What a Difference a Year Makes!!

Here are the pictures of my sweet Olivia for her first Christmas and one from her second Christmas. As you can see, she is still my happy little girl! She has finally gotten more hair so that she can wear her bows!!!

9 Months Old

20 Months Old

Christmas Card Pictures!!!

So, I thought that I would try to take some additional pictures of Olivia for our family Christmas card. I had debated whether or not to get her pictures done professionally and use one of those pictures for our card. Well, I opted not to get any professional photos and to do them myself. BIG mistake!!

Here are some of the MANY pictures we took trying to get a decent picture for a card. Olivia has the funniest and sweetest personality and I wanted to capture that. Now I realize why I am not a professional photographer and why I should have gotten one to tackle this task. Lesson learned!

Okay....this last picture sums it up! I think we are going to go with one of the Santa pictures! These are very cute, but not what I was looking for for our Christmas card!

Santa Picture

Every year, my school's PTA has "Evening with Santa." This year I volunteered to work and helped greet families as they arrived. My favorite part was to escort Santa himself in and take him to his post! Matt brought Olivia so that she could give him her list and try to get a picture.



I was excited that the same Santa was here from last year! Olivia had her picture taken with 2 different Santas last year. Her best picture was with this Santa. Now that she is older and is understanding things more, I wasn't sure what was going to happen.



Things were okay until we were in line and many of the other children were flipping out! She started to get this concerned look on her face, so I crossed my fingers and hoped we could get at least one picture. Here is how it went... (the pictures are the ones Matt took while the photographer took the other ones. The flash makes some of the pictures really bright).





Mommy....I don't think I want to talk to Santa anymore....

Hey...what's this toy? (the photographer is trying to distract her.......)

This isn't that bad..... I am NOT going to smile though....

I am still thinking about this and no I will NOT smile!! This is as good as it gets! Can we go now?

The last picture was the best of what Matt took. I hope the photographer got better ones. SO far, this will be the Christmas card picture (after is edited because of the brightness). Of course, after I picked her up out of Santa's lap, she was all smiles and even started talking to Santa. Oh well! It was fun and there weren't any tears!

Thanksgiving 2009

We went to Columbia for our Thanksgiving break and had a wonderful time. We shopped, ate, visited with family, shopped some more, ate more, and even got a quick visit with a dear friend of mine. Here are a few pictures from our visit. I am bummed that we didn't get one of our whole family though on Thanksgiving!

We had our Thanksgiving meal at my aunt and uncle's house. We had a great time being with cousins, grandmothers, and GaGa Carter. I am so Of course, I didn't get any of the cousins (Olivia and Hannah) with their grandmothers and great grandmother.

Daddy with the girls!

Having some yummy beans and sweet potatoes! Olivia is still not eating a lot of meat these days, so she didn't have any ham or turkey. Thanks Hannah for letting us borrow your high chair!

Olivia was out before we all finished our meal, so she and daddy went downstairs for a nap and some football.

Olivia had gotten this adorable shirt from her NaNa, so she had a wardrobe change after her nap. Here she is with (Great)Aunt Jan trying to put on Hannah's shoes. Yes, she LOVES to wear shoes!! Too bad these were too small. She loved them!
Olivia was the DJ while Hannah was going to practice her singing. This time next year, I can see these girls putting on a show together. They would need their other cousin Grace to help show them some great dance moves!

The next few pictures are of Olivia around mom's (GaGa) house. Olivia was a busy girl this past week!

Olivia decided one night to feed her mommy and GaGa instead of feeding herself. I hadn't laughed that hard in a long time!! Needless to say, there was a lot of food on us before dinner was over.
Shopping with her new shopping cart! She walked around and put everything in her cart. (This may be a bad habit that I am promoting....unless someone else pays for her future shopping sprees~hint, hint grandparents.)

Reading in her favorite chair at GaGa's! I love this picture!! We have so much fun reading together, but I love to see her take a book and go "read" to herself. Hopefully this will continue.


Here is Miss Priss out at dinner with Pop Frank. We were so glad that he and Phyllis were in town for the ballgame so we got to see them too. We went to a fabulous dinner at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. Thanks Pop! As you can see, she is writing for us ~ with her left hand. She uses that hand most of the time. I have more pictures from dinner, but my computer isn't cooperating....

Finally, here is one of our last visits while in Columbia. I was so glad that Olivia and I got to go see one of my oldest and dearest friends, Elizabeth and her boys. This was the best picture that I could get of our little ones (minus Stuart who was running an errand with his daddy). I didn't get a picture of Olivia trying to give the boys a kiss goodbye. It was too cute! We enjoyed our quick visit and look forward to seeing you all again soon!

As you can see, we had a great visit in Columbia. We are so very blessed to have such wonderful family and friends. We are truly thankful for these blessings. We only wish that we could have been with all of our family and friends. We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Special Delivery!

Olivia received 2 packages yesterday from GaGa and NaNa. I of course was very excited with the goodies she got. Olivia was excited for a little while, but had more fun with the boxes! She is too funny!

Here are some other pictures of our silly girl around the house!

Yes! She is dancing again! I love it!!

My big girl!

Wearing Daddy's shoes!

Dance Party!

Yes, we have dance parties at the Loveless house. Tonight Olivia got her groove thing on! Matt put the tv on the music station and she started twirling and jumping around. It has to be one of the cutest things I have ever seen. It reminds me of my sweet niece, Grace, when she would dance when she was a baby.

It is moments like this that I am so thankful for this little angel. She brings us so much joy and laughter. I hope to get a video of her dancing so everyone can see just how cute she is. I do believe she will be on a stage one day!

HALLOWEEN 2009

Olivia had a great Halloween. She had her first Halloween Parade at her school and was a Georgia cheerleader. Too bad this didn't bring us any luck in the game the next day....

On Halloween we went over to the Coggins' to watch the GA/FL game and trick or treat! Olivia had a great time playing with Caroline and Jack while we watched the game. The girls even took a break from playing to watch the Dawgs play. Again...wish it would have brought them some luck!
After a great dinner, we got the kids dressed and headed out to Trick or Treat! Olivia had no idea what was going on at first, but she followed Jack (Thomas the Train). They rode in the wagon together and had a great time. I knew she was having fun when she kept taking the candy out of her pumpkin and started eating it (with the wrapper!). We only went to a few houses, but it was just enough for this little girl. I am already looking forward to next year!! I think she may have more of an opinion about what she will be!

Here are a few pictures that captured the fun time we had! Thanks again Coggin family for having us over!

Yes! It was raining a little! That is why our little ladybug had on a hat!

Olivia's first house! She was a pro!

I love this picture! Chillin while chewing on her first tootsie roll!

Decisions, Decisions

As many of you know, I am terrible when it comes to making decisions. The older I get, the harder it is for me to make them. So you can imagine how hard it is for me to get this whole blog thing going. How to set it up, what to call it, etc.

Well, after much thought, I decided to go with Life's Blessings since this blog will mostly be devoted to Olivia and what she is up to. I look at everyday as a blessing because the Lord blessed us with her. We prayed for so long for her and after many years and much heartache, we were finally blessed with this angel. She makes every day so special. I am constantly reminded of God's love when I see her beautiful smile. He has so many wonderful things planned for her and I can't wait to watch and support her every step of the way.

Now......what do I need to do next for the blog?

Taking the Plunge

Okay...so I am still trying to decide IF I am going to start blogging. I really don't have a lot of extra time to blog, but I love the idea of keeping track of Olivia's activities. I have a baby book for her and I write down her milestones. I also have a journal that I try to use to write down all of the extras (funny moments, school happenings, etc). When someone told me that I could have a blog and then send it off to be printed, I knew that I really needed to start a blog if only for that!



I love reading all of my friends' blogs and enjoy keeping up with them and their children through them. Hopefully I will be able to understand how this whole thing works and keep up with what's going on in our lives. We shall see....