Little Friends

Hello again! I just wanted to show you all the pictures of Olivia and her friend Sophia from her daycare. Miss. Angela took some cute pictures of them on their deck swing. (Olivia is half asleep in a couple of them!)

And on another, separate note. I wound up taking Olivia to the doctor's this morning because she hasn't been able to get over her cold (it's been about 2 weeks) and her coughing is just getting worse. Well, they think she has croup, which is a virus that affects the throat and larynx. So they gave her an oral steroid at the office to help prevent her throat from swelling up. That is the big worry - if her breathing sounds whistle-y, then we have to get her into the bathroom with a hot steamy shower running so that the steam can open her up - if that doesn't work, then we may have to take her into the Emergency room! Fun! So, hopefully the steroid will do its job and we won't have to worry about that! AND if the cold doesn't clear up by the end of the week, they are going to call in an antibiotic for her to help fix/prevent a sinus infection. So, at least she seems to be feeling ok most of the time. She still is really playful and seems to be doing fine. (other than when she get into a coughing fit!).

Other than all of that, we are doing fine. We'll keep you updated on how she is doing.

Little Fishy!

Hello again! Ok, so the big news is that Olivia had her first swim lesson on Friday evening. It is a 6-week Parent and Tot class that teaches babies and toddlers to get used to being in the water and learn some basics. We're working up to the last class where they will go under water!!

Well, Grant usually works on Friday evenings so I was worried that I wouldn't be able to get any pictures. BUT . . . there was this other little baby (the only one younger than Olivia), Sophia, who was 7 months old and they brought their whole family with them (mom, dad, aunt, and grandparents). I had asked the aunt if she wouldn't mind taking a picture of us since Grant couldn't be there - well, wouldn't ya know it - she offered to be our "personal photographer" for the whole class!! Isn't that so nice! Their whole family was super nice and cheered on Olivia the entire class. So, as luck would have it - I have tons of pictures AND videos to share with you of Olivia's first swim class. She seemed to enjoy the water and spent a lot of time looking around taking it all in.

First - let's check out this little cutie in her cherry swimsuit:

What a little cutie!

Ok, now here are some pictures from the class. The first one is of us learning how to kick out legs.

Now, we're just posing for the camera:

Here she is reaching for the ducky (just like the one at Grandma's house) practicing moving around in the water:

Practice, practice, practice . . .

At the end of the class, we sang a little song (based on "The wheels of the bus go round and round") to practice all the new things we learned. Here you'll get to see us put it all together:

We also had another first for Olivia this weekend. We took her to the Red and White NC State Football game on Saturday. We didn't stay very long because she didn't seem to enjoy it as much as daddy had hoped. (I think it was a little bright out for her and she is still getting over her cold.) But we did get a few pictures to remember the occasion.

And the last thing of note is that, when we looked in her mouth to check the progress of her 2 top teeth, we noticed that there are actually 3 top teeth coming in! Check it out! (the third on is on the left in this picture)

Grant's New PT Clinic - Open House

For those of you who did not know - Grant opened a PT clinic in Mid-March with his Partner, Olivier Chassin. They are having an Open House at the end of the Month and I would love to invite you all to it. Please come and wish them well with their new business.

Their info is:

Grant H. Nelson, DPT

Olivier H. Chassin, DPT

3319 Heritage Trade Drive · Suite 101

Wake Forest, NC 27587

919.556.4678 phone

919.556.4619 fax

Easter in Lenoir

Ok, here is the last entry to catch you all up on our eventful weekend. We spent Easter Sunday in Lenoir with Grant's family and had a fun time. Here are some pics of us hanging out with the family.


Olivia had a great time playing with Nana. Check out the video of them.

Poor little Olivia was so worn out that she took a little nap on Daddy so that she could get a second wind to play some more.

Since the weekend was so nice, we wound up taking Olivia out to play in their yard for a while. She enjoyed playing around in the grass and we got some cute pictures of her out there.

A nice family Photo:

She was having fun picking the grass.

Here's just a video of her crawling around out there.

Well, that's about all for now. We'll keep you posted on what's going on with her as best we can. Right now we all have colds (I have ANOTHER sinus infection) and Olivia is also still teething and having a rough time with it. One of her top teeth has broken through and you can see the other one under the surface, but it hasn't quite gotten through yet. I sure hope they hurry up and come in so that her mouth won't hurt her so much! Other than that, we are just working and enjoying hanging out with our little angel. Until next time - take care!

Watch her GO!

Ok, so before I tell you all about our time in Lenoir - I need to take a side trip to show off Olivia's skills! We were at my parent's house hanging out and I wanted to see if I could get her to take a couple steps on her own. We like to "practice." I just happened to mention to Grant to video it, just in case (since we haven't been able to get her steps on camera to that point!). Well, we were just hoping that she would take 2 or 3 steps (since that's all she's done before) but look what happened . . . .

She took SEVENTEEN steps, then about 6 more the second time. I did NOT know Grant was still taping when I was yelling for Mom, but I'm REALLY glad we got all of that on film! Just look at her go! She'll be a "walker" before you know it!

Easter in Huntersville

So, for Easter, we went to my parent's house for Saturday afternoon and on to Grant's parent's house for Saturday night through Sunday (I'll get to the Lenoir trip after this post).

Olivia had a fun time over there playing with all of Grandma's toys!


We had a good time hanging out with my family, too, and spent some time checking out their gardening and fishies in the backyard.


Hanging out with Papa:

Checking out the fishies in Grandma's pond:

Ok, so I'm thinking that this next picture is also a possibility for the magazine contest. What do you guys think?

She enjoyed riding on daddy's shoulders so she could reach the pretty flowers on their dogwood tree.

But she wasn't so sure about the grass on her bare feet. Doesn't she look so sweet in her little dress? I got her a dress for both Saturday and Sunday for Easter.

Here she is taking a walk with daddy - she's trying to figure out how to maneuver in gravel.

Here's Olivia waiting for uncle Sean to show up.

Uncle Sean got a new puppy and Olivia had a great time playing with him. He is only 8 weeks old and is a boxer-American bulldog mix. Isn't he CUTE!!!

Here's a video of them playing:

Aside from all of that, Olivia has been working on her skills . . . no no . . . you'll have to wait for the next post to see what she did while we were at my parent's house. Wait and see!

Easter at Home

Here's just a short blog to show you all how our new little family celebrated Easter. We made sure to tell the Easter Bunny that we would be traveling for Easter, so he decided to drop off Olivia's Easter basket on Good Friday so she could get it a little early - before we left town. Here she is digging through all her loot:

Here's a little video of her "tasting" all of her my little ponies that came in her Easter Eggs from her basket. (She is teething again - her top two teeth are coming in! I haven't been able to get a picture of those yet, but I'll keep you posted!)

Cousin Drew Came To Visit!

Hello again! Well, I have so much to catch you all up on that I am going to have to split it up into a couple different entries. We'll begin with when Cousin Drew came to visit Olivia last weekend to celebrate their Easter a week early! (Becca's family was coming down from Indiana for Easter, so they wouldn't be able to come to Grant's Parent's house.)

Well, we had a lot of fun when Chad, Becca, Drew AND Grandmom and Granddad came to visit us last weekend. Our friends, Randy and Sara brought Gracie over, too and we all went to the park! So, I guess that makes this the Baby Bash 2009!

Remember Baby Bash 2008??? Here are the three babies from 6/28/08 - when Olivia was only 2 weeks old, Drew was 4 1/2 months old and Gracie was 5 1/2 months old!



Now look at the three of them!

Here are some more pictures and a couple videos of all of us hanging out at the park.

Here's Olivia's first time down a big slide:

Then we went down a REALLY big slide together:

And we HAD to do the swings again, of course! Olivia always loves the swings.

Here are the 2 cousin's hanging out.


Look how much they've grown. this is them from back in August when we went to the mountains!


After the park, we went to show off Grant's new office and the kids had a blast playing on the mini trampoline.

Then Dr. Daddy helped Olivia get her workout done while we were there, too!

Hello everyone! Well, it has been a while since my last blog - so let me fill you in. Olivia has been doing well - she's actually not been sick in a while (but mommy has!). She has been saying "mama" and "dada" pretty regularly now and we are pretty sure she knows what they mean. We have even heard her try to say "kitty" a couple times while playing with Shami. She also said "bye bye" once at daycare when we were saying goodbye to her little friend Sophie - as soon as Sophie (who is about 15 months old) said "bye bye," Olivia said it right after her. It kind of took me by surprise - but they said that she's been saying different things at daycare quite often. So, though most of what she says is still gibberish - she is learning how to say a couple things. It is really cute!

Also, she is getting to be so much fun to play with now. She is at a really great age now where we can "chase" her around and she just "run-crawls" as fast as she can laughing and squealing away. I have a couple videos of us playing with her later in this blog!

Well, without further delay (since I know some of you have been waiting a long time to see more pics of little Livi) here are some "fashion show" pictures of her showing off some of her outfits:

Here she is posing showing off her cool Osh-Kosh jeans! Isn't she a little diva??



Here is her cute little lamb sweater that she has finally grown into. We got this at one of her showers.

And remember me telling you all that on Valentine's Day when we were traveling to Huntersville for Drew's 1st birthday - that she never even made it all the way there in her cute V-Day outfit (she had gotten sick in the car and we had an impromptu wardrobe change on the side of the road). Well, this is the really cute V-Day outfit she WAS wearing that no one got to see. Isn't it cute. It was from Grandmom.

Love the leopard pants!

Ok, so I get this free Baby Talk magazine and there is a contest in there for the next "Cover Baby" and I wanted to enter Olivia into the contest. It says to send in a photo of your baby that shows her face and her personality. Here are some of the pictures I am thinking of sending in. Let me know which ones you like the best. (I just LOVE the cute little overall outfit with her supercool Red Sox hat from Papa!)

Contest Pic #1

(Ok, this one wasn't one I was going to send in - but I just thought I'd show you how Olivia was wearing her Sox hat just like Papa does!)

Contest Pic #2

Contest Pic #3

Contest Pic #4

This next one is the one I have on my computer screen background right now!

Contest Pic #5

Contest Pic #6

Well, we also got her name board back from Lundies Photography a week or 2 ago. Here it is. It shows her holding each letter of her name so it spells out O-L-I-V-I-A. We still haven't hung it up in her room yet, we can't decide where to put it. But it came out so cute. In fact, the ladies at Lundies thought it came out so cute that the had 2 of them made - one for us and one for them to put up at the studio. It is sitting right on their counter for everyone to see! They have been calling her their "Lundies baby" since she has been coming there since she was 6 days old (when we did the "hands and feet" collage) and they just adore her!

Ok, so here are some videos of Grant and I playing with her. You can see how much fun we are having with her these days!

Here is one more video of her using her walker. She's gotten to be a pro at it. So much so, that she actually took her first steps last weekend without it - on her own. She took one little shuffle step at our neighbors house when we went over for dinner saturday night. Then we were at home with her on and she started taking 3-4 steps at a time walking across from one end of our "L" shaped couch to the other end (cutting the corner). Since then, she has been "practicing" here and there. No "Official" walker status yet, but she's working on it. She still gets a little nervous when she's not holding onto anything and tends to sit down so she won't fall, but she's making progress. I've been trying to catch it on video for you, but every time I pull out the camera, she sits down. ha ha!

Well, that's about all for this installment of Olivia's Life. Tune in next time to hear about the fun Easter trip Drew and Olivia had when he came up to see her last weekend for the Baby Bash 2009!