Duhtee

Libby got a new chair from Santa for Christmas. A soft pink chair. She has had it four days. It now has pencil marks and smooshed in wet gummy candies on it. She came to me in the kitchen, said "wook, mommy!" So I followed her to see what she was going to show me this time. Her chair. She pointed to the mess and said, "duhtee!" (dirty) Thanks, kid. Thanks for notifying me. I'm tired now. I'll think I'll just leave the mess for a while.

Merry Christmas

We had a fun, relaxing day. We were able to stay at home until 11:30 so the kids had plenty of time to play after getting up at 7am. Chucky and I awoke excited for Emma, and we enjoyed laying in the bed, listening to her whisper her exclamations as she saw all the loot Santa left for her.

She is most excited about her very own camera:


Libby got right into her stocking and started eating:


Emma put on her roller skates and wheeled around the house:


I dressed them up for lunch at Ghee's house and they were too excited to stand pretty for a picture:


Merry Christmas from the Olivers!

New Words

Libby exploded with new words the day after Christmas: garage, pray, amen, spank, dirty, cut, scissors, okay, babytalk, babyoff, YAY! My favorite is still thankyoumommy!

20 Months

Libby is twenty months old now. That means in four months she will be 2! I feel like she just was four months old a couple of weeks ago! She is quite the little package. She talks, and she talks with inflection and with so many facial expressions. She bellows, she demands, she yells, she whispers, and she says things repeatedly until she is acknowledged. She imitates almost anything Emma does or says, the utmost compliment to Emma. It's so funny to watch her try to do Emma's gymnastics tricks, or try to sweep the floor, or color a picture.

She has a special place in her crib where she always sleeps, with her head smashed up in the corner closest to the door. With or without the bumper, on her back or her belly, her head is always there and her blanky is tucked up under arm. One day I will sneak in and try to get a picture . . .

This week she learned to open the refrigerator. Nice! I can sit on the couch and send her to get her own cup of milk! She loves the Christmas tree and has pulled several ornaments off, but she really hasn't messed with the tree as much as I worried she would. That's probably because all the ornaments are out of her reach. Only the top two thirds of the tree have ornaments, it's gaaawgeous. I took her to the grocery store where she said Hiiii! to everyone we passed. She is a friendly, happy, hungry girl. She eats all day long. Nack, nack! (snack) she says, while she bangs her open hands on the pantry doors. She is also feisty. Maybe it's the red hair, maybe she needs an anger management seminar, but she hits, she pulls hair, she yells and cried with the best of them. It makes Emma more feisty and soon I have two yelling girls hitting and kicking each other. Lawd help me. Who do I send to time out? How do I prevent this, and should I? Should I let them fight it out? We have a lot to figure out over the next, um, 14 or so years.

Libby can say anything we ask her to, but some of the more recent things she has said are: loveyou!, ummmm, candy, Bella, house, muffin, movie, show, tree, light, on, in, out, help, alldone, allgone, rockrock, 'mon (come on) stop, nomommy, stopEMMA!

Santa 2008

Exactly what I predicted:

Sick

Last weekend I was sick. Most of the week I had headaches. Most of this weekend I had a headache. Being sick got me way behind with my Christmas shopping, and that gave me major anxiety/stress/no sleep. Today I wrapped most of our gifts and ordered Christmas cards and I am feeling a little more relaxed. If I could just have groceries delivered I'd be so relieved. Who knew grocery shopping would be my biggest dread? Here's a card that Emma made for me while I slept the day away on Sunday.

Parade

Emma was in a parade for the first time! She rode in a wagon for the Urbanna Christmas Parade with the Urbanna Baptist Day Care. She was very excited and looked forward to it all week. She was more bundled up than she wanted to be, but it was very cold! Chucky walked behind the float and Libby and I sat on the steps at the Sentinel office and watched. Libby waved to everything and shouted "Hi!" Mickey and Minnie Mouse were walking in the parade and they came over to visit Libby, but she got scared and started crying.