Jeff, Ami, Kiran, Ellery and Olivia

Friday, November 18, 2011

Friday, February 18, 2011

It is hard to believe that it has been a whole year since our sweet girl was born! She is such a joy to all of us! She is growing and changing and doing new things every day! She has five teeth - 4 of which she has cut in the past month! Livvy's little personality is really shining through now. She is often quiet and observant, but she loves to play and be engaged with all of us. She gets the best thrill out of dancing with her Daddy in the kitchen. She is still just incredibly laid back, but over the past week or so, just in time for her birthday, she has started throwing herself forward onto the floor when she is upset! Her first little fit was over me taking a too-big apple bite away from her. Olivia is cruising around everywhere. We bought her a little walker for her birthday, and she is doing really well walking with it, but like her big brother, she knows that she is way faster on all fours. So for a while longer, we get to see her sweet little crawl! She loves pointing to all kinds of things, especially things outside! She can say "out" and "birds." She has said lots of words, but she just says them once or twice and that's enough for her. After that, she goes back to taking in all of the details of what is surrounding her, quietly.

I love the picture above! It shows Livvy's sweet, sweet smile! You will see in other photos that Olivia can be quite the serious girl. She checks out things and people, examining and observing very carefully. It's actually really cute, but often when we want a smile on camera, we get a look like, "what is that thing you are aiming toward me?" (I also love this photo because I think it is one that looks almost identical to one of my own baby pictures! I wouldn't say that Olivia looks like me, or Jeff, but we see glimpses of lots of family members in her at times.)

There is no doubt! Olivia gives the best hugs of all time! She will wrap both arms around your neck so tightly and then pat you gently! It is wonderful! She also does this with her babies! She likes to pick them up and kiss and hug them and pat them. Too cute!

Here she is with her first birthday cake (actually a craving for cake by Mommy on her birthday). We had planned to make her big birthday cake over the weekend. After school on her birthday, we ran and got a yummy piece of cake from a local restaurant for the family to share. She was serious about eating each bite!

Here is the cake we made a few days later. Olivia loves animals so much, and we thought she needed an animal cake!

Here is the sweetest photo of her sleeping while I held her in the rocker one night when she was struggling with an ear infection.

Here is Olivia at play with Ellery. Livvy would rather be upstairs than anywhere in the house. She knows where the fun is!!! All of her favorite toys are there. And, best of all, playing upstairs means playing with Ellery and Kiran! However, she has been banned at times from Big Brother's room already. Kiran calls her "The Destroyer!" She is well known for tearing apart Lego creations and puzzles!

Her hair is always a little crazy and definitely curly after bath time.

Here she is with one of her new favorite toys: Crayons! She loves them. This picture shows when she was just becoming interested in them. She would take two out at a time, one for each hand. Then, she would try and put them back and get more out. Now, of course, she has advanced to dumping the whole box as well as eating them, so she only gets them when she has full supervision!

Livvy "opens" her gift from Kiran and Ellery! The funny thing is that the big kids seem to enjoy her new toys as much or more than she does!

On her birthday, Daddy got to meet up with Livvy and I to eat at Chick-fil-a! What a fun surprise! Then, he got to go with us to pick up Kiran. We turned Livvy's car seat around while waiting on Brother, then the whole family took Livvy on a drive in her new riding style!

Livvy gets to turn around in her seat! We could tell that she liked it, but of course, she was serious about it!

Here she is playing with Ellery's doll house! She loves taking the Mom and Dad out and putting them back in the house. Livvy also really loves playing with Ellery's school lunch box that you see in the photo!

Okay, another favorite of Livvy's right now is all things LAUNDRY! She loves to watch the clothes spin in the washer and dryer. She loves to pull every single item out of a laundry basket (whether Mommy has them neatly folded or not!) She loves crawling into the laundry room and throwing herself onto the piles of clothes! The only thing she hasn't loved so much is the 3 or 4 times she has fallen into the laundry baskets when she loses her balance! But, it hasn't stopped her.

We love you, Olivia Faith, and are so excited about sharing so many things with you in this amazing and wonderful life!

Monday, January 24, 2011

Snow and Ice, Ice and Snow!

We have had a most interesting winter! It started with lots of cold temperatures in November, then snow and lots of ice in December. Then, snow and ice again in January! The kids have been out of school so many days this year that we are beginning to wonder if we'll still be in school in July! We missed Christmas programs, ballet programs, Christmas parties, pajama parties, and on and on! We even missed the 2nd and 3rd tries for some of these events! Funny! Needless to say, we have been out of routine and are finally getting back to normal! It has been a lot of fun, though. I've loved having Kiran and Ellery home!

We have not had great snowfall accumulations, but plenty of snow for play!

Excited about snow!

For snowy days, I've learned you get the cute pics fast because the smiles start to fade when the cold sets in!

Olivia's first time in the snow! (with an ear infection, so she headed back in quickly!)

One fun sled with Daddy and his girls!

Kiran on a mission! He loves sledding so much, and I think he would say his second favorite is snowball fights!

Ellery and Opal sled together and carry their sled back up together many times! So sweet!

Getting warm and waiting for hot chocolate with great friends!

Livvy checking out the sled on Day 2

Okay, I'll remember for next year! Even though it's fine to leave a few leaves at the end of the season and not notice too much on a regular day, if you want perfectly white snow people, you have to rake that one last batch! Still learning about living with lots of trees after 9 raking seasons!

Kiran makes the head!

Ellery gets a snowball ready to throw at Daddy . . .

She sneaks up (she loves being sneaky in a cute way) . . .

And she got him!

So the smaller snowman was made by friends earlier in the day, and we saved the bigger for our family to make when Daddy got home. It was fun that the snow people had a friend! The bottom snow balls were still here as of today, but our rain tonight will get the last of them!

So in the end, the big snow guy became Snow Vader! And truly, the Force was with us! In the photo below, check out the perfect placement of snow falling! It looks exactly like Snow Vader is holding a light saber. Kiran was thrilled by this!

As we finished up the snow man building, Kiran and Ellery were back on the slope in the dark! Kiran was jumping on the sled with his knees and heading down the hill. Then, he would let Ellery take a turn and give her a push! Night sledding! How fun! I cannot say enough what a special surprise it has been since buying this house, that we have one of the best hills in town right out our door! It draws in friends from all over the neighborhood and is such a blessing to see families (including ours) having such a good time out our front window!

As part of our winter fun, we took the kids ice skating! Kiran and Ellery did great and had so much fun! Olivia took a nap with me from the sidelines, still working through her ear infection! We are thankful that she is feeling better now. She had a rough few weeks!

Ready to go!

Getting on skates

Just before we left the house, Ellery said, "I'll go get my ballerina clothes on!" She absolutely thought she would be dancing just like the figure skaters she'd seen on tv! So sweet! I think she figured out pretty quickly that more clothes on ice is a good thing!

Getting started

Now Kiran really takes off! Way to go!

Here are a few things we've done during all of our snow days!

Fun times with Christmas gifts - Ellery plays with her new stamp sets

Lego-building and more Lego-building - Kiran has continued to amaze us with his own Lego designs and with his ability to sit and build something by going step by step in the instruction booklets sent with the Legos!

Olivia plays with her new toys!

A couple of outings to Lowes will break up the time indoors!

The playdough we made! (One of the kids' absolute favorite things has been taking our couch cushions and building forts, etc. As you can see, our living room was a total disaster a few times, but it was fun and it passed the time!)