Happy Thanksgiving - Canadian Style!

October 2012

I was really looking forward to spending Thanksgiving in Key West for Austin and Amy's wedding, but I must admit that I was a little disappointed to be missing traditional Thanksgiving, especially Olivia's first one. Luckily for me, our friend Jen is 1) Canadian and 2) a wonderful hostess. Did you know that Thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday in October? Neither did I, but I'm so glad it is! Jen invited a group of us Texans over to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving.

Canadian Thanksgiving is a also a harvest celebration, just like in the United States, but without the mention of Pilgrims and Indians.  Jen and her mom prepared a fabulous spread - very similar to American Thanksgiving - complete with turkey and cranberry sauce and all the other yummy side dishes. I really was thankful to get to celebrate Olivia's first Thanksgiving with her, and with all of our amazing friends. Here we are - Austin and Amy, Jen's mom, Greg and Esther, Tom and Jen, Tommy and Olivia (Jack was hiding somewhere - there's only so long an almost-three year old can sit at the table):

 
We did a really poor job of taking pictures - I only have 2 pictures of the night, and I took those with my phone. :( Even sadder, the photo below of Olivia in her carseat with her Thanksgiving bib has to serve as her 5 month photo as well. I know, slacker Mommy, but at least I have something.

Let's see if I can find all the photos to compare:

  (four months and three months)

  (two months and one month)

(2 days old!)

In Her Very Own Bed

(September 2012)

 

Just like with solid foods, I think we waited longer to move Olivia into her own room than we did with Jack.  Olivia is almost certainly the last baby in our house, so I think part of me wanted to keep her in our room as long as possible, even though I know I sleep better without a squirmy squeaky infant in a pack 'n play next to the bed.  We might also have been just a little exhausted and lazy - and the kids bedrooms are all the way up a flight of stairs that seems much bigger at 3am.  I know we made that trek a few times, but Olivia's transition to her own bedroom was pretty much a success.

 

Anyway, since I haven't posted any pictures of Livi's bedroom, I thought I would add them here.  Livi's flower fairy room is a beautiful combination of hand-me-downs from her big brother and new treasures crafted with love by some very special people in her life.  Nana and I picked out a few fabrics and she hand-made the name above her bed, bed skirt, curtains, pillow, mobile, and changing table cover.  They are beautiful!  Just like she did for Jack, Grandma made a flannel fairy blanket and pillow.  Olivia's daddy made the frame above the bed, including carefully picking a stain to match the other furniture.  Mommy began collecting antique flower fairy prints right after college.  Some came from an antique print store in Houston, others came straight from antique vendors on Portobello Road in London.  I knew I had been collecting them for a reason, and hanging them in my baby's room seemed just perfect!  Mommy also made the bow holder hanging next to the bed.

 

(these pictures may or may not have been taken at the time I wrote this post rather than when she actually started sleeping in the room.  You can see the cellophane wrapped swing in the corner and, if you look really closely, you may be able to see that Olivia has already stripped the mobile of a few of its flowers...)



Here are a few closeups of some of the handiwork.  Here's the picture above the bed - letters handmade by Nana and frame by Daddy:

The mobile - in all of its initial glory before Livi decided to try to eat the flowers:

Nana also made a the lining for the diaper caddy:

And here's the pillow:

Olivia is a lucky little girl to have a room created with so much love!

First Brother and Sister Photo Shoot

(September 2012)

Twice a year Kids R Kids brings in a photographer to take pictures of all the kiddos.  I'm not really sure why, but I never really expect to like the pictures that they take, but I'm almost always pleasantly suprised.  Olivia hadn't even been at daycare very long when it was time for fall school pictures.  With an almost three-year-old and a not even 6-month-old, I really didn't know what to expect.  I dropped them off at school in the morning in their carefully chosen coordinating outfits and pretty much expected that when it was time to get pictures taken Olivia would have decided that she hated having a giant bow on her head, at least one of them would have a big food stain on their shirt and the other would have decided that photographers were the scariest thing in the world.

When I dropped them off the next morning, I asked the receptionist how they had done and she said they were perfect - model children.  Amazing!  I had to wait a few days to see the results, but I was pleasantly suprised once again - I loved every one! 

Here are my 2 sweet babies together - both smiling and looking at the camera!

Little Miss Livi was all grins!

And so was big brother Jack - I remember thinking how old he looked in this picture:

Seeing these pictures makes me think back to all the family photos my family took throughout the years - how my sister and I changed so much from year to year - from toothless grins to braces to big bangs and all those silly fashions we thought looked so cool at the time.  I'm excited for our little family to make our own memories!

Finally - It's Not a Bottle!

(September 2012)

 

So we waited a little longer to start feeding Livi any sort of solid food than we did with Jack.  I'm really not sure why.  She always seemed to have a bit more of a sensitive tummy than he did, but I don't think that's the reason.  Lazy second parent syndrome, I guess.  Anyway, by the time we gave Olivia oatmeal cereal for the first time, she was ready!

 

Her first bite - she was a little suprised:

Then, she started to enjoy herself a little bit more.  I love this one - her eyes are so huge! 

This food stuff is pretty good:

OH MY GOSH, I WANT MORE!! 

Oh course, Jack had to help out a little: 

A month or so later, we decided she was ready for pureed veggies - we started with carrots.  She thought those were pretty good, too! 

 Big brother is such a big helper!

Where the Wild Things Are

September 2012

Jack's first trip to the zoo was to the Bridgeport Zoo, before we left Connecticut, way back in April, 2010.  That would make him just about the same age as Olivia on her first visit to the Fort Worth Zoo.  Here's Missy Bright-Eyes in her "jeggings" on the morning of her trip to visit the animals - still hardly any hair:

And here's her brother, nearly 2 1/2 years prior.  People often tell me that they look alike, but I can't say that I really see it most of the time:

And here's the big brother with his dad 2 1/2 years later - still loving the zoo: 

 I actually managed to take a couple of good photos of the animals with my phone:

 

The have a really fun bird exhibit - hundreds of parakeets fly around in a caged area and people can buy sticks coated with peanut butter and seeds to feed them.  We've been to the Fort Worth Zoo before, but this was the first time Jack was brave enough to feed the birds himself, on Daddy's shoulders:

 Olivia wasn't quite old enough to feed the birds yet, but she had so much fun with Nana just watching the birds fly around:

After a few hours, Cousin Lincoln went home to nap. Nana and Papa stayed with us, had some lunch and saw a few more animals before we all went back to Aunt Brandi, Uncle Ryan and cousin Lincoln's house for some play time.  I'm not sure what these 2 cute boys are watching on someone's phone, but it sure looks interesting!

Olivia's First Trip to Houston

(September 2012)

It didn't really seem like it had been that long since we'd been to Houston. Then, we started to really think about it - I hadn't been to Houston since my baby shower for Jack - August 2009.  Tommy had been back once since then to pack up some things at from his Mom's house and bring them back to Dallas.  Much too long not to have visited a place that we consider home and where we still have so many close friends.  We had a couple of reasons for finally making the trip back.  The first was a very sad reason, the passing of Greta's dad, Lee-Roy Hurta.  I had only had the pleasure of meeting him a couple of times, but listening to the memories his family shared and seeing the number of people who came to celebrate his life, I know he must have been a very special man. 

This was also a special occasion because Olivia got to meet her Aunt Em and Uncle David and Aunt T and Uncle Rob for the first time.  After the funeral, we all went back to Mr. Hurta's house to visit for the afternoon and the kids got the chance to play with their aunts and uncles they see far less often than they should.  Taking a bunch of pictures didn't exactly seem appropriate given the circumstances, but looking back now, I'm really sad I didn't get any of Olivia meeting so many family members for the first time. :(

After spending some time with the family, we spent the rest of the weekend visiting friends we hadn't visited in way too long.  We stayed at Sarah and Jeff's new house - a really nice place!  The next day, we had a leisurely morning with Sarah and Jeff before meeting Scott and Oscar for brunch.  This is when it becomes obvious that we hadn't been to Houston in far too long.  Baby Oscar was born way back in December and we just met him for the first time.  Olivia thought he was very interesting!

After brunch, we headed to the Museum of Natural Science to meet up with Cynthia and see some dinosaurs.  We hadn't been to the museum since we got married there a little more than 8 years before.  It was fun going back, remembering that day, and sharing such a special place with our kids.  For some reason, I think everyone visiting the museum remembers the giant globe out in front.  Jack thought it was pretty cool:

He was also really excited to get into the museum and see the dinosaurs:

As the big boy, Jack took the responsibility of introducing himself to Oscar and holding some very one-sided conversations.

Since we'd last been there, they had built a pretty amazing dinosaaur wing.  The photos we took really don't do it justice - it was HUGE!

That evening, we attended the other event that brought us to Houston in the first place, Austin and Amy's wedding shower.  It was held by some friends of Austin's parents back in good old Katy. On our way home, we drove by both of our old houses.  The trees were bigger, but they really didn't look all that different.  Memories.....  Sadly, we didn't take any pictures at the shower either - not good.  Amy and Austin got tons of amazing gifts and Jack and Sierra had a big time playing and helping pass out food to everyone.  Fun night.

We had to get back to Dallas on Sunday, but no trip to Houston would be complete for us without a trip to Lupe Tortillas for the No. 29 and the Three Pepper Cheesesteak.  Scott, Cynthia and Oscar met us there:

And Jeff and Sarah, of course:

I was also excited that Catherine, Jeff and Alexandre could join us.  Catherine has been one of my best friends since we worked together on Tractebel before Tommy and I got married.  I'm ashamed to say that this was also the first time we got to meet Alexandre, and he was nearly a year and a half old!  It was so good to catch up with Catherine and to hear about her new job and life after Deloitte.

We even got a fairly decent photo of our little family:

It was a bittersweet trip back to Houston, full family and friends, fun times and fond memories of a life well lived.  We promise, Houston, we'll come back soon.

4 Months Old!

(September 2012)

The week we returned from Tennessee, Olivia had her 4-month checkup with Dr. Le.  Her first birthday was the day of Grandma's party, so sadly, in the midst of all of the excitement, I failed to get a picture of her in her car seat.  On the bright side, we have a ton of pictures from that day.  Here's one for comparison:

Hi!  I'm 4 months old!

Here I am when I was only 3 months old:

I think she looks a lot more alert in the first picture, but once again, the month-to-month changes are more subtle and harder to see.  Compare these to May 1st, though, and it is very obvious how much she's grown!

At her 4 month checkup, Olivia was perfectly healthy and on-track developmentally.  Here are her stats:

Height: 25 inches - 75th percentile

Weight: 13 pounds, 7 ounces - 50th percentile (getting close to doubling her birth weight!)

Head: 16 inchees - 50th percentile

Just like her brother at this age - tall and skinny!

Right around her 4 month birthday, Olivia hit another big milestone, she rolled over from her back to her belly!  While Tommy questioned the validity of my videos of Olivia rolling from belly to back last month, there was no questining this time - we have a roller. Way to go Olivia!  During her fourth month Olivia will experience many other exciting firsts.  It will be an exciting month - stay tuned!