Rewind: Olivia's Birthday

This last November was Olivia's 2nd birthday.  We had a low-key birthday for her.  We just celebrated it with the 4 of us.  We had cake and opened presents.  It was really, really low-key.  :)  I don't think Olivia knew the difference.

This little girl is such a joy.  She is our spunky little girl that doesn't care for girly things and loves to shake her groove thing and run around laughing.  She is a riot and we never get tired of watching her and enjoying every second of the joy she brings into our lives.  One of her favorite things to do is dance.  When there is music playing, she's the first one out there dancing.  She has a wicked sense of humor and loves to get us laughing along with her.  She adores Walker.  I love watching Olivia as she focuses in on Walker and studies what he's doing and then tries to mimic him.  She would be his little shadow if she could.  He treats her like a little princess.  He is always worried about her happiness and even when he doesn't want to share with her, he eventually does because that's just the kind of kid he is.  She is so lucky to have such a kind brother.  They have a sweet bond that I hope continues to grow stronger.  They always have each other's back.  Walker is the first person she wants to see in the morning and she just beams when he walks into the room.

She has a stronger temper and has no problem saying "no" to us.  And she says it often.  She knows what she wants and if it is opposite of what we want, it takes quite a bit of persuasion to get her to back down and agree with us.  Personally, I love it.  It does get frustrating at times, but I love that she is independent and that she is confident is what she wants.  I hope that she is always that way and that she's not easily deterred by the pressures from those around her.

These are pictures from her little birthday celebration.  Thank goodness for b/w conversion.  The lighting in our kitchen was horrendous and there was no amount of photoshopping that could save them, so voilà! black and white saves the day...kind of.  Don't mind her alien black eyes in some of them.  haha

Rewind: Just Plain Cute

How many pictures do I really need of Olivia doing the same thing?  I'm trying to go through my photos and delete the redundant ones, but I just can't.  Even though they are of Olivia doing the same thing, playing with a push toy, I love each and every one of these expressions.  Deleting one of them is like deleting a part of my daughter.  Does that make sense?  I admit, I have the tendency to hoard useless memorabilia that I can't quite remember why I have it in the first place.  I have improved over the years, but when I see these photos of my children and each photo has a different expression, I just can't press that delete button.  I mean, really, how can you?  Look at that face!  ;)  

Olivia is 14 months in these photos.  She has just started to walk consistently.  I love this age because this is when they start becoming their own little person.  They have the mobility to go where they want to go and make their own decisions on what to do with their time.  I love watching her explore her surroundings and figure out how to use her toys.  She never was one to sit still, she was a mover and now that she can walk, she's in heaven.

Another reason I love these photos is because they showcase her hairline perfectly.  She was born with hair, not as much as Walker but she wasn't bald.  Except for her sides.  She didn't have hair on either side of her head for a long time.  She had enough on the top and back to make up for the lack of hair on the sides, but if you look closely you'll see that she doesn't have any hair on either side of her head.  I loved it because it made for a very nice hairline and it framed her face perfectly.  She's in desperate need of a hair cut at this very moment, but it makes sense because she's 2.  But I loved her hairline and her hairless sides.  :)

Rewind: Olivia Reading

I promised some rewinds and here they are. I'm in the process of cleaning out my hard drive and ditching and saving photos. What a hard decision. I feel like each photo captures that moment of my child and it's so hard to delete them. I definitely keep more photos than I probably should, but it's just hard to choose. Of course, the ones where they are just too blurry don't make the cut, but other than that I don't require much out of my photos from my kids. I just love every photo of them. But I'm being strong and cleaning house.

This was last February. Olivia had just started to learn how to walk. She was a late walker by our standards. Walker set the bar high by walking at 9 months. He actually started walking before he started to crawl. Funny boy. Olivia was a crawler from early on. She mastered the army crawl and knew she could get anywhere that way so walking wasn't a priority. We couldn't get this girl to sit still. Walker could sit for hours and play with the toys around him, Olivia had no interesting in sitting, she was a mover. This day I got her to sit still long enough to take some cute pictures and then she was up and at 'em. Her love for books still continues. She's content when she has a book. I hope that lasts.

It's Been Awhile

I'm back online. This week I had a scare. I thought I had lost my blog. I went to bed with my blog intact and woke up to find out that it had been deleted. Due to a very kind friend who had a connection at Google, I was able to get my request to be reinstated expedited and I have my beloved blog back. It took a near-death experience for me to appreciate this little gem in my life. So I'm motivated to be a better blogger. I can't promise much but I can promise posts that are not separated by months and months of silence.

I will give fair warning, if you haven't noticed, I haven't been that great of a blogger for, oh say, the last year. So I'm going to be backtracking, while trying to stay up-t0-date. So you'll have to bear with me as I rewind time and try and capture some of our last year. I promise, it will be good.

It's great to see you again.

xoxo
JBG - the repentant blogger

In the meantime, here's a teaser of things to come.