Miss Independent

Eating a Mum Mum

As Olivia is going on 10 months, she is becoming more and more independent by the day. About two weeks ago, she decided she would no longer let us feed her pureed baby food. She would scream, cry, and generally make our meal time a very stressful experience. I decided to start letting her eat all finger foods and she is now a very messy, but happy camper. She really does a pretty good job of picking up her food and putting it in her mouth, although judging by the picture below, it doesn't look like it. :)

Speaking of eating, she has been eating like a horse lately. I thought maybe she was going through a growth spurt and that being a bottomless pit would only last a few days, but this new found shoving-food-in-her-face business shows no signs of slowing down. She's so busy crawling around (on all fours), pulling herself up on everything and now, climbing stairs, that she must be burning a lot of calories and working up an appetite.

She seems to love fruit, especially nectarines. She's been eating bananas, cantaloupe, peaches, sweet potatoes, cheese, turkey and ham lunchmeat, puffs, mum mums (see picture at the top), and some homemade turkey meatballs packed with all those veggie purees that I have stored in the freezer. So far, she's not a picky eater for which I am grateful.

In other news, Olivia is a genius! ;) She "read" the word yum-yum in one of her little lift-the-flap books. On this page it says, "This little baby is hungry." When you lift the flap, it shows the little girl eating and the words say "yum-yum." When I turned to the page and lifted the flap,she said yum-yum all on her own. I was so surprised and excited. I ran to the office to tell Yusaku and when we got to that page, she performed her little trick again. So, it wasn't just a fluke! She did it again the next day for my mom!  Granted, she doesn't do it every time, but that's okay. I still know she's a smartypants!

Great Minds Think Alike

As I mentioned in the last post, we had decided not to get each other any gifts for our anniversary. We decided instead that we would just give each other cards and go out for a nice dinner.  Well, as it turns out, we both thought we'd try to be creative and a little sneaky and buy each other a little something. This little something? A small version of our wedding cake...same flavor, from the same place our wedding cake was from.

The funniest part was when we discovered that, without knowing it, we had both gotten each other the same thing. I had ordered my cake for him (an 8 in. single white cake with lemon cream filling and buttercream frosting and the words "Happy 5th Anniversary" with 6-24-06 written below it) earlier in the week over the phone. Then, Thursday night he finished up work a little early and told me that he and Olivia were going to run a little errand. Since he wouldn't tell me where he was going, I was guessing that maybe he was getting me a little something.

When he came home and we were talking over dinner, I asked him if he had anything (read: present) he needed to bring in from the car. He said no. I was surprised and asked why not. He told me he had ordered something. This set off my suspicions that just maybe he had had the same idea as me. After a lot more dancing around the subject and asking each other some questions, we finally discovered what we had done and swapped details about what kinds of cakes we had gotten. The one he ordered for me was just very slightly different than the one I had ordered for him - a 6 in. single white cake with lemon cream filling and buttercream frosting with the words "Happy Anniversary" and some pink flowers on top.

Since we had figured out the surprise before we were actually supposed to pick up the cakes, Yusaku asked if I thought we should cancel one of them (because, come on, who really needs two cakes?), but I said no, it made for a funny story and good memory and we could always share some of the extra.  So, here are pictures of the two cakes.  I'll definitely never forget this anniversary! :)

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.

Cox Arboretum

A few weeks ago, after lots of rain, we finally had a beautiful, warm, sunny Spring day. My cousin Leslee and I decided to take our kiddos to Cox Arboretum for a picnic, followed by a little walking around and enjoying the beautiful scenery.  Here are some pictures of Olivia and Quinn on the picnic blanket.  Aren't they adorable?

Quinn had enough of the photoshoot! Ha ha! Olivia wondered where he was going! :)

Cute turtles sunning themselves!

If you look really closely, you can see Leslee and I and the babies in the distance! :)

It was a lovely day! Can't wait to go back again!