Merry Christmas!

We are so excited for Christmas! It's kinda hard to say, but we are really looking forward to giving our little angel her presents and teaching her about the birth of our Savior. There is just something so special about feeling the excitement of one who is so innocent. So, to start things off right, we did our annual run through the first snow storm. To give you an idea, as our official way of ringing in the long and cold season of winter, we go out in our bare feet after the first major snowfall and we run around for a minute. Although it makes for some cold feet, it certainly adds a good laugh. Olivia even decided to turn out for this annual event, although she declined the offer to go barefoot.

Bundling up

Daddy is Nuts!

Part of our holiday tradition includes the night we get to decorate the Christmas tree. Each year, we try and pick something of a different theme, whether it's bulbs, bells, silver, or gold. It is a way of looking at the variety that Christmas brings. Last year, however, when we were poor beyond all belief, we couldn't be as original as we had hoped. So, we got to decorating the tree one evening and although we imagined gold and silver ornaments and lots of tinsel, we simply didn't have enough money to really go all-out. So we decided instead to decorate the tree with the plain and simple things in our home that made us happy. Before we knew it, we had a tree decorated with an American flag, teddy bears, cat-collars, Rubix Cubes, binkies, a mini Book of Mormon, bi-wing airplanes, and Frankie's missionary plaques. They look like such simple things but they carry so much meaning to us for one reason or another. It has since stood as a powerful reminder to us of what we are truly grateful for during this holiday season. We may not have much, but we are so lucky to have the blessings we do have.

Decorating the Christmas Tree!

Eating the chocolate Advent Calendar "num-num"

It will be fun to see how Olivia will be with opening her presents. She didn't quite understand the concept at her birthday, so hopefully she'll catch on a little more with her Christmas presents. We are trying to get a Christmas card sent out, but so far I've only been able to do hand delivered invites since I keep forgetting to go to the post office and I don't have a lot of addresses. We decided to take the pictures ourselves in front of the Christmas tree and boy did we go all-out!. We even put our red bed sheets up for a background cover and fixed the lamps in our home to provide proper lighting. The only thing we weren't prepared for was... well, Olivia's temperament. For some reason, Olivia just wasn't feeling very happy that day so what could have taken a few minutes ended up lasting the whole afternoon while our little diva got her beauty rest and a full belly. Although we didn't get as many pictures as we would have liked, we got a few good ones.

Getting her ready

Checking the lighting

And.........ACTION!

Nope not ready yet. Gimme a minute.

Ok, maybe some chocolate might do the trick...

Daddy, what did you do to this? I'm hungry! Get my agent on the phone NOW!

Yeah! Grub time!!

Now we're getting somewhere


And...... Success!!


Yay! I am sooo cute!! Merry Christmas to all of you!

She's on the Move!

Well, our little girl is now on the move. We officially declared her a walker on Thanksgiving, but she didn't see the benefits of walking over crawling until last weekend. We have such a small apartment and if her toys are on the ground, she has a hard time navigating the floor, so it was just so much easier for her to crawl. But she has discovered that if she walks, she can take her toys with her. It is just so cute to see her taking her small baby steps while carrying one of her stuffed animals or her ball.

We went my my cousin Aleisha's wedding this weekend in Bountiful and Provo. She found the balloons in the ballroom, claimed one and walked around the entire evening with that balloon. It was funny to see a balloon moving along the crowd at the reception. Now she just walks around our house just holding the balloon, it is such a cute sight to see.

These are exciting times for us. I know that there are people that tell us that we will wish that she was still crawling, but I'm just so excited that she has hit this milestone in her development. She has also started to say other words other than "ma-ma and da-da". Her new word is "Hi!" she'll even say it in the same tone of voice I say hi to her in. When I walk in to her room in the morning and after naps, I'm greeted by her high pitched "Hi". She will also ask "What's this?" and say "Thank-you". She is a fast learner and gets excited for many new things.