November 13th, 2010
kathy
So, I finally managed to make some time for a post (Olivia is napping and Jon went riding)!
Last Sunday we had Olivia’s Birthday Party, we only invited family since she wont remember any of this!
Oncle Jeff and soon to be aunt Ashley came for a visit from LA and Olivia (and Mommy) enjoyed the entertainment. Thanks to everyone for coming, this was a great day for all of us!
Here are some pics for everyone to enjoy.
P.s: If anyone has more pics please email them to us…..I don’t have any of Olivia eating a cupcake!
We’ve had to rename the cat because that is what Olivia likes to call her. Abby is too difficult I guess, so Olivia calls her Adee. I’m very pleased with her progress lately and I really can’t wait until she finally tries to take a step. Daycare said that Olivia is the fastest crawler they’ve had… she’s also probably the baby that has crawled and not walked for the longest period as well.
Olivia woke up this morning, happy like always. Kathy brought her into the bathroom to say hi to me as I was getting ready. Stan was on the counter keeping me company as he normally does. Its funny because she did this same thing yesterday, almost. She pointed to Stan yesterday and said “kiki”. Today, she pointed and said “kitty”. It was great. That is her first real word. She’ll look at me or Kathy and say “mama” or “dada”, but she’ll also say “baba” sometimes. This time she pointed and identified what she was pointing at. My kid is so smart. 
Olivia started pointing at stuff and saying “uh” the other day… out of the blue. She points at the cats, the light switch, just about anything she normally can’t get to. Yesterday she started standing out in the open with no support. She did it a couple of times and seems to be getting good balance. Any day now she’ll take a step. I’ll try to get a video of her standing up soon.
Here is a pic from our condo balcony
13 Sep
At the beach eating some sand!
16 Sep
Better waves today.
Our last afternoon at the beach… not looking forward to going home 
Kathy and I were talking, sometime in July, and decided that we hadn’t been to a good concert in a while. August normally wraps up concert season around here, so we started shopping around. We found some good tickets for a lot of different artists, both on ebay and stubhub.com. We narrowed the selection down to Heart or Styx/Kansas. I bought the first set of tickets that went on sale on-line for the Styx/Kansas concert and we ended up having excellent seats (4th row right in front of Tommy Shaw). We also had really great seats at the Heart concert as you can tell in the video below.
As you can tell from the video, Heart still puts on an excellent show and hasn’t lost a thing. Ann (the singer you morons) is 60 and her sister, Nancy (the guitar player), is 56. That isn’t old, but they’re not just over 20 like they were when they recorded a lot of their hits. The show was at the Ryman in Nashville, and it was a great place to have a concert. I think it used to be a church years ago. Heart actually just released a new album and they played some of those songs too. They were really good and were very similar to their old music.
Kansas was ok. It was good to see them, but I built them up a lot in my head, and I was a little disappointed. They’re also all 60+, but Steve Walsh (singer) has really lost his voice. I went to the concert only knowing what they used to sound like. We still enjoyed it, but I doubt they’ll tour much longer.
Styx was every bit as good as Heart. I’ve seen Styx before with Dennis DeYoung (the guy that started the band) back in the 90′s when he briefly toured with them. No one knew at the time it would be a brief reunion, and shortly after they picked up the new guy on piano and he’s been with them ever since. He does an excellent job and sounds a lot like Dennis, but isn’t crazy like him. They really put on a great show… so much so that we’re looking for another set of tickets to see them again next month.
Overall, we’ve had a great time and my mom and dad have really helped out a lot watching Olivia. I’m a little sad that she’ll never get to see any of these bands in concert. At least we have some video and some stories for her. I’m really fortunate to have seen a lot of the bands that I have. Kathy and I counted the other day and I’ve seen about 40 or so major bands in concert. I also really got a kick out of Kathy. She’s hooked on old rock and roll now and really likes bands that sing harmonies. She’s the world’s worse with band names and songs. I had to play her all of these band’s songs from youtube or amazon so she’d know who they were before we went. We now have all of their music in iTunes We will be concert junkies for a long time I suppose, but we’ve learned some lessons. For one, if it isn’t an outdoor or open seating, then buy the best seats you can afford. Security sucks and lets Joe blow pothead sneak up and squeeze in and smell awful and sing off key (listen at the end of lady). Get seats toward the middle of a row. I don’t ever plan on going to the bathroom, so I’ll deal with it. It’ll at least be a buffer for the drunk/stoned morons. If it is open seating, wear a t-shirt. It allows you to really swing elbows when necessary . I really think that we’ll stick to indoor concerts from now on if we can help it though. The sound is much better.
Thanks to the iphone 4 for this clear video.
Ohhh boy, Olivia made my day yesterday by saying “Mama”!
When I got home from the gym she was sitting in her highchair getting antsy for me to get her out. As I was reaching for her, still talking to Jon not really paying attention to her, she started talking and there came “Mama” out of her mouth!
The moment was great but short because as soon as I got her out I realized I had poop on my hand!
It was awesome, but the greatest thing is that she actually knows who I am…..or does “mama” mean pick me up?
Anyway she keeps saying it, we’ll see if she keeps it up!
Olivia had her 9 month check up the other day and she is now 17 1/2 pounds and 27 1/2 inches tall. We switched her to size 3 diapers. She is also anemic and we now give her Iron in her bottle everyday.
Olivia is growing up fast: she now can wave at you, and even clap her hands together. She gives us kisses….with her mouth open, and she likes to stand up holding on to the coffee table or the couch!
Its about time she says “Mama”.
Oh, and this past weekend she got another tooth on the bottom!!
Olivia loves eating Bananas, here are a couple of pics.
