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.