Christmas, etc.

In Random Order

A family photo

Olivia dressed up for Church and her cousin's baptism

Christmas Day, and a little visit to baby Jesus after Mass.

Dear Santa, for Christmas, I want a brother or sister. (Actually, she's been asking Jesus for this during bedtime prayers. It's cute. I think exposure to all the babies in our family have made this a priority in her mind.)

A new baby doll for Christmas

Also, her very own camera!

Santa Olivia

Eating ice cream at Carter's baptism party

Christmas-y

I broke down this weekend and decided to go ahead and put up the tree. Olivia "helped."

We've been putting Olivia's hair in a ponytail at the top of her head, and this is what her hair looks like when we comb it back out after removing the ponytail. It's LONG.

Christmas cookies. Olivia is old enough to "help" a little.

St. Nick stopped here

St. Nick visited us on Sunday. Olivia thought all of the stockings were for her.

And she also thought they were birthday presents. Oh well, she enjoyed them either way.

Thanksgiving weekend

Olivia getting ready for church.

Checking to see if she's on Santa's "nice" list.

Visiting with family over Thanksgiving

Happy Birthday, Olivia

Olivia is two years old today. We had a little celebration with local family last night.

Yes, those are Smarties spelling out Olivia's name and age on the cake. They are left over from Halloween. It is a banana sour cream cake. It was delicious. My cakes are not beautiful, but they taste good.

OK, so she has a fat nose and a fat lip in all of these pictures. She climbed the baby gate and lost her balance going over and fell on her face. She cried for 20 minutes. This happened about an hour before dinner. It looks better today.

WE WANT CAKE! WE WANT CAKE!

Cheese!

She is much better at cake eating than she was at this time last year.

PRESENTS! I love my happy birthday!

Just had to throw this one in there. One of her gifts from us was this little pink backpack. I put a couple of toys in there, including the rubbery turtle you can see in this picture. It freaked her out, and she jumped back and protested. She has since warmed up to the turtle and has been working on trying to pull his head off today.

2-year-old (almost)

Our little girl is turning...

Isn't she sweet?

And the photo session wasn't NEARLY as hard as the one-year-old session.

She was very compliant with the photographer's requests.

And she makes us look good, too!

Monkey on the bed

New camera

Parish Centennial

The Church where I grew up is celebrating 100 years with a festival. It was cold, but we went anyway.

Olivia painted a pumpkin.

She got to ride in a horse-drawn wagon.

She ate a pear from a basket that Grandma bought. Yum!

Yay, Fall!

Santa this week

Look for one of these to show up on our Christmas card this year...

Cheese!

Santa: "What do you want for Christmas this year?"
Olivia (without missing a beat): "Cookies!"

Santa and Olivia sharing a joke

Look at the camera

Bonus pic: Trying on Grandpa's hat and shoes

Family Weekend

Enjoying a burger last week

Family day at the park!

More family pics on Facebook.

Cows and Cheese

Vacation in America's Dairyland

On the way, we stopped at a zoo.

The bird running around at her feet kind of freaked her out.

He won't bite you!

Whoa! He will bite you!

Look over there!

On Great Grampa's tractor

Having a heart-to-heart with Great Grampa.

Balloon races at Molly's birthday party.

The kids line up. Olivia is third in line with the orange balloon.