15 Months

Boy, the last two months certainly have flown by! The month of November was a complete blur...from our Disney trip in October to Thanksgiving in just a blink. But for Thanksgiving, we did get to travel to NC to visit with Nonny & Pop Pop, and Uncle Scott and Aunt Jill. Once again, Olivia was GREAT on the 11 hour journey there. We left Tampa at 11:30pm with the hope that Olivia would sleep the majority of the way, but she decided to stay awake for the first three hours. We arrived around 9:30 the next morning with no major meltdowns (on anyone's part!) Unfortunately, mommy got sick the day we arrived and spent the majority of the 4 days we were there in bed, coughing, with fevers, and generally feeling crappy. Me being sick also led to a significant lack of photos of the whole occasion, so I only have a few to share. You can see that she is watching the Macy's Parade with her favorite toy (Gymbo the clown), spending time with Uncle Scott and Aunt Jill, and enjoying being the princess of her car seat!














After we returned from NC, it was December and more weeks passed in a blur. Due to being sick, I wasn't able to get the grading done over Thanksgiving that I had hoped, so spent the next two weeks catching up on grading papers and calculating final grades for my class. We also managed to find time to put up the lights, the tree, decorate the house, send Christmas cards, and finish shopping. The only thing we did not do was bake! However, we brought home so many cookies and cakes from NC, we definitely ate our fair share of sugary goodness! The picture of Olivia with the Christmas tree was not taken at our house...it was taken at Disney's Contemporary Resort!


Of course, we wouldn't be us if we didn't sneak another Disney day in. Christmas isn't Christmas without seeing some Disney decorations! So we popped over to the Magic Kingdom for a morning. We had a lovely brunch at the newly redesigned Contemporary Resort before heading into the park. The crowds were larger than we expected so the only ride we did was the train. But Olivia had a good time on the slides in the play area of Toon Town, and wandering through Mickey's house.

Christmas was GREAT! Richard and I were smart enough to take all of Olivia's toys (from Santa!) out of the packaging so that Christmas morning was a much smoother process. The Bounce & Spin pony was the only thing she didn't take to, so we've packed it away for a few months. Everything else, she loves...especially her drums, xylophones, and pianos (yes, there were two versions of each!). She loves music and singing and gravitates towards the instruments.

I love this picture of Richard dozing with both Olivia and our youngest cat, Leo. Olivia was watching Sesame Street and daddy was too exhausted to pay attention to the show. Leo took advantage of the opportunity to share a little lap time with Olivia (he desperately wants to be the baby). What could be more cozy than an afternoon snuggling with daddy!?!






After Christmas, we went for Olivia's 15 month check-up. Despite a little stuffy nose and cough the week prior, she is the picture of health. She is 23.4 lbs and 31 inches long...the 50-75% range for both. So she is falling in line with her peers for height and weight...no longer the amazon woman we thought we were growing. She also had her MMR vaccine and wasn't even phased, thanks to the grape lollipop that the doctor gave her.

This picture shows her, once again, with Gymbo the clown. And she's also showing one of her favorite body parts...her tongue! There is a Sesame Street book that we read about eyes, ears, nose, etc...and there is one page that says "Open your mouth big and wide, where's your tongue? It hides inside!"...and it's her favorite part. She can now correctly identify all of the facial features, and the funniest story occured after she correctly identified "Olivia's hair" and "mommy's hair"...as we asked her "where's daddy's hair?" This brilliant child reached out and grabbed the closest hair to daddy's head...his eyebrow!!! It was too funny!!


New Year's Eve was relatively quiet (outside of the fact that we hear the fireworks from Busch Gardens). We know we're old as we debated whether we could make it till midnight...though we managed to stay awake somehow! I think the month of January should be pretty quiet and routine as we count down to our February Disney trip!! Also, I'm FINALLY taking the latest videos off the camera, and hope to post some in the next day or so. There are some that are too funny not to share. Happy New Year to everyone! We hope that your 2009 is full of peace, love, and happiness...we know ours will be (thanks to Olivia!).