Christmas with Dufon Family

After spending time with the Slivinski's, we headed up to the farm to spend time with Bumpa for his birthday (Happy Birthday Bumpa!) and then to celebrate Christmas with the Dufon Family. We were really lucky because everyone was able to make it to the farm....it was so nice seeing everyone. We had a white Christmas and Alex, Elizabeth, and Olivia built a snowman with Kirk. They also enjoyed snowmobiling with Bumpa...and Bumpa...he enjoyed his "little girls". We had a bowling trip which was a lot of fun. There are a lot of pics...sorry! We finally headed home on the 30th...it was a long trip, but well worth every minute of it for seeing our families. We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season!

Christmas with The Slivinski's

After our Christmas at our house, we headed up to Michigan. Our first stop was in Flint at the Redwood Lodge to celebrate Dale's sister Debbie's birthday (we won't say how old she is, but Happy Birthday Deb!) Our next celebration was Christmas on the 23th with the Slivinski's at Dave and Sue's house. Sue made a great dinner, Dale and Deb had a great ping-pong battle, and everyone had an enjoyable time. Olivia got some really cool gifts...like a Dora the Explorer hot wheel/tricycle, a baby doll with high chair, bed, and stroller, and a Leap Pad Letters Magnet set (which she is quite fond of and plays with as I make dinner). We were able to spend a few more days with Grandma & Grandpa and we got to learn the secret to making Peanut Brittle from them which was a lot of fun.

Christmas at Our House

We were going to be on the road for the holidays, but we still wanted to get a tree and make things festive around our house. So, we took Olivia to the "Ludington" tree lot. It is a tree lot we found our first year here that is about 2 miles from our house and the trees actually come from Ludington, MI. So we have gone there every year and have always had a lot of luck getting good trees. Olivia loved looking at the trees and helped us pick out the "perfect" tree. She enjoyed decorating it, Tigger the cat loved hiding underneath it, and Buddy...well he was just good at knocking the ornaments off from it. What Olivia loved the most was sitting in her rocking chair everynight looking at the tree while I cooked dinner. She always wanted the lights on and made sure that she said goodnight to the tree each night when she went to bed. We opened a few presents before we left for Michigan and as you can see she got an art easel (this was from GiGi and Bumpa) and she loved it...so much so that she had to kiss it. She is quite the performer.

Thanksgiving

Well, it has been a while since we have posted. Here are a few updates since Thanksgiving. We spent Thanksgiving at the farm and as you can see from the pics, we had a little snow. We learned a few things about Olivia this weekend, first...she will find her thumb no matter what she has on it, second...she LOVES the snow. We tried her in "big girl" pants for the first time this weekend....Olivia 10, potty training 0! We will try again another time!

Elf's...

Well, Dale has had some "time" on his hands at work lately and this is what he has done with his free time. Please view the link below...enjoy!

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1223011337

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween! We had a great time this year for Halloween, although I am still not sure that Olivia grasped the entire concept. On Saturday, we went to Boo at the Zoo. It rained on and off, but it didn't stop us from dancing to the Monster Mash, looking at the animals, and taking the train ride. We also went through a straw maze which Olivia really liked. The only problem we had was what we should have called her for Halloween...she dressed up as a frog, but she could have been the character from the Peanuts who carried his blanket around everywhere, because that is all she wanted to do. She even danced with it at the music tent!

On Halloween day, she had a party at school in which she dressed up in her frog costume and was involved in the school parade. She was so proud of her costume that she wouldn't take it off. We worked really hard to get her to say ribbit ribbit and trick or treat...she was getting really good, until trick or treating started. She was really shy and had a hard time getting words out. But, she LOVED having the candy put into her pumpkin. She loved even more taking the candy out and carrying it around in her hands. She even said her first full sentence...need more candy! She is too much like her Bumpa & Grandpa & cousin Lizzy (chocolate freaks:)) After trick or treating, she sat on our front porch and helped hand out candy. She was sad when it was finished and she had to take a bath because she was a mess from the candy she ate.

The following day, she kept looking out the window while carrying her pumpkin around saying trick or treat...I guess she wanted Halloween to be more than one day!

Fall Fun

Fall fun

Things have been very busy around here as of late. Olivia is growing up faster than we would like. At daycare, she make the move from the baby room to the toddler room. Although Dale and I were not thrilled, Olivia was and she has not looked back since. We have started to work on potty training. We are letting her sit at her own leisure and she has successfully gone 3 times. Now we are going to start putting her on more of a schedule.

We had a very busy weekend this past weekend. We started out Saturday morning by going to the homecoming parade. Olivia loved waving at all of the people, but she didn't care for the loud sirens. After the parade, we made our way to a fruit farm where she played in the hay, went on a wagon ride, and tried apple cider for her first time (she loves it)! We also went on a small hike. On Sunday, we participated in a Walk for Autism. It was amazing to see how many people came out to support the cause.

Dale has been very busy with work and has been traveling a lot! I continue to be busy with work and grad school...only 1 more class after this semester and I will have finally completed my masters! Olivia started swim classes for the fall and in early winter is going to start gymnastics/climbing/tumbling classes since she loves to climb and do summersaults.

We hope everyone is doing well and we will try to be better at updating this more regularly.