I took Olive on a few errands with me today. One of them was to go peruse the sales at Old Navy. They have a little table in the children's section where kids can sit and color while their mommies lose themselves in shopping. Olive parked herself there and started to color. Another mom came near the table with a baby, probably about a year old, in a stroller. The baby was really excited to see the kids' table, and wanted to get out. But the mom kept moving, and so the baby started to cry. Olive felt so sorry for the baby. She came to me, with her eyes really wide, and said, "Mommy, I want to give that baby my picture." So we looked around the store for a few minutes until we found the mom and baby, and Olive bashfully handed her picture to the mom while I explained. I was so dazzled by Olive's tenderness. She's a sweet girl.

I haven't laughed so hard in a while. I took the kids to the library for a teddy bear sleepover. All the children put their teddy bears in the center of this parachute so they could make them fly. Olive was one of the smallest kids there, and so when the kids pulled the parachute upwards, she hung on and actually left the ground! She had this look on her face like she was scared to death, but then really delighted when she knew she was alright. This picture is all I could manage to get of it, but it was so funny to watch! Maybe it's because I'm pregnant, but when I called Brandy afterward to tell her about it I wept so hard that I cried off all my eye makeup.

My adventurous, brave girl made her way up this rock climbing structure at the park today. She was a little nervous about coming down, so I talked her through it a little bit, but she did that part by herself too. Crazy kid!

Olive loves this time of year because we're in the water nearly everyday. There's a splash pad in town that Chris has taken the kids to a few times, and we have a bunch of water stuff in the backyard. She's a little fish.

She loves to wrestle Chris, and I'm figuring out that she definitely plays rougher than other little girls her age.

Olive scrunches the right side of her face when she's explaining something or when she's confused, or whatever. It's pretty cute. She knows I like it, because I do it back to her, and so she does it even more.

She will follow up most questions with a selection of answers for me to choose from. Like, if she asks a yes or no question she'll say, "No or yes?" after she asks it. Or like if something doesn't fit her, she'll say, "Is it too big or too little?"

She still adores singing and dancing. She sings on key, and she has rhythm, and it's fun to watch those talents arise in her. She is very excited to start "ballerina school;" her dance class starts in July.

Olive is like Chris in that she gets over things pretty quickly, I mean with regard to being in trouble or getting in a fight with Lucy. She just forgets about it and moves on fast. Lucy, on the other hand, is more like me.

Olive has always been pretty independent. Lately she's been scooting chairs or stools to places she can't reach. She does it several times a day when she wants to get a snack. And she even knows how to unwrap a package of popcorn, scoot the chair over to the microwave, and push the popcorn button. I don't know who taught her that one, but we've had a million popcorn messes lately to show for it. I appreciate her independence, but I love it when she wants to cuddle and rest with me too.

Olive has had a few nightmares lately. She wakes up upset, and tells us details of the dream. I've noticed it's started happening around the same time that she's begun to pretend. She pretends things all the time. So I think it's just her little imagination running wild. Still, I don't like her having bad dreams. Poor thing.

She's energetic and creative, and always wants to know what we're doing next or what friends we're seeing today. She runs the show, or at least thinks she does. She's charming and witty, and I adore her.

Two Sundays ago we went to Utah. We went to Jenny's where everyone was having a Sunday dinner together. Before we got there, and actually a few times in the previous weeks, I was thinking about how much I don't like trampolines. And I thought to myself, I better give Olive a big talk about being careful before she gets on. We got there. Olive ran into the house ahead of me. I took about 3 minutes saying hi to everyone before I headed out to the backyard where she went. I was going to give her that talk. As I was on the way outside Shane was on the way inside, carrying Olive who was shrieking in pain. That's how fast it happened. The way witnesses explained it, she was trying to do a front flip (What the heck?? She's never done that before in her life!), and landed funny. She cried for an hour straight, nothing could distract her from the pain, and that's how I knew something was really up. We went to the ER, the nurse there said we were the sixth trampoline accident case in 2 days. Sure enough, Olive had a tibial buckle fracture. No cast, and the doctor said a splint really isn't necessary. The thing I found really interesting was that upon Googling "tibial buckle fracture" a couple of the articles that came up near the top talked about how it's kinda common for a kid near Olive's age to suffer that exact injury when jumping on a trampoline with older kids or adults. Olive was jumping with Dane, Brock, and Shane, so it makes sense. And it only affirms my dislike for trampolines. You can bury it or put a safety net around it, but this injury would still happen. Olive went 8 looooong days of crawling and being carried, and then finally started walking yesterday. She's still limping and favoring it, but she's definitely on the mend.

in the ER

sporting the unnecessary splint

We met Brandy at the McDonald's play place today. Olive made fast friends with this little girl, and then proceeded to ride her around the joint. Brandy and I were mortified, and totally cracking up.

Olive's first visit to the dentist. She was brave and cute, and the dentist said her teeth look great!