where to begin?

Oh, this time of year is hectic! There is so much going on right now. Here is a quick synopsis...It is the holiday season. There are gifts to be bought, gifts to be wrapped. There are decorations to be hung and lights to be strung (why must Christmas lights never work properly?) Our beloved babysitter broke her hip a few weeks ago. With the help of Todd's parents we are managing, until she is back on her feet. Our house is in the process of being painted. Each room is a disaster, but it will look oh, so nice when it is finished at the end of this week. Luckily in the middle of all of this craziness we have managed to have some fun with Olivia. Let me start back a few weeks. Before it got so cold out we were enjoying some nice fall days outdoors. We took a walk around our neighborhood, exploring areas we have not seen yet. There were leaves to be raked in our front yard so Olivia helped with that. The raking part is not nearly as fun as the running and jumping into a big pile of leaves part!

Now we are in full Christmas mode. Olivia loves all things Christmas! She sings carols that she is learning in school. She says, "WOW" each time we drive past a house with lights. And believe it or not she talks about Santa quite a bit. The true test comes tonight when we take her to visit the jolly guy in the flesh. I am sure many of you remember this picture from last year...

I am dying to see how she reacts to poor Santa this year. According to Olivia she is going to sit on Santa's lap and tell him that she wants toys. Yeah...I'll believe that when I see it. I am fully prepared for another "crying baby on Santa's lap" picture. But who knows, she may surprise us. Her little personality has blossomed so much since last year. She has no problem talking to anyone that will listen, so maybe she will be thrilled to have a seat on Santa's lap. Like I said...I will believe it when I see it! We have been letting Olivia get involved in the decorating too. We bought a tree just for her. She helped to decorate it last week with all of the cute little ornaments her Daddy picked out for her. She was over it after about five minutes so I finished decorating for her. Ahhh, the attention span of a two year old!

Last week we got our first real accumulation of snow. It was super cold and windy but the snow looked so pretty. Olivia asked to go outside so I thought we should get all bundled up even if it was just for a few minutes. I am sure most of you have seen The Christmas Story, right? Well the part where Randy is getting all bundled up to go to school...that is what Olivia probably felt like as we stuffed her into her snow suit. She had to be burning up in that thing before we actually got outside. She was pretty darn cute in it though.

Our outside adventure was short lived but it was fun seeing Olivia experience the snow and cold. Olivia has changed so much since last year so it feels like we are doing all of these things again for the first time. She wanted to build snowmen but there was not enough snow and it was so freakin' cold out there. I am really looking forward to building a snowman with her this winter. Speaking of snowmen are you familiar with the children's book Snowmen at Night? Well for all of the Mom's out there I highly recommend it. It is the cutest little story about what snowmen do at night when no one is around. It is currently Olivia's favorite!

Last but not least I must share with you Olivia's trip to Sesame Street Live. Some friends of ours gave us tickets so we thought we would give it a shot. Most of you know how obsessed Olivia is with Elmo and all of the other Sesame Street characters. We saw that the show was coming to town but did not want to spend the money on tickets without knowing if Olivia would enjoy it. Once we got free tickets we thought, what the heck...let's go! There are no words to describe how much Olivia enjoyed herself. She seemed unsure about the life size characters at first but as soon as they started singing the Sesame Street theme song she was mesmerized! The child hardly blinked an eye the entire time. The only melt down was during intermission when we refused to pay $8 for an Elmo balloon. Although I did buy her an Elmo CD. We could not leave without getting her something. We went with our friends, Jason & Nikki as well as our goddaughter, Emily. I think Emily enjoyed the show as well. Olivia and Emily are gradually getting to know each other and Emily made sure to give Olivia a big hug before we left.

We have been busy, busy and I don't expect things to slow down before Christmas. That's OK, this is our favorite time of year and it is even more fun now that Olivia is old enough to start enjoying the holiday as well. Check back soon to see how our visit with Santa turned out!