Today was the day we returned Grandma Randi to our local airport so that she could embark on her trip back home. Olivia was eager to head back to where we’d been four days prior, drawn dually by the prospect of actual airplanes and the coin fountain in the airport’s lobby.
Olivia situated herself in a familiar position to get an extreme closeup of Mommy's birthday cookie cake.
Olivia got a digital camera for being more nice than naughty this year. All of the above shots, with the exception of the bookends of her in action, are from the hodgepodge of memories captured by our digital darling.
Olivia left a Hershey Kiss, cookie, and mug of chocolate soymilk for the jolly guy in a red suit.
…when all through the homestead, these three creatures were stirring, in their pajamas bright red.
Olivia stomped around our local mall in her pink cowgirl boots – an early Christmas gift from Great Grandma Moose. She got a little stir crazy by the end of the shopping trip, an excursion that abruptly ended when she knocked down then crawled in a display at Sears in an attempt to make a human ice cream cone.
Evidence that parental influence on political party persuasion starts early.
Doctor Too-Little made a house call to A.J.’s this evening for a holiday gathering/annual checkup. Olivia got this great getup as part of a gift exchange and wasted no time applying the Hippocratic Oath. A.J. received a clean bill of health and Olivia practiced good chairside manners by reading stories with her patient.
…our true love saw for herself, a very early Christmas present. Olivia could barely contain her excitement when a digger/bulldozer appeared across the street.
Catherine Newman, a wonderful writer and mother of two, asserts that all parents secretly believe that they’ve got a baby Mozart on their hands as soon as the kid can pull to standing and bounce along to music. It’s at that moment that parents everywhere shrug modestly and offer, “He just really seems to have this great sense of rhythm – we don’t know why.” Well, we try our best to avoid such delusions of grandeur, although I must admit that her flair on the accordion has us dreaming of college scholarships and musical showcases.
The adage that a dog is a man’s best friend doesn’t tell the whole story. Our Max holds a special place in a little girl’s heart. Olivia loves to shower her pawed pal with affection and random hugs.
Given that she has two chocoholics for parents, it’s no surprise that Olivia also has a hankering for confectionaries made of cacao beans, all of which explains why Christmas will be arriving earlier for our family as a result of the accelerated pace of our chocolate-themed advent calendar.
When choosing where to shop for groceries, we don’t necessarily go where we’ll find the freshest produce or the best deals, but rather where we can best contain our spitfire. These car-carts are fairly effective, but as you can see, once she’s unbuckled her seatbelt, she’s hanging out the passenger-side window.
We had been working on allaying Olivia’s anxiety about bearded fellows for several days by the time we made it to the front of the line to see Santa. His helper elves were as helpful as could be, having taken Olivia’s hand and verbally prepping her for a lap sit with the Great Giver of Gifts. However, somewhere between the elf station and his chair, she completely lost it. So for the second straight year, Mommy figures prominently in Olivia’s picture with Santa. And much like last year, the gift she received amounted to a consolation prize.
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