Olive Stats- 17 months

Olive continues to learn new words and animal sounds.  She loves her family and she repeats "Mama, Dada, Sisa!" over and over when we are all together.  She can say Hannah, but likes to call her Sisa instead.  Other favorite words are: no, mine, bye, and neigh.  She says the beginnings of most words like ma for milk or ba for ball, so I can usually tell what she is talking about by context clues.  She is interested in learning letters and will often point to them on my shirt or on signs.  Olive can identify and say "o".  Her favorite toy right now is a Little People barn and farm animal set from my childhood.  Her favorite song is Row, Row, Row Your Boat and she even tries to sing it!

She is loving preschool now. When I drop her off she smiles, says bye, and waves.  Her teacher usually has chalk or crayons out on the table and Olive gets right to work.  She loves to scribble much more than Hannah did at her age.  Her teacher says Olive is the best in the class at picking up after herself.  They have also seen some of Olive's infamous lay-down protests when things aren't going her way!

More Zoo

Another zoo trip on a beautiful Saturday morning.  It was notable because it was Olive's first time on a carousel, Steve and Olive's first time on the Sky Safari, and the first time for everyone on the boat.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Labor Day Weekend

I'm finally getting pictures off my camera from Labor Day.  After going to St. Louis for the past few Labor Day weekends, this year we went to Chillicothe.  The three day weekend allowed us to visit both grandparents, 3 great-grandparents, and even a great-great uncle.  Hannah was overjoyed to find out Ainslyn was already spending the weekend with Granny and Papa, so we got a cousin visit, too!  Oh yeah, and Steve and I ran a 5k with the girls cheering us on.

Visiting the horses at Great-grandpa's house.  Olive was even more excited than Hannah.  She kept saying, "Neigh!  Neigh!"  These girls love horses.

When at Great-grandpa's you must eat ice cream.
 

Swinging at Granny and Papa's house.
 

Steve, Ainslyn, Hannah, and Papa on the driveway to Granny and Papa's house.
 

 

 

Rolling a ball at Great-grandma's house.
 

Fairies with their wands.
 

This Summer

 

Since August went by in a blur, I'm a little late with our summer re-cap.  Oh well.  Better late than never.  I seriously had best summer of my life hanging out with the girls.  Next year when they are 2 and 4 it will be even better!  What we've been doing this summer:

• crossing things off our to do list.  The only things we didn't do were my own personal to-dos: hang more pictures in the house and learn to use my camera.  One of them (take a vacation with the girls) got scheduled for the fall, but I'm still counting it.
• going on little adventures around Kansas City.  Each time the girls and I would get in the car we'd put our hands together and shout "Adventure girls!"  Even now, if Olive hears the word adventure she puts her hand out. :)  Some of the girls' favorite places- Deanna Rose Farmstead, zoo, Franklin Park, Big Biscuit Restaurant, Little Monkey Bizness.
• learning to share toys.  I think I said "We don't take toys from friends" every day.
• meeting Thomas the Train and Sir Topham Hat.  Who knew the Island of Sodor was located in Kansas?
• learning about transportation, dinosaurs, and bugs.  Hannah chose the units for our little mini-school while Olive took her morning nap.  
• wheezing and coughing.  Olive is too young to be diagnosed with asthma, but starting in May she has been having monthly "wheezing episodes" which require inhalers.  Sigh.  My healthy girl is not so healthy.  She doesn't let it get her down, though.  So I shouldn't either.  
• paddling down the river for days on end.  Steve, Dan, and Joffroi completed the MR340 (that's 340 miles across the Missouri River)...with a little help from their ground crew of Granny, Papa, and Dan's mom.
• staying inside when the temperature was over 100...which happened quite often.
• eating lunch on the deck in June when it wasn't so hot.
• hiking up a mountain, riding a tandem, and doing our first glider ride.  I hated leaving the girls for 6 days when we went to Maine with the Baileys, but it was nice to have some non-kid time.
• marching in the 4th of July parade in our neighborhood.
• not mowing for two months when the drought made all of our grass die.

Here re-caps from the spring and winter.

Hannah's First Kiss

While playing outside Olive walks over and kisses Hannah...

Hannah:  Kisses have germs.
me:  Kisses are okay.  She's your sister.
Hannah:  Well, that's what my teacher said.
me: Oh.  Did you kiss someone at school?
Hannah (very nonchalant):  Yeah.  I kissed Caleb because it was his birthday.  And I love him.
me (trying not to laugh): Oh really?
Hannah: Yeah.  The teacher said maybe try a hug next time.

Reading

*Note:  Despite her assertion, she does not know the words to this book.  I'm trying not to laugh.

However, these ARE the real words.  That's Not My Kitten was Hannah's first favorite book and Olive's, too.  Although, Peek-a-who? was a close second.

More Deanna Rose

Random evening at Deanna Rose.  They are open late Tuesday and Thursday nights, so we went after preschool.  The girls love it.
 

 

 

Preschool Art

Most of it looks like this- random things glued on paper
 

Hannah really loves the dot paint.
 

But I really like the brush painting.

Even better are her people drawings.

This is my favorite.  I'm framing it.
 

And here's one from Olive so she won't feel left out.  She isn't nearly as prolific as Hannah, but occasionally she brings home something like this:

Saturday Morning at the Creek

Saturday morning we made stops at the farmer's market, Great Clips, and then the creek.  Even in the suburbs we can be in the wilderness.  Sort of.  That's a car dealership on the other side of the trees.
 

 

Back to School

So I was thinking about how much Hannah loves school, and I remembered how much I like it, too.  I was the girl who was disappointed that we didn't have homework in kindergarten.  And even though I flirt with being a stay-at-home mom, you know, I STILL enjoy going back to school.  In fact, this fall is the 28th consecutive year I have gone back to school as either student as teacher.  (I use the term fall loosely since I started school on August 8 this year.)  I love new school supplies and starting fresh with new students.  I love seeing co-workers again and catching up with everyone.  I even love school lunch.  Hot food that I don't have to make...and for $3?!?  Yes, please.

The girls have done three weeks of preschool and it is still going great.  Hannah comes home daily with 3-5 papers that she has painted/drawn/glued/cut.  She loves telling us her classroom job of the day and singing us new songs she has learned.  Olive was good with school for about 3 days, then she started crying at drop-off.  But last week she was smiling and waving goodbye.  I think she finally got used to the new schedule. She's now napping 2.5-3 hours in the afternoon instead of the 1 hour she was getting the first week of school.

My class at school is great!  I have 18 students with an even number of boys and girls.  Perfect.  For the most part, they are eager learners and pretty calm.  Last year's class of 15 boys and 4 girls was high energy, so it's nice to have a more laid-back group.  I'm excited to travel the world with them.  We leave for Italy on Wednesday!