Pre-Xmas Festivities

I just liked this profile picture of Olivia. Makes her look sweet and innocent ;)

I'm also having a lot of fun playing around in Photoshop!

We went to Breeze Patten's mom's house in Laguna for her annual Christmas get-together. So funny to see everyone with their bambinos. It's nice that we still get together and hang out. Olivia had a little practice opening up a present. More to come, baby girl, more to come!


Olivia was very content sitting on Jill's lap as she read The Wheels on the Bus! Breeze and her new baby Keeley are in the background.

After that party we headed over to dinner at the Whitfield's. Olivia was modeling her new thermal underwear.

She Walks!

Olivia has been cruising for quite a while now, and although she would take a few steps on her own, she would crawl as soon as she fell. Now when she falls, she picks herself back up. She getting to be quite good at this walking thing. Granted, you can't tell from these pictures that she can do it alone; trust me, she can.

I love that she takes extra careful steps.

Such a little girl in a big world!

Marshmallow

OK, I don't usually encourage the sweets since Olivia points to every candy bar she sees and arches her back when we don't give it to her - but this poor girl had been in the ER all weekend and was pretty miserable, so we treated her extra special when she came back to herself! I made homemade marshmallows and Olivia enjoyed the leftovers...

She enjoyed it alot!!!

Grandma and Grandpa enjoyed spoiling the little miss.

Welcome back Olivia!

Grandma's Xmas Tree

Here's a picture of my mom acting silly while decorating the tree.

The end result!

Olivia with her Santa hat from last year. It's already too small for her big noggin-that's ok Olivia, it just means you have a big brain!

Olivia is not quite sure about the snow-producing Snow Man.

A Weekend at the ER

After a bout with roseola Olivia was scheduled to get her chicken pox and another vaccination on Friday, but when daddy picked her up from daycare she projectile vomitted on him and then she threw up again at the pediatrician's office. The doctor thought she had a stomach flu so they sent her home and told us to give her clear liquids and some TLC but if she threw up again in the next 24 hours we should take her to the ER - which we did on Saturday morning. The ER doc also thought it was just a stomach flu since there are apparently a lot of cases this time. Olivia received some medication to calm the nausea and she got a lot of rest that day. On Sunday, she was not eating or drinking and was very lethargic - not our typical Olivia! So we took her in and they ran a bunch of tests on her. Tests which did not make the already fussy girl happy at all: the doctor took (literally) her stool sample, then they put her on a catheter to get her urine (this was awful, awful, awful), they took blood and hooked her up to an IV. Not a happy little girl. Blood tests and urine sample confirmed a urinary tract infection so they gave her antibiotics.
She was very dehydrated so she seemed to perk up after getting some fluids, but was whiny and still seemed miserable. After six hours there the doctor was not comfortable sending us home and he wanted to rule out meningitis so he did a SPINAL TAP on Olivia. OMG. I had to leave the room with my dad and we left Vincent with Olivia to hold her down while the doctor did his work. Luckily the test came back negative and after she perked up we were sent home!

A very tiring day for us!

After lots of fluids and rest, Olivia was feeling a lot better. Happy to report that she's back to her spunky self!

Thanksgiving

We took a family picture but I still had the 50mm lens on which made the guys in the background blurry - oops!

Here's a picture of the dining room. As usual, mother did a good job setting the ambiance.

My brother Michael getting ready to grub.

Olivia enjoying her turkey. She eats turkey almost every day she loves it so much. We're afraid she might cluck soon.

Fancy Dress

We took some pictures by our Christmas tree before heading over to my parents' house for Thanksgiving. Olivia already wasn't feeling great. She wasn't her usual smiley self.

We managed to get a little smirk from her...

But it didn't last long. She certainly showed her discontent!

Little Miss Sicky

Wednesday at noon was the start of a nice long Thanksgiving weekend - or so I thought. Instead, Olivia came down with a high fever. She just wanted to be held all the time. Daddy is trying to comfort Olivia, but even her favorite bunny couldn't bring out a smile.

Olivia spiked at 103! She was not loving life and for the very first time, she refused to sleep in her crib.

We kept her cool with a wet rag, but the rag would warm up within seconds, so we added some ice cubes, but not for very long - we didn't want to give her brain freeze!


After a visit to urgent care, the doctor could not determine whether it was roseola or chicken pox. She wasn't very itchy so we figured it was roseola.

No, she didn't get into a fight at the park! Her eye swelled up and was halfway shut so, after freaking out like any first time parents would, we decided to take her to the emergency room. We called the pediatrician along the way and since the swelling went down he told us to go to urgent care instead. The swelling was just a little side effect of the roseola. Poor poor baby!