Christmas in Oklahoma!

Just one year ago, BJ and I stood in front of this Christmas tree for a picture with our ultra sound picture held to my belly. This year, Olivia gets to be on the outside of the picture! We have had so much fun in the great state of Oklahoma hanging out with our family! After getting so many presents, Olivia is getting really good at opening presents!Here are some of her presents: A singing/teaching refrigerator
A sock monkey hat made specially for Olivia!A booster seat that serves the purpose for entertaining while mommy and daddy eat!

An Olivia the pig doll. Notice...Olivia and Olivia are even dressed the same...not planned!We spent a lot of time haning out and playing! This little night gown is adorable! Our neighbor, her Wisconsin nana, made it! It's so hard to have a normal picture in my family...Someone is always being crazy! My dad is sporting the Packers shirt, even though he's not a fan! Johnnie is just being Johnnie...which we love!!

The only picture I could find of my parents together! They were usually busy handing out presents, cooking, and making sure everyone was happy!My brother and his beautiful bride! He got so lucky with her!!Crazy Averie! She is always keeping us entertained...that's for sure!The Mullins' Family. So cute!Speaking of cute...my grandparents! They have been married for 57 years! They have been such a great example for BJ and me to see!

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!!!

Last day of Class!

Today was our last day of class! Wow! 3 semesters of Bible school down, 1 to go. We just finished studying Galatians, Ephesians and Hebrews. In case you are wondering what my favorite verse from Ephesians is, here it is: "But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ." Awesome stuff. I am so thankful we get to spend two whole years just studying the Word of God...

Well, a good blog isn't possible without a cute video of Olivia. So, you wanted it, and now you've GOT IT!

Olivia's 8 months!!!

It feels like we just wrote the 7 month post, but here we are another month older!
So...here is Olivia at 8 months...

• She is sweet as can be. She loves to give hugs and kisses! She even makes an "awww" sound when she does it! Melts our heart!
• She can move from a sitting position to her belly
• She started eating cheerios. It's so funny...she makes the worst face! She can't quite put it in her mouth yet!
• She loves playing with feet and her shadow!!
• She creeps. I think that is her form of crawling.
• She started dancing when she is playing with her musical toys.
• She constantly makes a motor noise with her mouth.
• She still laughs A LOT! Last night, she tooted and looked at us and laughed. She did this a few times in a row, haha. She will also laugh if you burp or make a funny noise. So cute!
• She is still sleeping through the night and taking a short nap in the morning and a looong nap in the afternoon. She is such a great baby.

Here is her 8 month picture with Mr. Sock Monkey. This one was too cute to not put on the blog! She has her own personality!

I'll Be Home for Christmas...

You can count on me! Sorry, I have Christmas songs stuck in my head. Well, the end of the semester is just 2 weeks away, and we really will be "home" for Christmas, wherever "home" is. I guess that means Oklahoma City and Bella Vista.

Well, there's already snow on the ground here, and in honor of the snow I just put Jill's snowboard together! That's right, she is getting her first snowboarding lesson soon from me! It's going to be hilarious... Olivia is playing with her new toy that Mimi brought her, his name is "Tad." Yes, Olivia loves it!
While my mom was here she cooked for our friends! This is our Arkansas clan. Yep, we are all representing the South up here in the North!

I tried to write like I talk, because apparently that is what good bloggers do (like Jill, not me)...

The next Gerber baby?!?!

Well, we've entered Olivia into another contest! For those of you who don't know, she won a Coton Colors contest where people voted on their favorite picture. She won a frame attachment which was awesome! This is bigger and better...she could win a video camera AND possibly a $25,000 scholarship to college. Here's what you can do to help:

• Go to www.gerber.com/photo/?entryid=210762&/#/detail/
• Make sure Olivia's picture comes up
• Vote EVERY DAY this month!
• If that link doesn't work, you can use her id number (210762) to find her

Thanks for your help! It would be so awesome if she won!

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7 months!!!

Well, we are a little late in adding this 7 month picture! As you can see, she is getting so big!

Olivia at 7 months:

• She's sitting up completely on her own...we even try to nudge her and she doesn't fall!
• She has 2 bottom teeth! So cute!
• Her hair is coming back...and it's red!! Crazy! Thanks mom for that gene!
• She laughs all the time. It's quite funny! I take her to women's tea a lot and when we are all laughing, she starts laughing like she's one of us!
• When we prop her up to where she's standing, she can stand for a while, until she gets so excited that she falls over!
• She is just about to start crawling...yikes! Right now, she looks like she's swimming.
  
• She is eating fruits, cereal, vegetables, and meat (stinky!). We aren't really making them as much as we started out. It is so easy to go to the store and buy a jar :/
• She Loves, loves her pink monkey, tags, anything that makes a noise, laughing, singing, and attention (imagine that)!
• She is starting to say little sounds such as mamamama, dadadada, papapapa, and ABBA! Which is Aramaic for Father, like God! She's so smart!
• She got her flu shot :(
• And last but not least, Olivia loves driving! Well, sort of! She sits in her bumbo to eat and her treat if she eats well is to drive. We take the tray of the bumbo and
  

5 West is the Best, but 5 East is GREATER!!!!

This post should have been written a week and a half ago, but life has been busy. I (Jill) recently went to Chicago to attend my college roommate's wedding! It was so great to connect with my close group of friends from college and see my beautiful friend get married! The wedding was just perfect! I actually forgot that her husband is of Indian culture, so when I walked in the chapel, the whole right side of the congregation was Indian! It was so neat to see them all in their Indian dress! Anyways, the entire wedding was beautiful...it was totally Megan! We rode buses through Chicago to get to the reception and that too was great! I have to talk about the dancing...! Because there were a lot of Indians, I kept saying, "They HAVE to play Jai Ho, from Slumdog Millionaire." Well, lo and behold we were out there dancing and what song came on?!?! Jai Ho! It was indescribable...everyone came on the dance floor and formed a big circle and started doing Indian dances (like on the movie!) I was just so excited and tried to imitate them! I'm sure I looked stupid! haha, it was so much fun! The dancing was great, the food was amazing, the decorations were beautiful...everything was perfect! The best part of all was that I got to reconnect with all of my friends that I miss so dearly. We shared 4-5 great years together and will probably never all live in the same state again :( But will ALWAYS remain friends!The beautiful and HAPPY bride!!

Dad giving his daughter away...groom waiting patiently!

Kayla, TBone, aka...my sister (not really, but we always said we were). Cute bridesmaid dresses!

This picture is small (that's what I get for stealing it from Facebook!) This is one of my best friends so I had to add the photo in!

FRIENDS FOREVER (like on Zack Attack-Saved By the Bell!) We all lived on the same floor freshman year of college and became great friends! Oh, how I miss them! We're all just so grown up!!!

The Next Mozart?

Olivia is learning how to play the piano! No lessons of course... self-taught! We think she's pretty good... haha, and she thinks it is hilarious!

Mimi and Big Papa come to town

Mimi and Big Papa came to town this last weekend. We had so much fun! Mimi cooked Thanksgiving dinner for us and it was awesome! They also played with Olivia so that she didn't have to go to daycare. We also didn't have to do any dishes while they were here! We had a great time just hanging out and going to Chicago!

Olivia saw a horsey for the first time!
Olivia's new "playspot" ... she's going to be crawling soon!

Visiting Cheese country

Well, we realize that we haven't blogged in 2 weeks. We have been super busy and have so much to blog about...BUT...we have to write a much deserved blog! My 2 cousins flew into Cheeseland to visit us! We felt so honored that they would spend their hard earned money to come see us. We had to take a picture in front of the "Cousins" sub shop. We didn't eat here because it's a sub shop like subway. We at at Comet Cafe, Cosmos, and I cooked a few meals for them because we all poor!

We then toured the Sprecher factory to show them how Wisconsin makes beer and soda! You all should know what Sprecher is by now if you read our blog faithfully!! And yes we kept up our end of the deal...remember we said anyone who visits us gets a complementary Sprecher upon arrival!!

This is what we did a lot of the time...just spend quality time together (that's my love language!) Olivia loved all of the attention...that must be her love language too! It was so great just to catch up like the good ol' days!!

More hanging out! Olivia learned so much from her crazy aunts!! She learned how to give a high five, how to "Walk like an Egyptian", and much more! How she already misses them!

Oh how we look so happy in this picture, but we're quite sad now that they are gone. It seems like something is missing in our living room, and it seems like there is more room. We had such a good time with them and wish we could see them more often. It's so great when the 3 musketeers are together. Thanks for visiting girls!!!

Family Photoshoot!

We wanted to share with all of you our pictures that we had taken for Olivia's 6 month birthday. Our very good friends Jack and Lael took them at a cute park in Waukesha. It was such perfect timing, because the leaves were changing colors and such.