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Monday, December 28, 2009

First Christmas

Olivia's first Christmas was so much fun. We spent a long weekend at my parent's in Idaho with all of my family with the exception of one sister, her husband, and little Sophie (we missed you guys). Olivia must have been a very good girl this year because she was spoiled by Santa, Mommy and Daddy, and both sets of grandparents. She showed little interest in her toys, but loved her BYU sqeaky shoes and the wrapping paper. Grandma made all of the granddaughters matching pink turtle PJ bottoms, which turned out absolutely adorable. We watched lots of movies, ate way too much food, and had a great time together.

The whole crew waiting to see what Santa brought. This has been a tradition in my family as long as I can remember. We would line up in age order (as the oldest I was always last in line, but now get to be second last since Scott is older than me) on the stairs and would have to wait for dad to light the fire, turn on the lights, and see if Santa actually came. As kids this would happen at 5:30 or 6:00 in the morning, but we slept in until almost 8:00 this year.


The Tree...


To Olivia, Love Santa...

Grandpa and his girls


Opening presents...

One happy girl (Don't you love the hat?).

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Meeting the Big Guy

On Saturday we decided that it was time for Olivia to meet Santa. She has been so funny about strangers lately I was really worried about her reaction to sitting on the Big Guy's lap, but there were no tears.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Christmas Traditions

With only ten days until Christmas I thought it would be fun to share some of our family's Christmas traditions...

Ever since Scott was a little boy his dad would make fudge at Christmas. Instead of leaving cookies for Santa, they would leave fudge and on Christmas morning there would always be one piece of fudge left with Santa bite marks in it. We have continued the fudge making tradition and each year we make several batches to share with neighbors and friends.


Our first Christmas together Scott bought me a Nativity. We now buy a Nativity each year to help us remember why we celebrate Christmas. This one is the one that purchased this year:

Another tradition relates to the ornaments for our Christmas tree. Anytime we take a big trip we try to find a Christmas ornament from the place we visit. It is a fun way for us to remember our travels and makes for a very interesting tree. Here are the two we collected this year: The jester is from New Orleans from when we picked up Olivia right before Marti Gras and the Texas ornament is from when went to the BYU-Oklahoma game in Dallas.

When we meet with Olivia's birth mom we asked her if her family had any holiday traditions. One of the things she mentioned was that they open new Christmas PJs on Christmas Eve. Scott's family also did this when he was little, so we decided that this year we would start a new tradition.
One of Santa's littlest helpers:

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Last night BYU had a basketball game at the Energy Solutions Arena in Salt Lake. Since we were already in Salt Lake we decided it was the perfect opportunity to look at the lights at temple square. We invited Jon, Brittany, and Emma to come with us. What a great day: we had good seats at the game, got to sit by some of our favorite neighbors, the Brobergs, BYU won handily, we got to hang out with Brittany, Jon, and Emma, and see some beautiful Christmas lights. Here are some pics of the highlights:




We had a really fun time at the game. Olivia loves going to the games. She claps her hands and dances when the band (or other music) plays.
Definitely a Cougar Fan!

Temple Square was beautiful, and a little cold (okay a lot cold). I was really worried about Olivia being cold so I put four layers on plus three blankets- she couldn't move, but she was warm :).
It was so cute when Olivia and Emma saw each other. Emma was kissing and hugging Olivia and then Olivia started hugging and kissing Emma back. I think they missed each other.






Olivia turned 10 months old this past week. Her newest thing is saying Hi to everyone. Every morning she tells daddy-Hi Da. Today at church she keep saying Hi to the little girl in front of us and then was telling her baby Hi this afternoon. She is very friendly. She has a smile for everyone. We frequently get stopped in stores by people telling us how cute she is and she typically responds with a smile. She has such an infectious smile it is hard not to be smitten with her. She definitely knows what she wants and is not afraid to produce some tears when she doesn't get it. She already has the gift of gab. She loves music and likes to dance to anything that has a little rhythm. We love this precious little girl.

Olivia in her Christmas Dress.

Helping mom with the tinsel for the Christmas tree.