The "littlest" Member of our Family

I can say that although Olivia is growing up fast she is not Growing fast. She is so tiny I still find it hard to believe when I look at her sometimes. All the boys were so big -- Off the charts at the top end, that looking at her (off the charts at the bottom) is sometimes amusing. The hard thing is trying to treat her age appropriately because based on her size, most people guess her to be somewhere between 10 and 12 months and are amazed by how advanced she is.LOL She started potty training about a month ago now, and we are doing pretty well. She will stay dry most every day, with an occasional accident. She actually wears underwear at home and pull-ups when we go out most days. She loves being out of a diaper which I think is her main motivation for using the potty. She should definitely be done training before her second birthday (11 Apr).

She loves dolls, still, and gets very excited to go down the doll aisle at the store. She doesn't want to just have the doll, she wants to change their clothes and their diapers, and feed them and rock them and push them in the stroller. So, she is getting doll accessories for Christmas.

She has also developed an affinity to Tinker Bell. I don't know how she decided she liked Tinker Bell, because we don't really watch T.V., but I guess it is the way she looks or the packaging because every time she sees a Tinker Bell she is drawn to it.

Luckily, she is not just a girly, girl, and she still loves to be outside and hang out with her brothers too (cold weather and all). She can make the perfect machine gun sound and has a pretty mean karate chop. She had a great time sledding after both big storms we have had this year. Even when the snow was too deep for her to move around she still enjoyed standing on the porch and watching everything.

In a way, it is a good thing that she is so small because one of her favorite pass times is climbing all over the mastiffs. The dogs are very tolerant of her and she loves them as long as they don't: roll over on her, lick her face, or knock her down with their tail. She has even started helping feed them every morning. she loves to bring all their bowls to me to fill, and then take them back. She can even manage to carry Kadiy's bowl which I found surprising because it is 4 cups of dog food. She is such a strong little girl.

Of course she is a Daddy's girl and if he is around she would rather be with him than with me, except for bed time. Not sure what is up with that, but I sure wish she would let him take her to be more peacefully sometimes. She calls to Daddy when she wakes up, but wants me to put her to bed? Crazy.

She has finally started doing better in the church nursery, and with strangers in general. It still takes about 30 minutes for her to warm up to someone but at least she gets over her initial resistance now.

So I have finally caught up with the kids in general for the past couple of months,and can now move on to catching up with the "big events" that have transpired. I guess my next post will be a little about how great it is to have Daddy home from Afghanistan (6 weeks ago-- LOL)