Disney & Halloween

Being that I'm home from work due to the flu (or some kind of bug), I have a little extra time to do a new update! Of course, I would much rather be at work than feel crappy, but at least you all can see some new photos!

I love this picture of her flying in the air. She doesn't get this at home since our ceilings are so short, but the ceilings at Disney were great! She probably thinks this is the greatest ride at Disney!

We had a great trip to Disney last week. We stayed at the Old Key West Resort and ventured into the Magic Kingdom and Epcot. This was technically Olivia's second trip into Epcot as Richard took us to the Japanese restaurant for Mother's Day, but we didn't actually walk around the park. This time, we walked the entire World Showcase and even ventured up to the front of the park to do Journey Into Imagination and take photos at the character spot (those photos will be added later as we had to order them from the Disney photo pass site).

Although I have had great success getting her to wear a hat every time we go out in the sun, getting her to wear sunglasses has been a challenge. Granted, I'm not as consistent about trying as I was with the hat. But she's at least willing to put them on for a few minutes at a time now. And she looks so cute in them!

Olivia loved meeting all the characters! She especially loved Mickey and Minnie Mouse and was completely mesmerized by them as soon as she could see them from our place in line. At the Magic Kingdom, we had dinner at the Crystal Palace with Pooh, Eeyore, Tigger, & Piglet, so she got lots of character pictures. She also rode Dumbo with Daddy, the Golden Carousel with Mommy, and we all did Small World together (and Olivia sang pretty much all the way through). I have a video of her singing...the video is dark, but you can hear her and it's really cute! She also sang during the parade. She really seems to love music now and has even started bouncing to songs.

On our last day there, we went to Downtown Disney to do a little shopping and I showed her a Mickey doll. She grabbed him and went nuts hugging him and chewing on him...so of course we had to buy him! She still thinks he's the greatest thing and spends quite a bit of time each day hugging Mickey and carrying him around the house.

For Halloween, she was a green M&M. Daddy visited the M&M store in Vegas when he was there in February and bought her the outfit, and the size was perfect for it to be her Halloween outfit. So we visited the M&M store in Orlando and bought shirts so that we could be an M&M family! And it seemed only appropriate that we get yellow and blue shirts since yellow and blue make green! hahaha

We also got her a little green M&M doll that she could carry around, but she mostly just chewed on it. So far, I have yet to find a color that does not look good on her!

Olivia had music class on Halloween and, of course, she wore her outfit. She's really blossomed in the class and loves singing, playing the instruments, and interacting with the other kids. She really enjoyed the drums that day, and I was able to get some cute photos of her playing and singing.

As always these photos just scrape the surface of all the photos we took. But you can see more at our Kodak Gallery site!

Happy Birthday, Olivia!

Yeah yeah...only a month behind...so what else is new?!? Olivia is now 13 months old! Also as usual, a lot has happened over the last two months! Here are some highlights:

Her 1st Birthday! - We had a Baby Einstein themed party as we figure she will have a million "princess" parties, but she won't be into Baby Einstein forever. We did it the same weekend as her Baptism, so lots of friends and relatives came for the festivities. Olivia was cautious with the cake at first, but eventually got the hang of it and had a great time with the icing.

She also got lots of great presents. However, we are finding that she would much rather play with regular household items...bowls, spoons, water bottles, etc....than most of her store-bought toys. She loves playing with an empty 5 gallon Zephyrhills water jug...it makes a great noise when she bangs on it or picks it up and drops it, and she can easily push it all over the house. So much for regular toys! But some of her favorite gifts were the Abby Cadabby doll, a little baby doll (the one in the picture), an Elmo See N Say Shape sorter, the Little People Farm and her giraffe maracas. And mommy was smart enough to buy storage ottomans for the living room so we can pick everything up and hide it quickly when needed! :-)

Baptism - The day after her party, Olivia was baptized at St. Catherine's Episcopal Church. She now has two godmothers, my sister Tanya and my good friend Jody, and her godfather is Richard's brother, Scott. I think Olivia is in good hands! The priest who baptized her also baptized Olivia's cousins (Jonathan and Sarah, shown in the group picture).

Walking! - 5 days after her birthday, she finally decided to let go of the furniture and now stumbles around like a pro! Richard likes to call her "the drunken sailor", but she's doing a great job and is really good at checking her balance. We can also tell when she is really tired as she becomes more wobbly. But it's fun to watch her wander around and explore the world! Of course, that also means we have to be alot more diligent about monitoring what she can reach. And now she's figuring out how to climb things. One day I expect to find her on the kitchen table!

Language - Olivia now does 5 signs... "bubbles", "thank you", "milk", "more", and "eat". She also throws her hands up in the air when you say "So Big!!" She's really into learning the name for everything and walks around the house pointing to things, wanting to know what it is. Of course, this means I repeat things like "shoe", "table", "chair" about 400 times a day, but it's still fun to watch her developing interest in language. She hasn't started repeating the words yet, but we figure it will be like the walking thing...she cruised for 2 months before she let go and started walking, so we figure in a few months she'll pop out with sentences! She can also correctly identify the main Sesame Street characters (Elmo, Ernie, Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Abby Cadabby, and Zoe), and seems to understand most of what we say to her in terms of her food, toys, and basic commands. Though, she has already started tuning out the word "no".

1 Year Check-up - She was 22.4 lbs and 30 1/4 inches (both of which put her in the 75th-90th percentile for her age). She seems to have a very high pain tolerance as the doc always comments on her quick recovery time after her vaccinations. She also had her very first lollipop (which only lasted a few licks before she wanted to play with the sticky end) . Overall, he says she's doing great and is right on target!

We're still going to Gymboree and a music class and she loves them both! The socialization factor is the main point of going, but it's great to be in spaces twice a week where I really do not have to tell her "no". It's also fun to see how she changes from week to week. In today's music class she was actually bouncing to the beat, clapping along where appropriate, and banging her drum. It's a HUGE change from the first week when she completely ignored the group and just crawled around the room.

We had a professional photo shoot for her birthday and baptism and will be doing our family Christmas picture in a few weeks. Here are some of my favorites:

We head to Disney on Sunday to celebrate our 3rd wedding anniversary and, despite the number of times she has been to Disney, this will be Olivia's first real venture into the parks. I'm sure I will have LOTS of photos of her at various locations and with various characters.

At the end of November, we head to North Carolina for Thanksgiving with Richard's family. We are looking forward to the trip and hope that Olivia travels as well now as she did back in July!

Several months back I found a Miami Dolphin cheerleader outfit on sale at Target for $4...I couldn't pass it up, especially since Richard is a Dolphin fan. So here is Olivia in her first cheerleader outfit (I'm sure the first of many...). She's even smiling and clapping....GO TEAM!

We've been lazy and still bath her in her small tub that fits on the kitchen sink, mostly so we can save our knees and backs. However, she really doesn't fit in the tub very well, so we are going to have to make the transition to the big tub. And we've also started brushing her teeth with a toothbrush and toothpaste. She seems to like the taste of the paste and doesn't mind the brushing, at least for now! :-)

There are lots of pictures on our Kodak Gallery site...feel free to check them out! Until next time...

11 Months +++

Okay, so I've been slacking on the posting...sorry!! Our little girl is 11 months old and quickly approaching her 1st birthday. Quite a bit has happened in the last 7 weeks...

First, mommy quit her job...yay!! I now work part-time (about 12 hours per week), and still teach (about 3 hours per week), and have the rest of my time to spend with Olivia and work on my dissertation (which hasn't progressed much to date). Not only do I have better hours, but I love my new position working with the Housing and Residential Education department at USF. The people are great, and so far I really like the projects I'm working on. Daddy and Olivia helped me move out of my other office, and Olivia seemed to develop a fascination with the glass next to the door… It made for great photos though!


The new hours have allowed me to continue taking Olivia to Gymboree...she's now in the Level 3 class...and we have added a music class too! So she's getting lots of opportunity to socialize with other kids her age. She was even invited to her first birthday party this past Sunday for one of her friends from Gymboree! It was held at a local place called Kidz Club and Olivia had a great time playing with Cheyenne, Mia, and Malishka, who are all in her Gymboree class.

The best event in the past few weeks has been the finalization of her adoption! FINALLY!! On September 4, 2008, she legally became Olivia Rhianne Kittendorf-Rosengren (yes, we are torturing her with a long last name). Months of stress and anticipation came down to 10 minutes in a courtroom with a judge, a lawyer, 3 bailiffs, a court reporter, us and Grandma. The lawyer asked a series of questions basically pertaining to who we were, where we lived, and what we did, and the question which brought me to tears…”why do you want to adopt this child?”. How do you answer a question like that without crying!?!? They were all so friendly though…one of the bailiffs took photos for us, and afterward they gave Olivia two stuffed animals…a bear with a heart and a duck with an “Olivia” necklace.

After coming home and taking naps, we went to the Florida Aquarium and had a great time looking at all the fish, turtles, birds, rays, seahorses, gators, and sharks! We wanted to do something special to mark the day and thought the aquarium would be a fun adventure. Olivia seemed to enjoy herself and even found a boy to chase (yes, it's starting already!).

Olivia loves the tunnel that she gets to crawl through at Gymboree, so we bought her a princess one to play with at home. She and Leo (our youngest cat) spent about 20 minutes chasing each other around the tunnel the first day. It was really funny! She and Leo have developed a great relationship…he’s very patient with her even when she lays on him!

Olivia is still on the verge of walking. She lets go and stands unsupported, but hasn’t yet ventured that first step. She weighs a little over 22 lbs now, so we definitely get a workout lifting her up and down all day, and her favorite foods are still frozen blueberry waffles, frozen pancakes, cheese, bananas, Cherrios, teddy grahams, and various fruits. She babbles up a storm, understands lots of words and commands, and even understand signs, but hasn’t said or signed anything distinguishable. She LOVES Sesame Street!...you should see the grin on her face when she hears the theme song! And she understands the concept of a telephone... if we say "hello, hello, who's calling please?", she picks up her blue toy phone and puts it to her ear (though not always the right way)... it's so cute!

It's been amazing to watch her development... From the seemingly simple things like banging objects or learning to put things "in" and take things "out", to watching her pick up small objects and balance without holding on. Even her music tastes are developing...she actually smiles when she hears the song "Forever" by Chris Brown that plays in mommy's car.

Her birthday and baptism are just two short weeks away, so there will be more pictures and updates to follow. There was no way to post here all the photos from our recent adventures, so if you want to see more, visit our Kodak Gallery site. Till next time….

Our Happy Giggle Girl

This is my first attempt at posting a video of Olivia and, if it works, I'll start to post more. This was taken on June 21st (3 days before she was 9 months) and captures her giggling. You can hear mommy off camera making funny noises, fortunately you can't see the funny faces I was making too. But it made her giggle, which was the whole point. I challenge you to watch this without laughing yourself!!

9 1/2 Month Update

Okay, okay, so this blog is about 2 weeks later than normal. However, due to my work schedule, our vacation, and the doctor's vacation, Olivia didn't have her 9 month check-up until this past Friday. I wanted to wait and do the post AFTER we had her latest height and weight measurements, and she is now 2o lbs 10 oz and 29 1/4 inches long (still in the 95 percentile for height, and average for her weight). So much has happened since the last post, so here goes...

It's amazing how much a child will change in just 6 short weeks! Since the last post, Olivia has really become a girl on the move. She started sitting up on her own shortly after the last post. Richard went in to her room one morning to get her up and there she was, sitting up looking at him with a "what took you so long" look. She sat up on June 1st, started cruising (walking by holding on to things) on June 6th, crawled on June 9th, and we found her standing in her crib on June 10th. Talk about a quick progression! She is cruising around the living room and will occasionally let go for a few seconds and stand before plopping to the ground. She's also developed the balance to be able to bend over and pick things up while standing. The cruising improved her muscle strength so she has gone from army crawling to regular crawling, and she loves chasing after a ball that she rolled away from her. She has an activity walker that she likes to pull up on and play with, but she hasn't quite gotten the hang of using it as a support while she walks. Though I'm sure that's just days away.

She has developed quite an independent streak when it comes to her food, and with 7 teeth (and an 8th on the way) she's having fun using them. She'll only take about 5 bites of something off a spoon, then all she wants is finger food! She's not even interested in holding the spoon her self, just wants to pick up stuff with her developing pincer grasp. Her favorite item, of course, is Cheerios. She still loves chunks of banana, and she loves cheese, pasta, frozen waffles (toasted, of course), and the Gerber Graduates yogurt melts and puffed stars (they are sorta like baby corn pops that melt in your mouth). She has also started eating pieces of turkey and chunks of chicken (sorta). I also regularly give her carrots and green beans... some days she loves them, others she spits them out. And she still gets a variety of fruit combos with her cream of wheat cereal. She also loves drinking from her new "Olivia" sippy cup that Nonny (Richard's mom) gave her, and will happily let you know she is done eating by ripping off her bib. Definitely opinionated, this one is!

Speaking of Nonny, Olivia took her first road trip to see Nonny and PopPop in Franklin, NC over the July 4th weekend. We spent almost 12 hours in the car each way and she was a GREAT traveler. I sat in the backseat with her while daddy drove, and we played with her toys, sang songs, read books, and slept. I bought her a travel pillow (called a cradler) that prevented her head from bobbing around while she slept, and it was great! When I noticed she was starting to get sleepy, I put it on her and she'd doze off. By the end of the trip, once she woke up from her little naps, she would pull it off herself!

But we had a great time with Nonny and PopPop. We sat on the porch swing quite a bit (enjoying the cooler weather!), blew bubbles, played with a Tickle Me Elmo and Talking Kermit, visited PopPop at the farm and took pictures, and met all kinds of new friends and relatives at the July 4th cookout! Olivia was very happy to see that Nonny also has cats and spent time petting Willow (Patches didn't hang around to be groped by Olivia). PopPop will have Olivia fishing and picking vegetables in no time, and we know that Olivia will LOVE baking with Nonny. We're looking forward to our next trip to NC at Thanksgiving!

In the meantime, Olivia gets to spend some quality time with Grandma (my mom) who cares for her two full days and two half days per week. The half days I work have allowed me to start taking Olivia to Gymboree, and she's just loving it! The first week she was very much a cautious observer, but now she will crawl into the middle of the circle and clap! (yes, she's also clapping now...for everything and everyone!) It's a great opportunity for her to socialize with other babies her age, and for me to talk to other moms. I've even met a mom of an adopted boy named Tyler, and it's always nice to meet other adoptive parents.

And we can't forget to mention Richard's first Father's Day! His only request was a Fudgie the Whale cake from Carvel. Apparently their advertising is quite effective because Richard grew up with the idea that fathers should get Fudgie the Whale on Father's Day. So that's what he got (along with lunch from Carrabba's and the new Lego Indiana Jones video game).

All in all, it has been an eventful six weeks! Unless something really amazing happens in the next two weeks, I'll probably save the next post until she's about 10 1/2 months old. I'm also going to figure out how to post the few videos I've taken, especially her giggling one...it will crack you up!! Till next time...