A few weeks ago I caught Olive in the act of being such a mommy. It was so wonderful. First, she tucked her dolly into a makeshift bed with a cuppy and blanky, turned on the humidifier, turned the light off, and shut the door. This was especially sweet because that's exactly how I tuck her in every night. A little while later she set up a little tea party in the kitchen. And in the same day, she sat on the kitchen floor holding her dolly and feeding it from her own cuppy. I took a couple pictures.

Recently the girls and I spent a couple of hours at an outdoor mall in Vegas. They had this big fantastic park in the middle of the mall, and the park had a little stage in it. Olive was in heaven. She got on stage and sang and danced. She still really loves to sing and dance and perform for anyone and everyone. It's in her bones. Here's a picture.

Olive went sledding for the first time during our Thanksgiving trip to Utah. She looked so cute all geared up and puffy. Here she is with Alexis.

For Christmas in our family, our kids get one big gift from Santa, one from us, and they give one gift to each other. So Olive got 3 gifts - a kitchen from Santa, Your Baby Can Read from us, and some play food for the kitchen from Lucy. On Christmas morning, we always read Luke 2 together before we dig into the presents. We celebrated a week early this year because we took a trip to northern California and wanted to have our own thing at home beforehand. It was lovely. Olive has really enjoyed her kitchen, and we have big plans for the Your Baby Can Read program in the coming year. She already really enjoys it (we first noticed her proclivity for it while visiting David's house and he did it with her). Anyway, it was fun showing her Christmas lights, telling her about the baby Jesus, singing Christmas songs, baking treats, finding charity opportunities, and just seeing Christmas through her eyes. Here are a few pictures.

I've been amazed with how much Olive feels more like a little girl and less like a baby these days. She's talking a ton, saying things I don't even realize she's picking up (we LOVE the way she says chocolate and color - oh my gosh!). Her hair is getting longer, and I love to just throw it up in a little bun. She's just such a doll. She's really cute with Lucy, such a big sister. She's very outgoing and friendly, which a lot of times goes unreciprocated and that makes my heart ache. But she's amazingly secure and self-assured. She's pretty and funny and independent and feisty and a stinker and sweet and affectionate. I know there are a million details I'm leaving out. But we are crazy about her!

22 months

Halloween was fun. Olive dressed up as a witch, but started taking articles of clothing off the minute we got to the Trunk or Treat. So she ended up running around in a black t-shirt and green and white striped tights, and that was pretty much it. She had a really fun time.

A couple weeks ago I took Olive with me to Lucy's doctor appointment so that she could get a flu shot. When it came time for it, I was holding Lucy in one hand and was supposed to hold Olive's arms down with the other hand. The trouble was Lucy was screaming and squirming because she had just gotten 5 shots, so I didn't have a good grip on Olive. And so when the nurse put the needle in, Olive broke free and ripped the needle out of her thigh. She's so feisty! I couldn't help but laugh, but not until after I knew everything and everyone was OK. Yikes!

Chris and I left the girls with his parents for 2 days, just to have a little getaway. It was the first time I'd left Olive overnight, other than at Lucy's birth of course, since she was born. I expected to have a really hard time with it, but I did a pretty good job preparing myself with prayer and knowing they'd be perfectly fine. And they were. Olive pretty much makes herself right at home wherever she goes, and I love her confidence and independence. But I also love how much she wants her mommy too.

We started putting Lucy in her bed in hers and Olive's room. Olive has been going to bed so easily these days. It's adorable. I'll lay her down and cover her up with her blanky, and she'll just say, "Night night," and roll over. So cute. And even if Lucy's crying wakes Olive up in the night, she just goes right back to sleep. She's awesome. And I love that my girls share a room!

I noticed yesterday that Olive is getting a couple of new teeth.

Lately Olive will say "show" which means she wants me to put a show on for her, and give her a cuppy and her blanky so she can cuddle up on the couch and watch for a while. It's cute, but I'm definitely trying not to let her do it as often as she would like to.

Mom and Dad and the girls came down this weekend, and Olive had such a good time with them. I love how comfortable she is spending time with almost anyone and everyone. And it's so gratifying to have my family dote on my girl and see how great she is. I love her like crazy.

21 months

Well, we've put potty training on hold. She actually did pretty well for a while there. But then we started traveling, and we had visitors, and it was just a little too stressful. She's back in diapers, but still tells us once in a while when she has to go to the bathroom. So it's not a total lost cause, and I don't feel terribly discouraged. We're just following her lead.

Olive has had lots of excitement lately. We've tried to make getting ready for Halloween lots of fun. We checked out Halloween books at the library, we carved pumpkins, she's been wearing festive shirts, we colored Halloween pictures and bought Halloween stickers. There isn't anything very fall-ish in Havasu, but when we went to Chicago we got to go to Goebbert's and that was a blast.

Also when we were in Chicago, Olive bonded with Morgan and it was so cute. She would confuse the word pumpkin with Morgan's name. They sounded pretty similar coming out of her mouth. But she loved Morgan to death. She went on Morgan's little electric moped with her, and loved it. We cracked up watching her tiny self riding around on that thing with Morgan. So cute. She also had 2 good injuries while we were there. She fell of a chair at Gino's East and got a huge knot on her head. That was almost 2 weeks ago, and it's still yellow from the leftover bruise. The day after that happened she walked into Lisa's iron patio table and gave herself a black eye. That's still there too. Olive's a pretty tough kid, she doesn't cry over falling down or whatever. But those 2 accidents were rough ones, and she needed a lot of love afterwards.

We're in a bit of a difficult phase right now. Everyday is a battle of the wills between Olive and me. She tells me to "stop it" several times a day. We have a hard time putting socks and shoes on and leaving them on, getting her hair done and leaving it done, and sometimes I have no idea why she's mad at me. The other day she asked for cheese, so I gave her some. But when I gave it to her, she threw herself to the floor in violent protest. I was baffled, but I simply walked away and went on with life. Soon she was happily eating the cheese like nothing ever happened. Little things like that happen a lot. I want to really let her be who she is, but still help her understand she's not actually the one in charge. It's a tough balance to manage. Laurie said the other day she wonders if this means Olive will be an easy teenager. Hope so!

Some of the fun things Olive is into these days are: still tons of singing and dancing. She closes her eyes and really feels it when she's singing sometimes. Cracks us up. She goes down the slides at the park so easily, even the biggest ones. It made me nervous at first, but I just let her do her thing and she's great at it now. She taps her foot when she's sitting idly. I totally love that. She has been able to open doors for a while now, so we've kept them locked. But now she can unlock them. So I'm having to be on constant guard for where she is and what she's doing. She also hangs from the door handles lately too. She loves to sing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. She loves to sing anything really, but that's the first song I could tell she was really singing along to. It started out with, "uppabuh" for "up above," and now she even says, "Minkle, minkle." Not sure why the Tw is an M, but I love it! I've done Miss Mary Mack with her since she was about Lucy's age, and now she goes around the house saying, "Mack, Mack, Mack!" She also sings "Go, go, go, go!" which is from the Cat in the Hat cartoon on PBS. Lately she's been flicking her tongue across her lips back and forth a lot. I don't know where she picked that up, but it's funny to watch. Oh, and she is such a copycat lately! It's so funny! When I put my leg up on the tub to put on lotion, she'll come stand next to me and put her leg up and rub it. Or if I'm tapping my leg she'll do it too. Tons of little things like that she'll just copy. I love it.

She is a handful, but she's so much fun and I love spending my days with her.

20 months

Day 2 was a disaster. Unsuccessful and frustrating.

Day 3 was the first time Olive pooped on the toilet. She also peed several times. She had one accident, but all in all it was a great day.

Day 4 was alright. She started saying "Poop!" when she needed to go to the potty, regardless of whether it was gonna be pee or poop. She did pee on the kitchen floor at one point, but we still like her.

Today, Day 5, she did pretty well. She told me "Poop!" at one point, and went pee. So I took her off the toilet, but then realized she meant the real thing. She had 2 poop accidents today where she went half in her pants and half on the toilet. It was not fun to clean up. The biggest thing today was that we left the house for the first time since Day 1. We ran a few errands, and then I took her into the grocery store with me and thought I'd just give it a try. She went pee on the big scary public toilet! I was so proud of her, I got her a big frosted cookie.

I try to make the day as normal as possible, giving her little reminders here and there about the potty. She does a pretty good job telling me when she needs to go. I still put her in a diaper for naptime and bedtime. Until we're past that, and until she can get in and out of the whole bathroom process on her own, I won't say she's really potty trained. But we're certainly making progress. I'm proud of her!