Bird Update

Baby Olivia saw Dr. Hofman today for her 15-month checkup, so I thought I'd post a little update.

Dr. Hofman said that, "She's the best one out there!" and said that I could share that.

So there. He DOES think she's the best baby ever (but probably after his own kids and grandkids, naturally--though he didn't clarify that...).

She's taller than the average 2-year-old. And not quite that heavy, but close enough. He gave her a clean bill of health.

On the home front, she has become a very busy girl: walking, almost-running, playing with her toys, playing with Daddy, playing with the doggie, dancing, trying to talk, etc.

Here's what she's been up to.

Hanging with JB:




Channeling her inner Axl Rose:




Reading (she dons all these headpieces on her own):


And shaking' her booty (she prefers to dance w/o audiences, so I had to sneak up on her):

My Mom says she gets those moves from her, and I believe her. Because I didn't teach her any of this, and she's never seen it on TV.

Bird Update III

Tonight I was trying to give Olivia dinner while making my own, and the casserole I was making needed a little more attention than I had bargained for. As a result, I kept giving Olivia more and more food in order to keep her at bay while I cooked. I was also curious just how much she would eat as I am always wondering if I feed her enough.

When I put her in the bathtub I realized that she indeed got enough to eat. I really wanted to get a photo of it, but I couldn't convince Lucy to spot Olivia in the tub while I ran downstairs to fetch my camera. Laying in the tub, she looked just like the Saggy Baggy Elephant did when he floated in the water. My baby had a big belly!


Today the Bird is 10 months old and is changing right before my eyes.

She is way more curious, and has discovered the treasures lying behind cupboard doors and in boxes, bins, etc. While her curiosity is strong, it is not intense enough to warrant crawling to such things. She will occasionally do the "wounded soldier" crawl, but mostly just does her precision rolling.

Her first word is "dog." She says Mama and Dada, but not to us. She will point at a dog though and say, "dah!" She jabbers more, especially while "reading" her books. Watching her read her books is one of my favorite things. She points her chubby fingers at a picture on a page and talks to it.


Lucy and Olivia can play together more now. Favorite games: lick the baby on the face and watch the baby laugh; tug-of war; laying near baby to get pets; and one of their favorites: before the Mom yells at the baby, eating baby snacks that baby offers to dog.




The Bird has also gone swimming! The first time was with Daddy, and she wasn't very excited about it. Annie and I took her in the Hunts' pool again on Monday, and she liked it much better. I let her slowly dip into the water, and to get used to it before letting her go down farther. We also let her sit on a floating board and play with some bath toys. She was happy in there for an hour! She even floated on her belly and her back. Here is a shot of her first dip:


Olivia has also started to have baby nightmares. I had nightmares when I was little too, and so did some of JB's family. Last night JB heard her cry out and he went to her. She was still frantic as he held her, but eventually he rocked her back to sleep. Maybe she was having dreams about having to wear this shirt again:


Sorry, guys, I just had to go there! You all should know that I'm not really anti-Michigan, but as a Spartan, I feel it is my duty to put this photo into cyberspace. :)

Calvin Hallway beautification

When I was scanning my old blog for my Funky Loser story, I noticed another old post with a photo of our hallway before we fixed it totally. I never posted an updated photo and cousin Sarah's house progress photos inspired me to finally show the finished product of some of our toils (Sarah, I'm looking forward to more of your photos!). Also, JB has been working his butt off on windows, and he sometimes forgets how far we've already come. It's hard to appreciate your work unless you see a good Before and After.

Here is the hallway before we bought the house and the correlating improvement. Not only did we paint, etc., but we cleaned the window. Apparently the previous homeowners did not own Windex, as NONE of the windows were cleaned. They were FILTHY. I found proof that the storms had not been washed since before 1972!! This window was one of the cleanest ones, though if you look closely, you will see paint all around the edge of it, because scraping paint was too much work for them.:






















Here is the other end of the hall. We had refinished the floors, painted the walls and ceiling, and rewired the light by then, but the trim still needed help:























Now, sure, it looks good. But the casual eye will not understand the insane work that went into this, unless you've owned your own vintage fixer upper. Such as listening to previous owner's whispers in the air as you work:

"Hmm...this door really needs to be painted. But sanding, washing, priming, and REMOVING THE HARDWARE is too much work. Let's just slop paint everywhere and call it good. Let's not even bother to TRY to remove some of the mis-slopped paint. Oh, and washing the door when it gets dirty? Who do you think I am? A CLEAN person?"
























JB spent hours cleaning all the hinges on all the doors. We trashed the cheap knobs (I believe that the originals were pawned) and scored vintage replacement knobs off of eBay. I heart eBay.























This is an example of how we spend our free time. Yes, we are crazy. JB has a load of more projects like this lined up, so if we don't post for a while, you'll understand. We're busy out buying more Windex.