Eye Surgery Update & Play Time

Well, the surgery for her eyes has been scheduled for the 24th of this month (next Friday). I'm a bit torn about it. Yeah, I don't really want my baby to have surgery, and especially don't want her to have to go under anesthesia at such a young age - but her eyes are so bad (especially when we are out in the sun) that she can't even enjoy a normal outing at the park or playing in her baby pool without her eyes getting all red and swollen and watering like crazy. It just bothers her so much to be outside that it has really kept us from doing too much outdoors. I know this will make it so much better for her, in general, then she can really enjoy herself outside with all her little friends!

Unfortunately, the surgery will be quite expensive for us - my *new*company (since getting bought out) has REALLY crappy insurance and a REALLY high deductible and even once we have paid that, then we will still have to cover a percentage of the bill on top of the deductible. Needless to say, our savings account will probably be all but depleted after this. Ugh - but it will be well worth it to help our baby's eyes! She has to have the surgery as close to 1 year as possible to give the surgery the best odds. So, onward and upward. We can always build up our savings again.


Anyway, enough about that. Here are just some fun pictures of Olivia hanging around the house. The first one is of her in her chair with her baby doll and her bear. She loves her chair and always wants to bring as many of her toys into it with her as she can fit - and sometimes so many that she can hardly fit into it herself!

Here's a cute picture I managed to catch as she was *trying* on my shoe to see if it went with her outfit. What do you guys think?

And a game of "peek" . . .

Olivia had another fun playdate this past weekend. This time she not only met up with Logan again, but also with Masyn (Logan's cousin - also from her swim class) and even got to meet a new little friend, Kate. Here are some pictures from their fun time at Masyn's house:

Masyn is in the front with the wild hair (FYI: sunblock does NOT make a good hair gel!), Logan is in the back, and Kate is the little one hidden behind Olivia

Oh, there's Kate!

When we went inside after pool-time, I sat down on the floor . . . whoops - I had no idea I was sitting in the war zone! Apparently I was sitting in the primo spot for *read to me* mobbings!

Here's Olivia and Masyn on my lap and Logan being an independent little reader next to me.

In this next picture you can see how bad Olivia's eyes look when we've spent any time outside. They get all red, swollen and watery. Poor little baby - we're going to get that fixed real soon!

Here are some more cute pictures from this past weekend. On Sunday, Olivia wore the cute little dress that Grandma Noreen had gotten her. It looked so cute on her! She's even playing with the piggy bank Grandma got her, too!

Cheeseball!

We even managed to find a bow to match! Thanks to Paula and Sasha who told me about a bow company that makes bows to stay in even the most follicularly challenged baby's hair. Isn't it cute!

Look at that little tongue sticking out!

Check out these cute shoes, too! She'd finally grown into them!

We also took her out to the park/lake on Sunday afternoon to check out the water and the playground. Here we are checking out the water. (Next time, we'll bring better clothing to splash around a bit!)

We got to ride the swings:

We got to ride the slides:

Well that's about all for now, but I have a couple more videos to share with you. The first one is from Friday night when we went over to Olivier and Sam's house for Olivier's birthday celebration. Olivier's family was there and Olivia had a fun time hanging out with his brother's kids. This is a video of her dancing with them along to one of the videos that they brought.

We've also been trying to work with Olivia on using a fork and spoon to eat. It has been going ok and she seems to be getting the hang of it . . . sort of. Here she is congratulating herself on a "job well done" after getting some food to her mouth: