Milestones

We have a lot of exciting things happening in our house. Our kids are hitting some big milestones. Graham will be turning 1 next week. He is starting to learn to walk. He has a walker that he uses and is very good with that. Here is a video of him with the walker trying to stand on his own. He is so proud of himself. In this video below you can see that Olivia likes to have some attention too. Then she starts chasing some imaginary fly or something and just looks pretty insane! 

Graham is still the most easy going baby! He is just so happy!

An exciting thing for Olivia was that we took the front off of her crib so that she is in a proper bed. She was so excited about it. 

We have had a lot of visitors and it has been so great! Since we had to many visitors I put off two important milestones for Olivia- turning her crib into a bed and getting rid of her pacifier. We started thinking about it last October when she was 2.5 years old. Rod and Paul came around then and we wanted to wait until after they left. If there was any drama around these changes we did not want them to have to deal with it! Then Ann told us she was coming for Christmas (which was awesome) and so we waited until after that. And then Anna came in March and we decided to wait until after she left.  Finally, my parents came in April and we waited until after they left! My friend Jenny has already booked her ticket to come in July and we figured we better just make these changes or they may never happen! Olivia will be that weird 6 year old walking around with her paci! She only gets her paci at night so I guess that wouldn't happen either but you get my point...

In Copenhagen there is a huge, amazing park called Frederiksberg Park. The weather is so amazing right now- high 60's, low 70's and sunny. Every Dane is outside grilling and picnicing. Everywhere you go people are laying out in the sun. There is a pacifier tree in the park where little Danish kids go to hang their pacifiers on the tree- never to see them again! We went and saw that tree a few months ago and talked with Olivia about hanging her paci on that tree. She started getting excited about it over the months until she started asking to go hang her paci on the tree and be a "big girl now". We decided to make a day of it. We packed a picnic lunch and got on the bikes and rode down there. It was about a 20 minute bike ride, if that.

We grabbed some bread from the bakery a few doors down from our apartment and brought some butter and cheese. We had some pear saftevand (juice) and some watermelon. It was a simple but tasty picnic.

Graham with his first taste of watermelon

Olivia showing what a big kid she is because she is about to give up her paci

After we ate we walked over to the paci tree

They clear out all the pacifiers every once in awhile so we were really hoping it was a full tree when we got there because it looks so pretty. It was a full tree!

Olivia's excitement for the tree started to wane but she was brave and took a couple of last sucks on her pacifier

I can't believe she is so old now. Matthew and I were both a little sad to see the paci go because she loves it so much! I think Matthew had a harder time with it than Olivia!

Matthew put Olivia on his shoulders and she clipped her pacifier onto the tree all by herself. 

Hers is the orange one in the middle of the picture with the colorful striped tie

Matthew put her down and she was a little upset. Fortunately she had just farted on Matthew's head while she was on his shoulders so that broke the mood a little bit!

We decide to vacate the vicinity of the tree as soon as possible so she can't think about it too much. She looks back a little sad...

and then moves on!

We played at the park for a few minutes afterwards

Then we rode to the toy store, BR, and told Olivia she could pick any toy she wants because she gave up her pacifier. We actually told her that on the way to the park. She has been asking for a piano so we found one there and she was so excited about it.

She played it for almost 2 hours after we got home

She asked for her pacifier a few times when we were getting ready for bed and I just said, Oh we gave your pacifier to the paci tree and you got a piano instead, remember? And then she says - Oh yeah! And that is it! She did not give us any trouble about it that night nor has she this night. She is so great! I can't believe how big she is now. We have a break on Olivia milestones for awhile, I think.