Merry Christmas

We hope that everyone had a very Merry Christmas. We had a great (but busy) Christmas here. The weekend before Christmas we had the Topolski's, the Dean's and the Thornton's over for brunch. Here is a picture of Ethan and Olivia opening her present from the Topolski's and a picture of Olivia playing with her new toy! Thanks again for the presents!! The rest of the weekend was spent shopping and preparing for Christmas. On Christmas Eve we went for a tour of streets of houses that all decorate their house with Christmas lights. Ethan loved the lights and especially the houses with reindeers.

On Christmas morning we all slept in until 9:00 a.m. and then were joined by Uncle Kirk to open presents. Here is a picture of Ethan and his new car!!! He was a little scared at first, worried that Lightning McQueen was going to start moving and talking (he thought it was going to be exactly like the one in the movie. After a little while, he started to like it!! After we opened up presents and got organized, we headed down to St. Catharines for some more presents and a very yummy dinner with my whole family. Ethan had a great time playing with Casey and Bailey and Olivia loved being cuddled by all her aunts and cousins!

Today we braved the malls for some Boxing Day sales. Scott was particularily lucky in his shopping endeavours. He is out right now looking for a new TV for his basement (which he may be able to buy after next Boxing Day). Then back to work tomorrow....

Olivia's First Birthday

Sorry for the delay in posting but work is interferring with my blogging time!! As I write (10:22 p.m., I am waiting for a call from another lawyer).

We had Olivia's birthday parties on the weekend. She was a little bit sad at times (turns out she has another ear infection) but still had fun! On Saturday night we had the family over for dinner, the family keeps growing with the addition of Kevin and his kids. We had about 20 people total. Olivia had fun playing with all the little girls. Ethan loved playing with Kevin's two girls, especially Casey. Here is a picture of Olivia playing with Courtney and one of her unwrapping her presents.

Once that party was done, we had to prepare for her kid party the next day. Courtney, Caitlyn and Carly slept over on the Saturday night to help prepare things. Scott and Caitlyn ended up going to Toys R Us at 11:00 p.m. to get some more stuff for the loot bags, lucky Toys R Us is on Christmas hours.

The next day we had Gymboree come to do an hour class. Olivia woke up late and was a little bit sad during the class (in retrospect her ears likely hurt as she had just woken up), but the older kids had a great time. Once the class was done and we were having lunch, Olivia started feeling better. She was more interested in her cake than Ethan was which made Scott happy. I think we tried to interest Ethan in his 1st birthday cake by putting cereal on the cake. With Olivia we used her toy tiger.

We hired a nanny tonight to take care of Olivia in January. With this ear infection that doesn't seem to want to go away, I didn't want to put her in daycare (where she would be guaranteed to get sick). I am a little bit nervous about someone other than family being with her but this nanny comes from a good agency with good references and Olivia seems to like her, so hopefully it will work out!

Will try to post some more pictures from her parties later this week!

Ethan's Christmas Party

Last Friday, Ethan had his Christmas Concert with his Montessori class. Even though he had been singing the Christmas songs around the house since late October, he wasn't too interested in singing at the concert. But he looked cute in his costume!! Here are pictures of Ethan and Olivia from that night.

We have had a busy week getting ready for Olivia's birthday this weekend. Scott and I took the kids to the mall on Tuesday to have their pictures taken with Santa. The picture turned out cute (even though Olivia wasn't smiling)! The mall Santa looked more like the real thing than the Santa at the Christmas Concert, luckily the kids didn't seem to notice.

Auntie Jen and her friend Casey (and her three kids) come over this afternoon. Ethan had fun colouring with Casey's two little girls and Olivia hung out with Tristian (and he was also very happy to see his Auntie Jen!!)

Stay tuned for pictures from my little girl's birthday party!!!

Back From Florida

We arrived home from Florida late Thursday night. We had a great time. The accommodations were great (thanks in large part to Steve and Wendy), the weather was nice and warm and the company was great.

We spent the first part of our vacation with Jerry, Michele and Truman. Ethan loved the extra attention he got from Jerry and Michele and Jerry got to try out his discipling skills on a couple of occasions. Olivia loved having someone sitting beside her in the car at all times, ready to replace her soother if necessary!! We all had fun watching little Truman swim for the for time and seeing him in his sunglasses, he looked adorable!! The second part of our trip was spend with our friends Gerry, Lynn and their two kids Shelby and Taylor. Ethan and Shelby had a great time playing together, as long as they weren't in the condo or fighting over who got to push the elevator button!

Now we are home and trying to get back on schedule. While we were in Florida Ethan had very few naps (which he still needs) and both kids went to bed pretty late each night. Tonight they were both asleep by 9:30, which is much better than the 10:30-11:00 bedtimes of late!!!

Olivia loved swimming - she spent the whole time smiling and giggling. Ethan loved swimming, playing basketball with Scott, mini-golfing and going down water slides. We took them to Animal Kingdom and Disney World. They loved the rides and the fireworks!

Busy week ahead - getting ready for Olivia's birthday parties, Jen's visit and returning to work.....