SIX YEARS OLD!

My little Livy Lou turned a big SIX last Thursday!

She unwrapped her presents before Daddy had to go to work. Dorito's was the first thing she saw in the bag and she has enjoyed every chip! Like Father Like Daughter.

Olivia loves her Leapster, but Carter loves it more!

stick-on fingernails. so much fun. not. (I'm still finding them stuck in my carpet.)

Carter really wanted to try the stick-on fingernails too. I knew Daddy wouldn't approve, but I had to give in to the near tears.

Olivia's birthday dessert.

She was a little concerned that she only got one candle. It was a good thing though because it took her about six blows to get it out. She's never been good at blowing out candles.

Did I really just post this picture? Embarrasing!!! I'm so glad that none of the party guests cared!




Olivia/Cruella Deville ready for her first birthday party with friends.




Olivia's cooking party!
(disclaimer: Olivia really wanted to invite more kids, but had to limit her. I feel really bad that Olivia doesn't have a nicer mommy...that is why she was only allowed to choose four friends...what a mean mommy I am!)




Olivia had to verify with me several times that she would get to make her own lasagna, before confirming the "cooking party" decision. All the party guests seemed to love putting exactly what they wanted on it.

Top L to R: Connor's (only sauce and noodles AND she ate it), Olivia's (she let me know that it was just like I make it), Jane's.

Bottom L to R: Rachael's (didn't notice if that top layer of noodle turned hard after being in the oven or not), Emily's (she should have won an award for having the best looking pan of lasagna), Carter's (still hasn't taken a bite of it).

Coloring on the aprons while we wait for the lasagna to finish baking.

Say, "cheesy lasagna!"

Eating a yummy lunch of lasagna and salad sticks (the kids made those too...what fun!)

Olivia and her *apron* cake (in case you couldn't tell what that was). AND SIX candles.

We finished off the celebrations by taking Olivia to Kabuto's for dinner on Saturday. Hibachi was her choice and I am always fine with that! So yummy and lots of fun! Her favorite part was when they sang her a song in Japanese.

Happy Birthday to my sweet girl! Isn't it scary to think that she's 1/3 of an adult's age? Okay, no more birthdays for Olivia!!!

Haylee and her sister

I do love seeing similarities in my kids...

Olivia at three months.

Haylee at five months.
Not as much of a fraggle rock hair-do, but we're getting there.




Olivia at about five months.




Haylee at six months.
(Olivia even took this picture.)




My sweetie of a baby:

Winter break

I've been lucky to have both Olivia & Aaron home the past two weeks! We've had lots of fun and been very busy...

This picture is WAY out of order and blogger isn't being cooperative in moving it to the correct place in this post and so we'll deal...

On New Year's Day we took the kids to Chuck E. Cheese's. Carter hadn't been since he was a baby and Olivia since her 3rd birthday. (That was a bad experience and the reason we hadn't returned until now.) They both had a lot of fun! Olivia bought cotton candy (apparently she's never had it before) with her tickets and we found out after getting home and she tryed some, that she doesn't even like it. Score!

Oh! Back to Christmas...

I took the kids to our city's community center to see Santa and have little story time with Mrs. Claus. The kids had rehearsed before hand what they would ask Santa for and didn't miss a thing when they got their turn.

Carter even got a Santa hug.

Wait! Carter did forget to tell Santa that he wanted a "Stinger." (a type of power wheels car) I reminded Carter that he had written it in his letter to Santa and should be okay.

The first real snow of the season. Olivia was overjoyed to make snow angels.

I promise to put more pictures of Haylee on here soon!!!
(Yes, her skirt is flipped up...very lady like)

One of Aaron's home improvement tasks during his winter vacation was to rewire our basement light switches (his idea...not mine...but I am glad he did it). A head lamp comes in very handy for jobs like that. Apparently Carter thinks he needs that head lamp to play Pac Man too.

Did any of that yogurt make it into your mouth?

Christmas Eve
We had no need for new pajama's and so the kids got new games (again, we had no need, but it's so much more fun) which we played immediately!

It was funny that Carter had never mentioned wanting Candyland Castle. In fact, he's never even played it before. But when he unwrapped it on Christmas Eve, he loudly exclaimed, "This is just what I always wanted!"

Mary, Joseph & baby Jesus (Haylee was in bed already).

Santa came!

(See Mom...this picture is for you...it DOES look like there are a lot of presents!)

Poor Olivia didn't wake to excitement. She had to run to the toilet and spew before she felt like hearing how Santa had visited our house.

Carter was overjoyed that Santa had brought them a Stinger Powerwheels. He was happy to sit in it while unwrapping his other gifts.

Bless Aaron for being such a hard worker! Aaron took on the BIG task of painting our wood panelled basement this week. Not only did he make sure everything was nailed down good, but he drove in each nail head, spackled over it and then sanded it down. That was two days worth of work before washing the walls & the two coats of primer could even start. Carter and Olivia were so excited to wak up on Monday morning to help Daddy paint the basemen though!

Aaron took on this big project because we had already purchased the paint to do this when we first moved in to our house (back in May 2007). After seeing the white primer on the walls, though, we decided that the nearly white paint we had originally purchased wasn't going to look good and so ended up purchasing a darker brown color to mix in with our white colors. (We are so cheap and couldn't bare to just not use the paint we already had.) What fun to concoct our own color ;)

So here is a before.

After!

(Call me boring, but I really like neutral colors.)

Again, before.

After!

I am so glad that Aaron spent all that extra time prepping the walls! They look so smooth and nice. Thank you Aaron for my new basement! Maybe I'll take up sewing again ;)

Aaron and I splurged on these storage cube shelves for all the toys.

Merry Christmas to us! hehe

Oh, Aaron and I also got a new generator for Christmas!

(I know, we are so exciting ;)

Can't...Keep...Up...

You may or may not have noticed that I have never gone three weeks without posting before. To be honest, my head spins when I think of all the things that need to get done in the next few weeks. Sadly, it's made me procrastinate more though. At least I am nearly ready for Christmas. In the mean time, nothing big has been missed except for the Christmas excitement from Carter & Olivia. Pictures can't really capture that though. Here is what the pictures have captured...

Carter is a VERY picky eater. More often than not, he doesn't like what I'm serving for dinner and so he has to choose. Cucumber or carrot. He thinks it is kind of neat to eat a carrot just like a rabbit.

Aaron helped the kids put together a gingerbread house. Is it gross that they eat it and think it tastes good?

Olivia's class Christmas party. Olivia was so nice to Carter at it. Wish she would be that nice to him at home ;)
I'm just glad that I wasn't in charge of it this go around.

We are really looking forward to Christmas. Although we don't get to spend it with our families, we have wonderful friends that will share part of their holiday celebrating with us. We also have many traditions that we get to carry onto our children. Those traditions bring back a lot of wonderful memories.
A new favorite quote of mine sums it up...
One of the biggest blessings is when we consider family our friends and friends our family.

We are so blessed to be able to do just that.
Merry Christmas!

Georgia '09

We got to spend Thanksgiving with family this year. It was a fun week spent with lots of cousins, food & shopping.

Hanging out with all the family after church on Sunday.

A quick visit with some Georgia friends...guess what Carter and Olivia are now asking Santa for Christmas?

Dalton playing me some tunes.

A big cousin "sleep" over.

Olivia & Papa

Grown-up Bella!

Carter and Olivia asked us several times if Bella was a grown-up or teenager. Neither. Still a kid! (But not for much longer)

Carter was so excited to drive the mower with Jason.

Haylee likes to look at the reflection in Aaron's sunglasses.

The day before we left, the weather was beautiful and so we all met up for lunch and playtime at a great local park.

There was an instant bond between Aaron and this little cutie. Natalie also loved observing baby Haylee.

Braden. The quietest of the bunch.

Grammy & Haylee

Although the drive to Georgia & then back home took longer this time (a few more lengthy stops for feeding Haylee), the kids did great. Now it's back to the grind.

Thanks for the good times Lunt family.