. There are times at night when I know Lyla is very tired and so I will skip reading books before bed and go straight to singing her songs, but exhastion is not a reason to pass up a book and Lyla will repeat again and again "book, book, book" untill I begin to read.

Snow

Olivia has been patiently waiting for snow. She has been talking about sledding and making snow angels since last winter. It's been a very dry winter, but we finally got snow this weekend and she had a blast!

 

 

 

Olivia went out pretty early and it was still freezing cold. The weather was a little too fierce for Lyla, so she stayed home. We took Lyla for a sled ride in the apartment and she had a great time.  

  The afternoon warmed up a little so we decided to go back out for a second round of sledding and take Lyla. Honestly Lyla enjoyed sledding indoors better than outside, but I think she enjoyed trying to eat the snow.

 

 

 

 

Christmas

 

We spent Christmas in Utah this year and really loved being with so much family!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Birthay Lyla!!!

Happy Birthday Lyla!!

 

 

I can't believe our little Lyla turned one. She is such a sweet and joyful little girl, it has been such a blessing this last year to have her as apart of our family. We are all so grateful for her, so it is fitting that her birthday fell on Thanksgiving this year. Her actual birthday was quite busy. My whole family was in New York and so Lyla spent the morning strapped to me as we headed for the Macys Thanksgiving parade.

 

After the parade we all headed to a cabin in the Poconos. Lyla was able to spend some fun time with her cousins.

 

 

 

 

 

Later that weekend we celebrated Lyla's birthday with a little party.

 

Lyla seemed to enjoy her cake, but I'm not sure if she actually made it past the frosting.

 

Olivia has been patiently waiting the past couple months to give Lyla her birthday present. A couple months ago Olivia selected one of her books that she thought Lyla would enjoy and cut, taped and wrapped the gift herself. She has been so excited to give it to her.

 

Happy birthday Lyla! We love you!

 

Halloween

Little Bo Peep and her little lost sheep...

 

                  

 

Election

 My girls have been really excited about the election. The day before the election Olivia told me,"Mom if Mitt Romney wins we'll be happy. If Mitt Romney doesn't win, don't be sad, no crying, be calm. You can follow my example."

The next day Olivia told me, Mom if Mitt Romney doesn't win you still need to be happy. I asked her, if Romney doesn't win why should I be happy? Olivia responded, Because you have two great little girls!