Christmas Pictures

We finally had taken some time to get our family Christmas pictures for this year. Olivia was a real trooper and loved sitting in her rocker. Phil and Deb sent the red outfit for her and I have to say that she looked adorable. And, if you notice, Olivia now has 5 teeth! It's amazing looking at her grow every day.

Also, one tradition that we have in our home is that each year, we pick out an ornament for that year. We try to put a lot of thought into it and decided that an ornament with the Holy Family was very apropos this year.

Olivia's "First" Steps

We had dinner with our friends Craig, Michelle, and Kylah on Sunday. We got talking about how close Olivia was to walking and Michelle showed me one of Kylah's favorite toys that helped her get going. It's great because you can adjust the speed of the front wheels so your child doesn't fall because the toy is going too fast. Olivia has a push toy at home, but when we tried it it seemed to freak her out and she wanted nothing to do with it. However, when she tried Kylah's toy, she just took off. See for yourself!

Our First Family Thanksgiving

This year our family spent Thanksgiving Day on our own. Chris' dad was in Mexico and the siblings all went to their in-laws for the day. My sister spent the day with her future in-laws as well. Therefore, the bigger family Thanksgivings were being postponed. That gave us a day (and actually most of the long weekend) to spend as a family together. Here are some pictures from Olivia's first Thanksgiving.

Chris preparing the turkey! Mmmmm....

Olivia loves watching the dogs while they are outside
in the cold and she is nice and toasty inside.

One of my favorite pictures of her just crawling around.

The feast is ready!

Liv did really good. She ate everything we gave her and I

don't think we found anything she didn't like.

Friday we started decorating the house for Christmas.

Olivia didn't really like wearing the Santa hat!

Where's Olivia?

Wait...I think I see her!

Olivia was really intersted in checking out the Christmas tree.

Actually, she is doing very well with it.

We felt it was important for Liv to have time to check out this new addition to the house.

So, she had time to feel the tree and see what it was. We also let her touch

the garland and the non-breakable ornaments which are at the bottom.

After awhile, we began teaching her that the tree wasn't a toy to be touched and played with.

For the most part, she does very well leaving it alone.

Chris finished off the night by trying to read the story of the First Christmas to Olivia. Unfortunately that was short lived.

I strongly dislike computers...

Hi there everyone! I am sorry it has been so long since I have been able to post anything. We have been having internet problems and computer problems. Hence why there hasn't been any new postings in quite some time. Well I am happy to say our problems have been fixed and I should be back to posting soon. So check back in a few days and you should see some new pictures and stories. Hope you Thanksgiving was happy!

Crawling along!

About a week and a half ago, Olivia started crawling! What an exciting moment and I was thrilled that Chris was home to experience it too! She had been trying to do so for awhile, but then all of a sudden she just got it. Now there is no stopping her. All of the latches are on the cabinets and drawers around the house, the outlet covers are in place, and we even bought a play yard fence to go around Smokey Joe's cage. We're ready for her to start exploring! Or so we thought...

Hmm...shiney toys!

Look what I found mom!

These don't taste like any toys I have.

Okay, I have had enough of that. What's this way?

If I could only reach a little higher!

Happy (Belated) Halloween!!

Olivia ended up having a very busy Halloween. As you can see, she was an adorable little flower. She did great in the costume, but since it was so beautiful outside (temps were in the 70's) she got warm rather quickly. Therefore, her time in the costume was pretty limited. I knew everyone would want to see Olivia in her first Halloween costume, so I had to figure out how to visit everyone, but still be back for our own Halloween tradition at home. (We set the fire pit out in the driveway, invite our neighbors over, and pass out candy to whatever trick-or-treaters show up. We may partake in an adult beverage or two as well and usually some friends end up showing up too.) Well we made the rounds to all of the grandparents and got some great pictures!

Our first stop was to see Great-Grandma and G-pa.

Next we headed over to Grandpa's house where we got to see the whole gang: Grandpa, cousins Aurora and Annabella, Aunt Jennie, and Uncle Vern. When I tried to take this picture of the girls with Grandpa, Liv was already roasting in her costume and had quite enough. Hence the look on her face!

Our last stop was trick-or-treating with Grandma at her work: Gordon Food Service.

Olivia really liked the lite up ghost that decorated Grandma's department.

Another department had giant inflatable Halloween decorations. Olivia really loved these!

Aunt Anne decided Olivia needed to sample her first sucker. :) Actually, she really seemed to like it. She sucked on it for awhile, but when she started playing with it we knew it was time to throw the sucker out!

As you can see, Olivia really did have a busy day. However despite very little napping, she really was a happy girl on her first Halloween.

Better late than never...

Okay, so this announcement is about 2 weeks late, but we were having some internet problems (thanks to me!!) and I couldn't get this posted sooner. So here we go....

We would like to welcome to our extended family Annabella Hope Goss. Chris' sister had her second child on October 22 around 4 in the morning. The family is doing well and Aurora is slowly adjusting to being a big sister. Now we will have three girls who will hopefully grow up really close and another cousin who may enjoy babysitting them as they get older!

Here Chris is holding his new niece, Annabella.

Olivia wants to check out who this new person is that she needs to share her Grandpa with.

An Afternoon at the Pumpkin Patch & Orchard

On Friday, Olivia and I had an outing with our friends Andrea and Rachel. (Andrea is the mom and Rachel is her daughter.) We headed north of Grand Rapids to Sparta where we spent a few hours at a local farm/orchard. They had wagons for people to borrow, so we found one to put the girls in as we explored the sights.

Rachel and Olivia are ready to get rolling!

There were a lot of animals for the girls to see. Andrea took out a rabbit for the girls to pet. Olivia was SO excited! I had to remind her to be gentle with the rabbit because she wanted to pet it the way she does our dogs! :) The girls also saw baby ducks, baby goats, adult goats, and kittens. They really liked all of the animals.

We then made our way to the pumpkin patch. I couldn't resist the temptation of putting Olivia in the pumpkin patch for various pictures.

This is my favorite!

Rachel and Olivia stand by one of the big pumpkins. Okay, Olivia is really leaning, but she is there all by herself.

Andrea finally caught one of the kittens that was running around so the girls could pet it. Rachel wasn't as excited about the kitten as Olivia was.

By the barn (which is actually a store) there was a "horse" kids could sit on. Olivia thought it was great sitting there all by herself.

Momma and Oliva wrapping up a fun filled afternoon.

Time to baby proof?

Olivia is on the verge of crawling, but just hasn't figured it out yet. She does enjoy rolling around the living room, and I usually just worry about her getting close to the bird cage or eating the bird food on the ground. One evening she was rolling around checking things out and stopped in front of the entertainment center. I was watching her play with the door/drawer pulls, but quite honestly wasn't too concerned. She's played with them before and nothing has ever happened. Until this night. I looked up from what I was doing and discovered Olivia figured out how to open one of the drawers!! Here are some pictures of her "getting into trouble":

Olivia checking out an old game controler she found in the drawer. One of those cheap plug and play types that were popular for a bit.

"Hi mom! Don't mind me!"

Olivia then rolled over in front of the doors where the movies are kept. Thankfully she never figured out how to open the doors!

Finally, she rolled in front of the box of dog toys. And yes, she tipped it over trying to see what was inside. Mean Old Mom stepped in and removed her from these toys. I don't mind her exploring, but I don't want the dog toys in her mouth.

Ridin' with G-pa

For those of you who may not know, my dad has Multiple Scelrosis (MS). He was diagnosed in 1989 and the disease has gradually been limiting his mobility. About a month ago, dad had to start using his electric cart regularly. Well dad had mobility around the house, but it was difficult to leave the house. He had no way to get the cart out of the house. That's where the Knights of Columbus stepped in. A group of men built a ramp for my dad in the garage so that he can leave the house in his cart!

My family cannot begin to thank these men enough for what they have done. Chris, Olivia, and I stopped by to check out the new ramp and boy is it awesome! Here are some pictures of G-pa taking Olivia for a ride on his cart.

Strapped to G-pa's lap and headed down the ramp.

Olivia wants to help G-pa steer the cart and beep the horn.

Heading down the sidewalk and checking out the sights.

Coming back home!