One more Olivia fix.
Archive for the ‘Olivia’ Category
9 Dec
Olivia Fix
Olivia’s modeling the sweet sweater Liana made for her for her first birthday. Lucky girl–handmade sweaters, dresses, quilts and birth samplers! She has some talented friends and family members. Must be why she’s so happy here.
8 Dec
Old-Fashioned Christmas Parade
We went downtown Saturday morning for the annual old-fashioned Christmas parade. Entries are restricted to horses and horse-drawn carriages–some of which were antiques from the late 1800s.
Ava watched most of the parade from a perch high above the crowd.
Many of the participants were dressed in period costume. I especially liked these dresses and coats.
Ava managed to eat this entire ball of cotton candy–at least what didn’t end up in my hair.
Olivia would clap and say, “Yeah!” every time a new entry went by.
I thought these little kids–all bundled up and sitting on a blanket–were exceptionally cute.
You all remember Bryan’s unnatural hatred for tiny ponies, right? This year he said it wasn’t so much the pony but the little carts that really irked him.
Liv thought they were pretty funny.
The big finale–Santa.
7 Dec
Doug’s photo gallery
5 Dec
Olivia’s first birthday
We celebrated Olivia’s first birthday with a fish-themed part at Doug and Karyl’s. They agreed to host it, probably not knowing what an undertaking it would be. We had nearly 40 guests, 15 pounds of pulled pork and four cakes.
Fortunately, Olivia managed to be awake for most of it!
Liv received many nice gifts. In fact, I should be writing thank you notes instead of working on the blog right now.
Ava and Leo helped open presents, something which Olivia has yet to fully appreciate.
The whole family singing “Happy Birthday”–note Doug taking photos in the foreground. I’ll post a link when they’re up!
Any daughter of mine should know what do with a piece of cake, but Olivia seems flummoxed.
Help is on the way…
I’d throw a party a month if I could always count on this much help. Thanks to Doug, Karyl, Mom, Dave, Gramma, Grampa, Katie, Jess and of course, Bryan.
Photo credits to Mom, Dave and Gramma.
4 Dec
Nebraska, continued
Last Friday was Olivia’s first birthday.
We started the day at Gramma’s, then visited Rose at the Post Office. Ava had a great time there–she mailed a package to herself and learned the inner workings of the U.S. postal system.
We joined Dad and Grandpa for a game of Phase 10 and a bit of Husker pre-game prep.
Olivia managed to wear herself out early in the day. Rooting for the Huskers is hard work.
At this point in the trip, Ava asked if she could take a photo using our camera. Since it had been more than a year since she broke our last digital camera, I decided the request was reasonable.
It was not.
I’ve managed to pull together photos from the rest of trip thanks to Mom, Gramma (photo at top) and the camera Katie confiscated from one of her students. (I cannot, however, figure out how to charge said camera, so really it’s been a week since I’ve shot anything at all.)
So, while I don’t have photos, I can tell you that Doug and Karyl joined us at Gramma and Grampa’s to cheer the Huskers to victory and engage in some serious party prep.
I’ll post photos from the party tomorrow!
2 Dec
Thanksgiving!
We started Thanksgiving at Gramma’s house–my mom and Dave came down the night before, and Katie arrived from Boston just before dinner. Ava waited very impatiently, asking when she’d arrive about every 90 seconds. My mom was only slightly less excited.
There she is, tucked behind the now very grown up Tooley kids the newly expanded holiday table.
It occurred to me as we sat down that this was Olivia’s first Thanksgiving. She was a huge fan of stuffing (comes by that pretty naturally).
While we all enjoyed turkey, Gramma served Grampa crow (actually, a Cornish game hen). This stemmed from Grampa’s months-long assertion that he would not enjoy the trip they took to Alaska late this summer. In fact, he did very much. If only he could say the same thing about the crow…
The kids had to check out the lively looking bird.
Later that afternoon, we joined the Smiths for their dinner. If I could think of the ideal way to spend a day, it would be bouncing back and fourth between family gatherings–appetizers here, dinner there, dessert at both. Perfect.
1 Dec
Catching up
We just returned from a week-long trip to Nebraska. I think we managed to see every aunt, uncle, cousin, parent and grandparent possible. We had two Thanksgiving dinners, one first birthday party and many other occasions to get together with family.
I’ll start with our visit with my grandparents–they were kind enough to host Ava, Olivia and me during the first part of the week. I joked that the neighbors probably thought that I’d left Bryan and was moving in with them based on the amount of luggage I brought with us.
Gramma and Grampa took us in stride, spoiling the girls with games, books and good food.
In most every photo you’ll see of Olivia in a high chair from this trip, she’ll be stripped down to a onesie or completely naked. The kid refuses to wear a bib, and spaghetti stains tend to set after a week. She doesn’t seem to mind the bareness as long as her tray is full.
Smith Family Weblog 
