*** Edited @5:30pm - Added a video of Olivia watching Animal Crossing. She’s GLUED to the television! I also added an endearing video of Olivia with her Great Grandmother on Christmas Day.

Olivia received a lot of pretty clothes this Christmas, so we’re going to try to get some pictures up of her all dolled up in them as she grows big enough to wear them. There was a good mixture of 6 month and 9 month clothing, but given her current rate of growth, we don’t think it will be long before she’s in the 9 month clothes at all. All she’s missing is the length for them! I have also attached some videos. It takes a while to convert these from HD format to a web-friendly version, so that’s why were are only two to look at today.

In other news, we tried Squash without much success. She tolerates it, but she doesn’t love it like she does carrots or sweet potatoes. We decided after 3 days of no rashes, etc, that it was alright to start applesauce and hence introduce the concept of breakfast. She will now receive half a jar of applesauce and 2 tablespoons of rice cereal each morning. Naturally she loved it, though it’s a little tart since the stage 1 food doesn’t have added sugars. Soon I hope to be able to make her food all by myself instead of buying Gerber all of the time. I can get a whole bag of peas to last a week or more for what 1 jar costs of Gerber. I think I can spare the time on Sundays to make food for the week if you ask me!

Olivia is also quite fond of Animal Crossing: City Folk. We’ve been spending our mornings watering plants and watching Uncle Matthew and Aunt Elizabeth try to dig holes around the Mommy-Person and keep her from moving anywhere. TISK TISK! At least we’ve got peaches now, as our town only had apples. I’m still trying to figure out what is really different about this game as opposed to the other ones that have come before it. Nevertheless, Olivia is completely glued to the television when I’m playing. She even has taken to talking to the animals when I go into a conversation with them.

Olivia’s first Christmas was an adventurous one. Olivia was diagnosed with her first ear infection (thanks daycare!) last Monday and given some antibiotics to fight it off. Sadly, she seemed to get progressively worse as Christmas approached. We got to NC just fine without any trouble, but on the 23rd she got really fussy in the evening. By the 24th, she was refusing to eat. Maurice and I had to pin her down and force feed her with a syringe to ensure that she was getting ample fluids and nutrition. It was painful to watch her struggle, but she had to eat something! The day continued with this struggle until around 5pm when she started staring at the ceiling and panting. She refused to make eye contact. When we took her temperature it was 102.6 and still rising despite receiving Tylenol 45 minutes prior, so we rushed her off to the ER where she could be checked up on. Now, typically I would feel silly doing this, but it was the staring and panting that did us in. We would rather be safe than sorry, especially as fledgling parents. She received her x-rays to check for pneumonia, but she only had some inkling of it in her left lung. We took her back to the hotel and she slept it off.

It wasn’t until late on the 26th that things turned around. We decided to add structure to the evening by feeding her solids like we normally would do at home before her bedtime. We started out with the usual 1/2 jar of a vegetable (carrots this week, mmm) and 2 tablespoons of rice cereal. She sucked it back. We figured she’s starving, so we then gave her 3 more tablespoons of rice cereal, but she ate that all up in 5 minutes. Soooo on to the rest of the carrots, but that STILL wasn’t enough. Incoming 5 ounces of pedialyte to replenish her fluids and then she was finally satisfied with an additional 5 ounces of formula. Damn. She must have had that mythical hollow leg installed in the same Air Force Base as her daddy, because we don’t know where it went!

That was just the tragic part of our trip. The rest was awesome, but we know everyone was worried and wanted to hear what happened, so there it is. She’s doing just fine now and eating from her bottle again. It was so good to see family and enjoy the holidays despite the illness Olivia was suffering from. She was a trooper and kept her chin up the whole time regardless of the earache we’re sure was plaguing her. We have many cute outfits and gifts for Olivia that we hope to get pictures of soon for the blog. What better way to celebrate than to take pictures of those items with her in them and using them?

Santa was very generous this year to Olivia. She received Baby’s First Laptop, a musical cube, a baby bible, a farm animal book, and socks! What Christmas would be complete without socks!

Picture 1: Mommy and Olivia looking at what Santa brought!

Picture 2:  Grandma Mandy’s Tree

Picture 3: The stockings were hung by the chimney with care (and not Scotch tape, thank god, because they’d never stay up…)

Picture 4: Natalie chillin’ like a villain

Picture 5: Olivia playing with daddy by her Santa stash

Picture 6: A tired daddy rocking Olivia while the family opens presents

Picture 7: Uncle Danny holding Natalie

Picture 8: Grandpa Rick reading the scrapbook Olivia gave he and Grandma Ruth for Christmas

Picture 9: Natalie smiling big for the camera

Picture 10: Olivia holding onto her dolly and napping on the way to see the Seals

Picture 11: Grandma Evy and Olivia cuddling at the dinner table

Picture 12: Grandma Evy and Olivia playing

Picture 13: “The Great” rocking Olivia to sleep (we have video of this, but the car isn’t unpacked just yet and the camcorder is hidden under mounds of stuff! We’ll post it later this week, promise!)

Picture 14: Olivia watching TV in the hotel

Picture 15: Olivia and Grandma Mandy

Picture 16: Olivia playing with her laptop — she knows how to use the mouse already and it’s adorable… we need this on video, desperately!

Picture 17: Grandma Mandy holding Natalie

Picture 18: Grandma Mandy holding Olivia while she sleeps

Picture 19: Natalie completely zonked out in Aunt Sarah’s arms

We have made it home. All is quiet, Liv and Georgia are fast asleep.

Me?

I’ve just finished setting up a method to update both blogs and Facebook with one e-mail sent from my Blackberry. Funny enough, doing something like that actually relaxes me.

Have a good evening and check back soon for photo’s and videos.

It’s been a long week, traveling to NC, visiting Georgia’s family, visiting my family and now driving back to VA. Our visit started out with Olivia having a high fever and heading to the ER (she is fine now). Christmas day was crazy with driving back and forth between houses. My cousin fell ill right after dinner (he is fine now too) and so that was a bit too much excitement.

However Friday and today made up for it. Liv is feeling great and most of the family got to spend a good deal of time playing wither her.

We are traveling home now. It will be good to return to a bit of a normal pace.

We will post pictures and videos on our family blog soon.

Happy Holidays!!!

Hello from the tiny world hidden inside our new iPod touch! Christmas has come and gone, but we’re still holding on to our wits as we battle Olivia’s first ear infection. The poor baby has not had a good trip at all and even landed us in the ER on Christmas Eve with a high fever! Everything turned out alright, but it was a scare we did not need! We are going to need a few days to get back into our routine, but we will have pictures soon enough!!!