god bless this girl

I count my blessings on a daily basis. I often wonder how I was lucky enough to be blessed with not one amazing little girl, but two! For five years Olivia was the center of our world. Nine months ago she had to start sharing that spotlight with her new baby sister. She has adjusted to this change in her world with great ease, and has no problem allowing her sister to steal the spotlight from time to time.

Cecilia recently was the center of attention as we celebrated her baptism. It was a beautiful Spring day and of course our girl looked absolutely stunning. Making it even more special was having Cecilia baptized in the same gown as Olivia. Cecilia's godparents are two very special people in our lives. My close friend, Leslie is her Godmother. I have been friends with Leslie since high school. Last year she lost her baby Aiden, a few short weeks after he was born. I have admired Leslie for her strength and how she has dealt with everything she has been through. I want to instill the qualities Leslie possesses in Cecilia, and make sure she knows Aiden's story. Todd's brother, VJ is Cece's Godfather. VJ has a special touch when it comes to our girls. They just take to him and his gentle personality.

The baptism took place smack dab in the middle of Cecilia's nap time. I was hoping my sweet girl would sleep through the service leading up to the ceremony. No such luck! She was too interested in what was going on to sleep. When the time arrived to take center stage she was ready to go! She did not cry. In fact she was a delight throughout it all. It was a very nice ceremony, and Olivia being able to share it with us made it even more special.

Immediately following the baptism we celebrated the occasion with our friends and family during an afternoon brunch. Unfortunately Cecilia was completely worn out from the previous festivities, so she slept through it all. Once she woke from a solid nap she was ready to party, even though the majority of our guests had gone home. It was a beautiful day completely centered around one beautiful little girl.

Now let's focus on our other little blessing. I am not sure if I have mentioned this yet, but this fall we are taking Olivia to Disney World. It will be our first major family vacation, as Cecilia will be coming along with us as well (with a little help from my Mom). Anyway...to prepare for this exciting event we thought it would be fun to take Olivia to see Disney on Ice, when it was in town last month. Olivia anticipated this for weeks. All of the anticipation paid off, as it was one heck of a show!

I think I enjoyed it as much as she did. It was pure joy and fun from beginning to end. Olivia was captivated by all of the skating characters and colorful costumes. The props were super impressive and the skating wasn't too shabby either. We let Olivia pick out one souvenir for the night and she chose a cute little Aerial necklace. She wore it proudly that night. This show made me super excited to take our girls to Disney this fall. I can only imagine what sort of memories we will create!

Easter weekend closely followed the baptism. I think next to Christmas this may just be Olivia's favorite holiday. Egg hunts & candy...it doesn't get much better than that! We had an official mascot that weekend. Meet Little Bunny Cece...

Our incredibly thoughtful babysitter, Holly gave those adorable bunny ears to Cecilia and surprisingly she did not mind wearing them. Both girls were beyond cute on Easter morning in their sweet, little dresses. They turned quite a few heads at church, as you can imagine. Little old ladies seem to have a weakness when it comes to little girls in cute little dresses. Plus, Cecilia's bunny coat pretty much made her irresistible.

We had Easter dinner plans later that afternoon, but stopped at my Mom's first for some Easter basket fun. Olivia had her first egg hunt of the day, immediately followed by digging into her Easter goodies. Cecilia received her very first Easter basket, but seemed to be most interested in the tag of her fuzzy bunny. Doesn't take much to satisfy a 9 month old.

My Mom had one simple Easter wish...to have a photo taken with both of her granddaughters. Easier said than done. Getting two kids to pose and smile is incredibly difficult. I think I took about 30 shots and maybe ended up with a few good ones in the bunch.

The kind people that have us over for Easter dinner each year, treat our girls like their own. They always do a big egg hunt for their grand kids and shower them with huge Easter baskets. Well Olivia and Cecilia are treated no different. They are extremely generous and help to make Easter extra special for our family. Olivia had double duty this year, as she had to find her and Cece's eggs. There are definite advantages to being a big sister and searching for twice as many eggs is one of them!

Cecilia had a wonderful first Easter and Olivia, as always enjoys every holiday to the fullest. I love nothing more than watching my girls get joy out of life. I'd give anything to stop time and live in this moment for a bit longer, before it passes me by and the girls are not as interested in all of these fun family events. 

Now it is update time. Cecilia is a busy bee. She is now waving bye-bye, clapping, and pulling herself up on furniture. One day she was playing on the floor, I turned around and saw her standing up, playing her piano. She can do "so big", but only chooses to do it on occasion. In fact, she pretty does what she wants, when she wants. Doing things on demand is not top of the list for Cecilia. Shocking, right? She is still as sweet as can be though. The smiles go on for miles and one thing she does do on demand is give big, sloppy kisses.

The bond between Olivia and Cecilia continues to grow stronger. Cece is has become much more interested in her sister and often follows her around the house. What impresses me the most is how much attention Olivia gives to her sister. Even though she is over 5 years older she still is more than happy to sit on the floor and play with blocks. Nothing gives me more pleasure than watching Olivia be a big sister to Cecilia.

Olivia has taken a step towards becoming even more grown up. She has graduated to a "big girl" bike. She has outgrown her smaller bike and although she has not learned to ride without training wheels quite yet, it was necessary to get her a bigger bike. Teaching her to ride without the training wheels is on top of the "to-do" list this summer.

We are looking forward to a fun summer with the girls. We have lots of fun things planned. Top of the list will be the celebration of Cecilia's 1st birthday. Hard to believe that my (not so) little baby is approaching the end of her first year. What I wouldn't give for a few extra months of "baby time". For now I will just keeping taking those sloppy kisses.

here we go...

It's official...Cecilia is a full time crawler! This is not a new development either. She has been crawling for about three weeks, but just recently started picking up some speed. Now whenever we leave the room she is not far behind. She has begun exploring all of her surroundings and pushing her boundaries a bit too. Watching this sweet girl learn to get around all on her own makes me so proud. She has been patiently waiting for her little body to allow her to do what she has wanted to do for so long. Well the time has come and there is no looking back now. She is on her way!

You may not remember but Olivia was a bit of a strange crawler. She would drag her right leg out to the side, while the left leg would scoot normally. She crawled like that from the start and continued until the day she took her first steps. I remember being worried about it at the time, but it obviously has had no effect on her to this day.

What amazes me the most is how much I have forgotten in the 5+ years, since we had Olivia. I feel like I am doing this again for the first time. I have enjoyed watching Cecilia learn to crawl. I get excited for each of her milestones, knowing that this will be the last of the "firsts" that I will experience. So because Cecilia will be our last child I am making sure to stop and enjoy all of the little, big things that are taking place in her life.

So let's see...what else has Cecilia been up to? She has recently started feeding herself. She has been working on this for awhile. She would try so hard to get little pieces of food in her mouth only to be confused as to why they were stuck in her fists. She finally figured out how to get those pieces of food into her mouth and it has opened up a whole new world for her. She is slowly starting to take bigger chunks of food, which opens up many more possibilities for Cecilia and makes for one happy little baby!

She has her two bottom teeth now. It is near impossible to catch a glimpse of them, let alone try and get a picture. Because she is now a crawling fool. There is no stopping this little pumpkin. The second I walk out of the room, I look back and she is only a few steps behind. Of course that means she is starting to get into everything, so we also have to be on our toes at all times. If we need to corral her we put her in her walker. She likes to push herself around the kitchen while I get things done. But my favorite recent development of Cece's is her kisses. When you ask for a kiss she leans forward, opens her mouth wide and plants a sloppy wet one, right on your face. It is the sweetest thing and it makes me just want to gobble her up!

Our little girl's personality is just blossoming lately. She is becoming very expressive and vocal. During a mini photo shoot on our family room floor I caught a variety of facial expressions in just a few short minutes. Look at this sweet girl...

The most exciting thing happening around here lately is our weather! It's March, but you would think it was the middle of the summer. Our temps have been unseasonably warm and we are loving every second of it. I never thought I would have Cecilia bare foot in the grass this early, but what fun it is! Watching her explore new surroundings is so fascinating. Now I just need to keep her from putting handfuls of grass into her mouth every chance she gets.

One of our wonderfully warm, sunny days last week we took the girls to the park. Olivia made a mad dash for the playground equipment and Cecilia was completely content watching her. I think Cecilia would have loved nothing more than to be able to follow Olivia up the ladder and down the slide. She had to settle for doing those things in Daddy's arms instead.

Olivia would be up for a trip to the playground on the daily basis if time permitted. She is fearless and will climb to the top of anything. Makes me nervous, but she always proves to me that I have no reason to be. I have a feeling this was the first of many trips to the park this season. By the end of the summer Cecilia will probably be trying to chase after Olivia, hoping just to keep up with her big sister. For now she is completely content just watching her.

It may only be the middle of March, but the weather has been so nice that we decided to put the swings up on our swing set. That has made for two happy little girls. Cecilia squeals with delight when we push her and Olivia has mastered the skill of very high swinging. I think we have been out on the swing about half a dozen times already, and I think it will be a regular occurrence through the season.
Ok, so catch a glimpse of this. Just a few short weeks ago we took Olivia ice skating for the first time. Yes, ice skating! We have a outdoor rink that is open each season and we finally got around to taking her for the first time, on the last day it was open. I wasn't sure how Olivia would do on ice skates, but she picked it up quickly and did surprisingly well. The best part was that she had the assistance of a "walker" that she could hold onto while she made her way around the rink. By the end she was getting confident and trying to lift up one leg. We went with Olivia's little friend Laurel, and her family. It was fun to put ice skates on again after what was probably a 15 year hiatus.

This weekend our sweet Cecilia will be baptized. We are looking forward to celebrating this special occasion and celebrating with our friends and family. I am most looking forward to seeing Cece in the beautiful baptismal gown that Olivia wore for the same occasion. And in three short months we will be celebrating Cecilia's first birthday. It does not even seem possible. My baby is literally growing up in front of my eyes. She even started holding her own sippy cup this week. My sitter, Holly was sweet enough to share this photo with me. The moment I saw this photo I realized that before long my baby will no longer be a baby. I better get those baby snuggles in now before she is too big to fit on my lap!