December Fun!

Hi everyone! I'm so excited to be able to share fun stories and pictures of Olivia with you this way. It has been so much fun preparing for Christmas. I think Olivia was a little overwhelmed at first by everything that was added to her normal playing spaces. She didn't know quite how to take it but she quickly warmed up to things like the Nutcracker that stands by the fireplace and the Santa that stands next to the TV. She likes to hang things (necklaces, ornaments, etc.) on the Nutcracker and likes to pet Santa's beard. When asked, "What does Santa do?", she tells you, with perfect intonation and perfectly shaped mouth, "Ho, ho, ho!" The Christmas tree continues to create some challenges. We have some ornaments that have been designated "Olivia's play ornaments" but for some reason, the other, pretty, sparkly ones seem to call her name. Oh well. She has only broken 3 and 2 of those were under Babi's watch so I'm blaming Babi for those.

We went to see Santa at the mall and we prepared ourselves for the worst. However, we were pleasantly surprised that no tears were shed. She did stop dead in her tracks as we led her up to him. But after I pet him a little like she does with her Santa at home, she was willing to give it a try. She sat cautiously on his lap, we snapped 2 quick pictures and then considered it a successful first trip to visit Santa.

We recently had a visit from Olivia's Godmother, Nicole, and Diana. Diana is getting married in August and, much to my delight, she asked Olivia to be her flower girl. We are SO excited for that. We are going to start practicing immediately. She does like to pluck petals off of flowers so I don't think she'll have any problem with her duties.

Generally speaking, Olivia is doing SO well. She is happy all of the time. She runs around the house and sings non-stop. You can tell that she wants to talk so badly but so far we just hear "No", "Oh no" and various animal sounds. She loves to be silly, which causes her father to just shake his head and say, "I can't believe I have both of you to deal with now." I don't care what he says, I think it's funny when she plugs her finger up her nose and laughs. Tonight, as we were putting her to bed, she leaned over to give her Daddy a kiss and then as she leaned into me, she got real close to my mouth and then let a big burp out instead of a kiss. Again....I don't care what he says, it was funny!

We cannot wait to see Uncle/Godfather Marc, Aunt Donna, Michaela and Lauren for Christmas. They arrive at Babi and Didi's tonight and we will see them bright and early tomorrow. Christmas is sure to be a blast. I'll be back with stories when it's all over.