Easter in Huntersville

So, for Easter, we went to my parent's house for Saturday afternoon and on to Grant's parent's house for Saturday night through Sunday (I'll get to the Lenoir trip after this post).

Olivia had a fun time over there playing with all of Grandma's toys!


We had a good time hanging out with my family, too, and spent some time checking out their gardening and fishies in the backyard.


Hanging out with Papa:

Checking out the fishies in Grandma's pond:

Ok, so I'm thinking that this next picture is also a possibility for the magazine contest. What do you guys think?

She enjoyed riding on daddy's shoulders so she could reach the pretty flowers on their dogwood tree.

But she wasn't so sure about the grass on her bare feet. Doesn't she look so sweet in her little dress? I got her a dress for both Saturday and Sunday for Easter.

Here she is taking a walk with daddy - she's trying to figure out how to maneuver in gravel.

Here's Olivia waiting for uncle Sean to show up.

Uncle Sean got a new puppy and Olivia had a great time playing with him. He is only 8 weeks old and is a boxer-American bulldog mix. Isn't he CUTE!!!

Here's a video of them playing:

Aside from all of that, Olivia has been working on her skills . . . no no . . . you'll have to wait for the next post to see what she did while we were at my parent's house. Wait and see!

Easter at Home

Here's just a short blog to show you all how our new little family celebrated Easter. We made sure to tell the Easter Bunny that we would be traveling for Easter, so he decided to drop off Olivia's Easter basket on Good Friday so she could get it a little early - before we left town. Here she is digging through all her loot:

Here's a little video of her "tasting" all of her my little ponies that came in her Easter Eggs from her basket. (She is teething again - her top two teeth are coming in! I haven't been able to get a picture of those yet, but I'll keep you posted!)

Cousin Drew Came To Visit!

Hello again! Well, I have so much to catch you all up on that I am going to have to split it up into a couple different entries. We'll begin with when Cousin Drew came to visit Olivia last weekend to celebrate their Easter a week early! (Becca's family was coming down from Indiana for Easter, so they wouldn't be able to come to Grant's Parent's house.)

Well, we had a lot of fun when Chad, Becca, Drew AND Grandmom and Granddad came to visit us last weekend. Our friends, Randy and Sara brought Gracie over, too and we all went to the park! So, I guess that makes this the Baby Bash 2009!

Remember Baby Bash 2008??? Here are the three babies from 6/28/08 - when Olivia was only 2 weeks old, Drew was 4 1/2 months old and Gracie was 5 1/2 months old!



Now look at the three of them!

Here are some more pictures and a couple videos of all of us hanging out at the park.

Here's Olivia's first time down a big slide:

Then we went down a REALLY big slide together:

And we HAD to do the swings again, of course! Olivia always loves the swings.

Here are the 2 cousin's hanging out.


Look how much they've grown. this is them from back in August when we went to the mountains!


After the park, we went to show off Grant's new office and the kids had a blast playing on the mini trampoline.

Then Dr. Daddy helped Olivia get her workout done while we were there, too!

Hello everyone! Well, it has been a while since my last blog - so let me fill you in. Olivia has been doing well - she's actually not been sick in a while (but mommy has!). She has been saying "mama" and "dada" pretty regularly now and we are pretty sure she knows what they mean. We have even heard her try to say "kitty" a couple times while playing with Shami. She also said "bye bye" once at daycare when we were saying goodbye to her little friend Sophie - as soon as Sophie (who is about 15 months old) said "bye bye," Olivia said it right after her. It kind of took me by surprise - but they said that she's been saying different things at daycare quite often. So, though most of what she says is still gibberish - she is learning how to say a couple things. It is really cute!

Also, she is getting to be so much fun to play with now. She is at a really great age now where we can "chase" her around and she just "run-crawls" as fast as she can laughing and squealing away. I have a couple videos of us playing with her later in this blog!

Well, without further delay (since I know some of you have been waiting a long time to see more pics of little Livi) here are some "fashion show" pictures of her showing off some of her outfits:

Here she is posing showing off her cool Osh-Kosh jeans! Isn't she a little diva??



Here is her cute little lamb sweater that she has finally grown into. We got this at one of her showers.

And remember me telling you all that on Valentine's Day when we were traveling to Huntersville for Drew's 1st birthday - that she never even made it all the way there in her cute V-Day outfit (she had gotten sick in the car and we had an impromptu wardrobe change on the side of the road). Well, this is the really cute V-Day outfit she WAS wearing that no one got to see. Isn't it cute. It was from Grandmom.

Love the leopard pants!

Ok, so I get this free Baby Talk magazine and there is a contest in there for the next "Cover Baby" and I wanted to enter Olivia into the contest. It says to send in a photo of your baby that shows her face and her personality. Here are some of the pictures I am thinking of sending in. Let me know which ones you like the best. (I just LOVE the cute little overall outfit with her supercool Red Sox hat from Papa!)

Contest Pic #1

(Ok, this one wasn't one I was going to send in - but I just thought I'd show you how Olivia was wearing her Sox hat just like Papa does!)

Contest Pic #2

Contest Pic #3

Contest Pic #4

This next one is the one I have on my computer screen background right now!

Contest Pic #5

Contest Pic #6

Well, we also got her name board back from Lundies Photography a week or 2 ago. Here it is. It shows her holding each letter of her name so it spells out O-L-I-V-I-A. We still haven't hung it up in her room yet, we can't decide where to put it. But it came out so cute. In fact, the ladies at Lundies thought it came out so cute that the had 2 of them made - one for us and one for them to put up at the studio. It is sitting right on their counter for everyone to see! They have been calling her their "Lundies baby" since she has been coming there since she was 6 days old (when we did the "hands and feet" collage) and they just adore her!

Ok, so here are some videos of Grant and I playing with her. You can see how much fun we are having with her these days!

Here is one more video of her using her walker. She's gotten to be a pro at it. So much so, that she actually took her first steps last weekend without it - on her own. She took one little shuffle step at our neighbors house when we went over for dinner saturday night. Then we were at home with her on and she started taking 3-4 steps at a time walking across from one end of our "L" shaped couch to the other end (cutting the corner). Since then, she has been "practicing" here and there. No "Official" walker status yet, but she's working on it. She still gets a little nervous when she's not holding onto anything and tends to sit down so she won't fall, but she's making progress. I've been trying to catch it on video for you, but every time I pull out the camera, she sits down. ha ha!

Well, that's about all for this installment of Olivia's Life. Tune in next time to hear about the fun Easter trip Drew and Olivia had when he came up to see her last weekend for the Baby Bash 2009!

Sorry for the delay!

Hello everyone! So sorry that I haven't been on here in a while. I have been sick with a bad cold which turned into a sinus infection AND I have been studying for my PMP (Project Mgmt Professional) certification test.

I am planning on doing a longer blog session sometime either tomorrow or (more likely) Friday - so bear with me. I just wanted you all to know that I haven't forgotten about you guys. I'll be back soon with some new fun pictures of Olivia and some fun news about what she's been up to lately. (I'm still trying to get a good blog-worthy video of her newest trick to show you all, too!)

Dancing Quee . . . . errr . . .Princess!

Hello again! Well, Olivia and I have a cold again! ugh! I'm not sure if we will ever all be healthy for more than a day at a time. They say that babies spend 3 out of 4 weeks a month sick with a cold (on average) - well, that's about right in our household!

Anyway, I went to visit my friend, Jennifer, and her new 6-week old baby, Reese the other day. I can't believe how tiny she is! I can't even remember Olivia being that small. awwww - here they are. Isn't she cute??



We also had another snow (only 3 inches this time), but enough to close the schools and shut the city of Raleigh down . . . again! We didn't take Olivia out in it this time because she was still getting over that stomach bug. But since the schools were closed, we wound up watching our little neighbor, Alyssa, since her parents had to go to work. Here is Alyssa and Olivia hanging out.

Grant even went out and played in the snow with Alyssa for a little bit. Aren't they cute in their little snow-suits??

Ok, so aside from the snow and the colds, Olivia has become quite the funny little girl lately. She is back to sticking out her tongue randomly and now she is really into making raspberries. Here is a funny video of her showing off her new skill:

I also wanted to get some cute pictures of her showing off her two little teeth now that they've come all the way in. Here are 3 that I just couldn't decide between, so I am posting them all:

Here she is in her cool Osh-Kosh overalls. They are girly overalls with pink stitching - how cool! I also wanted to see how she looked with one of her little head bands on that were given to us at one of our showers. Isn't it so girly??

Look at those little overalls!!


Here she is visiting with Granddad Alan. He and Grandmom Susan came to visit this past weekend to see Olivia (and us too . . . I think! ha ha)

Ok, now for the funniest new talent Olivia has learned. She is definitely her daddy's little girl - she LOVES music and always lights up when she hears it. Especially guitar music. The ladies at daycare get so tickled with her when she hears music. She just starts dancing now whenever she hears music. It is so funny. Even if she is sitting down or kneeling - she'll just wiggle around to the music. It is so cute! Here's a video of her having a ball.

Check out this belly. She has such a great figure, we are going to have to keep the boys away with a bat! ha ha

Here she is having another guitar lesson with daddy. She really wants to help him play and learn how to do it herself.

And here is one more video of her dancing to daddy playing and singing to her. He did want me to put a stipulation that his guitar is out of tune - so don't judge his guitar playing by this video. I mean, who's going to care about his guitar playing once they check out the great dance moves that Olivia is exhibiting. ha ha - go Olivia!

Well, that's about all that's been going on around here. We're just enjoying our little one and working. Grant's new practice is now open for business and they are just finishing up the final details with the decor and computer stuff. Now they just need to go out and market up some business. I'm studying to take a PMP (Project Management Professional) certification exam (it's a 4-hour exam) at the end of the month. So when we aren't home hanging out with the little one, that's what we're doing. Take care and we'll keep you all informed with any new fun stuff that Olivia is up to.

Feeling better . . . FINALLY!

Hello everyone! Ok, so Olivia is FINALLY healthy again! So, I told you all that she was sent home from daycare on Tuesday. Well, I decided to give her diluted (half strength) formula on Wednesday (maybe going from a day of no formula to full formula the next day was too much for her tummy) and it seemed to work! She was back to her usually happy, playful self! She has been great ever since. In fact, she has even learned how to clap this week - yeah! She just starts clapping randomly now. We can get her to clap on cue when we play her leap tadpole clapping songs. Check out the videos of her clapping and waving:

Olivia also got to have a play-date with her friend Gracie tonight while I was having my craft group over. (We get together once a month to scrapbook) They had a fun time hanging out and really wore each other out. Here are some pictures from them hanging out.

Look at Diane hanging out with the babies!

Here are a couple pictures I took of Olivia as she was ham-ing it up for everyone while we were scrapbooking. Thankfully, there is no lead paint on the gate!

Look how worn out she was after Gracie left:


Olivia has also been saying da-da and ma-ma pretty regularly now. We aren't positive that she knows what they mean, but sometimes, it sure seems like she does. She is still pretty talkative and enjoys singing and telling us about her day! ha ha. She has also started to let go of her hold on the couch or whatever and trying to balance on her own. She is starting to be able to balance for a little bit at a time now. In fact, just tonight, she let go of me and started clapping at Sara and Gracie while just standing there for a little bit. I think we are going to be in trouble really soon! She is going to be walking in no time!


Here are some naked baby pictures I took of Olivia recently. I wanted to get some cute bath pictures to frame and put in her bathroom and they came out really cute. I photo-shopped them a bit to make them *almost* black and white, but left a little color in them. They look really cool in the frames for the bathroom. What do ya think??






Other than that, not much else is going on around here. Grant's clinic is moving along well. They are planning to open their doors as early as the 9th! Wow, that's coming up quick! Well, just a
quick update to let you all know what is going on. I hope you all are doing well and I'll talk to ya later! Take care!