Blogging Comments

I received few complaints that it was difficult to comment on our blog posts, and I couldn't understand why. I comment on some of my favorite blogs all the time without any problem. So my Better Half asked me to sit down and show him what he was missing, and lo and behold, unless you have a blog (and thus an OpenID) our blog was not comment-friendly. 

That, my friends, has changed. I fiddled with the settings, and although I'm not even sure how I did it, you can now easily and conveniently leave a comment using your name -- the URL part is now optional. So now you don't have to be anonymous!

And just in case you're wondering why I would bother to make a blog entry about this, it's because I really enjoy the comments. It's not exactly easy to find the time to do this with a baby in the house, so I like to know that someone is actually reading and appreciating it!

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall...

As I have mentioned recently, Olivia is all about sitting up. She loves to practice holding herself up and often gets so excited when she does that she throws herself back in delight.

Here she has discovered the mirror that hangs on the inside of her crib. I set her down in there to practice sitting up because it is a relatively soft landing spot for her, and she could not get over how cute that baby in the mirror was!


If you press the little green circle in the bottom right hand corner of the mirror (and this photo) a little voice sings out "Peek-a-boo, I see you!" and Olivia would grin and laugh every time she said it.

Mmm Mmm Good!

Today, Olivia had her very first Meal-with-a-Spoon. She has been eyeing up everything that C and I eat and drink for weeks now, so we knew it wouldn't be long before it was time to graduate to solid foods. She cut her first two teeth last week, and I guess she decided that she was ready to put those chicklets to work! Less than two hours after nursing this morning Olivia was hungry again, so we mixed up some rice cereal and got ready.




We tried this a couple of weeks ago when Olivia first started cutting teeth and we didn't know that was what was making her so cranky -- we thought she was hungry. At the time, she spit everything out and just chewed on the spoon. So I gave her her own spoon to play with while I fed her this morning, and she has really great hand control! She had no problem getting it in her mouth several times. I didn't make it as runny as the box says to, and she really seemed to enjoy it once she figured out she was supposed to swallow it.

Old Friends ARE Gold!

A few weeks ago one of my oldest and dearest friends vacationed at the beach with her husband, and they stopped to spend a night with us before hitting the Gulf Coast.



It is always really great to see old friends, and Olivia loved having house guests to show off for.

Dancing with Daddy

Dancing and singing are a regular part of the routine in the Hall House!

Bouncing It Up

Check it out! Along with her desire to sit up all the time, Olivia (who is now 5 months old) is a huge fan of standing. I set up this bouncer for her to play in, and she loves it. There's a piano and rings and a mirror and other fun activities for her to play with. She gets so excited exploring all the toy stations and squeals with delight! It's hard to catch on video because she is in love with the camera and just sits and stares at it the second you pull it out, but I'll have to try to film her when she isn't paying attention to me and post it.

A Visit from Aunt Peg and Victoria!

Victoria picked out a bunch of great board books and brought them for Olivia when she came to visit recently. Olivia loved to listen to Victoria read and learn about letters, shapes and numbers!

While Aunt Peggy and Victoria were in town, Olivia started rubbing her gums with her tongue because she has two little teeth that are thinking about coming out.

Two beautiful smiles on two beautiful girls!

Playing on the Music Mat

Movin' on Up!

Now this is much more to Olivia's liking -- sitting up! She is queen of the Bumbo. We have found that a Bumbo on a restaurant table is a lot easier than bringing in a carrier that has to be set up next to the table. She seems to like to be in the middle of the action, too.

The only trouble with this arrangement is that Olivia is becoming VERY interested in what Momma and Daddy are eating and drinking (case in point, you may have noticed the drool in the first picture). It won't be much longer before her curiosity will put an end to our easy dining routine.

Rolling Over

I've come to realize that Olivia just does not like to be on her belly. The doctor has always said that she needs to spend a lot of time on her tummy to strengthen her neck and back muscles, but every time I would lay her down she would scream bloody murder until I picked her up or rolled her over. We thought she would eventually come to like it or at least get used to it, but not so much.

At four months I started putting Olivia to bed on her stomach, and that seemed to help her adjust to being on her tummy when she is awake. She has rolled over on her own exactly three times now, and she just isn't interested in doing it more than that. She will play on her tummy now, but she's not flipping over unless it is an emergency.

Nekkid Baby

I haven't updated the blog in a while, so some of these posts will be a few weeks old, but I had to share this photo. Chad and I went out to eat after church one Sunday, and while we were there, Olivia had an "incident" requiring that we remove what she was wearing. I had a spare outfit in her diaper bag, but she wasn't exactly ready for clean clothes. So we did what we could... we put her in a clean diaper and put her in the car seat. It was less than a 10 minute drive to get home, but she was so tired from the ordeal that she konked out on the way to the house. So here she is, sleeping like a good redneck baby in her diaper in the backseat!

My First Wedding

Aunt Erica and Uncle Tim got married in June, and it was Olivia's first wedding. Dad was in charge of her the entire time since Mom was in the wedding, and he did a fantastic job. Of course, Olivia wasn't much trouble -- this is how she spent almost the entire time.