Christmas

We celebrated Christmas twice this year. Once in Wisconsin with Scott's family and once in Illinois with my family.  We had such a great time and the kids won the lottery with all of their gifts.  I won't go into too much detail, but here are a few of the highlights:

1.  Meeting Aunt Tina's chickens.  I don't have a picture of this, but Tina brought one of their chickens up to the house for Olivia to see.  She was in love.  She talked about Tina's "kickens" for days!

2.  Making it snow in Aunt Tina's basement.  Poor Uncle Tom had to clean up the mess.

3.  Olivia yelling "awesome" after opening each gift.

4.  Santa visiting Grandma and Papa's house on Christmas Eve. The girls were too scared to sit on his lap so Finn is the only one who had his picture taken with Santa.  However, they were not too scared to get their gifts and candy canes.

5.  Hearing Finn laugh for the first time on Christmas morning.

5.  And of course...spending time with family and friends.

Olivia Turns Two

Olivia just celebrated her second birthday.  Her day started off by waking up to a hallway full of balloons.  What a great surprise!  She then helped make chocolate chip waffles and saw ‘Rise of the Guardians’ with Mommy, Grandma, Emmie and Cherie.  She loved the movie, or should I say she loved the popcorn and pop that went along with the movie.  Olivia’s day ended with dinner out, she wanted a corndog, opening packages and eating cake with chocolate ice cream.

Olivia, at 2 years old you:

*Weigh approximately 27 lbs and are 34 inches tall.

*wear size 2T, size 6 shoes, and a size 5 diaper.

*are a great big sister to your brother Finn.  You love telling mommy when he is hungry or when he needs to be picked up.

*are a great mommy to your babies, stuffed animals and even the nutcrackers that are out as Christmas decorations.  They get nursed, burped, teeth brushed, hair combed, diapers changed, and rocked to sleep.

*can count to 10 (you do miss a few numbers here and there) and know most of your colors.  Purple is your favorite.

*love to sing and dance. You run around in circles any time you hear music.  You love to sing The Wheels on the Bus, Twinkle Twinkle, Rock a Bye Baby, and If You’re Happy and you Know It.

*are a great eater.  You will eat anything in sight.  Right now your favorites are burgers and candy bars (granola bars).

*are such a funny, sweet, amazing girl. You melt my heart with everything that you do!

Love you Bean!

SNOW!!!! Finally

It finally snowed here, December 19th and it finally snowed.  I was afraid we might not have a white Christmas (that was my biggest fear as a child, that we wouldn't have snow on Christmas).  It only snowed about six inches, but it was something.

When Dad went to work Olivia, Finn and I enjoyed snuggling in our pj's in the flannel sheets.

Olivia and Dad took full advantage of the opportunity to play outside.  I couldn't help but have Christmas Story flashbacks as I dressed Olivia up in her snowsuit.  She looked like a big marshmallow as her arms stuck straight out of her jacket.  She loved being pulled around the back yard in the sled.  She even enjoyed going down the hill by herself.

Christmas Tradition

Olivia and I started a new tradition last week.  Let the Christmas cookie extravaganza begin!

Since we were heading up to Wisconsin for a Christmas celebration last weekend I thought it would be nice to bring some cookies along to share.  It was also a good excuse to get them out of my house so I didn't eat all of them.

Olivia strapped on her Cookie Monster apron that Grandma made for me when I was little, wheeled her chair up to the counter and helped make the cut out cookies.

She got to help roll out the dough, cut the cookies, eat some of the dough when I wasn't looking or was too far away to stop her, and put sprinkles on the cookies.  Putting sprinkles on was by far her favorite part of the process.  We (she) used a whole can of sprinkles on one sheet of cookies.

Cutting the cookies:

Sneaking some dough:

What, I wasn't eating any dough:

Patiently waiting for her cookies:

Sprinkle time:

Who wants some cookie with their sprinkles:

Oh man these are good:

One happy little girl:

Nothin to see here folks, just eating some sprinkles:

She hides it well:

The cookies turned out to be pretty good, we even had a few left over to take up to Wisconsin.  We are going to try a couple different kinds this week.

Santa Claus

We took the kids to visit Santa last weekend.  Finn did great.  I heard him tell Santa that he wanted Papa to buy him a puppy and take him on a train ride.  Olivia was scared and did not want to sit on Santa's lap.  When I tried to put her down she screamed and clung to my shirt.  Of course as we were walking out of the mall all she could say was "hold you Santa".  Poor little girl, maybe she will get to see him again on Christmas Eve.

Thanksgiving Round Three

Here's the last Thanksgiving update...a little late.

We celebrated our third and final Thanksgiving in Wisconsin a few weeks back.  The weekend was filled with good times with family, friends and, of course, lots of laughs.  Oh yeah, great food too!

To our amazement the kids did great in the car.  We only had to stop once to eat and another time for gas.

I guess when Olivia gets bored she figures out how to get out of her car seat and takes off her shirt.  This is not a good sign.

 

We tried to get family pictures taken when we were all together.  It got too cold to go outside with the little ones so we opted for indoor pictures.  Below is one with Grandma, Grandpa and all of the grandkids.  Not too bad, Finn was the only one who didn't cooperate.  Dakota said he felt like he was holding a bomb.

You have no idea how long it took to get Liv to look away from the TV and at the camera.

Grandma and Finn hanging out.

Video Monitor

We purchased a new baby monitor a few weeks back.  This time we splurged on a video monitor.  I highly recommend this not for the visibility but for the laughs it provides.

Since Finn is still sleeping in our bedroom we decided to put the video monitor in Olivia's room.  Generally speaking Olivia is a great sleeper.  However, every once in a while she fights her naps.  I have to smile when I see her though the monitor reading to herself, playing with her stuffed animals (aka - slamming them down on the bed over and over again by their ears) or even galloping around her room on her "horse on a stick".

The Tale of the Coffee Bean

"Coffee nose" is a phrase that we hear a lot from Olivia these days.  Why you might ask?  The story is actually quite humorous, one that I love to tell.

One of Olivia's favorite weekend activities is to brew coffee with dad in the morning (this is the first thing she has to do when she gets up in the morning, even before she goes to see mom).  She gets to stand on the counter, smell the coffee beans and press the button on the bean grinder.  All while giggling like a little school girl.

Cleaning out the coffee pot:

Smelling the coffee beans:

Opening the hatch:

Grinding the beans:

Showing Dad where the beans go:

Happy little girl:

About three weeks ago Olivia got a hold of the coffee bag and ran right out of dads reach.  Dad made the mistake to say "don't worry, she hasn't put on one her nose yet".  What was the next thing Olivia did?  Push a bean up her nose.  Scott and I played operation that night.  We looked up her nose with a flashlight, tried to suck the bean out, listened to her breathing.  Nothing.  We figured maybe she didn't actually put the bean up there and if she did, it would make its way out eventually.

Keep in mind, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.  When I was little I stuck a piece of macaroni up my nose and Grandma stuffed a bean up her nose and left it there long enough to sprout!

Anyway, back to Olivia's story.  Three weeks after the "Coffee Nose" incident I was out having lunch with my mom and her friend, Cherie.  We had the restaurant to ourselves. Olivia, of course, took over the restaurant by running around and screaming "chase me Cherie".  Before we knew it Liv ran into a table as she was looking back at Cherie.  That's all it took, one hard cry and out came the coffee bean.  I actually didn't see it.  My mom walked over, picked it off Olivia's shirt and flicked it on the floor.  As soon as I saw it I knew immediately what it was, the coffee bean!  Olivia was right, she did have coffee in her nose.

Lesson learned for mom and dad - don't mention things around Olivia that you don't want her to do.

Finley Turns Two Months Old

Wow how time flies, my baby boy is two months old already.  It seems like just yesterday we came home from the hospital.  Finn is growing like a weed.  He started off at 7 lbs 8 oz and is now 11 lbs 11 oz.  He loves his food, eating every two hours on the dot (we don't get much else done at our house besides feeding the kids, and dad).

Finn is learning new things each week.  He is a little preacher, cooing and yelping at all times.  He's even turned into a better sleeper.  He now sleeps anywhere from 6 to 9 hours a night (this is within the last week so we are hoping it continues).  It seems like he is getting over his colic, which make our days a little more tolerable.

Finn's two month photo shoot at Gee and Papa's house.

Finn and Great Grandma Momo

Here's a picture of Olivia at two months, do you see the resemblance?

Olivia at two months

Finn at two months