Olivia turns 3

Olivia turned 3 in October. 

She got this little kitchen from us for her birthday.  She loves it.  I'll admit that I had a few regrets when I opened the box at 8pm the night before and realized what a project it would be to put it together!  Thankfully Garrett got home soon after I started and we had it done by 10:30 or 11.

She loves to climb onto ledges (like at Costco) and say "Mom, take a picture of me!"

We really enjoyed the mild fall here - I'm pretty sure this was taken in November.  We were at a little playground by the lake.

She is surprisingly pretty good at checkers - she understands the rules.  It won't be long before she's beating me, I think.

We love our little Olivia.  She is hilarious, good natured, and brings such a joy to our home!  She says the funniest things, too.... more so than either of the older girls ever did.  She is smart, a little bit sassy, and talks up a storm to anyone.  She loves going to the kids club at the gym, and complains when I pick her up "too early" (after an hour).  She will do anything for a treat, or for iPad time.  She loves to pretend she's a kitty.  She can write her name.  She loves to be the one to hand the receipt to the guy at the exit at Costco.  She loves to play around on the piano and sing.  Her favorite shows are Clifford, and Barbie, and Bo on the Go (all on Netflix).   We go to story time at the library every Tuesday and Thursday, which she loves, and she has yoga on Monday and Friday mornings. She still says her best friends are Kinley (from FL), Eli (from FL), and JB (cousin in TX).  She adores her older sisters.  She likes to be silly.  Whenever we play the board game "Trouble", she wants to be the red one because it's the "evilest".  

We love you, Olivia!!

Olivia's cast

I never really blogged about what happened to Olivia's arm earlier this summer.

It's not really an exciting story; Abbie was playing with her in the bedroom and must have pulled on her arms a little too hard when she was pulling her up.  Olivia came out of the bedroom crying but I didn't pay too much attention to it because she never cries for more than 30 seconds about anything.  However, a few minutes later she was still crying, and not swinging her arm as she was walking around.  Abbie also seemed pretty quiet and worried, so I asked about what happened.  Turns out that Abbie heard a little "pop" noise when she lifted Olivia up.  Thankfully Garrett was home, and he said that it was probably "nursemaid's elbow", meaning that her elbow popped out of place and just needed to pop back in.  He fixed it once as an intern (4 years ago), so first he brushed up on his knowledge about it (thanks, YouTube - ha!).

Just as Garrett was about to manipulate her arm back, there was a knock at the door.  It was our neighbors asking if we wanted to go for a walk, and thankfully the wife was a current intern!  Unfortunately though, she also hadn't ever really fixed nursemaid's elbow, but it was really nice to have HER hold Olivia so I didn't have to.

Garrett did a few manipulations but Olivia didn't stop whimpering.  Normally if it's nursemaid's elbow, the kid is fine immediately after the elbow is put back into place.  We called a few friends who live in our neighborhood (a pediatrician, and a physician's assistant), and they both recommended we take her in to get looked at.

Garrett took her to the pediatric ER (pretty much the best thing EVER - you call ahead and they are ready for you when you show up, plus we only have to pay the $25 copay instead of a normal ER visit).  They sent him home, though, and said to come back the next day if she was still in pain.

The first thing I heard Olivia say the next morning when she woke up was "ow! ow! ow!" Poor little thing.  I took her to get some x-rays.  Thankfully Garrett knew when we were there so he had one of his colleagues pull up the film and read it right away, and he texted me with the results before we even left the x-ray room.  No break, but there might have been a fracture that couldn't be detected.  They told me to take her to her pediatrician to see what she recommended.  I'm still not really sure why we had to do this, I don't remember... seemed like an unnecessary step but I really don't want to be one of "those" people.

The pediatrician told us the results of the x-rays (she didn't know i already knew them), and then she recommended we go to an orthopedist and see what they recommended.

So, back to the hospital ortho center!  They ended up casting it, obviously. Normally they would just splint it, but babies/toddlers don't do well with splints apparently.  They told me to come back in a week for more x-rays.  The whole thing was precautionary anyway, since nothing really showed up on the xray.  Olivia was just in pain though.

A week later, more x-rays.  Nothing was different, so they recommended two more weeks with a cast (they said that after 3 weeks total, anything that could have been wrong would be as good as new, even if we couldn't exactly see if anything was wrong.).  That was frustrating because I would have rather been told 3 weeks from the beginning so I didn't have to bring my 3 kids to the ortho center for 3 hours, plus pay a $30 copay, if they knew they were going to say 2 more weeks anyway!  I also didn't like the second cast that they put on her - it seemed a lot bulkier than the first one.  Oh well.  I really liked her orthopedic surgeon.  Turns out he did his residency in Madison a few years ago and couldn't stop raving about it!  He was really excited that we are moving there.

So anyway, that's the LONG story of Olivia getting her cast.  She did a great job with it and only complained a few times.  She also was VERY aware that she was not allowed to get her cast wet, and every time she saw water she said "cast wet, cast wet!" and backed away.  It also added a bit to the adorable-ness factor, not that she needed it.  It was definitely a conversation-starter with strangers.

Little model

As I have finished my quilts, I photograph them before listing them for sale.  Olivia always takes the opportunity to pose for the camera, every single time.  She's my little Vanna White!

Lately

We've had some cold weather lately, resulting in some.... interesting outfits that Ellie has put together.

Finding books.... er, DVD's.... at the library:

Olivia, looking cute as always:

My friend put together a "boot camp" during the second week of Christmas vacation.  We met every morning at 9 a.m. for a 20-45 min workout.  It was a lot of fun!  And really hard because another friend of mine was "making" me run 3-5 miles with her almost every night that week too.

This was probably my favorite workout -- she called it "12 Days of New Years" and we did it on New Years Day.  There are 12 exercises listed and we did them just like the song, so:
Round 1 - we did lunges to the half court line.
Round 2 - we did sprints to the half court line and back twice, and then the lunges to the half court line
Round 3 - 3 burpees, the 2 sprints, 1 set of lunges
Round 4 - 4 plank walk-outs, 3 burpees, 2 sprints, 1 set of lunges
etc.

Olivia with her bed hair:

Ellie helping Garrett fix her bike:

Abbie, ready for a chilly ride to school:

First birthday

Olivia turned one year old last week!

Garrett wasn't around for her actual birthday so we celebrated a few days early by doing a fun little "photo shoot" in the back yard.  I will have to share some outtakes in another post because there are some good ones!  That little tutu she is wearing was a recent yard sale find by my friend.  She only has boys but she bought it for Olivia because she just couldn't resist.  Apparently an old woman was selling a bunch of her daughter's hand made clothes from 60 years ago or something. So, I guess you could say it's "vintage"... it's also too small and is being held together by a very large safety pin in the back! ;)

Here's a little "behind the scenes" photo.  I bought those large flowers at Michaels almost a year ago.  They were in the "as is" section because they had been opened or the box was ripped or something.  Anyway they were only $5 instead of $20 and I knew I could use them for something.


We also gave Olivia a slice of cake and she was not shy about eating it up!  She loved it.

We feel SO lucky and blessed to have Olivia in our family.  She adds so much to our family.  She is happy and easygoing and just such a joy to be around.  She loves her sisters and is definitely a Daddy's girl.  When Garrett comes home from work, she can't get to him fast enough!  Once, I was standing holding her when he walked into the room and she practically jumped out of my arms so she could crawl over to him.  We love it.

I also love the sound of her little hands pattering around the house.  She's not walking yet but she's such a fast crawler and her hands make a little smacking sound on the wood floors that is so cute.  I can always hear where she is or where she is headed.

She is not shy about letting us know when she wants something.  She yells if she's not getting what she wants right now, so needless to say she usually gets it.  Both Abbie and Ellie practically wait on her hand and foot.

Olivia loves to eat.  She eats pretty much everything but seems to especially love cheese, avocados, bread, broccoli, yogurt, and peas.  I really don't think there's anything she won't eat yet at this point.

She sleeps in her crib for naps during the day (still two, thankfully!) but at night she sleeps in her pack & play in the playroom (the crib is in the girls' room).

Olivia loves our almost-daily walks around the neighborhood.  She will sit happily in her stroller for over an hour as long as we are moving along.

I can't believe it was a whole year ago that she was just a tiny dark haired beauty:

And now she's a beautiful blonde almost-toddler!

Happy Birthday, little Olivia.  We love you!!

Check-ups

Olivia had her 9-month appointment last week (she was just a few days shy of being 10 months old on the day of her appt).

Everything is looking good!  She's moving right along on the growth chart, hanging around the 10-15% mark for pretty much everything.  She's weighing in at 16 lbs 14 oz, and about 27" tall. (The scale in the picture says 17 lbs so I think I was touching it or leaning against it).

Ellie had her 4-year appointment on the same day, and things are looking great for her too!  Her hearing test was fine (although it must be very selective because she rarely seems to be listening at home these days ;).  She weighs 29 lbs 12 oz, and is 3' 2" tall.  Her eyes are unchanged (she had an eye exam a week before her 4-year checkup).  Ellie also got a couple of shots at this appointment, which is why she looks so nervous in the picture below.  I took this as we were waiting for the nurse to come back.  Ellie did great, though, and now she's all caught up and ready for school to start.

Lately, in pictures

Garrett had a chance to go fishing with some fellow residents.  He caught a big red fish and it was delicious! (remember when I swallowed a fish bone?  That was from this guy)

The girls helping me grocery shop:

We bought Garrett a pair of new suits.  He needed one for upcoming fellowship interviews and Macy's was having a BOGO sale.

 Olivia is growing so fast:

She finally started feeding herself recently, which has been a huge help to me!  Finally, we can eat our meals without her screeching impatiently in between bites.

Ellie made a "menu" the other night while I was cooking dinner.  I told her the letters and she did a great job!  She's come a long way over the last few months:

I helped throw a baby shower last week for a good friend of mine.  She has three boys and is having her first little girl, so we needed to celebrate!

Sidewalk chalk with the girls:

Painting:

Some of our friends who moved gave us this little motorized bike.  Ellie calls it her motorcycle and is pretty obsessed with it.  Unfortunately, it has to charge for about 16 hours and then runs for 15 minutes and dies, but oh well.  It's still a lot of fun:

Playing with playdough: