Olivia's Party

Disclaimer - Sorry for the mass of pictures. I got a new lens for Christmas & went a little crazy taking photos.

We celebrated Olivia's b-day with a little family party Friday night- Aunt Monica, and Grandma and Grandpa P were able to join us. I surprised myself by doing carpool, making the cake, and making Olivia's blanket all before 5:00. Dinner was easy, we ordered pizza.

Since Olivia loves Minnie Mouse I made her a Minnie Mouse cake. This was the first time I've ever made fondant so I only used it for the mouse heads, dots, and letters. I was happy how they turned out. I'm going to have to try a whole cake in fondant next time.

The bad thing about black fondant/icing, it makes your tongue turn black too but only for a little bit.

Abby looks a little crazy here.

One of Olivia's favorite things is her love-y bear she got when she was born. She takes it everywhere.

Giving Dad a nose kiss.

Opening presents.

Loves her new pillow pet bunny and blanket.

Playing in the new tunnel - love the hair!

Abby and Kaitlyn dressed up for the party. Abby was so into getting ready for the party. On Thursday morning before school, she was in tears thinking we were going to have the party without her. She was very into decorating the house for the party on Friday.

Todd took Kaitlyn's hat - Yeehaw!

Abby being goofy.

Dancing to one of her musical cards.

Olivia's 2!

Birthday

Blessing Day

1 year old

2 years old

Our darling Olivia has turned two! She is such a sweet and agreeable child. We just love having her around. She so much fun to be around. She likes it when Todd picks her up high so she can touch lights and ceilings in the house. Her favorites are watching Baby Einstein videos, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse or Dora. She'll scream "movie please" in the car until you put one on. The kid is a TV junky. She can count to 5, loves to sing (Sunbeam, Follow the Prophet, and Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes are favorites), loves to read books, dance, and play outside. We can lay her down in bed and say "close your eyes" and she will. She doesn't get out of her toddler bed until we come in and get her in the morning. Of course she lets us know when she's awake by saying "Mommy!" Olivia is great at making silly eyes at you and she is talking so much and so well (a lot better than her 2 sisters were at this age). And Olivia is quite the eater. Once you start setting the table, she'll climb up into her chair and wait there until dinner. She loves her food.

We all love being around her and she loves being with her sisters. We love watching this little girl grow and develop and see her personality come out. I just love kissing her sweet cheeks, listening to her little run across the floor, and hearing her squeal when you chase her.

OLIVIA WE LOVE YOU! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

Book Reviews

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford: The novel is told in Henry's present day and in flashbacks to the time of WWII where Henry, a Chinese-American is living with his parents in Seattle. When the book opens, Henry is walking by an old hotel that is being reopened. In the basement hundreds of trunks from Japanese immigrants, that were sent to camps, stored their precious belongings. Seeing this sends Henry down memory lane to when he was 12 and was friends with Keiko, a Japanese-American. This book looks at many of the relationships Henry has - the relationship with his parents who want him to speak only English and they only speak Chinese, Henry's father who is very against the Japanese, the friendship with Keiko, and Henry's college age son that he doesn't know how to connect with.

I really enjoyed reading this book. I liked seeing a different version of WWII through the eyes of Japanese-Americans and what happened to them. I felt for Henry and being ostracized for being the only Chinese in an all white school, I loved his friendship with Keiko. Lots of things I liked about this book. I give it 4 out of 5.

Bloody Jack by L.A. Meyer: A friend had recommend this young adult book as a fun read and I'm glad I picked it up. Jack, an orphan, is actually a girl named Mary disguising herself as a cabin boy on a British warship in the early 18th century. Jack is happy out in the ocean- She has friends, food every day, out hunting pirates, and the opportunity for riches! Jack has to use her wit and courage to make sure she is not discovered by any of her shipmates. Jack does have an easy time fitting in because she does think and act like a boy. This was an easy read but I would recommend it for at least 14 and up. There are a couple scenes that I think you'd need to be a little older - attempted rape and a little sexual innuendo. For a YA book I give it 3.5 out of 5 and I picked up book 2 and think it's better than book 1.

Christmas

The Boot:

A couple nights before Christmas, Kaitlyn's face got a little too close to Abby's boot. They were walking upstairs and Kaitlyn was behind Abby. Kaitlyn didn't even cry out. We didn't know about it until later when she came down and one side of her face was a little puffy.

Speaking of the boot, Abby did get her boot off shortly after Christmas. She has the okay to resume normal activities. Her walking is still stiff and she walks with her foot turned out. Hopefully we can correct that so we don't need to do physical therapy. Here's also crossing our fingers that there are no more broken bones in this family!

Traditions:

The Christmas season goes by way too fast. It seems as if every year I have a goal to have all my shopping done early. This year I was very busy with Primary, lots of Dr. visits, and just being tired. I say it again, like I do every year, next year I want to slow down more. I felt I didn't get to really slow down and enjoy things until the week of Christmas. I did enjoy Christmas and time with my family. It was nice to sleep in, kick back, and just hang out and do whatever we wanted. We did however still do many of our traditions like:

sleeping under the tree,

making gingerbread houses (this year we used leftover Halloween candy I stashed away),

and of course, making cookies. These were the ones we put out for Santa.

I found a cute website that posted these and we had a lot of fun making them.

Christmas Morning:

How cruel were we Christmas morning. The girls were up early, of course, and ran into the front room. Todd was up and shooed the girls into the family room to wait for Mom to get up and we would eat breakfast first. So I was the lucky one and got to sleep in just a little bit Christmas morning. The girls quickly ate breakfast and the opening presents began.

As soon as the M&M's were found in Olivia's stocking, she was done. All she wanted then was to eat - again. She settled on eating her orange that was also in her stocking. She got about halfway through and then started shoving pieces into my mouth. Olivia was very interested in the girls gifts and not too much on hers.

Olivia with food in her hand. This is about the only shot I have of her.

Her big gift was moving up to a toddler bed - hence the pillow in the background.

All Kaitlyn wanted this year was a Jessie doll and Bullseye game which Santa happily brought her. Jessie rarely leaves Kaitlyn's clutches these days. Besides the Bullseye game the girls got Toy Story Mania on the Wii and it's a new favorite. They are constantly playing it. Too bad when school starts because there will be time restrictions put back on video games. Kaitlyn has had this obsession with Toy Story since around October. I have no idea what got into her but it's sticking for quite awhile.

Abby wanted an American girl doll this year. We've been trying not to get into it for a long time now but she's been playing with friends who have dolls and then she wanted one. We went to the store and looked at all the dolls and characters and she settled on a "looks like me" and told Santa exactly what she wanted. The dolls skin looked A LOT lighter in the store! We now have tan, summer time, mini Abby.

Abby's doll even came with the feel better kit so she'd have a matching cast and crutches!

Dresses:

I absolutely love these dresses on the girls. No I did not make them. It seems that any time they wear them I get that question a couple of times. It's a fun red holiday color.

Todd got this awesome tie that Kaitlyn made for him for Christmas. He gets major points for wearing it to church on Sunday.

Fun Stuff:

My younger sister and her family unexpectedly changed their holiday travel plans and ended up here for Christmas. The cousins loved hanging out and getting together. We were able to do lots of fun activities with them while they were here.

One fun outing was going to Main Event and bowl. We wandered over to the arcade and Abby and Kaitlyn played Todd in air hockey. Here they just scored a goal on Dad! Yeah!

Todd and Olivia enjoying the roller coaster ride.

Notice Todd's beard. The girls asked him to grow one so he grew it out for a week and a half until he shaved it off.

This picture was taken at the earlier stages.

It's been a fun week and we are busy playing all the fun new games we got and just enjoying the last bit of family time we have until school and work start back up. We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas too!