Thankful #1

A friend I met through the November LID room on RQ posts "Thankful Thursday" each week on her blog, discussing things she is thankful for. I love the idea, and love reading her thoughts, so I wanted to copy. Knowing full well that I could never do anything at the same time each week, I figured I would just do it when the mood strikes me and time allows. So, here goes:

1. I am thankful for Amy, Candi and Monica, my LID groupmates. They are each amazing, wonderful women and devoted mothers. There love and support over the last two years kept me sane. Even though we are all busy with our families now, they are always in my thoughts and heart.

2. My clients and staff. We had an open house at work today, and it was wonderful to see everyone enjoying a beautiful day of fun and fellowship.

3. My nephew, Jordon. He is so sweet with Olivia, and she just adores him. When I turned to him in church this morning and asked him to take her, he did not hesitate. My wish for Olivia is that she is as kind, caring and compassionate teenager as he is.

Sami's Day to Babysit

A week or so ago we were outside working - Sami was helping out by taking care of Olivia!

Today's update: crawling continues to improve. She now has the ability to follow us around the house without difficulty! She still doesn't bother the cats much. They are too quick for her at this point.

She did great on our trip to Jeff City over the weekend, hanging out with cousin Jordon and his friend Cory at our hotel room while we were gone.

This is our "bad hair day" picture. That was after a nap! Still pretty cute though.

We had our first alone time at day care and it went fine. More to come this week with that.

Olivia received her Certificate of Citizenship on Friday. Our brief break from paperwork is now over for a time. With this in hand, it is back to work getting other official documents completed.

A week of accomplishments

Since the last post, our little girl has made great strides! She now waves goodbye, crawls like a champ, greets us in the morning or after her nap standing in her crib and not only will put food in her mouth, but opened the puffs container to get them out! She has also chewed on a few rocks, but we aren't quite as proud of that accomplishment.

We had a typical prebaby weekend and Olivia hung with us like a champ. One of my favorite things has been our semi (no pun intended) routine of spending Friday evenings with the Witte's. So, that is where we started. Olivia enjoyed dinner and hanging out. Mama and Daddy enjoyed visiting with Brent and Elaine, Vaughn and Janelle and several of the kids (t00 numerous to mention!)

Saturday, we worked on the trailer project that Michael has started. I now know how to use an impact wrench, which is an accomplishment since before he started this, I did not even know what an imact wrech was. While we work, Olivia hung out on her totally cool blanket and played. Saturday night, we had a wonderful chili dinner with Aunt Bobbie (Cindy), Shane and Jeran. Olivia loves Aunt Bobbie, so it was great fun for her. Once again, Mama and Daddy very much enjoyed visiting with our dear friends.

Sunday, we gave church a shot, but Olivia feel asleep on the way there. Back home, back to the trailer. I really need a picture of me and the wrench. Aunt Marilu invited us to dinner on Sunday, so off we went for a fabulous meal. Olivia got lots of family bonding time with the boys, Uncle Lee and Aunt Marilu, who took her on her first four-wheeler ride. She also got to meet the sheep and see the mules again. Shoulda had the camera!

All that craziness, and then Mama went back to work for the first day on Monday and Olivia hung out and helped Daddy. Today, since Daddy had a Commission meeting, Grammy and Grampy were the official babysitters! All went very well, except that baby was pretty clinging with Mama around dinner time. I think she was tired. All the excitement of the weekend catching up with her.

Another first: Boating

We went to Mark Twain Lake today for a trip out on the boat!

Olivia did great - she spent some time in the water, some on the raft and some in the boat and was awake the entire time.
She is not actually sitting on the ledge with nothing to protect her as the picture looks - there is actually a screen behind her!
Woo hoo! Olivia is driving already!





I have posted a bunch today, so be sure to scroll down and check everything out!

More pictures

Go here for some fun pictures of our favorite little girl!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/12580969@N03/sets/72157601831126441/

A Mule's Behind - and James!

Okay, so as I was trapsing through my photos, I could not resist a seperate post for this one. It so speaks for itself! (The rest of the story - the one on the mule is James, our nephew. They camped this weekend at the state park and we stopped by to visit Friday night. )

Our First Overnight Trip

Michael had a Commission meeting in Jeff City on Thursday, so we went down on Wednesday night. We went out to dinner with some of the people from the commission and also got to visit with Steve and Celia. We spent 3 hours at the restaurant and Olivia was awesome. She ate visited and played great! I wanted to take lots more pictures, but these are all I ended up with. The one from the back of my car is Olivia's luggage, the one in the side door is mine and Michael's luggage! This girl does not travel light!

More Birds!!!

I took some pictures of Grandpa Charlie's hummingbirds last week and just could not resist posting a picture of them!!!!