Holy Moly...The Half Year Mark

It's hard to believe, but last week Olivia turned six months old -- just like everyone told us it would, it has absolutely flown by. We didn't do too much on her half-year "birthday" -- actually, she slept for a good portion of the day as she had decided to celebrate one night early and was awake in her crib almost the whole night before her birthday!

As far as what's been going on lately with Olivia...allow me to catch up a bit since it's been a while since I last posted anything...

Physical development
Olivia has been getting better and better at sitting -- now she can sit unsupported for several seconds at a time before she starts wobbling. Here she is sitting on my lap over Christmas!


As far as her growth, Olivia is finally "on the chart" for her weight! For the longest time she was below the 3rd percentile, but she is now holding steady in the 7th percentile for weight, which we are just thrilled about and her pediatrician says is great. If you take a look at her recently, you can certainly see that she's not missing any meals! She is truly her Mommy and Daddy's child...

Life on the street
Olivia has started running with some bad crowds recently -- below is a picture from when we caught her throwing her gang signs...where did we go wrong? Ha ha... ;-)


Game day
Chad and I welcomed Aunt Lisa and Ian over for the Capital One bowl game between Penn State (Chad's alma mater) and LSU (Lisa's alma mater). Here we are in our game day gear, and Chad is proud to report that Penn State did in fact win. Olivia has pretty much no option but to be a Nittany Lion fan -- that was predetermined at birth!


Commiserating with Bubba
Olivia does not love tummy time, but unfortunately we must do at least some of it every day as it's really important for eventually learning to crawl. But at least her brother Chip feels bad for her when Mommy makes her do tummy time, so here he is trying to comfort her during a recent session...doesn't he just look so sad?


Some new accessories...
Aunt Lisa gave Olivia some awesome headbands for Christmas, and we liked them so much that Chad proceeded to buy about every other color available off eBay! Also note the unicorn -- this was also a Christmas gift from Aunt Lisa, as we have decided that Olivia absolutely loves unicorns (I guess someday when she's old enough to talk she'll tell us if that is true or not!)



In other very important news (but not documented by photos), Olivia's doctor's appointments have been going really well lately. It finally seems like some of the specialist visits are starting to die off -- for example, cardiology doesn't need to see her back for a whole year and the holes in her heart are tiny at this point, and they will almost surely close up on their own with no need for intervention. This was awesome news!! We are very hopeful that she will come off her oxygen in just a couple weeks here, as she was SO close to being ready the last time they tested her. And she does another swallow study next week to see if she can start eating baby food--judging by how much she loves the little tastes of baby food we've been giving her recently, we are very hopeful about this as well! We will keep everyone posted!