11 months

Olive is really sick. She caught a bad cough and cold. I hate it for her. I swear I'd have a thousand colds if it meant she'd never have one. We're doing our best to make sure she's getting lots of fluids and rest. We give her a little dose of Benadryl before bed each night, and just try to give her lots of love. She's been pretty miserable. Chris gave her a blessing. I'm so grateful he can do that. Hopefully she'll get better soon.

Oh! I wanted to write one cute thing she started doing recently. When she's sitting on the floor on her bottom she'll spin herself around by walking her feet around herself...tough to explain. It's very cute though, I'll try to get it on video.

We just got home yesterday from Christmas at the Barragans'. Olive got lots of gifts and had a fun time with all the boxes and wrapping paper. She dazzled everyone with her gibberish and cute mannerisms and walking all over the place. It was a fun time.

Olive and Bohdan Kadletz at Chris' work party.

On Santa's lap, and thrilled about it.

In her Christmas dress.

Christmas morning

10 months

I just put Olive down for the night. I've gotten into a bad habit of putting her down with a bottle. I started doing it because I noticed how much easier she went down with one. And things have been so insane lately - we just moved, getting ready for Christmas, traveling a bit - so I haven't wanted to try and right it yet. We will though. I'm reading a fantastic book right now. It's called Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. It's very enlightening, and I'm only into the first 2 chapters. Chris seems to be Olive's favorite thing lately. She gets very excited when he comes home from work. And tonight he's in Henderson so I think she can sense his absence. She pointed to a picture of him and cuddled his pillow. Cute. A little while ago she was rummaging through my Sunday bag when she got to the Holy Temple pamphlet she looked at the picture of the Salt Lake temple on the front, and then flipped it over and looked at the Hawaii temple on the back. She did that over and over and over. And then she pointed to the Salt Lake temple and started talking her little gibberish that she often does. I loved watching that whole process. We took her to see Santa on Saturday. She cried. It was funny and I'm glad we got it immortalized with a picture. She's been fun to watch with all the Christmas excitement going on. Seeing her look at lights and decorations and dancing to music. She loves music! I definitely think she has an exceptional affinity for it. Tonight she discovered how fun The Office theme song is. It was on TV a few times in a row, and each time the song played she stopped what she was doing to dance and enjoy it. Her latest trick is putting her tiny fingers together when we sing The Itsy Bitsy Spider. I think that's pretty remarkable. She's taking more steps but still not walking consistently. She's still a great eater. In fact she's pretty demanding that we share any and all food with her. She's showing a bit more attitude and feistiness lately, but still such a delight to everyone around. Especially us.

Olive is clapping her hands, waving, and even giving 5 sometimes. She has taken a few steps here and there, but still hangs on to things in order to get around. She still loves music, always lights up and starts dancing as soon as she hears it. She continues to be very vocal, it often sounds like she's saying lots of words even though it's just nonsense. We took her to the pet store the other day and she flinched and stiffened up when we got her near any animals. She's a great eater. She loves to slurp spaghetti noodles. She continues to be such a delight everywhere we go. People seriously can't get enough of her. And she's such a little ham. We love her so good.