Christmas Vacation (Part II...and another birthday!)

...The fun continues!! 

After the Christmas insanity, we had a quiet day around the house.  The Naylors and the Davises took the kids to the park to get muddy play and work out some energy. 

Throwing rocks in the river...

We got on the merry go round and rode it a bit.  These things used to be in parks all over the place and now they seem like a special  deathtrap treat that you can't always find.  Abby thought it was pretty fun, and so did Olive, who I was wearing in the ergo at the time.

Mike setting a good example.  Yes, Julian is lying in the mud down below.  So fun!

Back home, the babies went about 20 rounds together...

Isn't she the cutest? I know, I'm biased...

Check out her tooth! She now has TWO of them.

I don't really know that there are words for this picture, but it's hilarious.

Elizabeth has something to say about my cutest baby comment.  I admit it! She's also the cutest!

The 27th was Bryan's birthday.  Time for more cake and 20 more people in the house! The Gadekens and McCullochs drove all the way down from Seattle just to hang out for the evening and have brunch the next day.  What awesome friends we have!

On our last day at my parents, we headed out to check out the animal attractions.  Julian went to feed the chickens and look for eggs.

Unfortunately, this year's batch of chicks came with some roosters.  At least they're pretty!

Goats!

Checking out the goats!

He found eggs! Notice how blinged up the coop is with xmas lights.  Mom went a little nuts with them this year :)

And this...this is the face of a baby who didn't sleep after 11 pm the night before.  We thought it was just her teeth, but it turned out to be yet another cold.  Little did she know that ahead of us we had a long train ride to WA.  She was such a trooper.

Next stop, the Naylors!! 

Christmas Vacation (Part I)

I'm going to have to break this one up - I took a lot of pictures while we were down visiting our families in Oregon and Washington! 

We left on Christmas Eve, which I figured would be a pretty dead time for travel, but the airport was busy and our plane was full.  

All strapped in and hanging out at the airport

Alaska Airlines, who I normally love, messed up our seats and we ended up with a window and middle seat instead of an aisle/middle combo, which was extra frustrating.  Because we didn't have easy access to get up and walk around when Olive got fussy, we resorted to taking funny-face selfies, which she enjoys.

The empty water bottle was a more popular toy than pretty much anything we brought.

Finally made it to PDX, where I took an obligatory picture of Olive with the infamous carpet.  Did you know they're tearing it out?

After a two hour drive to my parents' house, we pretty much crashed for the night.  The next morning - CHRISTMAS!!

At points during our time there, we had something like 20 people in the house.  This trip marked the first time that my brother, sister, and I had been together in something like three years. In the time since I'd last seen Kelly, she had two kids!

Christmas morning we woke up and the kids opened stockings while we waited for Bryan and his family to drive down to our parents' house.   It was basically the last calm(ish) moment we had in our visit there.

Abby and Julian had a ball opening their stockings.  Every item was loudly announced to the crowd - "I got band-aids! Look! Look!"  It was pretty awesome.

We mostly spent the morning hanging out in our PJs.

Grandma snuggles! 

Olive got a new teether in her stocking.  Anything that goes in her mouth is pretty much a hit these days.  Then again, EVERYTHING goes in her mouth, so I can't say the teether was really that special.  Let's just pretend it was her favorite thing ever, okay? 

We got cleaned up before the masses arrived and then the chaos ensued.  Olive and I watched from a safe distance on the couch where I helped her open her presents.  

Most of my Christmas morning pictures are blurry.  Not because the shutter speed wasn't set high enough, but because of the chaos.  It was awesome.

This is Julian and his new sleeping bag.  I feel like this blurry picture exemplifies him.  He's a total ball of energy.

Remember when I mentioned my craft project for Christmas? Here is Grace, modeling hers! I made felt flower crowns for the girls and flower headbands for the babies.  I think they were a hit!

Cousins! They wore those princess dresses ALL DAY

Grace was happy to model for me.  If I ever decide to go sell these online, I'm going to use this for advertising.  She is so beautiful! 

Abby, also beautiful, however, not a fan of me with the camera.  This is her face that says "Over. It." I have a feeling this will be a common expression in about 10 years when she's a teenager.

Kelly was nice enough to model Abby's for me.  I think this is a good look for her!

More hanging out.  Despite the chaos, there were some nice quiet moments.  It was so nice to all be together on Christmas!

Hair pulling. Typical. 

I caught this awesome cousin moment between Abby and Grace.  Aren't they so cute?!

Olive also got to spend a lot of quality time with her little cousin, Elizabeth.  Olive is a whole 13 days older than Elizabeth, so she tried to exert her dominance on her cousin through numerous baby wrestling sessions.  Elizabeth, being born into a house of chaos, can definitely hold her own!

And then, to add to the insanity, it was time for my birthday!!

We only put one candle on the cake because it was ice cream and I think 33 candles would have melted it.

I had a wonderful helper while I opened presents.  She mostly just ate the wrapping paper.

I can't believe this was all one day! More vacation adventures to come! 

6 Months!

Boy how time flies! Olive is already 6 months old (and I'm also a little late with this post since we were coming back from our trip when she turned 6 months).  I can't believe how much she's grown!

All baby photos are naked baby photos this month! We did our photo shoot after "dinner" (we're still working on solids - she had some pears...maybe a bite...and rice cereal this time!) and before bedtime. She was annoyed when I tried to put some clothes on her, so we did the pictures naked.   She loved it, of course.

Olive loves her feet.  She's rarely on her back without holding her feet...

Or putting them in her mouth!

During our trip she learned how to make raspberry sounds with her tongue thanks to Andy's aunt Sandy.  Guess what she hasn't stopped doing since?!

She loves to mimic us, too...raspberries are no fun if you have to do them by yourself!

This baby is oh so close to crawling.  She spends a lot of time on her belly doing a swimmer kick with her legs, trying to propel herself forward, but not really going anywhere.  (Rolling is still how she gets around).  

And her arms are getting strong.  The last few days, she's been so high up on them! She just needs to put the arms and the legs together and she'll be off! (and we need to baby proof...big time!)

She's also really good at rolling herself to places where she gets stuck.  Lately her crib has been a favorite thing to get stuck under.  She never gets upset about it, though, she's always so happy (even while she's getting over being sick)!

We just love watching her blossom into a fun little person.  Like I said, she's a really happy baby (making up for the colic months!) and she's just so busy.  I think we're in for some serious exercise once she gets totally mobile! She loves making faces and interacting with other people and there isn't much that doesn't make her laugh or smile.  I can't believe half a year has already come and gone.

Here are the monthly pictures so far! (Sorry they are formatted weird...the computer is not my friend today...)

Does she look chubbier to you?  We had to take her into the doctor this past week because she got sick on vacation and she's now 14 lb 2 oz! The last time we took her in, in mid-November, she was 11 lb 8 oz.  That's quite the weight gain! We'll get an "official" 6 month height and weight at her doctor's appointment this Thursday.  I think she's taller, too!

I'm off tomorrow to Juneau for work - and my first night away from Olivia.  Think strong thoughts for both me and Andy for what is sure to be a rough couple of days on the whole Naylor clan.  Then I'll be back to share all of our Christmas vacation adventures!