Baptism

We had some family visiting this week, so while they were here we had Oliver baptized. It was a lovely ceremony with Isabel being a great helper, and Katie and Adrian the godparents. Welcome to the Christian family Oliver! And thank you Fr. Ray for doing this for us on Friday evening.

Hurray for the Internet!

We finally have our computer and internet up and running. I'm so happy, now I don't have to do everything on my phone!!!!

In no particular order, here are some pictures of what we've been up to the last couple of months:

Oliver found Isabel's cowboy hat while we were unpacking her room.

Isabel likes to pretend that she is camping. Doesn't everyone go camping with their curlers in?

Isabel and I watched the Forth of July fireworks from the trunk of our car. It was her first firework experience and she is still talking about it.

Oliver LOVES tractors. All of the building is so much fun!

Both kids liked the boats at St. Mary's City.
I try to take the kids down to the water at least once a week. Their favorite is the beach, but they also like to go for hikes by the Patuxent with Daddy on the weekend.

Robert turned 40 two days after we moved in!

Oliver loves to investigate everything, he can now climb in the washer and dryer.

We haven't been on base yet, but we took the kids to the Naval Aviation Museum so that they could see the x-35 that daddy worked on in California.

Aren't they just so cute...
Isabel has been keeping busy at nap time with puffy paint. For a week she painted about fifty every day.

Nine and a half months

Due to the move and lack of Internet, I missed posting anything about Oliver for nine or ten months. We still don't have Internet, but I don't want to miss more, so I'm biting the bullet and posting from my phone. It is slow and tedious and I keep accidentally deleting my post, but I'm going to persevere.

Since our move Oliver has become a man in motion. He started crawling in early May, a week before we left Fort Worth. Since then he has learned to stand up, sit down, climb the stairs, and has just started cruising while holding onto things a little bit. Yesterday we were outside when a helicopter flew by. He got so excited that he stood up all on his own, and stayed up for a good ten seconds not holding onto anything.

The result of all this motion is that he is into everything. He loves to check out whatever Mommy, Daddy, and Isabel are doing. His favorite game right now is to take stuff out of a bowl, bucket, etc and hand it to one of us. If we don't take whatever it is from him, he'll bang it on our leg until we do. If we put it back in the bowl, he just gives it right back. Almost everything that makes him happy elicits a big smile and a clap. He is also a good waver.

He is a great eater and wants to be feeding himself table food. I still sneak in the baby food between bites just to speed up our meals, but I don't think that will be happening much longer.

The best part of the move is that I finally felt like I could let him cry himself to sleep, and as a result he has FINALLY started sleeping through the night. Yeah!!!! Of course he is still apt to wake up at five in the morning, but that is so much better than it was. He also goes down for his morning nap easily, and usually sleeps for one to two hours. The afternoon is still a bit of a struggle and he usually cries for a while before taking a short nap, usually thirty minutes or so.

Oliver's personality has really been coming out lately as he is becoming his own person. It is a really fun time, and I am enjoying watching him grow up and interact with all of us. He loves his sister, and gets so animated when he sees her for the first time every morning. Besides saying mum-mum and dada he also says del-del for Isabel, and loves when she "plays" with him (gives him toys).

Oliver is growing so fast, and if I knew how I would put a picture with this post to prove it.