Oliver had a great week with Grammy & Gramps

My Mom & Dad came to stay with us this past week. Oliver warmed up to them in no time and by the end of the week he was asking for Grammy & Gramps before he went to bed and first thing when he woke in the morning. He had such a fun time with them here and loved having someone to play with while Mommy was doing mundane things like laundry and cooking. During their stay, Oliver rode a huge horse on the the carousel and enjoyed tastes of Grammy, Gramps and Mommy's ice cream cones while watching ice skaters at Stonebriar Mall. We took walks and played on the playground in the park behind our house. Oliver had a blast when Grammy taught him how to play Jacks; he loved throwing the balls in the air. We went to see the animals at Owen's Spring Creek Farm, where Oliver enjoyed feeding some very hungry sheep and goats and had so much fun counting the horses with Gramps: Oliver counts: "one, twooo", so cute! And finally, Oliver was able to ride all the mechanical cars and trucks at Willowbend Mall play area. Oliver's favorite part of the entire week was getting to know his Grammy & Gramps better and developing memories that will last a life time.











On the last night Grammy & Gramps were here, after dinner Oliver went to Grammy and took her hand and said “come” and then to Gramps and took his hand and said “come” and then he led them into his toy room to play. They played with puzzles, cars, trucks, shapes among other things. It was almost as if Oliver could sense that they would be leaving the next morning. My Mom said she will remember that for a long time. It was so cute! This is a picture of them playing that evening:

My family loves to play the card game "May I?". Last night we played probably the longest game of "May I?" ever! I am sad to report that I think I may have lost my touch with the game as last night I had my all time worst score, but that may be because I never got the calendar (inside joke). Thanks for coming to stay with us Grammy & Gramps. Here are some pictures of Oliver saying his goodbye's. We will miss you!

Oliver Clayton Royal is Twenty-Two Months Old!

Happy 22 month old birthday baby! I guess technically I shouldn't call him my baby anymore, but I just can't help it! I can't believe that he will be two in just a couple of short months; I still remember the day he was born and the months we spent rocking and nursing like they were yesterday. Oliver has grown into such a big boy. He loves to help Mommy & Daddy do just about anything: if Mommy cleans, Oliver cleans; if Daddy hammers, Oliver hammers. Oliver has become very social and several people have commented on he how he is not shy any longer. I attribute this to the time we have spent at Gymboree, but it may be that he is just growing up. He is such a happy boy with a great disposition, although he is testing boundaries and has definitely discovered that he has a will of his own and exerts it often. This past month he has turned into a great sleeper and he puts himself to sleep for a 2-3 hour nap and every night for around 11 hours. His favorite food is still pasta and he requests it daily along with cookies (go figure!). He loves to cook in his kitchen, play with toy cars and trucks, read books, snuggle stuffed animals, go outside, and he especially loves garbage trucks. We are constantly on the lookout for garbage trucks and we often watch videos of them on the Internet. We love this little guy so much!

This month I let Oliver choose where he wanted his 22-month old pictures taken and he had some good choices, some with bad lighting, and a ton of cute smiles. Here are the highlights. Enjoy!

And my favorite picture:

Happy Day Mommy & Daddy

Clayton & I have been married for five years now. I love my life and I couldn't imagine it without my husband and the sweet little boy we brought into our family. This morning we went to the Arbor Hills Nature preserve for some exploring and this evening we will go out for an entertaining dinner at Japon Steak & Sushi. We will sit at the Hibachi grill so Oliver will hopefully be amazed by the fire and the chef. Here are some picture from our day:




some nature pictures from the preserve:


A few of the parks around here have these huge red swings and Oliver can barely hold the chains, but he loves them! He has always loved swinging, but now every time he sees one of these, he wants to swing and I can barely get him out! Here is a video of him in the swing:

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And some of the family before and during dinner:

Oliver's word usage during his 21'st month

Oliver, Mommy & Daddy had become so adept at signing with each other, that we almost preferred that language over words as we could understand exactly what Oliver needed or wanted. After taking an inventory of words that Oliver used at 21 months, we noticed that Oliver was only speaking words that he didn't have signs for. Clayton & I decided about 3 weeks ago, that he and I were going to stop signing and stop creating new signs for Oliver to use and be more focused on encouraging word usage. We still allow Oliver to communicate in signs, but now we are pushing even harder on encouraging him to try to say the word instead of use the sign. What a difference that has made. Oliver's word usage is increasing so quickly that I can't even keep up a list now. And now he has stopped using a lot of his signs.

So, as Oliver approaches his 22nd month birthday tomorrow, I have decided to update my blog: I have removed the sidebar with the words list, and will instead keep this list of words he used during his 21st month: Ace, ba ba (lamby), bagel, ball, blue, boo, boom, bye bye, cook, cookie, corn, dada, day, done, down, duck, Emmy, gala, garage, go, grandpa, grape, green, Gude (his friend Jude), gum, happy, hi, high, hiding, kitchen, kiwi, mama, meow, milk, moo, more, mow, na na (egg and gum), no, oh no, oh yeah, otter, paint, pan, pear, peas, pink, pizza, pooh, puppy, red, slide, ta da, tigger, uh oh, waffle, work, wow, yeah and yes.

And this list of baby signs he used during and before his 21st month: all done, alligator, ant, apple, baby, ball, balloon, banana, bath, bear, bib, big boy, bird, book, brush, bubble, bug, bunny, butterfly, car, cat, caterpillar, cheerio, cheese, chicken, clean, clock, cold, come here, computer, cookie, cow, cracker, danger, diaper, dog, down, drink, duck, eat, elephant, fan, fish, flag, flower, frog, garbage, garbage truck, gentle, giraffe, glasses, hat, help, horse, hot, ice cream, juice, just right, lawn mower, light, lion, milk, monkey, moon, more, noise, outside, phone, pig, plane, please, push, quiet, rain, sad, sleep, slide, snow, sorry, spider, sprinkler, stars, stinky, stop, swing, thank you, tooth brush, tractor, train, tree, truck, turtle, up, vacuum, wash hands, water, and where is it?

Happy Day Jude (or Gude in Oliver's words)!

Today Oliver and I went to his friend's second birthday party. My friend Roma made the cutest invitations for the party. Oliver had a ton of fun at Jude's party and Mommy had fun socializing with her friends. Thanks for inviting us Roma and Jude! We met Jude and one of his other friends Milo at Gymboree. Oliver is holding Milo's hand in one of the pictures below, and of course Jude is the one blowing out the candles:

Happy Birthday Tommorow, Cousin Emily!

I never know if Oliver will cooperate while we are on the phone, so we wanted to send out this birthday wish while we could! We wish we could be there to celebrate your 4th B-Day with you, you are such a big girl! We love you so much! Here is Oliver's wish for you:
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