20 months

 doing creative things with her stacking blocks and pencils. She usually pretends the round ones are cookies and offers them to me to eat:)

this photo is blurry, but she loves bubbles (like every toddler) and this month she learned how to blow them all by herself which is REALLY nice for me!

notice the cow on the right side of her notebook??? Olivia made Franc draw that, but she makes anyone near her draw one when she is coloring. Her entire sketchbook is full of her drawings, but with random cows on almost every page. how can you say no when she hands you the crayon, and in the cutest little voice says "cow? moo? cow? color?" okay olivia, anything for you:)

I think Olivia's favorite time of the day is when Daddy comes home (like the primary song:). He always throws her up in the air and does lots of fun physical activities that I really can't do with her. The above activity was her FAVORITE for awhile, and it really wore Franc out. His fault for coming up with it! haha.

If there is a puddle anywhere in sight she WILL go splash in it.

Olivia's first collage. reminds me of this one.

what is that all over her face??? hmmm well I found her underneath my vintage metal desk where I store my vintage typewriter and she was laying there with the ink tape wrapped around her face as she played with it. I just couldn't get mad though, it was too cute and funny!

walking with Matthew to see Grandpa's baseball game when we went to FL for Spring Break. (she is wearing a shirt I made her out of an old shirt of mine (just the top lace part).

with Grandma:)

potty break. this potty is the BEST thing ever because she never has to use a public restroom (if they are groddy).

St.Patrick's Day (before the REAL party with tons of delicious, authentic Irish dishes (which I never thought I'd say after a lifetime of hating the food we always ate on St. Pat's day) at Andrew's house).

At the playground with Grandma

playing with "papa" at our picnic

Olivia chasing all the ducks at Okeheelee park. Between the ducks and the birds she was in heaven!

Olivia started making some dramatic sad faces this month which I absolutely love. They are way too cute and kinda hard to take seriously!

She started getting into our bed, under the covers, and say "ga night! a nap!" alot. And sometimes she fake snores--sounds like pig snorts.

asking to see the "baby" on the camera.

another one of her funny new dramatic faces.

my friend Danni sent me this AWESOME package from Thailand (where she lives) and in it were lollipops and this bowtie/hairbow. Olivia enjoyed both (I tried hiding that lollipop but....) while sitting on the potty doing her bus-nas.

do you know anyone else who looks this cute while doing number 2 on the potty??? (okay besides your own child). haha, I think she is cute even when doing something not-so-pretty in that thing:)

 Things Olivia said and did from 19-20 months:
-will throw herself back on the ball pillows I made and say "mas!!!!" as an invitation for Franc to throw her up in the air on the pillow. super funny and giggly, but oh what a workout for Franc!
-has the most infectious, adorably laugh I have ever heard in my life.

-is totally poop and potty trained, even at the park now.
-has said "love you" (luuuh you) to both franc and I.  A little piece of heaven.

-likes to pretend she has to go caca (poop) so that I will turn on the t.v. (which I did when I potty trained her so I could keep her sitting on the potty long enough to go). she is a very good actress and has even started throwing in a "huh! uh oh, caca!" when she runs to FAKE GO IN THE POTTY. Her sole purpose is to get that tv on!!!! so tricky!!!

- asks me "round and round? (doing the motions with her arms)" when she wants to read/sing "The wheels on the  bus." (she knows all the motions and some of the words)

-(3/6/11) just spent 20 min. doing my hair...as in combing, brushing, and then trying to gather it into ponytails, and then saying "all done!"

-(3/7/11)Franc showed olivia the word "pato"(sp. for duck) on a flashcard and asked what it said and she said "bawk bawk" (her version of quack quack, which is what she says for duck)!!!! The next day I tried it with the flashcard that said "vaca" (sp. for cow) and she said "moooo" (though she does know the word cow). Its not like we've been quizzing her or anything, she just plays with these cards like toys because the other side has pictures.  Word recognition at 19 months!

-she has adopted all of the phrases I say to her "be right back" "let's go" "All done" "Time for a nap" "Lets take a bath" "are you okay?" "ouch!" "oops!" etc etc and I love hearing her say them to me and to her dolls... 

-3/9/11- olivia was doing my hair and she finished it and leaned over, looked with her big brown eyes into my eyes- real wide- and said something to me in gibberish. She then smiled and gave me 2 HUGE wet kisses on my lips, and then a hug. I wish I could relive that moment over and over. It was especially sweet because it seems like she was being how I am to her-- do her hair, give her big kisses, etc. Those are the moments that make being her mom the BEST thing in my whole world.

-anytime she bumps into something, or someone she says "oops! sorry." Its really cute, except that most of the time she doesn't need to be saying sorry, so it sounds kind of sad!
-whenever she coughs I say "are you okay?" and so now whenever I cough she says "you okay?" Its nice having someone ask you if you are okay:)

-she loves glueing (gooing) collages!
-showers us with kisses all the time. Its the single best thing in the whole world.
-talks about everything all the time. I can't believe the breadth of her vocabulary already! Its so fun hearing her narrate her world.

-decided that she didn't want to do her business in the potty while at grandma and grandpa's house. luckily she got right back in the groove when we got home.
-she love to yell "heeelp! help!!!" to me when she sorta maybe only kinda needs my help and I am in the other room.
-she knows lots of the alphabet letters, and the other day she said "ooo....p!!" and "j...k!"so she is starting to learn some of the sequence!

- she can still only count to 3, but she knows a few other numbers.
-went to the beach for the first time in FL and she loved the water at first saying, "wee!!!!" everytime a wave came in. Then she faceplanted while walking and never wanted to have anything else to do with the water after that. Luckily she LOVED the sand. She kept walking around and gathering it from various locations around  the beach.

-she was awesome on the 10 hr. drive to FL, no accidents and always told us when she needed to "caca" but once we got to their house---maybe b/c it is so large--- she decided she wasn't potty trained anymore and she just pooped and peed all over their house. at least 3 times a day.

-she called my mom "ama/mama" (she calls me mommy so that is diff.) and my dad "papa." 
-Every morning she would get up and call out "bacca? (becca)... Mattheeew?" and then, since they were sleeping, she would run straight towards my parents' room and look for Papa, and if he was sleeping ("shhhhh--sleeping") then she would play with Mama (grandma).

-she was over the moon about my parents' backyard, which has a fence overlooking a canal that is full of ducks, other birds (ocean type birds), fish, and on the other side of the canal.... HORSES!! (playing polo). She could stay out there forever just saying BIRD!!! DUCK! bawk bawk NEIGH!!! (she calls horses "neighs").

-She discovered worms, which she loved and since they are pronounced "goo-saw-noo" in sp. she called them goosy-goos. much cuter:)
-She, with the help of her dad, played with a lizard and kept holding it by it's tail and throwing it around and then picking it back up. eventually she stepped on its tail and so there was nothing to hold him by...

-while at my parents' house one day, olivia fell asleep on the couch after watching tv for about 5 min. (she had gotten up early from her nap while my mom babysat her, but she was still VERY tired). I saw her and shut the doors to the media room so she wouldn't here our noise. about 40 minutes later I hear her crying and she was on the floor! she had woken up when she fell off the couch! so sad! but seeing her passed out on the couch (with no pants on) was way too cute.


-a few of her oft-repeated phrases from this month "I'm big girl," "Here I come (when coming down the stairs)!"  "no mass" "ouch!... help!" "you okay?" "I'm coming!" "I did it!" "I got it!" "yummy!" 
"ga night!"
-for some reason olivia likes to do a fake sneeze after everytime she coughs, or anyone else coughs. "HA-CHOO!"
-she knows how to properly use "I," "you" and "me." (ex: I'll say "you did it! and then she'll say "I did it!")

- 3/24 conversation with her daddy this morning while looking at the computer: O: "Pick This!!!" (scrolling down a webpage)-- daddy keeps scrolling O: "PLEASE!!! PLEASE!! PLEASE!! daddy "okay, quiere este?" O: Si! (They then watch a clip from Monty Python's Holy Grail) Upon seeing the "knights" Olivia says: "Neigh!!! (horse) (there were no horses but our guess is that they looked just like the knight toys (on horses) that she played with at grandma's house). 

-not a new word, but when she says "sorry" it sounds British! So does "Charlie" but I know this is because she watches "Charlie and Lola" which is an English show.
-one day she was watching the birds at the window saying "Birds!!! I LOVE (laaa) you!---and as the flew away- Birds!? Why you go? I LOVE you!"
-she started telling me what she was drawing (sometimes).