… whaaaaatever… the news kept blaring yesterday that we wouldn’t get an ounce of snow. Oh it’s just going to be in Richmond. You MIGHT see a flurry in Fredericksburg and further south, but no accumulation. Ok ladies, let’s look outside yonder window to see a pile of fluffy white snow! I do believe that’s more than a flurry sitting on my deck. Olivia and I were taken by surprise this morning as we exited the grocery store from our weekly shopping pilgrimage. Certainly, that couldn’t be a quarter inch of snow could it? Why yes, yes it was. Thankfully, I have a 4WD vehicle. Olivia took great pleasure in sticking her tongue out to catch snowflakes. Where on earth do these kids learn this stuff? It’s like being cute is in their DNA.

I got a few candid shots today. She was NOT in the mood and has gotten to the point where she won’t even look at the camera (unless I wave an entire block of cheese over it… kid’s worse than a mouse about that stuff I swear). We went with the oh so fashionable sweatshirt and diaper attire today. She has some sort of little rash on her leg, so we wanted it to breathe a bit instead of shoving her into some leggings.

We made a quick phone call to Grandpa Rick. See, we have this huge picture frame on the wall next to the stairs. We’ve filled it with pictures of Olivia with various family members and every day after school I stop by that frame and go through and point out people. We have two grandfathers and three grandmothers. It’s a little crazy for her to keep track of everyone, but she seems fixated by “PaPa” — or commonly known as Grandpa Rick. If I say “where’s PaPa” then she runs to the gate and points up at the picture. She knows the grandmothers too, but she gets confused when I say “where’s grandma” because, well, there’s three of them. We will have to come up with funny names for all of you. I beg you to volunteer, because we will think of something that will stick that you may not like So we called PaPa and she kept saying “Hello” and eventually “Hi PaPa” which I think at that point, my father melted into a giant pile of goo.

No worries grandmas — we’re working on it and I think we’re totally getting there with the rest of the family members.

Olivia’s new books came in from school today. I’ve been looking forward to the day when I could order her some books from the Scholastic flyers. I didn’t realize they actually still passed these out in schools. There’s a preschool version of it, which has board books for Olivia’s age group. We picked up two for her, including one of the mouse books to match her doll from Grandma Mandy. I’m still testing the new lens, so I have some artsy fartsy shots here where I just focused on her eyelashes and blurred the rest of the image. I’m not going to shoot with it like that all of the time, but I will admit that’s part of why I bought it!

Is it just me, or is black and white photography simply timeless and elegant?

I picked up a new lens with some of the money I earned at the end of 2009 this past week. The first one that came in was a complete dud. I would tell it to focus on something and it would revolt and focus elsewhere, very annoying! So now the second lens came in, and while I thought that I had another dud at first, it turned out that I was moving too much while trying to take the shot, hence any blurriness. It’s all calibrated to the camera now and functioning perfectly fine as far as I can tell. Here is a shot I took of Olivia with it tonight:

I mostly got the lens so that I could take more indoor shots without whipping the flash out. I also love detail shots and want to get into some nice nature photography later in the year when it warms up.

Olivia thought it was a good idea to pin the cat down and wrestle him this evening…

Olivia’s 18 month appointment was today and boy has she grown!

Height: 32.5″ (75%)

Weight: 25lbs 4oz (70%)

Head Circumference: 46cm (50%)

She’s on target and perfect according to the doctor. Her ear tubes are still in, and no ear infection at the moment, so she’s in the clear. That’s more than I can say for myself… I’m heading to the ENT today to get my ears checked as I woke up at 6am with searing pain on both sides of my head. Sigh. Daycares are petri dishes of disease and pestilence.