Miss Olivia

Since Gracie gets an update each month, I decided that it's Olivia's turn to get some screen time. Hmmm.... How best to describe Olivia these days???


I think the best phrase to describe her is a sensitive old soul with a silly streak. Olivia can go from shy and extremely hesitant to showing off by jumping off from step number five onto a pile of pillows in a matter of minutes. When she wants attention, she wants it now, and when she wants her mommy, she only wants her mommy. We've had some whining issues as of late, but if you can get her distracted she's good to go. Olivia's got just about the sweetest smile out there, and her right-cheek dimple is cuter by the day. Oh, Livy, we love you so much, and here's just a few reasons why...

* You give the sweetest little kisses
* You love to count - sans the number two (although you can identify things by two)
* You ask to watch "baseball" which really means any type of TV with daddy
* You are very in love with your cousins Max and Mya
* You play make-believe kitchen (Christmas gift perhaps?)
* When playing make-believe you feed mommy, daddy, and Gracie
* You love your little sissy so much


* You turn your head to the right when talking to Gracie and get right up close just in case she (or anyone else for that matter) hasn't noticed you yet
* You make a great exaggerated "OH" face when something surprises you
* You love Dora the Explorer and participate during her show
* You can get Gracie to laugh like no one else
* You are petrified of cars and trucks and MUST hold my hand when in a parking lot (of course I'm secretly overjoyed about this)
* You love to go shopping
* If we're out of something, you tell me "buy some shopping"
* If a toy isn't working you know it's because it "need new 'batrees'"
* You say "no can" and "mommy do" if you need help
* You like to write and do your best to mimic - lots of little up and down triangles
* You identify the "names" you write - usually being Mommy, Daddy, Gracie, Maggie, Max, and Mya
* Swinging is one of your favorite things and your new trick is to climb (or try to climb) onto your swing by yourself - thank you Cousin Mya for demonstrating this
* You take a bite of your food and then give the rest to Gracie - this may verge on gross on occasion
* Your favorite cereal is Life and you ask for this nearly every morning as of late
* You love to push Gracie in the stroller and work so hard at this you start sweating


* You ask to do "Everybody Sleeping" at night - I got this idea from Grandma Pat - where we go through a great list of everyone we know who's sleeping
* You can sing about 1/2 of the ABC's with me
* Your favorite song is Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star
* You identify words as "words" but like to read stories yourself
* You call Gracie "Gracilicious" since your favorite book right now is called Pinkalicious
* You're still as obsessed as ever with your thumb and your silkie
* You're pretty terrible at identifying colors but always ask what color everything is
* You can separate by colors
* You like to play "soccer game" on the sunporch with daddy, but this is really a strange game of kick, throw, tackle, and hide


* You absolutely love playing with your dollies
* You often put said dollies in "time-out" despite the fact that you rarely get these at home or daycare
* You love candy - inherited that from mommy I think
* You still won't eat bread except of rare occasion but do like bars, cupcakes (mostly the frosting), etc...
* You haven't had an accident in over a month
* You love to cuddle on the couch
* You still unconsciously pat my back as I pat yours while we sing bedtime songs

Livy, I could probably write another 100 facts down that I love about you. Sometimes, I admit, I sigh in exasperation because of something you're doing or won't do, but every night when I check on you before going to bed, I think to myself that we couldn't ask for anything better than you and Gracie.
Lots of love,
Mommy

Pumpkin...

So, not many of you knew that we were the owners of a little kitty for a few weeks. Little Pumpkin showed up randomly one day while we were out watching the workers put a couple of extra panels on our backyard fence. I made the quick assumption that he was a stay little kitty because of his thinness and willingness to eat everything offered.


After a week of having Pumpkin living in our garage feasting on tuna and relaxing in his cardboard box and on our front porch rocking chair, we made the decision to officially keep him. Now this may surprise you as Brian has always claimed that the only pet we would ever have would be fish, but I actually think Brian liked Pumpkin too (you're probably noticing that I'm using past tense here). So, we took Pumpkin in and had him checked for general health, spade, and de-clawed.

Pumpkin adjusted to life inside very well and we enjoyed many cuddles. The girls loved him - Gracie pretty much went berserk flapping her arms every time he was near and crawling after him forcing him to hide in Olivia's tunnel. Olivia learned to pet nicely and wasn't bothered when Pumpkin would play bite or chase. She even bravely picked him up a couple of times. Pumpkin was a major trooper handling Olivia's desire to pick him up and Gracie's pulling of his fur without batting an eye. He learned to use a litter box overnight and fit in nicely to our family.

Unfortunately we had to put little Pumpkin down this week. I let him outside for a couple hours on Sunday; he came back in without prompting and seemed fine except that he stayed in his little box in our family room at night instead of coming to cuddle with us. I checked on him and he came out and let me pet him for awhile. The next morning, however, I found Pumpkin collapsed in the middle of our family room. He was making very sad meowing noises and could barely move. We got him to the vet where they came to the conclusion that he had eaten poison of some kind - this must have happened when he was outside on Sunday as we don't have anything in the house of course. Poor little kitty was in a lot of physical distress, so we had no other choice.

I was sad to say goodbye to our little kitty. I think I miss him the most. Olivia asks about him every now and then, but then follows up her own question by telling me that Pumpkin is at the doctor. I comfort myself by saying that at least Pumpkin had a happy and comfy life at the end having been plumped up a bit during his time at the Huinker household. Sigh - maybe another kitty sometime...

The Upstairs

Here are a couple of pictures of our new house - I know some of you are having a hard time picturing us in our new place! These pictures are of the entryway and Olivia's and Grace's room. I definitely need to take a couple from the outside so you can see our great yard. As for the other rooms... I'll take a pictures next time they're actually clean!

Front entry: This front entry looks so much better now than a month ago! Originally it had some not-so-lovely silvery wallpaper gracing the walls. I started stripping the wallpaper but quickly gave up when I found even older wallpaper underneath. Ultimately we ended up hiring someone to finish removing and stripping and painting. Not having to do all this myself was well worth the money in my opinion! Obviously we need an electrician to come fix the light that has been hanging off the ceiling like that for the last 5 weeks (Grandpa Roiger where are you?)!


Gracie's room: This room was originally a very dirty light blue - I think the paint was original to the house (1960s). This paint is the exact yellow that was in her old room at our house. I like this room - it's nice and cozy and has a very large closet. My only wish - new carpet.


Olivia's room: This room was originally a very dirty cream. The previous owners had four boys all of whom slept here (yes, the room is huge!) so I really mean it was dirty. The paint is the same yellow as Grace's room, but I added the pink to help add some variety. Brian's reaction to the pink was "too bad you're going to have to redo that when you put so much work into it," but I think it's grown on him - plus, I like it! We temporarily thought about making this bedroom the master as the closet is very big, but it just didn't feel right having one or both of the girls downstairs without us there too. Upstairs seemed more logical and safer to me. Someday the girls might share this room - it certainly is large enough! Again, my only wish - new carpet.

Wordless Wednesday

Grace Elizabeth - 8 Months

So lately, I feel as though I'm neglecting my promise to actively blog about our daily lives! Over time, my weekly blog posts have slowly transformed to every other week posts and, more recently, once a month posts.... However, I will prevail, and I've decided that this month is the month to redeem myself. I have lots of things to write about, I just need to take the time to do it!


Okay, enough about that - on to the real topic! This last month just flew by, and now I find myself already a week overdue in writing about Grace now that she's eight months old! Here are ten new facts about Grace....

1. Is a frequent babbler - favorite sounds include baba, yaya, gaga, and dada. When I say mama to her she usually just laughs as though to say - whatever, I'm not trying that one! Grace is a great conversationalist. She loves being talked to and enjoys when you mimic her squawking, growling, ahhhh-ing, and any other type of sound she's making.

2. Has decided that army crawling is better than traditional crawling and really doesn't make much of an effort any more at traditional crawling. Grace does still practice rocking while in her crib, but otherwise, it's just the army crawl. I tried to attach a video of Grace scooting, but it wouldn't work. The video would have been incredibly tardy in appearance as it was from early September when she was just starting her scooting. I will get some new video soon that really shows off her skills!

3. Continues to love her big sister despite the fact that said big sister has been increasingly nasty in the taking-toys-away department. No one can make Gracie laugh like Olivia.

4. Has 3 ad a 1/2 teeth. Her bottom two are fully in (and have been for awhile); her top right tooth is through, but not very far; and, her top left tooth is just starting to break through.

5. Enjoys spending time with both sets of grandparents - and officially had her first over-night. She did get up at 11:30, but then slept till 8:30 in the morning. (Secretly, I think Grandma Pat might have slipped some wine in her bottle.)

6. Isn't sleeping through the night all the time, but is doing fabulous. We've had quite a few nights where she sleeps 7pm - 5am, has a bottle, and then sleeps till 7. This morning she slept straight through till 7.

7. Has become quite the kicker, jumper, and arm waver, but isn't good at standing unassisted yet. Gracie can climb up the back of the couch if you take her socks off to give her some traction and expresses her excitement by kicking and arm-waving at the same time. Gracie sometimes gets annoyed if left behind or on the floor - and is always annoyed when everyone else is eating dinner and she's not.

8. Developmentally Gracie has started to mimic gestures - we get some random arm waving when I try to work on waving, clapping, and "so big." She also can bang to objects together and enjoys doing this frequently.

9. Is losing interest slowly in baby food (especially dinner) but isn't all that interested in big-people food. She's destined to be a permanent peanut.

10. Continues to be an extremely happy and flexible little girl (see video below)!

Careful with this one - it might give you motion sickness!

Grace Elizabeth - 7 Months

Wow has this last month gone fast! Gracie continues to knock down milestone after milestone while continuing to be the happiest girl on the block at the same time. Our little girl is sure a trooper - adjusting to a new house, mom going back to work, hectic mornings, more baby food, and, just in the last week, formula without a hitch.


Gracie started off her sixth month by mastering sitting. Then, to make mom proud and actually accurate for once in terms of predicting when milestones might happen, Gracie literally started crawling the day she turned 7 months. We do have this on video, but I have yet to attempt downloading from our video camera to my computer - I will put doing so on my blog to-do list! (Also on my blog to-do list are 6 month/2 year pictures along with some pictures of our new house!) Ultimately, I'm not surprised that Gracie is crawling 2 months earlier than Olivia did. Throughout the month Gracie was turning in circles, scooting backwards, and practicing her "super-baby" pose (flailing arms and legs while on belly) in preparation for that first scoot - actually it was more of a full body lunge - forward. Grace is certainly a go-getter and has great desire to play along with her big sissy. Over half the time, Gracie goes nuts when Olivia bounces into the room - kicking her legs, squealing, and now scooting to get closer.


Personality wise, Gracie continues to be incredibly cheerful, fairly flexible, and a mommy's girl (although her favorite sounds are dada and raaaaa - the raaaaa comes from watching Olivia and Brian "play roar" as Olivia likes to say). The picture of Gracie on the couch actually was taken at Slumberland Furniture where Grace and I went to take pictures of some sofa options for Brian to later look at. Grace apparently thought posing on the sofas was one of the coolest things and smiled and squealed with every flash of the camera.


Our schedule has become fairly consistent now. Gracie usually starts her day around 6:30 and ends it around 7:15. In between is a bottle, breakfast, a morning nap, a bottle, lunch, an afternoon nap, a bottle, dinner, and a bath before her bedtime bottle. She's doing better with taking bottles but rarely drinks more than 4 ounces at a time. I sneak in extra ounces by adding formula and cereal to her breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I'm hoping that my prediction (from the sixth month entry) about Gracie sleeping through the night at 8 months proves to be as accurate as the crawling at 7 months was! At some point during the night Grace wakes up for a bottle. Honestly, although I wouldn't mind sleeping through the night, it's okay with me that she's still getting up. Gracie's a peanut - 15.4 ounces (20th percentile), so I'm okay with her taking a few extra ounces in the middle of the night. Plus, now that I'm done nursing, Brian and I can trade off with this responsibility! :)

Lately we've been spending a lot of time with our new neighbors (actually we're their new neighbors) the Gavle's. Maggie, their daughter, is just two weeks younger than Gracie, and it's fun to see how their entertain each other already - Jamie and I have joked that we think sometimes they get sick of us! Olivia loves Maggie too and asks on a very regular basis to go "see Baby Maggie and Jamie." Here's a picture of the girls at the pool. We are so happy to have such great friends living so close by!


I should do another entry sometime soon about Grace and Olivia's relationship. I truly do think their sisterly-bond is as strong as it possibly can be at 7 months and 2 years old. Although I won't pretend that Gracie has never cried because of something Olivia did/took away, I feel like I can also say that Olivia is protective of and extremely loving toward her "sissy." They love seeing each other for the first time in the morning, taking baths together, "talking," and generally playing. Olivia continues to be very helpful with fetching diapers, toys, etc., and, almost always, gladly entertains Gracie when I need a few minutes to get things done. Lately, Olivia has taken to calling Gracie "punkin" and "buggy" (abbreviation for "love bug").

Nothing makes me smile more these days than my two sweet little girls. Life is good.

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