Dear Olivia,

I am horrible at writing these letters! I try and be nice to myself by saying I will be grateful even for the few I do have! :) So here I am writing you a letter, you lucky girl!! :)

You do so many cute things right now! You've always talked a lot, but some how lately, your speech  has just taken off. You never stop talking actually! It's not so bad, I really love listening to how you say things! My favorite thing you've started saying the past couple months is one more minute. Whenever we need to leave something fun or go to bed, "one more minute!" Usually you hold up your fingers when you say this. Sometimes it's one finger, but mostly its' 2-5. :) The funny part is one time I told you you could have 2 more minutes. But you insisted you wanted 1 more minute! ;)

The other day we were looking at a house. We're in the middle of possibly buying a house. It's exciting and terrifying. Any ways. We were all in the backyard of this home. You, Bently, The house owners son, Dad, me, Logan (the realtor) and the lady who owned the house. Well all the adults went into the giant shed in the back to check it out. We were probably in there, 5 minutes maximum. When we came out immediately your Daddy noticed you were gone. We began to look around and that's when we saw you, in the house, crying. I immediately went to you and picked you up! You were hysterically crying! :( I asked you what was wrong and you said, "You can't leave me, I'm just little!" It was  heartbreaking and adorable! We have since had many conversations how your mommy will never leave you!

Whenever we go down to Davis County to visit family we always take lots of kid movies. Let me tell you how spoiled you are with getting to watch movies in the car! Well for some reason, you usually insist on holding all of the DVD cases. I don't know why, but it's a major meltdown if you drop one or notice you are missing one. I have no idea why you like holding them so much. Most of the time the stack you are holding is just short enough for you to peak over and watch the movie.

With all the cute sure comes a lot of crying though. You are really good at throwing tantrums. Lately you refuse to wear anything but Pajamas. Normally I don't think it's worth the fight. But sometimes I get really embarassed taking you out in the cold with nothing but your pjs on. The fights we have pretty darn epic. I've learned that it's easiest to convince you to wear a dress. It's not much warmer than pjs but at least it's counted as clothing! ;) I always remind you how much you look like a princess. Everything is better when princess are involved, according to you at least! ;)

I let you wear lipstick for Halloween and now you want Lipstick every day! Today I recorded you saying lipstick because how you say it is stinking adorable! Usually I let you wear some lipgloss. People can judge if they want, it makes you happy! Plus, you lick it off really fast so it's all gone in about 2 seconds! :)

I love you so much my beautiful 3 year old! You keep me laughing and smiling every single day! Our life sure would be dark without you!

Love,
Mom

Dear Olivia,

Yesterday we told you something pretty exciting! You're going to be a big sister... again! :) I was going to wait to tell you till our first ultrasound but I was too excited! You have been begging for another baby forever! You were pretty cute. I don't think you quite understood at first. But you caught on pretty fast! Then you kept insisting we needed a girl baby! I sure hope it's another girl! Mostly because I want you to have a sister! I guess we'll find out in January. It seems so far away! :)

I love you cute girl! I'm in love with how you say pregnant and talk about your little sister! I think you will be very disappointed if you get another brother! ;)

Love,
Mom

Dear Olivia and Bently,

You both are in this phase where you ask me how to spell things. A lot of things. It usually happens while we're in the car driving somewhere, but we also do it at home. You say, "How do you spell, House." Then I spell house. I don't know why this game entertains you so much. But you both love it and want to ask me to spell things all the time. Sometimes I don't mind, sometimes it's pretty annoying! ;) It sure makes me feel like I'm in a spelling B! It also reminds me how many words I don't know how to spell. Sometimes I have no idea what Olivia is saying so I just make up a spelling. I figure, you're not going to be able to remember it anyways! :)

You both love each other so much. It has been so much fun watching your relationship with each other grow! You can fight like none other, but you also play together all the time! :) Sometimes, if one of you isn't coming fast enough I threaten to leave you. This causes the other sibling to go into hysterical crying and screaming! Today I just walked out of the house ahead of you and Olivia began to scream, "Don't leave Bently!" Then she ran to Bently who was sitting in the hallway, helped him up and brought him to the door! It was pretty adorable! I love the fierce loyalty you have to one another! I hope you always feel protective of each other! :)

I love you both so much! I hope you know that!

Love,
Mom

Dear Olivia,

Tonight at dinner you excitedly ran off and grabbed your Elsa Microphone.You see, sometimes you and your brother will perform for us during dinner! It's as adorable as it is annoying! ;) Your microphone plays two songs from Frozen. "Let it go" and "In Summer". You always sings the let it go and Bently does the Olaf song. It's cute but after you've sang it for us 10 times in a row, it looses it's cuteness somewhat! ;) But you are always so proud of yourself! You always make sure Dad is watching and get's mad when he doesn't. So all of your Dad's and I dinner conversations are had while not even looking at each other! The joys of parenting! :)

Today after church you randomly started singing "Jesus wants me for a Sumbeam!" I didn't know you even knew that song till you started singing it! You basically only know that line and sing it over and over again! You also did a pretty cute rendition of "Popcorn Popping!" I'm so glad you are learning something in nursery. You still cry 90% of the time I drop you off! I always feel a little guilty leaving you but your nursery leaders assure me you cheer up fast. I guess I should be fair, lately you've been so much better! You have a favorite nursery leader you will usually go to without crying. I pray she isn't released till after December! (In which time you will be in primary and the blows my mind! I don't feel old enough to have 2 kids in primary!)

Your birthday is in a short 13 days! Crazy! You will be three! I can tell you are the 2nd child. I feel guilty sometimes for not having the time to teach you as much as I did Bently. I laugh because you can never answer how old you are now, but you know you will be 3 on your birthday! 13 more days and you will be able to answer the question, "How old are you?" :)

I love you beautiful girl!

Love,
Mom

Dear Olivia,

You my girl are always keeping me laughing. Whenever I am angry at you, or I am telling you something you don't want to hear, you pretend to be asleep. You turn your head away from me and close your eyes. Every single time. It also happens when people you don't know very well talk to you. It's adorable, and slightly annoying. Especially when I'm trying to have a calm conversation with you!

You are doing really well with potty training. Since your first day you've only had 2 accidents. Both times it was in the morning. I learned I need to put you on the potty right when you wake up or you won't remember to do it! I love having you in underwear. Even with all the negatives. One major one is I think you are scared to have an accident outside our house. So whenever we go out, you go potty all the time. I mean every 15 minutes you want to go sit on the toilet again. It seems to be slowly getting better. But it hasn't been no picnic! :)

Today we went out to Steinaker Reservoir to hang out at the lake for a minute. I guess I should tell you the back story. When we went to California, our first night there, you ended up going underwater longer than was comfortable. Ever since then, understandably, you've been afraid to go in the water. This has been awful considering summer just started! We went to the Roosevelt pool and you were terrified the whole time. I felt awful! You refused to be in the water unless you were clinging to Dad or I. So today, I didn't expect anything different from  you. In the beginning, that's exactly how it was. You wouldn't go near the water without Dad holding you. I don't know what changed, but by the end of the trip, you were jumping all over the water. I think you enjoyed how slowly it got deep. You could walk quite a distance before it hit your chest. You were so proud of yourself. You kept saying, "I can swim!" You loved it and didn't want to leave. :) I am so grateful you are slowly getting braver in the water again! You loved the water before and I really hope you will again!

I love you Miss Olivia Beth!

Love,
Mom

Dear Olivia,

You are in a total princess stage! You love princesses! Especially Anna from Frozen. She is your all time favorite princess right! The other day you were playing that you were Anna and I decided, what the heck, and got out your Halloween costume from last year! You've now worn it for the past 2 days! You love it. You get on your Anna dress and your princess crown, your plastic high heels, purse, and your baby, and you look adorable. :)

For awhile now you love to be called other names. I'll say "Olivia come here!" And you'll say, "No I'm the mamma!" So then I have to call you mamma. Today you weren't Olivia you were Anna! It's so stinking cute! So all day we called you Princess Anna. At one point Dad even added, "Of Arendale!"

I love you my beautiful big girl! In case you were wondering, today is day four with no accidents from you! It seems to be too good to be true! I never thought it would happen with how against it you were! But you've really come around! Thank goodness for bribery! :)

Love,
Mom

Dear Olivia,

You my dear have started doing something amazing! It all started when you stopped telling us no every time we asked if you wanted to go pee on the potty. You see, before this, it was always a fast and stern no from you. You even told daddy you were going to were big kid diapers. I was without hope for sure. I knew from potty training Bently it was pointless to force the issue on you. That would just lead to tears and frustration on both sides. But as of late, you started telling us you wanted to go pee on the potty. It might have helped that I told you only big girls can go to Lagoon. So if you didn't go pee on the potty, no Lagoon for you! Friday night we went to the store and picked out a little potty. You are going through a fears stage and you told us you were scared of the big potty. So we dropped a good amount of cash on a dang little potty! The first day you did.... okay. You had 3 accidents and 4 success. One of those success though was a poop! So that made me happy. But still just over 50 percent success rate wasn't my favorite. Especially because you peed at McDonalds about 2 minutes after I asked if you needed to use the potty. I was ready to give up but decided to give it one more day! The next day was a busy day. We went to the fair for 4 hours and also to the store. You stayed dry the whole time! No accidents! I was so proud of you! Today again you've had no accidents! I am hoping this sticks around! The only bummer part is I constantly have to ask you if you have to go. So far you haven't been consistent in telling me when you need to go! Hopefully that skills is learned with time! OH and I forgot to mention you have stayed dry all 3 nights. We've put a diaper on you, but so far, it hasn't been necessary! :)

I love you my big girl! I can't believe I have two kids in underpants! :)

This is totally off topic but I have to mention is you have a new phrase you say quite often. You will ask, "what funny?" whenever we laugh. It's pretty darn adorable and hilarious! We usually laugh at you asking us what's funny!

I love you miss thang!

Mommy