Jesus is Born! Gloria!

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

Olivia had a great time celebrating Jesus' Birthday!

She began her day with a special morning prayer:

"Happy Birthday Dear Jesus

Thank you for this Beautiful Christmas Day!"

And a Beautiful Day it was indeed!

We had to keep reminding her that it was Happy Christmas! Not Happy KissMas!

Once again, a holiday just means extra kisses all around!

Olivia is so very very loved!

Daddy and Olivia playing with her Busy Box.

This one is by Tiny Love and is a wonderful Busy Box.

Tiny Love also made the mobile that she enjoys so much!

Santa filled her personalized stocking. Each of us have a personalized stocking now.

These home-personalized stockings were

a very loving gift from her birth-mom, siblings and birth-grandma.

Olivia opened her gifts in her pajamas like any self respecting child!

Daddy helped her pose by the tree.

Daddy bought Olivia a special Christmas jacket. Here Olivia poses with our Christmas Elf.

This is the Famous Christmas Elf who hides in various places all during the Christmas Holiday. One never knows where he will show up. Presently, he is sitting under the tree in the basket of stringing beads, but he has been known to show up hanging from the chandelier or peering over the monitor of the computer.

Merry Christmas

Olivia, Mommy and Daddy want to wish every one a Blessed Christmas. Olivia has been a giggly little girl ever since waking up from her nap today. She wanted to share a little of her joy and peas on earth with all of you. Merry Christmas!

Head Control Milestone! Hooray!

This is not the best photo of her head control. I will have to take a better one. Anyway, the BIG news to hit our home is that at 7 months old, Olivia has head and neck control! This was more delayed than the physical therapist (PT) would have expected. She was not sure why. But I think it is related to the back arching trouble she had for so many months. At that time we had a different PT. The PT signed off on the official milestone on Friday! Yay team!!!! Olivia can now do what she wants to do with her head and neck when she wants to do it! And other than when we are holding her and she decides she wants to do something that would be dangerous, we can basically trust her to take care of her own head! I have always said that there would be dancing in the streets when this milestone occurred as at times it seemed that we would never get here. If it was not so COLD outside I just might be dancing in the street!!!!

As you can see from Olivia's tummy, which Daddy affectionately calls her "bowl full of jelly", she is a good eater! The homemade pureed baby food seems to have been the magic trick to bring about so much development recently! She is also vocalizing more sounds and trying to communicate much more! The other big development is that she now is rolling around with ease on the floor to get places. Look out world! Here comes Olivia! The other development is that her hair is growing in. It is most definitely going to have some amount of curl to it.

I will try to post some more photos of her developmental milestones soon. We have been very busy around here with Christmas preparations (gift buying and wrapping, getting cards out etc) and this is the busy season at work for Peter, so long days and long nights and no such thing as a weekend. This should be the last week for the hectic work schedule. Daddy does make time for Olivia each morning before starting work, so he has his priorities in place! :-) I think it is nice to start the day with a smiling happy chuckling baby before working with engineers and inventors the rest of the day :-).

Thanksgiving week visitors

The week of Thanksgiving gave us the gift of many visitors! Olivia had a GREAT time with everyone. She loves novelty and having different people around. I think Mommy and Daddy get to be rather boring to her after awhile! :-)

Aunt Connie was here Sunday and Monday. They had a great time! Especially when Mommy and Daddy went on a date to Saugatuck and Aunt Connie babysat and Olivia took a 3 1/2 hour nap! (Olivia has taken tiny naps everyday since then for Mommy)

Grandma and Grandpa B helped Olivia celebrate her First Thanksgiving

"Uncle" Eddie and "Uncle"Stephen (cousins) came to visit on Saturday. Olivia thought they were a lot of fun!