More Family Christmas Celebrations

We spent Sunday afternoon celebrating Christmas with the Pitz side at Bob and Cindie's home.

Again, we had a great time, seeing everyone again, eating way too much food and catching up with everyone.

Olivia was only her shy self for about the first 10 to 15 minutes and then she was off again, grabbing whoever she could and having them take her downstairs to play or into the dining room where all the desserts were.
She hammed it up and ran from room to room and got along with everyone even though she doesn't see them very often. She enjoyed showing pictures to Grandma Pitz and was spoiled by her aunts, uncles and cousins.
She especially liked Bob and Cindie's two house dogs and kept them on their toes too.

Just like Christmas Day she filled up on chocolate, cookies and candy again and zonked out in her bed when we finally got home and put her to bed. That's exactly what is supposed to happen for the holidays right?

We have a couple days again to catch up on getting back into a routine, eating regular meals and getting caught up on sleep....just in time for the next party on New Year's Day!!

Stay tuned.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas 2008

Merry Christmas to everyone. We had a wonderful day. Olivia woke up not quite remembering what was going on that day but soon got out to the living room to see the presents under the tree. She was a little overwhelmed at first but soon started ripping into her presents. Her favorite present was her guitar. Kyle and Jenny got the GuitarHero set with the guitar, drums and microphone so Olivia fits right in playing her rock and roll too. I'll be adding more pictures from Christmas morning at our house but for now am including the afternoon pictures from Aunt Nancy's house. There she was buried under just as many presents as what Santa had brought.
Thank you Grandma and Grandpa, aunts and uncles for all the great gifts. She loves the toys and the clothes are so cute and much needed.


We all had a great time in the afternoon and into the night. Olivia was running all day and had so much fun. She finally zonked out on the way home and couldn't wake up even as I changed her clothes and diaper and put her to bed. She also woke up happy the next day.
We have a couple days now to relax and play-play-play, then on Sunday we do it all over again with the Pitz side. We will be heading over to Bob and Cindie's house on Sunday and I'll post pictures from that too.

MERRY CHRISTMAS 2008!

Cwismas Tooties!

Translated that means Christmas Cookies!! Olivia "helped" me cut out and bake the Christmas cookies on Tuesday and she, Jenny and I decorated them today, Christmas Eve. She is kind of a neat freak and was really good about not making a big mess. For being 2 1/2 she was really good at getting the frosting on the cookies and then one big splot of sprinkles. Once in a while she would sneak a lick of the knife or just stick her finger right in the frosting for a taste.
She had a great time doing the cooking, cutting them out and decorating them. It was so funny when every few minutes she would stop what she was doing and say "I wuv make tooties wif Mama!"
Even Misty (with the sweet tooth) wanted to get into the picture.

It was hilarious and she genuinely had a lot of fun. At night we read "The Night Before Christmas" and set three cookies that she picked out on a plate for Santa with milk and....of course... a napkin to wipe his mouth. As I put her to bed she was talking nonstop about the cookies, milk, napkin, reindeer, party at Aunt Nancy's, and so on.
I'm not sure who is having more fun with this, me or Olivia.
Watch for more pictures from Christmas Day.




We hope everyone has a very blessed, happy and safe Christmas 2008!!

Merry Christmas!!

Tree Decorating 2008

We put the Christmas tree up a couple weeks ago but I had to update the blog to include these cute pictures of Jenny and Olivia decorating it.

Last year Olivia was too young to get into it much but this year she is so excited about the decorations, parties and the thought of Santa coming down the chimney and bringing her "pwesents".

When we got done with decorating the tree she just kept jumping up and down in front of it squealing.
One week from today she will be beside herself with excitement. I can't wait!!

What A Celebration!

We had a big celebration on Sunday. It's hard to believe but I am turning 40 today (15th). We had a Packer/birthday party yesterday and it turned out to be a really fun time (even though it's my 40th AND the Packers lost, again)
Everyone came over for the game so the party started by kickoff time and went until almost 9:00 at night. Olivia was a trouper again and kept going all day long without a nap which is rarely missed. She was so glad to get into her crib by the end of the day. She had such a good time with everyone though. She cheered for the Packers, opened my birthday presents and went from one person to the next and kept everyone entertained. Luckily we both get to stay home today and do nothing.
Everyone brought wonderful food and snacks and overall, even though I can't comprehend 40 I had a great birthday celebration. I hope everyone else enjoyed themselves also.


Olivia will have so much fun again when Christmas comes and we are together with family again. We are all looking forward to more family gatherings. But for now we both need to recover from a very fun day.

Thanks to everyone for coming and for the gifts and fun!!!

Better luck next year Packers!! (at least Steve's Steelers won!)

Happy 13th Birthday Jenny

As of Thursday we now have two teenagers in the house along with a two year old!

Jenny turned 13 years old on December 4th and like every birthday for the kids we had Grandpa and Grandma Manning over for a dinner that the kids get to choose.

This year Jenny wanted a Chinese dinner. It turned out really good. Fried rice, shrimp, chicken and beef stir fry and egg rolls. They also get to pick what kind of birthday cake they want and she picked a Jell0 poke cake this time. Everything turned out great. I even set out our authentic chopsticks set and we had real Chinese tea and used the tea set we brought from China. Jenny even got dressed up and wore one of her dresses she bought in China.

Olivia was a little jealous and had to help Jenny blow out her birthday candles and help with opening her presents. We had a great time again eating and visiting.

Happy Birthday Jenny!

Ready For Winter

Or at least Olivia is ready for winter....

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, 2008!!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving again this year. Everyone was able to make it to Grandma and Grandpa Manning's house for an early afternoon meal. There was so much good food and a lot of fun. It's so great to get together with everyone and Thanksgiving is a nice holiday to visit and relax without the commotion at Christmastime, although Christmas is always fun too just more hectic. I think Olivia will have so much fun at Christmas and we are really looking forward to it.

Olivia had a great time with all of her aunts, uncles and cousins. She is always shy for the first few minutes but warms up really fast and played-played-played. Since we ate early in the afternoon she missed her usual nap but kept going all day long.
She even got her usual second wind after dinner and ran around the house nonstop like she usually does at home. Poor Aunt Nancy had to keep running with her playing red-light, green-light. Olivia rarely recognizes a red light command. She did slow down to a walk for a few paces when Nancy tried to do a yell0w-light but then Olivia just squealed "faster, faster" and kept on running. It was hilarious to watch but exhausting for Nancy.
Olivia loves to see all of her cousins and they are all so good to her. She keeps going and going from one to the next and they all seem to enjoy playing with her.

There wasn't much luck this year with the deer hunting. Steve, Kyle and Jenny only brought home three small deer but it was Jenny's very first year for deer hunting and she did shoot her very first deer on Thanksgiving morning. Congratulations Jenny!!

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa from all of us for a great day again!

Eleanor!

We got together with Marilyn, Eleanor and Wesley again and this time they made the trip up to our house for the day. The girls were so cute together again. Eleanor is always happy and smiling, very friendly little girl. I think they remember each other pretty well because they warmed up and started playing together not long after they arrived. Olivia is still a couple inches taller than Eleanor and weighs a couple pounds more. They are so different in many ways but so much the same in more ways. Eleanor can say her ABC's and count to 10 just like Olivia and they both know the same songs. The difference is Olivia learns these things at home and Eleanor goes to day care and learns a lot of things. They do look a lot different though with Eleanor's black, very straight hair and Olivia's wavy brownish-blackish hair.

Grandma Manning came over to visit too and when we asked Eleanor a question she started off her answer exactly like Olivia with "Uumm" and then her answer. It was so funny. Both girls are so well behaved.
Usually each one sits in a high chair for meals but we had Wesley in Olivia's high chair for lunch and I tried the girls at Olivia's little table. They sat there so good, shoveling in the chicken nuggets, peas, bread and of course cheese. After they ate they both chose ice cream over cookies for dessert. I let the video recorder sit and run on them while they ate. They are going to love watching these videos when they are older. They are both so cute and funny. They are both very well mannered, neat and tidy, especially when eating.

After they filled their bellies to the top with ice cream there was more time for playing before we had to say goodbye again and they had to head for home for a much needed nap for everyone. We spent a little time watching what was videotaped and you can see it playing in the background of this picture.

It's always fun to get together with them and see how Eleanor and her baby brother Wes are growing and changing. We can't wait to see them again soon!

A New Friend

Or should I say new friends.... We reintroduced Olivia and Emma on Tuesday. Emma is almost 2 years old and lives not far from us. She also has a little brother Cody that is only about 3 months now. We are going to try to get the girls together once a week to help them learn how to share and get along with other kids. They did pretty well this first time at our house. Olivia never puts up much of a fight for toys and likes to hang back to see what is going to happen. Emma went through all her toys and was very excited with all the "new" stuff for her to play with. Olivia was much more interested in Cody though. She loved holding the baby and kept saying "so cute". He is a very good baby and smiled all the time so she really enjoyed that.

Emma and Cody's mom stays home with them also so we are anxious to get the girls out among other kids instead of just hanging with us all the time. Hopefully Olivia and Emma will become good friends as they are growing up.

Next week we will try to get to their house for a few hours of play, fight or whatever transpires.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, we get to play at our house again when Marilyn brings Eleanor and baby Wesley! Watch for more pictures from that play date.

More Partying.....More Sugar Highs

Olivia's cousin Chad was confirmed this past Sunday so that called for more partying. It was also trick-or-treating in their town so her cousins Michelle and Kaitlyn wanted to take her. It was a beautiful afternoon for it except for the occasional rain drop. Olivia had so much fun with the girls and they actually got her to say trick-or-treat and thank you at the doors rather than in between houses.

Later she had to go through all of her candy and get filled up on a sugar high with Aunt Nancy. That's when she really starts to show off. We all had a great time though and I think Olivia was asleep as soon as I covered her up in her bed that night. Thanks for a great time Aunt Lynn!!

Check out that smile, do you think she loves playing with her cousins??

More Halloween Parties

Olivia is getting a lot of use out of her costume this year. Our neighbors, a couple houses up the street from us, had a Halloween party on Saturday night. The invitation said costumes were "mandatory". So we figured since they were going through the trouble of throwing a party we would make the effort to dress up.
Steve and I rented our costumes and Jenny put hers together herself. Of course, Olivia is used to getting her kitty costume on.
The party was fun, they had a big play room just for the kids with toys and they even had a pinata. Olivia knew all about that from the adoption picnic a couple months ago and she kept pointing to herself and saying "you hit, you hit". She did get a couple good swings in but a bigger girl finally broke it. She also knew there was candy to be had when it broke (as if she needs more candy). The hosts also had gift bags put together for all the kids. We had a really nice time and it was fun to see all the different costumes.

Happy Halloween Birthday Aunt Lynn!

Aunt Lynn's 29th (??) birthday was on Friday and she and Aunt Nancy both were off of work, the kids were out of school so we all decided to go celebrate by meeting for breakfast. Since it was also Halloween I figured Olivia should get as much use out of her costume as possible. The waitresses were all dressed up too so that kept her attention for a while.
We had a really nice time and visited for about two hours. Olivia kind of quietly sang part of the happy birthday song for her Aunt Lynn.

On the way home we had to stop in and check on Aunt Nancy's kittens again. They are now 6 weeks old, so cute and getting more playful.


Hope you had a great Halloween Birthday Lynn!!

Trick Or Treating 2008

Trick or Treating was this past weekend so we got Olivia dressed up and just took her up and down our street. There was more than enough candy for her just by going to a few houses. She wasn't too excited about being a cat until she actually had the costume on and finally knew what I had been talking about. The outfit was so cute on her and it was just a sweat suit I bought big enough to put a bunch of layers of clothes on underneath which was good because it was pretty cold already on Sunday. She had a good time but only said "trick or treat" in-between houses. She also enjoyed saying "meow, meow" a lot. When she got to a neighbors door and a strange person-or even a person she knew-came out she pretty much froze, other than keeping an eye on the candy they were putting in her bucket.
At one house a very scary costume came out of the door and really freaked her out. I was afraid there would be nightmares after that but she has been fine. She just didn't want to go anywhere near that house again.




This is her very sad attempt at being a vicious tiger. She didn't understand the concept of showing her claws like Jenny and I were trying to get her to do.
I guess we will just have to call her a playful kitty instead.

As we finished up after about 45 minutes of being out in the cold and wind I got a couple pictures in front of the house. You can read her mind in this one....."how long will these pictures take? I have to get this candy open!!"

(Oooops....the ears kept blowing off of her head and I just noticed Mom put them back on backwards...oh well, it's still cute.)

Kittens.....Kittens.....!!

On Friday we went with Grandma to see Aunt Nancy's new (5 week old) kittens. I think it was the first time Olivia ever held or played with such a small kitty. She was actually a little timid with them, maybe because we kept telling her to "be careful-be careful" "be gentle" and so on. A two year old can be a little clumsy stomping and falling around tiny kittens. She was pretty good at picking them up but sometimes held on a little too tight and if some claws come out she was a little rough trying to get away from them. She did have a great time watching them play, especially when they would meow when fighting with each other. She also got to watch them nurse on their mother.

She really liked the mother cat, Princess, I think because she is about the same size as Misty and didn't have to be so careful all the time.

There are five really cute kittens and we had a lot of fun with them. It's funny how they can play hard for just so long and then kind of collapse into a pile and start snoozing.

While they took a nap we had one of Olivia's favorite lunches.....pizza! She had been talking about having pizza since the day before we went. She was more excited about that I think because she wasn't sure about what playing with baby kittens meant until we got there.

Thanks Aunt Nancy!! We had a lot of fun and will have to come back soon to play some more before these cute babies turn in to cats.

This kitten was so funny. All of a sudden it just sat down and stared up at Olivia for the longest time. We took all kinds of pictures because it just sat there looking up. I think it was getting tired at this point and was kind of dopey but it sure was cute.

(No Nancy, I don't think it was trying to say he wanted to come home with Olivia!!)

Homecoming 2008

All last week were homecoming activities building up to the Friday football game and homecoming celebrations on Saturday. It was a very busy week and we are glad it is now over. They won their football game by a long shot so it was a lot of fun to watch and the weather has been so nice, I think we have been taking it for granted and I'm afraid we will get a winter wake up call any time now but we are enjoying it while we can.
Kyle went to dinner and the homecoming dance with a nice girl named Vicki. A group of the couples met at a parents house for pictures by the lake and then they all went out to dinner before the dance. I guess they all had a good time but as many of you with teenagers....especially boys...know, you never get much of an explanation or any details about anything so I guess we go along with the old saying, no news is good news and leave it at that.

Olivia was excited about having pictures taken until she saw the little dog that belonged to the parents where we met for pictures. I had to pull her attention away from their little ankle-biter just to get a couple shots with Kyle and Vicki.
It was cute though the way she kept following after the dog saying "Sugar, come!" Then we said goodbye to Sugar with a big hug and came back to our own pets.

Enjoy this beautiful Fall while it lasts!!

Amazing Animals

I'm always amazed at how animals can behave so much better around kids. Saturday was such a gorgeous day we decided to take Blazer for a walk. Of course, Olivia had to be in charge of walking him and holding on to the leash all by herself. I'm not sure who was leading who but Blazer was a very good boy.
Normally, when I walk Blazer he pulls and tugs and wants to go all over the place, trying to "hunt" through the tall grass, go toward the trees and always choosing the wrong way around the mailboxes so we get all tangled up.
This day, when Olivia had him he walked slowly and calmly and for the most part, in a straight line. He even went on the right side of the mailboxes for her. She loved it and thought she was pretty smart! I think Blazer enjoyed it too. She did fall after stumbling over her own feet twice and didn't know enough to let go of the leash when he kept walking but she didn't get hurt.
I've seen this with horses, dogs and even cats. They must know somehow to be careful around small children. Maybe they sense that the kids won't hurt them and they can run away easily if they need to. Blazer has always been the kind of dog you can trust around anyone. He has never tried to bite and never even growls at anything or anyone. Since Smokey has been gone he has become a most-of-the-time house dog and Olivia sits on him, gives him big hugs and he loves all of it. He is especially attentive at every meal time and waits pretty patiently until he hears Olivia say she is all done. He knows he gets to help clean up whatever is left. Every time she goes to bed she has to make sure she says "night-night Bazur" and gives him a hug. He has also started following me into her room when it is time for her to get up and if he doesn't come along she is asking me where he is.
They have become very close buddies and very attached. I think it is a good thing for kids to be around animals as young as possible to learn to respect them, take care of them and enjoy playing with them. She definitely gets that from Blazer and her kitty Misty too.

Girly Girl

After a bath I can comb and straighten out Olivia's wavy hair and see how long it is getting. Her hair has not been cut yet and it is getting long and is staying wavy. It is a lot of fun to do different things with it and she likes to sit still and let me braid it and try new things.
Her hair is so different from the more common black, straight Chinese hair. Even though it is very dark you can still see some streaks of brown running through it. And, instead of being straight it has a lot of wave to it. I envy her gorgeous hair.
Olivia is definitely all girly-girl. She likes to get dressed up and have her hair fixed. She would wear necklaces and jewelry if we would let her. She loves to pretend she is playing a piano, violin and now she has discovered drums.....she makes them out of her pots and pans. She also loves to play with her kitchen set and is now starting to hold baby dolls and feed them.



Of course, after a long morning of dressing up and having your picture taken, a princess has to just relax for a while with her favorite pillow.....