Our little 14 month old

Look out world, Olivia is 14 months and she is on the move!

This month has been a super big one for Olivia, developmentally.  She is doing so many new things.

--We discovered that she knows the actions to pat-a-cake.  We'll have to get it on video because when she does the "rolling" it is pretty funny!
--She loves music and has quite the dance moves!

--Her words include mama, dada, hi, ball
--She can sign milk, more, puppy, water, all done and she also waves hello and good-bye, blows kisses and shakes her head "no," which oftentimes means "yes"
--She loves to eat corn and can polish off a whole cob

--She also loves eating whole peaches

 --Madeline always begs to ride in these shopping carts.  Usually I find some way to talk her out of it.  Those things are not fun to push!  We went to the store one day, Madeline was complaining that her feet were tired, Olivia was cranky because she was hungry and I didn't bring the baby carrier meaning only one of them could ride in the top of the cart.  Low and behold the power of the car shopping cart.  It was an amazingly peaceful shopping trip with two little drivers.

--She has taken off walking

--She had her first sick visit to the doctor and had croup.  She was out of school for two days but bounced back quickly.
--She can get up on the little chairs all by herself.

--This quickly leads to standing on the chairs
--We gave her a spoon for the first time and she did quite well, it probably helped that she had a small serving of chocolate pudding in the bowl.  Although Madeline kept saying, "Sissy, the more you get on your face, the less you get to eat!"

 

 

--She spends all her time in the toddler room at school.  In the evenings they combine the classrooms and the toddlers go to the infant room.  Olivia protests and gets upset when she needs to go to the infant room.  She thinks she is a big girls now!
--She's been cutting her molars and she's had a rough go of it.  The fourth one has almost broken through, so luckily that will be behind us (until next go around!)
--She's a good sleeper (when she's not cutting a tooth!) and moves around a lot.  She's also a very light sleeper, you don't dare go in her room while she's asleep or she will wake up.  She is our early bird and generally wakes for the day around 5:30 or 6

 --One thing you may have noticed from the pictures is that she has turned in to a major "binky baby" as we call her.  She loves to have that thing in her mouth all.the.time.  I really dread having to wean her of it.

 

--She made her first trip to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park where she went 500' in the air on the tethered balloon safari.

 --She still loves playing with these foam shapes.  They were a freebie that we got when we bought her birthday gift and we had no idea how much fun they would be for both girls!

--She has lots of favorite games including chase me up the stairs, let me put my binky in your mouth and this one which is played after bath time.  We twirl in front of the mirrors which always results in giggling.  (Excuse my silly face!!)

I remember from Madeline that this time frame was one of amazing leaps and bounds.  It seems that Olivia is doing something new each day.  I'm sure we will be in for plenty of fun and lots of giggles this month.

Zoo Safari Park

We've been super busy getting the new house ready for move-in.  All the work has led to not much fun family time, so we decided to take Sun off and check out the San Diego Zoo Safari Park.

We arrive shortly after the park opened and enjoyed seeing many of the animals before the crowds got too think (and before the weather turned too steamy!)

Both girls got a kick out of feeding the ducks

Olivia really liked it until one came right up to her feet...then she got a bit scared.

Who's bigger?  Madeline or the gorilla?

Waiting for the balloon to descend so we can hop aboard.

There was an awesome view of the park, but Madeline was most interested in watching the mud from a water main break

All the girls

Bird's eye view of the elephants

Taking a snack break on the tram

We were pretty impressed by the park and I'm sure we will be back many times, especially since our zoo membership covers entrance to the Safari Park, too.

Check-ups

One of the hassles of moving is finding new doctors and then needing to wait forever to get in to see them.  So, we were quite a bit late getting the girls in for their checkups, but we finally got in and  Olivia had her 1 year checkup and Madeline went in for her 4 year checkup today.  Both girls are doing great and growing on track.  We had a number of shots to deal with, but they both were champs and are doing great.

Olivia's stats:

• Weight 22lbs 2.8oz (76%)
• Height: 29in (25%)
• Head: 18.25 (79%)

Madeline's stats:

• Weight: 36.4lbs (60%)
• Height 3'6" (88%)
• BMI 21%

Olivia has been a bit under the weather lately.  She was out of daycare the last two days and I was able to see a new molar popping in....no wonder she is so sad!

In other news, we had family photos taken yesterday.  Olivia wasn't too keen on smiling, but I think we got a few good ones.  We'll find out soon.  Here's a sneak peak, taken with my phone