While getting pj's on tonight:
Me: Guess where you get to go tomorrow?
Olivia: The apple orchard!
(Correct response would have been "Auntie Nicki's" or "daycare")
Me: Not tomorrow, but soon! Pie, I could listen to you talk all day - you're so cute!
Olivia: I know it!
Yes you do...

Two things that melted my heart over the weekend:

1.) We stopped at the Norske Nook on our way to Wisconsin Dells this weekend. We each enjoyed a healthy hearty dose of Scandinavian comfort food. Olivia was being cute and funny as usual, as she munched on her lefse appetizer and played with the Norwegian and American flags at the table. At one point, I told her, "You are my favorite piece of Pie (Pie being the name she goes by 90% of the time around our house). She returned the complement with, "You are my favorite piece of Mom."

2.) Walking through the water park at our resort on Saturday, Olivia said, "Hold me, Mommy."
"I'd love to hold you," I replied. Her response, "You're my best friend, Mom."
I don't know where she's heard of best friends or what exactly she thinks that means, but I'll take it.

 "This is Olivia. She is good at lots of things. She is very good at wearing people out.  She even wears herself out."

If you are familiar with Ian Falconer's "Olivia" series, you'll recognize those first few lines from his book.
Our Olivia knows the books well, almost by heart. She loves the books and any other Olivia the Pig paraphernalia. I'm happy to say, she isn't quite the handful that the literary character is.

Today as she and I were playing with sidewalk chalk, she found that the chalk was just the right size to push through the little holes of her small, plastic wheelbarrow (read: sidewalk chalk holder). Satisfied with her cleverness, she told me, "I am good at lots of things."

Mommy's Best Kisses

A parent of one of my second-graders this past year gave me a book for my birthday in June. It is a book she used to read to her boys when they were little and she said it became a favorite. She wrote me a note saying she hoped Olivia would enjoy it as much as her kids did. She loves it. It's called Mommy's Best Kisses and it's a sweet story about a mom putting her baby to bed, but not before she kisses him all over. Each page has a darling animal mom kissing her baby on his "strong arms" (a monkey), "pink knees" (an ostrich), "rosy cheeks" (a hippo), and so on.

Olivia has especially taken to the "plump tummy" (a piglet) and "wee nose" (an elephant) and uses those descriptive words often. She's told both Evan and I that we have plump tummies, right before planting a kiss on them.

Yesterday, I was kissing her cheeks so I said, "I'm kissing your rosy cheeks!" and then I started kissing her all over, trying to remember the book for memory. I went through all the animal pages in my head as I announced each body part I was kissing. "Your wee nose! Your pink knees! Your soft hair! Your little toes! Your sleepy eyes --" She stopped me right there.

"DROWSY eyes!" she corrected.

And now a lesson on synonyms...

Here's the book. Buy it for anyone who's expecting a baby.

Cake - part duex

Wondering how the pink, pretend baby/balloon cake turned out? (see July 22).

Here she is...

Can I just tell you how hard it was to find little babies to stick on a cake?!

I made (60) cake pops for the rest of the guests, and Olivia ended up wanting one of those at her party, which means she got her cake the next day...after breakfast.

Methodically picking off and devouring

each balloon.

The aftermath. She took off and put back on every baby - about three times. She decided she had had enough when the messiness of her hands started bothering her (or was it the queasy feeling in her stomach?)

Purple and red and tan all over

In the shower the other day, Olivia was playing with her bath friends - Coral, a mermaid with purple hair, and Barbie - a Barbie-like Sleeping Beauty character. I was showering with Olivia, so was able to observe the interaction she was attempting to create amongst the three of them. It was awkward. She had Coral and Barbie facing each other, ready for a conversation, and was making them hop a little, like they were talking to one another, but clearly, couldn't think of anything for them to say. So I helped out:

(to Coral, in an obnoxious high-pitched voice) "Hi Coral. I like your purple hair!"

(to Barbie, ) "Thanks, Barbie. I like the blue streaks in your hair." (It's never too soon to teach Olivia that hair-talk dominates most girl conversations.)

I then let Olivia take over. She immediately said to her friends, "I'm Olivia and I'm red!"

Not convinced I had heard her correctly, I asked for clarification. "You're what?"

"I have red hair. And tan skin!"

True, after being at the pool the last four days...let's reassess this tan-skin business in February.

Let me just say, I know I write a lot (a LOT) about mine and Olivia's brief discussions about God, often at bedtime, but I just have to blog it. This is a journal of our life, and these are things we talk about.

Tonight at bedtime, I was thanking God (aloud) for all his blessings - our family, our home, our cozy soft beds. I told Olivia that every good thing we have is from God. She said, "He's in heaven."

Me: Who else is in heaven?

Olivia: Jesus.

Me: That's right. Jesus is in heaven with God. Who else is there?

Olivia: My grandpa (my dad). And my other Grandpa (my dad's dad). And Great-Gram (she's alive).

I assured her, again, that Great-Gram is not in heaven yet, but will be there soon.

We've only talked about her two grandpas in heaven once and it was a couple weeks ago, so it was sweet to hear her refer to my dad not just as "grandpa," but "my grandpa." He would LOVE her. Funny enough, one of her favorite songs right now is "When we all get to heaven" (from her kids' hymns CD :) which says "When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be!" I can't help but look forward to that joyous reunion.