Vande Berg Family Pictures, Thanksgiving 2010

A few shots from the family meetings pre-Christmas this year. Actually, this one was Thanksgiving at the Vande Bergs in Fort Dodge.

LaLa and Mommy, 2010

I took a picture of Olivia on her mother's shoulder when she was a few months old, and like the pose.
Here is this year's update.

Scary Princess! Jump Out At You!

Olivia and Ren found comfort and confidence in each other this year. Olivia had been nervous and scared, but when we ran into Ren, she came alive, talking up the positive aspects of this scary holiday just as we'd been saying them to her moments before. They caught on to the doorway drill quickly, and were both very polite in saying thank you and Happy Halloween to everyone that gave them candy. These pictures only show the happy excitement post-Ren, which is how she and we will remember it anyway. Many happy Halloween returns, little one. No other day of the year can you walk up to a strangers house and demand food under threat of vandalism, all condoned and protected by local gendarmes.

Henry and Audrey were just fascinated to be awake after dark.

Birthday Number 4

Olivia celebrated Four with 20 of her closest relatives and friends from school. At our house. It was harrowing, but we hope they all had fun. They are all significantly better at listening to adults and doing as we ask. And it helps if one of those adults is doing fun things with a parachute on a beautiful day.

Thanks as ever to Aunt Pam for supplying every birthday cake she's ever had, and for the Grandmas bringing food and drinks for lots of family and friends. We cannot thank you all enough.

Even More Catchup Photos

More Catchup Photos

Some other photos from earlier this summer. Family, friends, Olivia bouncing off her environment in general. Apologies for their delay.

Olivia in the Summer of 2010

This little girl is becoming a Big Girl this summer. Olivia recently moved up to the Four Year Old Room at school. She has had a very good friend move to another town. And she has had to share more time with more active siblings. This hasn't been easy for her, but I think I see her working on it every day, finding ways to calm herself down, to wait a little bit to be heard, to find something else to do until we have more time for her. Sometimes this is when we're reading books before bed, and she will hold questions until then. Not that she refrains from asking volumes of questions all the time, but the quieter times are when she asks her more important questions. She is a little worried about what Sunday School will be like. She tells us that she misses Graham. She will ask about what certain comments mean that she may have heard adults talk about during the day. I'm very proud of her for all of this: her patience, and her considered thoughts.

She is also defending her right to wear what she wants. This is probably her main means of controlling her environment or schedule right now, so she maintains this with a strong voice and sense of justice. She angles for McDonald's on the drive home from school and, when told she should use her own "stars" money for special meals like that, she gets angry with the injustice as well: "No, I don't have to buy food! Grownups are supposed to buy the food! I don't have to do that!" The stars money is a reinforcing of good behavior we have been trying for months to help inspire her in the mornings, and which has been very beneficial when we happen to be shopping: we can tell her that she should save her stars money to buy the item she happens to see and ask us for in a department store. She is surprisingly good at deferring gratification and I can't tell her often enough how proud i am of her for this, mostly because she doesn't understand yet that this is pretty difficult and that i can appreciate how difficult it must be for her.

Like i said, lots going on for Olivia right now, and I'm very proud of her for so many reasons.