Olivia is 8 Months Old!

At eight months old, Olivia weighs 19 lb 8 oz and is 28.75" tall.  She comfortably is wearing her 9-12 month clothes.

{Helping Daddy put the baby gate up!}

This has been a huge month for Olivia.  Not only did she learn how to pull herself up on furniture and crawl, but she has also learned how to drop herself down from furniture, climb up stairs, and cruise around furniture (moving to her right, only).  She is always on the move!  She's pretty quick and crawling, and can climb up half a flight of stairs even before you realize that she's on them.  She LOVES to walk around with anyone who is willing to walk with her, holding her hands.  Each week her confidence and balance gets better!  Give it a week or two and she'll be walking with the assistance of only one hand.  My prediction is that she will be independently walking before 11 months.  Eek.  The sooner she walks though, the less damage to her legs.  If we're outside where there is pavement, I try to make sure that she is wearing long pants otherwise her knees and shins get all scraped up.

Because of her increased mobility, we've unofficially changed her name to "Trouble".  Walk into our house at any given moment and you will hear someone saying, "Watch out, here comes Trouble!"

Olivia loves her siblings.  Nathan and Kayla spend the most time with her - Nathan will bring her toys and Kayla will carry her around.  They all love to call Olivia to them and encourage her to come by holding a toy out in front of her.

Olivia loves any sort of 'rattle' toy.  Every time she picks up a toy she shakes it to see if it rattles.  She also loves balloons.

When she wants a bottle, she puts one finger in her mouth and bites on it.

Olivia's hair is now long enough to fit into one or two ponies, and it's SO cute!  She's starting to look less like a boy now that her hair can be styled.

Olivia loves the bath.  When she crawls upstairs, the first thing she does is crawl to the bathroom and stand by the bathtub.  I still bathe her every morning in the baby bath in kitchen sink out of convenience, but if we have time to kill after dinner then I will give her a bath upstairs in the regular tub.

She has really started to babble, saying "Dadadadadadadada."

Olivia's schedule:
I've been working on dropping Olivia down to two naps, which I'm successful at doing 90% of the time.  I've also been working on cutting out the number of bottles that Olivia gets, by pushing her to finish 6oz each feed.  In the morning she struggles to finish all six, so just before she goes down for her first nap I always offer her whatever she didn't finish).  On a typical day, this is her schedule:
7:00am  Wake Up
7:45am  Breakfast (1/4 slice of bread with peanut butter and jam, and some banana)
8:45am  Bottle (4oz)
9:45am  Bottle (2oz)
10:00am  Nap
11:00am  Wake Up
12:00pm   Lunch (1/4 slice of bread with cheese, 1/4 jar of baby food fruit)
1:00pm  Bottle (6oz)
1:30pm  Nap
2:45pm  Wake Up
3:00pm  Snack (Graduates or Cheerios or Yogurt)
5:00pm  Dinner (whatever we are having)
6:00pm  Bottle (4oz)
7:45pm  Bottle (6oz)
8:00pm  Bed
3:00am  Bottle (3oz)

Matthew and Kayla are FIVE!

How crazy is it that Matthew and Kayla are FIVE?!?!?  It feels so much older than four.  Five means they are starting kindergarten...oh no!  I can't believe it's been five years since I become a mother.  As I look back I can't help but think about how little I knew about parenting.  But, with a lot of advice and a lot of trial and error, we're starting to figure some things out!  

It's amazing to me how two kids can be so different, yet so very similar.  It's quite interesting how close Matthew and Kayla are, despite there being gender differences.  It's actually quite amazing.  I imagine that they will start to grow apart once they start school, because Kayla will likely gravitate towards the girls in the class and Matthew towards the boys.  That will be interesting too, to see how they change with the introduction of school and more independence from me.

Matthew and Kayla are best friends.  They do everything together, by choice.  They play trains together, they play with stuffed animals together, they bath together.  What one does, the other does, too.  They both take turns 'leading' the play, it just varies, depending what they are doing and who is 'better' at that type of play.

They both go to bed at the same time, around 7:45/8:00pm, and sleep until 7:15am.

MATTHEW


Matthew weighs 36.6 lbs and is 42 7/8" tall.  He comfortably wears size 5 clothes and wears size  9 or 10 shoes (depends if Nathan has forced him to move up a size or not!).

Matthew is very passionate/enthusiastic/dramatic.  Whatever he does, he puts full emotion into it.  If he's excited, he's jumping up and down because he can't sit still.  If he's sad or upset, he's full-out crying.  If he's angry, he's pumping his fists down saying, "I'm mad!" and sometimes throwing the objects around him (which earns him an instant time-out!).

His favourite thing to do right now is play Go Fish, Uno, or Othello.  He's extremely quick to pick up the logic and strategic way to play games, and so he often wins, even against Jon or I.  This has also made him a poor loser, too.  We're working on that.

He still enjoys playing trains, but it has taken a backseat since the introduction of Paw Patrol.  He's seen every episode numerous times and can tell you exactly what happens in each one.  His favourite character is Zuma, and so his new favourite colour is Orange (Zuma's colour).

Matthew can count up to one hundred and is good at basic math.  He likes to 'play math' with me, where I use chocolate chips and marshmallows and do basic math equations and patterns with them, and they get to eat everything at the end.  

He has become a much better eater, and enjoys my cooking over Jon's due to the simplicity of my meals.  He still is a true Dutch-boy, favouring any sort of 'meat and potatoes' meal.  
He is great at listening to the Bible stories we read after dinner and can answer any question I ask him about what he had just heard.  He is even able to recall the basics of what happened in the story we read the prior evening.

Our largest frustration with Matthew is that he is lazy when it comes to dressing/undressing himself.  He tries to pretend that he can't do it and puts up a huge fit, hoping that either Jon or I will help him.  Most of the time, we don't.  He is fully capable of dressing and undressing, it's just a matter of him learning to exercise this independence.

He is learning how to read words, and can recognize and say, 
- the
- and
- it
- in
- on
- no
I've recently added
- if
- of
- a

Matthew can recognize and say the basic hours on the clock.

We are still working on his speech, and our largest focus with him right now is correcting his lisp.  He knows how to say 's' correctly, it's just a matter of it becoming second-nature for him now.  He has made huge improvement in the four months since he started speech therapy, and considering we have only had a handful of appointments he is doing well.


KAYLA

Kayla weighs 41.4 lbs and is 44 1/2" tall.  She is starting to wear size 6 clothes, and wears size 10 or 11 shoes.

Kayla continues to be an extremely easy child to parent.  She is seldom disobedient and is only put into time out once every month or two.  She is very even-keeled emotionally; she doesn't show extreme excitement, but she also doesn't get overly upset.

She loves to colour, whether it be in a colouring book or on a blank sheet of paper.  She's recently discovered all of my plastic tracers, and has been creating many pictures out of the traced items.  She can easily sit at the kitchen table and colour for an hour or two.


Kayla also loves to craft.  If I let her take out the craft box every day, she would, and she would spend hours gluing and taping things together.  She is always very intentional in how she puts her crafts together, and everything is put perfectly symmetrical if there is opportunity to, or the instructions are followed to a tee.  Kayla doesn't get near as much time to craft as she would like, solely because of my lack of desire to have the other kids do it too.  If she were an only child, she would love it!

In addition to colouring and crafting, Kayla loves to do school workbooks.  She likes writing things, and often asks me how to spell out words so that she can write them on paper.  Like Matthew, she absolutely loves Paw Patrol, so I currently have a list of all of the Paw Patrol characters written out and hanging up.

She is very independent and able to do almost anything asked of her.  She is my largest helper with Olivia because of this, but also because she loves her sister dearly.

Kayla is good at playing Go Fish and Uno, however, she does not like to play, she prefers to watch.  Every few days I force her to play with Matthew and I, in hopes that she changes her mind and begins to enjoy it.  I believe that she doesn't like to lose.  She is just as happy watching and helping her cousins play as she is playing herself.  At least if she watches she still learns the strategy!

She is really becoming confident at climbing different playgrounds.  We have so many different ones close to us that we try to explore a new one every now and then.

~ ~ ~

Last year, I started a tradition of videotaping Matthew and Kayla individually while I asked them a list of questions.  I asked them the same questions this year, and these are the responses I got (Kayla did not enjoy being put on the spot with the questions, and so she had a lot of "I don't know" answers):

1. What's your name?   Matthew
2. How old are you?   5
3. What is your favourite color?   Orange
4. What is your favourite toy?   My leap pad
5. What is your favourite fruit?   Banana
6. What is your favourite tv show or movie?   Paw Patrol
7. What is your favourite game?   Uno or Go Fish
8. What is your favourite animal?   Dog
9. What is your favourite song?   ABCs (He should have said "Awesome God")
10. What is your favourite book?   The ABC one (What?!?  He should have said "Fox in Socks" by Dr. Suess)
11. Who is your best friend?   Kayla
12. Who are you going to marry?   I don't know.
13. How many kids are you going to have when you are married?   5
14. What is your favourite thing to eat for breakfast?   Waffles
15. What is your favourite cereal?   Froot Loops
16. What is your favourite thing to eat for lunch?   Cheese and Crackers and Donuts (the one day Jon has to feed the kids lunch, this is what they had (after walking to Tim Horton's)...and now it's his favourite?!?!)
17. What is your favourite thing to eat for dinner?   Green mashed potatoes (our nickname for boerenkool)
18. What is your favourite thing to do outside?   Go on the trampoline at Grandma's
19. What is your favourite drink?   Juice
20. What is your favourite snack?   Cheese and meat on bread (??)
21. When is your bedtime?  8 o'clock
22. What do you like to take to bed with you at night?  My baby (he still sleeps with his doll)
23. What is your favourite holiday?   Waffle day (??)
24. What do you want to be when you grow up?   Work at the...with Dad (he was going to say work at the greenhouses, but corrected his answer)
25. Name one thing you do really well?   Listening
26. What makes you feel sad?   If they hit me
27. What makes you feel happy?  If they don't hit me
28. If you could choose a different name, what would you choose?   Zuma (from Paw Patrol)
29. Where do you want to go on vacation?   To Zuma Island (??).  Airplane to Disneyland.
30. What is your favourite thing to do?   Play with my friends
31. What is your favourite thing to do with Mom?   Play Uno
32. What is your favourite thing to do with Dad?   Play Othello
33. What's your favourite thing to do with your siblings?   Play with them, play toys

1. What's your name?   Kayla
2. How old are you?   5
3. What is your favourite color?  Pink
4. What is your favourite toy?   Leap pad
5. What is your favourite fruit?   Strawberries
6. What is your favourite tv show or movie?   Paw Patrol
7. What is your favourite game?   I don't know
8. What is your favourite animal?   Cat
9. What is your favourite song?   I don't know
10. What is your favourite book?   A Paw Patrol book we have.
11. Who is your best friend?  I don't know.  Remy and Carly.
12. Who are you going to marry?   I don't know
13. How many kids are you going to have when you are married?   2
14. What is your favourite thing to eat for breakfast?   Pancakes
15. What is your favourite cereal?   K: Mom, you know the yellow box at Grandma's house in the play food? Me: Corn Pops? K: Ya, that's it.
16. What is your favourite thing to eat for lunch?  Waffles
17. What is your favourite thing to eat for dinner?   Chicken Cordon Blues
18. What is your favourite thing to do outside?   Play
19. What is your favourite drink?   Pop
20. What is your favourite snack?   Little bit of everything (Cheerios, raisins, marshmallows, chocolate chips)
21. When is your bedtime?   I don't know
22. What do you like to take to bed with you at night?   I don't know (She doesn't necessarily have a favourite, but definitely likes to have her 'Noise Maker' (Soothe & Glow Seahorse)
23. What is your favourite holiday?   Noah's Ark day
24. What do you want to be when you grow up?   To work at the greenhouse.
25. Name one thing you do really well?   Climbing
26. What makes you feel sad?   I don't know
27. What makes you feel happy?   I don't know
28. If you could choose a different name, what would you choose?   I don't know
29. Where do you want to go on vacation?  I don't know...oh, the beach!
30. What is your favourite thing to do?   Watch tv
31. What is your favourite thing to do with Mom?   I don't know (She should have said to help me clean)
32. What is your favourite thing to do with Dad?   Wrestle him.

33. What's your favourite thing to do with your siblings?  I don't know.  Play with them.

Enjoying the Sunshine

I am LOVING the weather today.  My favourite weather is when it's sunny enough to wear a t-shirt, but cool enough to wear jeans...and that's today!

{I think she has a little dimple on her left cheek (although hard to see in this picture).}

{Nathan brought Olivia a ball to play with.}

{The grass didn't even bother her, she just went crawling where she wanted to go.}

{I have a love-hate relationship with the sandbox.  The kids love it.  Nathan plays in it every single time he's outside, which I love.  However, the sand is really wet right now and so it sticks to everything and gets everywhere and so they come to the house absolutely covered in it.}

{I had bought a second bike seat off of the facebook swap for $15 in the fall, for Olivia (I wanted to keep the one we had for Nathan just in case we did a longer bike ride).  Jon put it together this afternoon and so we put Olivia in it for the first time, with Kayla's old helmet.  She looks really cute in it.  She was super-tired and ready for a nap, so she shed some tears being put in it, but I'm sure she'll love going for bike rides!}

{Our neighbours gave us a Little Tykes plastic wagon when they did some purging a couple months ago, so Jon pulled them to our little park in it, for fun.  Yes, the coordinating royal blue shirts were planned :) }

{Brothers!}

Olivia is on the go!

**There is a new (boring) post below this one, too :)**

Two days ago, Olivia learned how to pull herself up on toys and furniture.

Yesterday, she learned how to creep.

Today, she learned how to crawl...and boy is she getting good at it!

I feel like tomorrow I'm going to wake up and she's going to be walking...and talking...and going to school...and getting all grown up on me.

Please slow down, Olivia.  I don't want you to grow up yet.  You're my baby!

Olivia is 7 Months Old!

At seven months old, Olivia weighs 18 lb 3 oz.  She is comfortably into her 9-12 month clothes and wears size 4 shoes.

Shortly after she turned six months old, Olivia learned how to roll from her tummy to her back, over her left shoulder.  About a week ago she learned how to roll over her right shoulder.  Combine that with the fact that she is really good at spinning around in circles means that she is all over the place now.  She also pulls herself up to her knees all the time!  If she gave it a little more effort she would be pulling herself up fully.  Olivia also is on all fours all the time.  She knows how to move her hands forward in a crawling motion, but doesn't quite know how to lift up her knees and pull them forward.  It won't be long though!  She can get quite grumpy when she's left on the floor to play because she is frustrated that she can't get to where she wants to go.

As a birthday present to me, Olivia started talking.  Her voice is so cute!  All she says is, "Dadadadada".

Also after she turned six months old, I stopped swaddling her for nap and bed times.  She was getting really frustrating with spitting out her soother and then not being able to grab it because she was swaddled, so this has relieved most of that.  She is really good at being able to find her soother and put it in her mouth.  She likes to put it in sideways, hold it there, and chomp up and down.  That and the fact that she likes to bite on toys and her fingers and is drooling a lot makes me think that she is going to be getting her first tooth sooner rather than later.

Olivia is still not a great drinker.  She manages to drink 4.5 ounces each feed, but I would love to see that increased to 6.  She has a strong dislike for any 'baby' food, unless it's some sort of fruit.  She tolerates her rice cereal every morning, at best.  My other kids all had rice cereal every morning for breakfast until they were at least a year, but I don't think I'll keep her on it beyond this package.  She is very capable of eating whole Cheerios.  Olivia LOVES yogurt and fruit.  She typically has bread for lunch and eats whatever we are eating for dinner.  She doesn't eat a large volume of food each meal, so we have a lot of work to do in that department.

Olivia loves her siblings.  She loves Kayla, and Kayla loves that she can now carry Olivia around.  Matthew pays the least amount of attention to her.  Nathan still smothers Olivia, and she is still quite tolerant of it.

She also loves having a bath in the 'big kid' bath.  She loves to sit and splash, and often tries to pull herself up on the edge.  It's a full time job watching her in there!

Olivia knows what she wants.  The other night I was walking down the stairs carrying Olivia and walked past the toy room.  Big mistake.  She freaked out!  As soon as I walked back to the toy room and set her down she was happy as a clam.  Stinker!

Enjoying Every Moment

This evening I went to the hospital to visit my sister and newest nephew (which brings my niece/nephew count up to 23!  Yes, my kids have a LOT of cousins!).  Holding a newborn is such a good reminder of how quickly they grow up.  I went from holding a newborn to holding (almost) seven-month old Olivia and it's amazing/incredible/sad how quickly they grow up.  So tonight when I came home, instead of cleaning up the toys all over the house like I normally would have while Olivia waited to be put to bed, I spent some quality one-on-one time with her, cherishing the moment because tomorrow, she will be another day older and another day wiser.

No More Naps for Nathan

For the last few months, putting Nathan down for his afternoon nap was a battle (most of the time).  There were a lot of tears (from him) and threats (from me) and even then, he didn't always sleep.  He was determined to not nap anymore, but I was determined that he was not ready to give up his nap yet.  Or, maybe I wasn't ready for him to give up his nap yet?  Matthew and Kayla stilled napped every day until they were just over three years old so I was assuming/hoping he would be the same.  I guess not!

Two weeks ago I still put him in his room for his nap, but didn't fight him if he didn't want to stay in there.  The first few times he came downstairs he came down slowly, with a sly grin on his face.  He knew that he was risking getting in trouble, and tried to be cute so I wouldn't get angry.  And I didn't get mad.

Nathan hasn't napped for two weeks now, and it's actually gone really well.  He typically has a slight melt-down around dinner time because he's exhausted, but a quick threat that Jon's going to help him eat (instead of me) if he doesn't sit at the table is all it takes to get him at the table and eating.  He's been under-the-weather for a few days so I couldn't convince him to eat dinner tonight, nor did I want to force him to eat it.

He now willingly goes to bed (most of the time only if I'm helping get him ready for bed, not Jon...have you noticed a theme?  Yes, he's become quite the Mommy's boy).  I've successfully put him to bed even before Matthew and Kayla have gotten ready for bed, which I'm pleasantly surprised about.  I thought for sure he would refuse to go to bed until the older two did, but I guess he's just so tired that he doesn't even care.

There are afternoons where I wish that he would fall asleep on the couch while watching a cartoon or during our drive home, but he typically doesn't.  Oh well!