Moms Weekend

April 30th was Mom's weekend, and Alex and I still got to be involved even though neither one of us is at OSU :). Mary came down for the weekend, and we had a very fun time. Here's Olivia doing her morning workout to prepare for the vigorous activities we would complete throughout the day...



Picture out of order: This is Olivia's first fortune cookie! I personally think fortune cookies are the best part about Oriental food. That's not to say that I don't like that food, I just really love fortune cookies, and have been known to steal 2 or 3 every time I go. I was excited to let Olivia knaw down on one, and she did great! Some minor hacking and choking, but we've since learned that choking is a normal part of kids learning to eat people food, so it's all good!




The spring football game was that afternoon, and Gary came down for the festivities! I can't say the football was amazing, but it was great to see it after 5 long months, and I can't wait for football season this fall! Here's a not-so-great family pic...but it works! Just FYI, I'm wearing my Moby wrap...the best invention EVER for women carrying a baby. It just feels like you're pregnant again, but you can take it off!


After walking through the street fair on campus, we were all parched and decided to meet Gene, Ali, and Max for a drink. Olivia had her first straw-drinking experience here, and coincidentally her first bar experience! It was the daytime, so minors are allowed, but we went to Clod's, so it's technically a bar (also my first bar experience...). Just in case you're wondering, this is water :)

After drinks we went and chilled out at Andy's house until an awesome comedy show that night. I was really impressed with the caliber of comedians that OSU can pull in!

I really had a great weekend, and it was fun to just hang out on campus and feel like a college student again!

6 month pictures

Warning: this post contains pictures that I did not pay for. I did pay for the first ones, and will delete these after people have looked at them, but I couldn't resist posting all of the wonderful pics that we got! If you feel that this is wrong please feel free to skip this post... :)

The day before Olivia's 6 month birthday we went to Sears to get some professional photos taken. I know that I take pretty good pictures, but I am still sold on getting professional ones every 6 months or so because of the difference in quality. The shoot was successful, which is a HUGE understatement, and all of these pictures were taken in less than half an hour. Olivia was totally hamming it up, just turning and smiling every time we put her in a new pose. Alex and I were sitting on either side of her on drool duty, which was an important job because we had to be fast in order for her outfits to stay dry!

Anyway, here goes! First, the pictures that we couldn't resist buying some of. Let me know if you want a wallet...we have a few left over!

Now the copyrighted pics...

We took some family photos, but Alex and I weren't planning on taking any, so my hair isn't done and they didn't turn out super great

And the pics of Olivia... she did so great! We really didn't have to do any pose twice, I can't tell you how easy this was! MUCH more successful than her 1 month pics :)

Standing with any sort of balance was very new, but we did it anyway, and she made it look easy!

Outfit change! These pictures are courtesy of Niki and her wonderful bow and tutu mix! Olivia was having a great time playing with the tutu, we had a hard time getting her to let go :)

Outfit change #2! This was the photographer's idea (I'm not super big on naked pictures) but I'm so glad we went along with it because they turned out great! At this point Olivia was pretty hungry, but she did her job and posed for 4 quick pictures before she could get dressed and fed again.

And that's a wrap for the illegal pictures! I hope you enjoy them as much as I do, everytime I look at Olivia or these pictures I can't believe how half of that came from me! :) She is so beautiful, I just really enjoy looking at her and watching her grow.

1/2 Birthday

On April 28th, Olivia turned sic months old! She learned many new skills during her sixth month, and grew quite a lot!

Stats: Height - 26.25" (70th percentile)
Weight - 14 lb 15 oz (30th percentile)
Head Circumfrence - 42.5 cm (53rd percentile)

While at the doctor, she also got her six month shots, and I was very glad to have Alex there. Olivia does really well, but the speed of the shots varies a lot depending on the nurse, so it was hard for me to see her suffer for longer than other times. Our pediatrician (whom we LOVE, ask me about him if you want the best ped. in Corvallis) also said to let loose with the solids, and said she should be eating two servings of vegetables, one of fruit, and one of meat every day, along with the rice cereal we were already giving her. This has been kind of exciting, and despite the solid food poop (sorry if that's TMI), we enjoy giving Olivia three meals a day that consist of more than milk and cereal.

The only two foods that Olivia's not thrilled about are green beans and green peas. Quite frankly, I don't blame her because the baby food version of these foods are overcooked and smell nasty (I haven't ventured into tasting most of the foods...) so we steer clear of them. Don't get me wrong, she'll be eating them when it's real vegetables, but I'm giving her a pass on the baby food version.

We have a few pictures to show the milestones that Olivia reached during april:

first is the ability to pull things where she wants them. This seems simple, but Olivia's really doing a lot better with her hand control, and this skill was demonstrated one afternoon during nap-time. I put her down awake, as I've been trying to do more and more, so I just laid her down and put the pink blanket over her. I could see as I left that she had kicked the pink blanket almost off, but I always let her whine and squirm for a few minutes before I go back in to soothe and recover. She only whined for a minute or so, then she was silent, and when I went back in to put the blanket back on, this is what I saw:


The brown blanket had been above her head, waiting to get washed. Yes, I know you're not supposed to have too many things in the bed, but I let that one slip :). I thought it was so cute that she solved her own blanket problem so she could go to sleep!

Next skill: SITTING on her own!! This was such a surprise, because Olivia just started rolling over a few days before she turned 5 months. However, rolling was WAY too easy when she started doing it, and she's strong enough to do whatever she wants. Anyway, in the middle of April, she started sitting up by herself, and within a week was leaning to pick up things without falling over! She rarely falls, but when she does I always jump up to help before realizing that she fell on purpose and is laying on the ground laughing :). She's a daredevil, that's for sure. She has a few bumps and bruises from her different adventures, but she's loving the freedom that sitting by herself has provided.


Oh and the cans are from a recent workout...I was doing an aerobics workout with weights, and the TV instructor said to find a can that was quite a bit lighter than your weight so that the different arms had different weights (long story...). Olivia was jealous of the toys that I got to use, so I got her a couple of her own! She was a little possessive of those refried beans and corn, I think she'll be a Mexican food junkie like her dad when she gets bigger.

And an update on the diva-ness from last month...still exists! Olivia loves to play with mommy's shoes, clothes, and mostly sunglasses. I think she looks quite dashing! And not cross-eyed, that's just the look because the glasses are a touch too big :)

Olivia loves her cousins. The Easter post showed her with Tyler and Aiden, Nick, Danielle, Ruby, and Hallie, but she loves them all. I feel so lucky to have so many cousins, both kids and adults, that look after and play with Olivia. I hope that she knows all of her cousins on both sides and continues to play with them forever! (Oh and I'm SO excited for the baby group on my side,

Olivia will have such fun playing with Matthew, Teagen, Amelia, Baby Meacham, and Baby Johnson...WHEW that's quite a group!)

This picture is of a cousin bonding moment with Max (the FIRST cousin to hold her) and Olivia. I missed the moment, but thanks to Danielle for capturing it for me!

Olivia also got to meet her friend Gracie Dibble this month! They don't know it yet, but they will grow up to be best friends, as Grace's mom Ashley and I are quite sure :). Olivia was just enamored with this new baby, and I'm so excited to let them play more this summer!

Official six month photos still to come!

April happenings

April began with a bang as Olivia and I went with my parents to the NCAA Regional Gymnastics meet at OSU. Olivia was much more interested in the band than the gymnastics, but it was very fun and It was fun watching her interest in the band and the two babies (much smaller than she ever was :) ) sitting near us.

Gma Johnson, Gpa Johnson, and Olivia all watching the band

The next weekend (4/8) our little family packed up and headed up to Keizer for the weekend. Here's a couple pictures from that night. First, they let Olivia look at some pictures of herself, and this picture doesn't show, but she was super excited...not sure if it was the potential to eat the phone or looking at her picture, but excited none-the-less.

I'm not sure how the conversation went here, but we were trying to figure out what Olivia would look like with a full head of hair, and so the toupee of Danielle's hair came into play :)

The next morning I had my most wonderful garage-saling experience EVER! The Blanchet School in Salem has a twice-yearly Babies and Bumps sale, which is the entire gym filled with different families selling clothes from maternity through childrens. TONS of baby clothes, and all at garage sale prices! I spent a bit of money, but got awesome clothes for Olivia, and found quite a few books as well!

The next weekend was in Keizer as well. We realized after April that we had gone up almost every weekend for two months, but we got a lot done, and it was GREAT to see the Salem family so much! Anyway, over the 16th and that weekend Rick and Shirley were up, so we had a Casqueiro get-together to celebrate! It was the first time Rick and Shirley met Olivia, and my lame camera-ness failed to take any pictures! I'm hoping that someone else got some...but we did get some great cousin pictures of Tyler and Aiden playing with Olivia. They are great cousins, and they are so sweet to play with her, even though all she wants to do is eat their toys!

Olivia also wanted to show off her newly developed sitting skills for everyone! Olivia started sitting up by herself on the 9th, and by the 15th was really sturdy. She showed that, like rolling, she waited until it was easy peasy to show her new skill to us.

Successfully eating her first people food! Technically she's had bites of other foods, but this was the first food she ate that wasn't placed in her mouth. She knawed on that orange for a good five mintes, thoroughly soaking herself and Nick in orangy-spit :)

Update news...I have been missing for about a month while I finished up school, but plan to get caught up before going to Vegas on the 20th!

Easter (times 2)

Most holidays at our house get repeated. We have a lot of family pretty close, and we are lucky enough to have families that love to hang out together, so we do a lot of driving between Keizer and Philomath, enjoying all holidays to the max!

Easter was no different, and we started it Saturday morning decorating eggs at my parents' house. This was the first year that we didn't hunt for eggs, but there was no kids to find them, and it's just not the same with all grown-ups! It's important to note also that the 4.5 dozen eggs shown here is the smalles number I ever remember making, good job MOM!



I wanted Olivia to help with the decorating, so I gave her an egg and a crayon...needless to say she enjoyed the egg more than the crayon :). For the record, the egg was not peeled, and we were keeping a very good watch on her!

After eggs, I wanted to take some pictures of Olivia with my mom's beautiful tulips, so we went outside to the deceivingly cool spring weather. I just have such a beautiful daughter I couldn't help but post quite a few pictures...every one I took was great!

The next morning we headed to Keizer for Easter with Alex's family! In the morning we headed to Jim and Kathy's, and were wonderfully surprised by this adorable adirondack chair for Olivia and a super cute little bunny from Jim and Kathy, as well as these bunny ears from Danielle...Thank you! She was having a blast sitting all by herself, and loves her chair. I love the bunny ears, they are just so cute!

Olivia loves her aunt Ashley and uncle Andy :)

Super ladylike position :)

It was really fun watchin Ruby and Olivia playing, here is Debi "introducing" them :) It's really interesting to me that babies can sniff out other kids, and that they like them so much better than other people!

Peek-a-boo! It was one-handed, because Ruby wanted to see Olivia's face the whole time...

Grandpa Gary on baby duty! Olivia's favorite game is to take every toy that's around her and throw it, so she's always glad to have Grandpa around to give them back to her!

Ruby wasn't all that thrilled about Olivia's drooling all over, so partway through the afternoon she put herself on drool duty, and spent about 15 minutes with the burp cloth on hand, mopping up Olivia every time she was about to leak.

Story time! I couldn't resist this picture perfect moment between Aunt Wesley and Ruby!

Hallie caught this moment :) Olivia's all smiles hanging out with her family, and thoroughly enjoys the extra attention she gets!

Needless to say, we had a great Easter, and can't wait to see family again soon! This concluded our marathon of going to Keizer almost every weekend, and was just 4 days before Olivia was officially 6 months old!

Preview: next post we'll look at all the new skills Olivia developed during her sixth month!