Milestones

Here we are 5 years ago...such a beautiful day! :)

In the past few days, we celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary and Olivia turned 9 months old! :) Our anniversary was Friday and we had tickets to see the Lion King at the Schuster Center. It was amazing!!! Yusaku had seen it once before in New York when he was younger, but I never had and wasn't sure what to expect. I had heard good things about it, but it was even better than I expected.  The costumes and scenery were so beautiful and the way the performers embodied the movements of all the different animals was so impressive! I would love to take Olivia to see it some day!

Here we are on our anniversary before heading out to the Lion King

On Saturday we had beautiful weather and, after Yusaku worked on mulching the yard in the morning, we packed up our bikes and some sandwiches and headed over to the bike path. My parents joined us and we rode our bikes about 3.5 miles from where we started to a little park for a picnic. We had decided not to get each other any gifts for our anniversary, but I did think it would be nice for us to at least give each other cards and go out to dinner to celebrate (as it turns out, we both got each other a little something...see next post). So, Saturday night, my parents watched Olivia for us while we went out to eat at Brio. It provided us a chance to have an uninterrupted conversation with one another over a delicious meal that someone besides myself cooked and served. ;)

Yusaku and Olivia playing during our picnic pitstop

Olivia was happy as a clam hanging out with
Grandma and Grandpa while we were at dinner

Olivia turned 9 months old on Sunday and she had her checkup today. She is 18 lbs 5 oz and 28 in. long. That means she's 10 lbs 5 oz heavier and 8 in longer than when she was born. It's interesting though, that between her 2 month and 4 month and 4 month and 6 month appointments she gained about 3.5 pounds each time, but since her 6 month appointment, she only gained a little over a pound. She's just so active lately - crawling, pulling herself up to standing, etc. - that I guess she must just be burning a lot more calories. She's in the 45th% for weight and 75th% for height, so she's doing just fine! :)

Here are some of the things she's doing these days:

• Mostly still army crawling because that's her fastest means of transportation, but she can and does crawl on all fours sometimes
• Pulling herself up to standing on any and everything, including pieces of furniture and people
• "Waving" - she mostly sticks her right arm in the air and gives an enthusiastic "Hi" (more like "Haaaa); sometimes she makes a true waving motion with her hand; sometimes she does a double-armed wave
• Eating finger foods/larger pieces of food despite my anxiety about her choking. She started with puffs (little star-shaped rice cereal that dissolves easily) and just today, I gave her some little cheese crumbles and some tiny star-shaped pasta. I'm making progress! :)
• Is starting to enjoy touch-and-feel books, but prefers licking the different textures to touching and feeling them
• Has no fear and despite the fact, that I'm almost constantly hovering over her, knocks her head on things and tries to put everything in her mouth on a daily basis

I'm sure there's more, but by this point in the evening, I'm too tired to think of anything else. I'll leave you with this cute picture of our sweet girl trying to "eat" her daddy's eyebrows! :)

Our trip to Cincinnati/Olivia's First Trip to the Zoo

A few weekends ago, Yusaku and I decided at the last minute to take a little mini-vacation to Cincinnati. We went down on Saturday morning, making a pit stop at Ikea on the way. Here's Olivia trying out the rocking moose at Ikea. :)

After lunch and shopping at Ikea, we headed down to the Newport area (which is actually in Kentucky) and decided to go on a Duck Tour. We started our tour in the Covington, Kentucky area, went across the bridge to Cincinnati, saw some sights, then took a quick little spin in the river before heading back. Here we are on the "duck".

Olivia (and Yusaku) needed a nap, so we headed back to our hotel, checked in, and they took a rest.  We had nice room with a great view. Here's a picture of Olivia and I on our balcony overlooking the Ohio River and Cincinnati.

We got to meet up with Carl, my friend from college, for dinner. We ate at a nice restaurant on the river and had a great time catching  up.

The next morning, Yusaku and Olivia took a dip in the hotel pool before a little nap and then our trip to the zoo.

Now, technically, Olivia's first trip to a zoo was a few weekends before this one when we were in Springfield, Illinois visiting my family. While it was fun excursion, the two zoos offer much different experiences to say the least. :) This was Olivia's first trip to a "real" zoo and her first time going with Yusaku since he wasn't able to come to Springfield.  I hadn't been to the Cincinnati Zoo in a long time and I was blown away by how beautiful it was. It is actually called Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden, and looking at the picture below, you can see why.  The grounds there are gorgeous! :)

We had perfect weather that day. It was a great family day for the three of us and will be a great memory for me. Enjoy the rest of the pictures from our trip! :)

Summertime: Part II

So, what else has Olivia been up to you ask?  

Well, she's learned how to pull herself up to standing in her crib (and on every other piece of furniture),

played in her new inflatable baby pool in the backyard (we're planning to take a baby swim class in July),

swung on the swings at the park,

played peekabo with me,

got her first real baby doll, whom she loves very much,

played with friends - both hers and ours (the first picture is my friend Sarah's son, Tyler and the next is our friend, Travis),

and has taken some fun field trips with her cousin Quinn. The pictures below are from our recent trip to Wegerzyn Gardens. We had never been there before and it was beautiful! :)

She's a busy girl! :) Up next, a post about Olivia's first trip to the zoo.  (And yes, I realize, she technically went to the zoo for the first time in Springfield, but there's a big difference!)

Summertime, Summertime, Sum, Sum, Summertime

Well, it looks like another month has gone by since the last time I blogged. I follow blogs of some other people who seem to find time to blog every single day or at least, every couple days. I wish I was that dedicated. The few hours of time I get to myself after Olivia goes to bed at night, seem to be spent doing other things like crocheting, perusing facebook, or just vegging in front of the TV (clearly all very important things! ha ha!).

In any case, there's a lot to catch up on from the past month. Let's start with our Memorial Day Weekend trip to Springfield, Illinois. We had a last minute change of plans when we learned that Yusaku's grandmother (his father's mother), whom we had just visited on our trip to Japan in January, had passed away. I am so glad that we went we did and that Olivia and I got to meet her (see the post about our visit here).

Yusaku and his parents flew to Japan for the funeral, so obviously he wasn't able to come with us to Illinois. My parents, who had originally planned to drive separately, rode along with Olivia and I and we stopped halfway there to spend the night in Indianapolis. I wish we could have joined Yusaku, but it just didn't seem very practical to take Olivia on such a long plane ride and mess up her schedule with the fourteen hour time difference for such a short trip.

We got to Springfield around lunchtime on Saturday. We had a great time visiting with my grandma, aunt, uncle, and cousins. Sarah, who is getting ready to move Chicago, was actually there looking for apartments that weekend, so she took the train down on Sunday so she could visit with everyone. It was really nice to see her and everyone else since we hadn't seen them since Olivia's Baptism.

Here are some pictures from our trip.

Olivia and Grandma at the hotel

Olivia taking a bath at the hotel

Olivia visiting her Gram at her apartment

Having a serious conversation with Daniel at Kaitlyn's house

Enjoying the porch swing at Aunt Patty's and Uncle Rick's

The whole gang at lunch on Sunday

Olivia and Aunt Sarah

I love this picture of the three of us...might need to frame it! :)

Olivia and her godfather/cousin, Daniel

Olivia and I at the "beautiful" Springfield Zoo ;)

All the cousins recreating a photo from our childhood

Sitting on a turtle (though you can't tell) - another photo recreation

I'll continue sharing about what we've been up to this past month in the next post.