You should've seen Olive in the pool today! She's just such a natural in the water. She'd stand on this step in front of Chris and then just walk into the water and go completely under. He'd let her "swim" for a second and then scoop her up into his arms, and she'd always come out of the water smiling and laughing. She's very good in the water.

I've mentioned a million times how much she loves music and how dexterous she is. Today when we were cleaning at the church, she climbed up and sat on the piano bench in the primary room and played on the piano. 

It's neat to start to see and speculate what her talents are.

(As I was just writing all this, Olive was taking a bath. I went in to check on her and discovered she had pooed in the water. Awesome).

Olive says "one" whenever there's anything involving numbers. Just now we were reading a book that had numbers 1-15 on each of its pages. As we turned the pages, she'd look for the number, point to it with her cute finger, and say "one."

16 months

Olive says "yummy" when she's eating. Another thing she came up with on her own.

Today she climbed all the way to the top of our pub height kitchen table. Yikes!

Olive has started to say amen at the end of prayers. Love it! She also has started wanting to be super helpful. Today she handed me a diaper when I was changing Lucy. And she brings me things and wants a big "THANK YOU!" So cute.

• laughs when she, or someone else, toots
• makes kissy noises
• opens and closes doors
• says Mommy instead of Mama and Daddy instead of Dada
• says Mom more often than Dad now
• definitely communicates more - says cookie and baby; I can easily figure out what she wants or needs by her communication nowadays; she mimics words and sounds a ton
• still loves to dance, she bends her knees and twirls her hands and nods her head

5/13 -- Came to Vegas this morning. Went to lunch and the park with Amber. Olive is so independent, and Merick wants to micromanage everything she does. But she doesn't seem to mind, so although it annoys me I just gotta let it go. I love having Amber so close and being able to see her so often.

5/14 -- Got to Dad's this evening. Olive immediately got to work exploring the place. She even went down the stairs to the basement. That was the first time we just let her figure out stairs, and she didn't even hesitate-just wiggled her way down on her knees and then her bottom.

5/16 -- Olive found a black Crayola marker and was sucking on it this morning. She had black all over her mouth and hands. Awesome!

5/17 -- Spent the afternoon at Laurie's. She watches a girl about Olive's age, named G. At one point we heard laughter from upstairs and discovered that Olive and G had wandered up there on their own, so we went to eavesdrop on them. As we started up the stairs G came around the corner carrying a wire hanger. Then Olive came around the corner with a ball cap in each hand and a hat on her head. It was so cute. I cried.

5/22 -- Olive loves to be helpful with Lucy. She puts her pacifier in her mouth and gives her lots of kisses. And she's concerned when Lucy's crying. She stays pretty busy, but she checks in on her every so often. Mom says that's how Timmy was with me. She found a microphone here in Dad's house and immediately started singing into it. How did she know how to use it? She's been saying "uh oh" a bunch lately. I don't know where she picked that up. She's gone from saying "Dada" all the time to saying "Mama" all the time. She has a very cute relationship with Craig. He's really fun with her. She went with Chris to hang out with him this morning. They'll have a good time.