Visiting Tesera and Flying Home

Ok, I have 2 new posts here and they are out of order. My brain hurts from trying to fix them, so in the interest of continuity, scroll down to the Christmas post first, THEN read this one.

Visiting Tesera

Instead of driving home with my husband and his brother Alex, I decided to stay a couple of extra days with my sister in law Tesera to see her new house. They live in Newport Beach, about an hour and a half from where we were. Olivia got carsick on the way out and threw up 3 times during the trip. SO GROSS. We couldn't really stop to clean her off, so Olivia kept saying, "Please wipe me off!! WIPE ME OFF!!" Tesera and I had to open the windows on the freeway to keep from tossing our own cookies from the smell.

The weather was gorgeous, so we took the girls to the park. Olivia had never seen sand, since all of our parks have wood chips. She couldn't have cared less about the fun park equipment, she just wanted to dig in the sand.

Olivia and Lucy are only 6 weeks apart.

I think Olivia learned that face from Rylee...

We took the girls to the Fashion Island mall. Can you tell what her favorite part was?

Watching the fountains.

We let the girls ride the carousel at the mall. It was so fun. Thanks, Tesera, for letting us stay! We can't wait until we get to come back!

Going Home

My in laws let me use a Southwest pass so that Olivia and I could fly home. I was SO NERVOUS about flying with her all by myself. If it had been a straight flight it wouldn't have been as big of a deal, but we had a layover in Phoenix for an hour and a half. The first flight was only 45 minutes long and Olivia was a DREAM. She didn't get grouchy once and she kept talking to the lady sitting next to us. It was SO fun.

Before we could take our second flight, we had to kill an hour and a half, so we explored the Phoenix airport. The moving floor was obviously the highlight. The second flight was a total nightmare. Olivia was over travelling and since she qualified as a free lap-baby, she had to sit on my lap for the entire hour and a half flight. We were squished between to other people and she was screaming, crying, and smacking the lady next to us with her flailing arms. It was ROUGH. BUT, we survived and I'm SO glad to be home. My own bed never felt so good.

The Annual Christmas Mega-Post

Ho.Ly.Cow. I have so many things to write about. SO MANY. I thought about doing one ginormous post to just get it over with, but when I counted the pictures I didn't even know if it would let me do so many in a single post. So forgive my two-post wonder. Ok? Ok.

Now. Pictures.

Before Christmas

We arrived in California six days before Christmas, so we did a bunch of things before the big day.

Olivia jumped on the trampoline.

She tried to swim in the pool. A few times.

I took Olivia to her first movie ever. We saw the Princess and the Frog. She insisted on bringing the purse in her lap. She had to sit on a booster seat to be able to see the movie, but the whole 20 lbs of her body wasn't quite enough weight to keep the seat of the chair from flipping up. Periodically throughout the movie I'd glance over and notice that her legs were beginning to impede her vision, so I would get her down, pull the wedged booster chair out, and stick her back into her seat. She was GREAT during the movie. She loved it.

Olivia got lots of kissing from Roxie-dog. It's no long "dowg" as she used to pronounce it. She even shortens it to "Rox" sometimes.

She enjoyed Nana's stickers.



Christmas Eve



On Christmas Eve my in-laws throw an enormous party for family and friends. We have a White Elephant gift exchange, eat way too much food, and the kids do a small nativity program.

Here we are preparing for the nativity program. Olivia was the angel and refused to wear her sparkly halo. Instead she insisted on sitting on her pink blanket.

Olivia had a speaking part, something to the tune of, "I'm the angel. I spoke to the shepherds on the hill. 'Fear not, for I bring you good tidings of great joy.'" I was so proud of her, she said the whole thing, loudly, for the 35 people in attendance.

Another Ellsworth Christmas Eve tradition is receiving new Christmas pajamas. Here's Olivia unwrapping hers.

I won the Cooties game in the White Elephant exchange and it was a big hit.

Olivia and Lucy in their Christmas pj's, harrassing the sad dogs that had to stay outside during the party.


Christmas

Sherri got the girls an enormous doll house.

Christmas morning. I kept telling Olivia that it was time to get up to see what Santa brought and she kept telling me, "No thank you, Mom. I am still sleeping!!" Could she be any more of her father's child??

Discovering the doll house.

Sherri also got the girls a fabulous playhouse. It took Isaac and me 4 hours worth of teamwork to put that bad boy together. But it was oh, so worth it.

More jumping. And seriously wild hair.

More playing with the doll house.

Feeding her brand new baby. It's even scented to smell like a clean little newborn.

After Christmas

We stayed until the following Monday after Christmas.

Getting love from Tesera's dog, Penny.

Olivia's First Haircut

Olivia got her very FIRST haircut today! It was getting seriously scary and I've been wanting to do it for ages, I just had to convince a certain man in our lives that it was a good idea. My sister Michelle works for a salon as a receptionist, so she got Olivia in for her trim FOR FREE (other than the tip that the stylist deserved for being so great with little O).

I didn't know how Olivia would do; she doesn't handle new situations very well. As I suspected, the minute we tried to sit her in her chair, she freaked out and started to cry. Luckily the salon is equipped for Olivia's type of clientele. She got to sit on my lap instead of the booster chair AND she got a sucker. Once the sucker was in her mouth, she happily sat still for the entire haircut. She admired herself in the mirror and felt special because I let her hold her sucker all by herself.

It took maybe 5 minutes. At the end I even asked the stylist to take a little more off. But don't tell my husband that.

Pre-haircut and just finished crying.

Still pre-haircut.

I am KICKING myself because I forgot to take a good BEFORE picture. I've put a couple of pictures from earlier this week below. You can at least see the side of her hair and how it had like 12 different layers at 12 different lengths.

Aaaaaand, post-haircut!

I love that she's posing with her head, even though her eyes can't see the camera.

Her natural curl made it a little bit challenging, but OHMYGOSH, her hair is so much better!!

P.S. We are leaving for a nice long stay in California tomorrow, so I'll see you after Christmas!!!

Hold The Sugar Plums

Long story short, last night I had to move Olivia from her portable crib to her regular crib. I crept into the room and picked her up as gently as I could. Her little eyes cracked open to peek up at me, then suddenly she jerked upward, and demanded,

"HEY! Where did Santa go??!"

I love that little insight into her dreams.

This pic is unrelated, it just cracks me up.

A List

Please note, the majority of the numbers on this list are grossly exaggerated approximate.

7 days in quarantine due to Olivia's cold.

50 picture books read.

700 times Olivia asked to "spin on the spinning chair" (the computer chair.)

7,000 brain cells likely dead from said spinning.

68 block castles built.

68 block castles strewn across the floor.

35 episodes of Sesame Street watched. This one is more accurate than I'd like to admit.

5 lbs likely gained from inactivity.

4 time outs given to Olivia for using the words "Shut up".

4 times Olivia tried to get out of time out by telling me she was really saying, "Shut up and down" or "Shup" which are obviously different words than the ones she isn't supposed to use.

"I not saying shut up, Mommy! I saying shut up and down!"

6 times Olivia has told me, "None of your business!" in response to questions I've asked her. I'll give you one guess as to which parent taught her that one.

2 days we've actually gotten dressed and ready for the day in the last week.

2 days of school for me, which happen to coincide with days gotten dressed and ready.

4 days until we leave to California for our Christmas vacation.

0 loads of laundry done in preparation for Christmas vacation.

500 times Olivia has asked, "We going to Nana's house TODAY??!"

30 tantrums begun with the words, "MOMMY, I GOT A STUFFY NOOOOOSE!"

895,237,550 bubbles in Olivia's first bubble bath, taken today out of the desperation born from having no feasible activities left to do around the house.

Oh, yeah, and 1 pair of "scary monster teeth" worn to "scare the monsters away".