Summer and Fall 2010

We got our summer off to a great start with watching our oldest niece graduate from Newport High School in June. We are so proud of her and the wonderful intellegent woman that she has become. On that same day, Oliver’s Aunt Nydia and Uncle Alberto welcomed a daughter into the world, Ashley Natalia. She lives in Mexico, so we have not had a chance to meet our new niece in person yet, but we get to “talk” to her on video messaging on our computer and she is adorable.

For the 4th of July weekend we went on our annual camping trip to Loon Lake. Six other families went also, so of course Oliver had a blast playing with other kids and getting dirty outside. Oliver went swimming in the lake all day and he loved it so much we could not get him out of the water until he was exhausted.

A few weeks later, for Juan Carlos’ 30th birthday, we took him on a surprise trip to Bend, Oregon with our friend Rafael and his family. We all had so much fun! The house that we rented had a hot tub in its huge yard, and Oliver and little Rafael loved it. The weather was perfect, so we walked around town and went to Drake Park and played with the ducks there.

Also in July, Oliver discovered bubbles and pretty soon he always wanted to play with them. By the end of the summer learned how to control blowing big bubbles and little bubbles.

August included lots of trips to the park and Newport’s Farmers Market. Our weather here was not very warm or sunny, but we played outside as much as we could. Mid-August Megan had her 10 year High School Reunion. It was amazing to see many old friends and catch up with them over the weekend.

In September it was filled with birthdays. First was Megan's, then Oliver's cousin Marco, then Oliver's birthday on the 24th, followed by Grandpa Dave's. For Oliver's 3rd birthday we had a huge party for him at the Newport Recreation Center and it was a blast! We rented a small gymasium for the kids to play in and set up a bunch of toys for them, including bikes, trikes, balls, and slides.

The most exciting part of our month was that Oliver's grandparents from Mexico came and visited us for 3 weeks. Oliver did not have a very hard time getting comfortable with them, and he and his grandpa got very close playing ball all day long. Oliver called them his "otro ama" (other grandma) and "otro apa" (other grandpa).

In early October we went on a family vacation and drove to Everett (just North of Seattle) to visit Megan’s friends Carrie and her family. It was so great to spend time with them and they were wonderful tour guides of Seattle. We went to Pike Place Market, visited the gum wall, and saw the Space Needle. Although we did not go up into the Space Needle because Oliver was too scared, it was still fun to see it up close again. Carrie took us to an awesome park in Everett and we had perfect timing getting there and playing for hours until it got dark. It was hard saying goodbye to them, but we are hoping to see them this summer.

Another exciting event that happened in October was that Oliver's uncle Alberto came back to live with us. He fishes out of Newport and Alaska, so when he is home with us Oliver loves spending time with him.

Oliver did dress up for Halloween as Spiderman, but he would not put on his costume so he wore his Spiderman pajamas. We went trick-or-treating with Oliver’s cousin Brisa who was dressed up as a butterfly. Once we got started with the trick-or-treating, Oliver got really scared of the other kids costumes and masks so after some hysterics we came home early.

The big highlight of our November was our double Thanksgiving. We first went to a local restaurant called Georgie’s with Oliver’s parents, grandparents, Great Grandma Evie, Aunt Becca, and Matt. Then we went to our friends Zaida and Adrian’s house and had a wonderful meal with a bunch of our good friends. We have so much to be thankful for and it felt amazing to spend it with all of our loved ones.

The day after Thanksgiving Oliver’s Great Uncle Rob came and visited for the weekend. It was great to see him as always. It is great to see Oliver getting used to him also and it seems like he interacts with him much more now.

Oliver's Great Grandma Evie lives closer to us in Newport now and Oliver gets to see her about 3 times a week. He even knows which apartment is hers and has his stash of toys at her place. It is so nice that Oliver likes playing with her and he always gives her hugs and kisses when he leaves.

Oliver has a new favorite movies. They are Jungle Book, Lion king, Toy Story, and Finding Nemo. Oliver even sings some of the songs from Lion King and Jungle Book when they come on. He also acts out movies sometimes, either with his toys or by himself. Its very cute. He still likes trains, reading before bedtime, dinosaurs, Toy Story characters (Buzz Lightyear and Woody), jungle animals, and Spiderman.

In October Oliver had his 3 year check up and everything went good. The Doctor expects him to be about 5’9” which is nice that he is not going to be short like his mom. Famous soccer players are usually about 5'10" so he should fit in nicely with them. :) His vocabulary is increasing a lot in both English and Spanish. It also seems like he is teaching his cousin Brisa English which is cool.

Oliver now has a big boy bed in his room (thanks to Aunt Becca's old twin bed) that has jungle animal sheets and bed spread. He is so proud of it and loves sleeping in it. When it is bed time he lines up his toy dinosarus at the end of the bed, then him and his mom read books to go to sleep. He sleeps much better now that he has a bigger more comfortable bed.

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and salad with grilled chicken are Oliver's meals of choice. He sometimes tries new things, but is still a bit picky and does not seem to have a large appetite most of the time. He loves milk, water, and juice to drink.

This winter we are looking forward to Hanukkah and Christmas (of course) and paying in some snow hopefully. Happy holidays everyone!

Spring 2010

Spring has come and gone here on the Oregon Coast, unfortunately we did not see too much sun. Basically it was rainy days mixed with a few sunny days surrounded by overcast days, the usual for our area. We did get in some fun trips to the park though and between the brakes in the clouds and rain we did get to have 2 big BBQ's in March at our house. They are always so much fun because Oliver loves playing with his friends and cousins and everybody enjoys getting together and cooking some excellent food.

Also in March Oliver had his first experience at a Children's Museum. We went to the Gilbert House which is located about 2 hours away from where we live. He did have fun, but he was extremely overwhelmed by all of activities and exhibits to look at. His favorite areas were the bubble room where you got to play with and make bubbles, the train area in which you got to stand inside a glass tube and watch a model train go around you, and the dinosaur exhibit that you could learn about and touch model dinosaurs. We are planning another trip back there this summer when the weather is nice so he can play outside on the enormous play structure.

On March 11th we celebrated Grandma Julie (or Ama as Oliver sill calls her) birthday in Corvallis. Even though Oliver was not very well behaved during dinner he got a kick out of putting stickers on his Great Grandma Evie while waiting for the food to arrive. He entertained us all, as always.

April was pretty slow with special events. The most excitement that we had was at the beginning of the month when we celebrated Easter at Oliver grandparents house with them, Aunt Becca, and Great Grandma Evie. The Easter Bunny even found Oliver and gave him an Easter basket. Oliver did an inside egg hunt (unfortunately it was raining so it was an inside egg hunt) and found a bunch of eggs with toy dinosaurs and cars inside (we tried to have a candy free Easter).

May was very exciting with something going on each week for Oliver to do. In the first part of May, Oli's friend Natalie Miller had a very fun 2nd birthday party. It was an Under The Sea theme, but Oliver would not dress up in the surfer outfit that his mom picked out for him. It was a great party that had fun games and a bubble machine! Once he stopped being suspicious of the machine he got a lot of enjoyment in popping all of the bubbles that came at him.

Oliver's Aunt Becca graduated from Willamette University with her Masters in Elementary Education on May 16 . For the exciting occasion Oliver's Great Grandma Myra came to visit from Florida. It had been about 6 months since he had seen her last, so this time he could really play with her and communicate much better to her. This seemed to make them bond incredibly fast and he soon began to call her Grandma My and want to play with her (without us prompting him to). We all had a great visit with her and Oliver got to spend some quality time with her, especially at the Library and the Marine Science Center.

At the end of May, Oliver's cousin Brisa had her 3rd Birthday Party at Big Creek Park. Oliver had a great time playing ball in the field and climbing on the play structure, but he was too scared to hit the pinata that they had. He actually played at the park for over 6 hours. Yes, he slept very good that night despite the candy and cake that he had.

Since March Oliver's Uncle Alberto is visiting us from Mexico and we are having a great time with him here. Oliver calls him "Tio" which means Uncle in Spanish. They have a lot of fun together playing and it is great having him in our home. Alberto is an amazing cook and has helped us find some new food that Oliver likes (always a hard task), like his homemade noodle soup and tomato rice. In addition to them Oliver loves corn on the cob, broccoli, chicken, turkey sausage, popcorn, all types of fruit, beans, eggs, pancakes, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Oliver did complete this session of Bouncing Buddies and has perfected a somersault. Grandma Julia did not sign him up for the next session, in hopes to give him a break from the routine of it. He has started going to a toddler story time at the library in exchange. He sits and listens to a book or two, then he is out of his seat and playing with the toy train that they have in the same area. From what we think is result of his trips to the library, Oliver now likes reading books (YEA!). When we go on car trips Oliver will read books for at least an hour before he gets bored. Also, now at bedtime his mom and him lay down in his bed and he gets 3 books read to him. His favorite books right now are "How does a Dinosaur Say Goodnight", "Diego's Halloween Party", "How Does a Dinosaur Eat His Food", "The Hungry Caterpillar", and "Adventures of Mickey Mouse".

Oliver's compassionate side is still present and developing. He now gives the family hugs and kisses when he wants to and he asks for them also. When his mom hurt her finger, he would always kiss her finger and say "no more hurt Mommy". He now says "thank you" and "your welcome". It is really funny because sometimes when he knows that we are going to thank him for doing something, he says "thank you Oliver" before we can even get the words out. He is still the big helper and everything is always "I do it" or "I help you" and he tries to do everything by himself. He is gaining more independence and he is already showing signs of being a little trouble maker. If he does not want you to see what he is doing he tells you "para all" (which means over there in Spanish) and tries to get you to leave the room.

To our delight, Oliver has quite an active imagination already. A few months ago he started playing "ball" with an imaginary ball that he kicks and throws. He also picks up imaginary "food" and feeds himself, us, or one of his toys. He pretends that his stuffed animals are sleeping and wraps them up in blankets and puts them on his bed then tells all of us not to be loud because the animals are asleep. Very cute stuff.

Even with all of Oliver's outgoing and loud traits, he recently has become shy around people that he is not incredibly familiar with. He often acts like he is sleeping when he gets shy and buries his head into whatever he can find to not show his face. Usually after 5 minutes he snaps out of it and becomes the little non-stop Oliver we are all used to.

Playing ball is still Oliver's favorite activity, and lately he has been learning to play baseball. He is actually very good for his age and can hit a foam ball about 3/4 of the time that it is thrown at him. This is great news to his Uncle Sean and Aunt Melissa because they have been trying to encourage him to be a baseball player since he could hold a ball. He can also drop kick a ball, and throw a ball up in the air and hit it with his hand. And of course he call still kick hard and far. It appears that his daddy's dreams of having an athlete for a son are going to come true.

It seems like every day Oliver is saying new words and phrases in English and Spanish. We still feel that he is a bit behind on his language for his age, but we keep getting reassured from everybody, including his doctor, that it is normal for kids who are bilingual to take longer to begin fluently talking. He does understand everything that we say in both English and Spanish, and he is beginning to group words of the same language together more. He can count to 8 in English and 5 in Spanish. His new favorite phrases are "come on lets go" and "hug and kiss please mama/dada". Only just a few weeks ago Oliver learned to answer the question "what is dada's/mama's/your name" in English in Spanish. He answers Apallos (for Juan Carlos) Mehan (for Megan) and Olie (for Oliver).

We still have no luck with the potty training, but maybe next update there will be some positive news regarding this topic. We are looking forward to our now annual camping trip to Loon Lake during the long 4th of July holiday weekend. Even more families are going this year with our group, so it should be a ton of fun as long as Oliver does not throw any tantrums. Hopefully this summer will hold some fun camping trips and outside activities for all of us. Enjoy the sun!