The Little Olive and the Charleston Montessori

Last Tuesday The Little Olive, her mother and grandparents went to a music class at the Charleston Montessori School for Acedemic Excellence. The school teaches a passion for learning things like music, art, physical fitness and the Spanish language.

The Little Olive is enrolled in an eight week class that meets every Tuesday morning at 9:30.

Here she is being the center of attention...



Seems like she definitely felt comfortable! She gets a little nervous in new places sometimes, but it didn't take her long to warm up!

It just so happened we all know the other 4 kids in the class. They were children of some of our Charleston friends. Here's a picture of the Little Olive, her mom, 9 week old Baby A. and his mother playing with music bubbles...



It looks like everyone had a great time!

Here's the Little Olive playing with her percussion sticks!



And here's a video of the same...



We're all looking forward to what she learns over the next 7 weeks. We already know she enjoys music when she dances around our house. Hopefully this class will help that interest grow into an appreciation.

The Little Olive Plays with Easter Gifts

Well, she kinda played with "gifts" if you count fake grass. We could give her the best toy in the world and she'd want to play with fake grass and a flyswatter.

Whatever makes her happy. :)

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!

Check out the Little Olive's easter basket.



She got a giant peep, some books, a hat and a little duck.

No chocolate bunnies for this little girl!



Even the Big Cat was interested in the basket. He's always nosy.

Mom and dad were hungry too.



We had a casserole! Don't ask me what it's called. It has eggs, hashbrowns, sundried tomatoes and bacon in it!

Spectacular! My wife is an 8 star chef!

A fun Easter, indeed!

Magic Island Easter Egg Hunt!

Yesterday the family and I headed to Magic Island on the banks of the beautiful Kanawha River in downtown Charleston for an easter egg hunt. We understood the hunt was to start at 11... that wasn't the case, however. The event started at 11 and the hunt began at 1pm.

She wasn't having it. She wanted an egg. So, we cheated and let her cross the rope to grab a few.

We weren't waiting for two hours.

She liked the grass. She crawled all over.

She grabbed a few eggs and shook them. She could almost hear the rattle it made over the blaring country music. The eggs were filled with chocolate. Genius idea to throw down a bunch of plastic eggs with chocolate in them and wait 3 hours in the hot sun before the kids picked them up. The smoking, pregnant mothers and snuff dipping daddies didn't seem to mind, though.

Anyway... enough about that. Here's Livvy and her mommy!

Very pretty.

Grandma and Grandpa stopped by to watch!

She wore her cute blue dress.

The Little Olive was all over the place! She'd had enough of this makeshift egg hunt. She wanted lunch!

What's for lunch?? Mexican food! The Little Olive had a lime for her meal...

She was excited about it at first! Then she really tasted it.

It was sour! Our day wasn't, however. We had a great time at our own easter egg hunt.

"Where's the Whale?"

Self explanatory.

:)

Livvy Crawls... A LOT!

This child is crawling with some serious confidence.

Take a look at these videos.

She's stoked to be mobile!



Notice how she's waving to the baby in the mirror at the end.


In this one she's crawling even more...



Did you notice at the beginning where she was playing with a hair, or bug, or dirt, or some random thing on the floor? I know. I know, kinda gross, but it's wild how well she uses her little fingers to look at things.

Other things to notice in that video are her infatuation with the living room table, The Little Cat making an entrance that the Little Olive completely disregards and what she does when we ask her "where's the light?"

In this video the Little Olive crawls right up to the cats. The Little Cat books it and Quincy stands his ground.



Things have gotten a whole lot more interesting now that she's mobile... for all of us.

Big Things are Happening!

First...



The Little Olive turned nine months old over the weekend! How much fun is that?

Notice how she isn't sitting still? I think that's the theme these days.



How about that? She's finally getting it. She's officially mobile!

And she loves to swing!



The weather has been sooooo nice that we just had to take her to the park. I'd never even heard of it, but my smart wife knew just where it was. It's a little hidden gem.

She like to swing, but I made sure she didn't go too high!

Some say I'm a little over protective.

Here's a safe new skill she's learned this week...



"Touchdown!"

Her new skills aren't just physical, they're verbal, too!



I've been waiting a long time to hear that word come out of her mouth.