A Visit with Papa

It's always fun (and a little exhausting) to cram in so many Olivia-friendly activities in such a short time. Olivia had a ball playing with her Papa, and I know he had just as much fun with her. She's changed so much since we visited in November.
We went to the park a few times. Olivia and Papa fed the ducks at one of the parks we like. They were much tamer this visit. I'm guessing they weren't as hungry.
We also went to the Children's Museum. Our normal hangout, The Tot Spot is being remodeled so they opened the museum an hour earlier for kids Olivia's age. She got to enjoy the rest of the museum without being trampled by the bigger kids.
Friday Luis took the day off and we all went to the Bayou Wildlife Park. It was SO COOL. We took a tour of the park on a little train and the animals came up to us to be fed. The camels by far were the friendliest. It took us about ten minutes to even get into the park because some of the animals stood in front of our car and would not move! We can't wait to go back!
Saturday we took Olivia to Chuck E Cheese for the first time. If we never go back again it will be ok with me. Talk about chaos! She seemed to be ok with the place until Chuck came to our table for a visit. She looked at him for about 20 seconds and then started to scream. After that she wouldn't even go on any of the rides because most of them had characters on them.
Now we're just trying to get back to normal around here. We're already missing Papa, and we can't wait for Grandma's visit in March!!

Hey Luis

Scroll down and check out the picture on the right. Hint Hint...

Winterfest

On Saturday we took Olivia to the Pearland Winterfest at a local park. Although she didn't participate in any of the "winter activities," (She's a little too young for ice skating), Olivia still had a blast. She had went on a carnival ride BY HERSELF for the first time. Luis and I almost had heart attacks. While she was on the ride I was trying to recall my days working in the ER....I'm sure I've seen kids injured on these things. The guy running the ride didn't seem to be a rocket scientist. But she survived and didn't seem to phased by it.
Her favorite part of the whole day was the petting zoo. I could have watched her in there all day. At first she was barking at the goats. I think she thought they were dogs :) Unfortunately she didn't' like the pony ride so much. She got really excited when she saw them from afar, but once up close she was not into it.
She had so much fun she fell asleep on the way home and ended up napping for over 3 hours! We will definitely be going back next year!

Happy 2009!!!!

Our New Years was a little on the quiet side, but that was just fine by us. I took Olivia to a New Years Eve party at the Children's Museum. They do a New Years count down at 12 noon for all of the kids, but we didn't stick around for that. It was so crowded and Olivia was moving almost too fast for me to keep up with. Our friends Robyn and Barrett came along and we went out for lunch afterwards. We stayed home and I made enchiladas for dinner. They weren't bad for my first time.
New Years day was pretty lazy. Olivia finally got to try out her wagon and Luis and I took her to the park.

Olivia's Favorite Things

Since we're getting ready to ring in the New Year, I thought we'd do a countdown of Olivia's favorite things of 2008.


10. Singing songs (especially The Itsy Bitsy Spider, she tries to do the gestures)
9. Reading stories (Her current fav, "Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See?)
8. Elmo everything
7. Mandarin Oranges
6. Jacks Big Music Show
5. Going to the park
4. Chick Fi La chicken strips (no nuggets for her!)
3. Shoes!
2. Animals. She starting to make animal sounds :)
1. Mimicking her mom in everything she does. "Helping" me in the kitchen, pretending to talk on her phone, and now getting into my makeup drawer. Uh-oh.

Merry Christmas 2008

This Christmas it was our turn to stay in Texas, and I'm kind of glad we did. With all of the cold weather and snow up north, traveling would have been a pain. Luis's parents came up for a visit on Christmas Eve. We(I) cooked dinner and we attempted to go to Christmas Eve mass but we had a flat tire. We ended up going to the bilingual service Christmas day. That was interesting.
Olivia was not too happy about wearing her Christmas dress at first. She had a huge fit while I was dressing her, and when we were finished she tried to get Luis to put on her tennis shoes instead of her black dress shoes. What's happening to my girlie girl?
It was so nice to have Olivia wake up at home on Christmas morning. I don't know who was more excited Luis and I, or Olivia. At first she wasn't sure about the presents, but once she opened the first one she was all about it. The only problem was she didn't want to stop at the wrapping paper. She wanted the toys opened and out of the boxes ready for playing!
Grandma and Grandpa left on Friday and I could tell by Olivia's face how sad she was to see them go. Hopefully we'll make another trip down to Brownsville soon.

Olivia's first snow (in Texas)

I apologize for neglecting our blog lately. It's just the time of year.....
This Texas weather certainly has been strange. We had snow a few weeks ago, and now it's looking like it will be 77 degrees for Christmas (yuck!). It's been flucauating so much I'm just hoping Olivia doesn't end up getting sick. We had to take Olivia outside to check out the snow, and of course, the person most impressed by it was...Luis.
I've been baking lots of Christmas cookies this year, and thank God most of them have been given away! Olivia was my taste tester.
Last Sunday in church we sat closer to the front and near the choir. Olivia clapped and said "yay" after every song. Everyone around us laughed. Maybe she'll be in the choir one day!