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.

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:

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.

Family Pictures 2009

In my last post I mentioned we got our family pictures taken. Jami Broadbent in Santaquin took them and I think she did an amazing job. There were so many good ones of Olivia it was hard to choose, but here are some of my favorites:

Olivia @ Nine Months

I took Olivia to her nine month well baby check up on Friday. She is getting to be such a big girl. I figured she would weigh in at around 20 pounds, but she is 21.5 pounds (89th percentile) and 28.25 inches long (72nd percentile). At nine months she is still not crawling, but can army crawl and roll any where she wants. She likes to stand, but is not able to do so on her own. She claps her hands and plays peek-a-boo. She refuses to hold her bottle, but likes to drink from a cup that she holds on her own. She continues to be a mama's girl and is very nervous of strangers right now. Her hair on the sides is finally growing in and I think she get more beautiful every day!

We got our family pictures taken on Thursday and the photographer took a bunch of Livy, which I can't wait to see. Until we get them... here are some random pics from the past week.

A Little Lady(bug)'s First Halloween

We had a great Halloween with my family in Brigham City. We went Trick or Treating with cousin Emma and Grandpa, had some yummy soup for dinner, and had a no hands donut eating contest for the adults. Here are some pics from Olivia's first Halloween...

Two Reasons I love my life

I had a bad day at work yesterday. I came home with a headache, was grouchy, and basically spent the night being negative. I fell asleep early, but was restless most of the night because I thought about work and what projects I had to complete, the laundry that needed to be folded, house to be cleaned and how there wasn't enough time in the day to do everything. Olivia woke up around 3:00 a.m. and didn't want to go back to sleep so I brought her in to bed with Scott and I. She snuggled right up and fell asleep. This morning after I got out of the shower I noticed that Scott and Olivia were cuddled up together on the bed and I couldn't help but thinking how blessed I am to have these two. I can deal with bad days at work as long as I can come home to these two every night...

Unfortunately the flash woke Miss Olivia up-what a bad mom I am.