Rolie Polie Oli(via)

January Updates

Is January almost over already?!  Time sure has flown this month.  After having a nice, long month off, Nick is now back in school.  He'll be pretty busy writing a lot this next semester, but that's great because that's what he loves doing.  Becky stays home and takes care of baby Olivia, which is tiring but totally worth it.

Olivia has developed some new hobbies recently.  First, she loves looking out of the window in the family room.  If she is being a little fussy, a simple stroll over to the window so she can peer out will calm her right down.  Granted, the view from our window is pretty lame...but she enjoys it nonetheless.  She has always liked looking at lights, but she especially loves the sunshine-- she truly is a California girl!

Also, Olivia made a ground-breaking discovery a few days ago: she has legs!  Since then, she likes to "stand" pretty much whenever possible.

Olivia has found that being vertical has its perks.  For starters, it is much easier to look around and observe than when you are being held laying down.  It also allows you to fall asleep with your head on one of your parents' shoulder so that your chubby baby cheeks get squished in the most adorable way...well, that one may be more of a perk for us :)

Gotcha!

We finally present some Olivia smiles!

Warm Wishes!

When Olivia heard that her family in Utah and Idaho was having some really cold weather, she just felt awful!

We've been having a bit of a cold front here too (a low of 41 today, brr!), so we've been having to wear some extra layers, especially at night.  But, we hope everyone stays warm!

Catching a Smile

Over the past few days, Olivia has started smiling-- not just the kind related to digestion or anything, but real happy smiles!  The tricky part has been trying to document her adorable little smiles.  She seems to be able to sense whenever we have the camera out and pointed on her, so then she gets camera shy and does absolutely nothing.  Plus, she'll often only smile for half a second, so if you don't snap a picture at the right moment, you've missed it.  Yesterday we sat down with her when she was in a good mood to try and get one of her smiles on camera.  So please excuse the blurriness and imperfect framing, but here's some of our babe's smiles!

New Year, New Blog Post!

Happy belated New Year!  A couple days ago we wrote down individual and family goals and hung it in the kitchen.  Hopefully having them in a prominent place will help us continually work on them!  Olivia did not share her goals with us...perhaps she is just keeping a mental list.

To play catch up a little, here are some moments from Olivia's first Christmas:

We were blessed to have lots of family come visit us during the holidays.  Nick's family loved meeting their first niece/grandchild/great-grandchild!

Olivia, overwhelmed by all the presents!

"Merry Christmas!"

Olivia is now 6 weeks old!  She is a very considerate baby.  For example, the other day she spit up all over Nick's shirt, so to be fair, she then spit up all over Becky's shirt as well.  She is working on sleeping for longer intervals during the night, which we appreciate a lot.  She's still sleeping in her car seat, but that's ok.

For Christmas, Santa brought Olivia a playmat.  Although being held is still her favorite thing to do, she seems to enjoy playing on it a few times a day as well.  She'll do tummy time on it and is getting better at holding her head up.  But sometimes she gets worn out and has to take a break.

Olivia also loves talking with us-- meaning she squeaks, grunts, and squeals all the time.  She has started cooing a lot more too, which is absolutely adorable.  She's just wonderful!

Beautiful Baby Girl

"Holiday Post"

Over the Christmas break, we thought it would be fun to make a LEGO movie.  Most of the credit for pre- and post-production work goes to Nick, but it was a fun project for us to work on together.  Here is the finished product!