Merry Christmas To All!

Christmas sure snuck up on us this year!  Between Nick wrapping up his semester of school and Becky working more at her new job, we were one of those last minute shoppers frantically running around the mall this past weekend.  On Monday morning we drove over to Phoenix to spend a couple days with Becky's family for Christmas.  It's been a short trip, but so worth it-- it's so adorable to see the cousins starting to interact and play with each other more!  We had a wonderful Christmas Day, full of generous gifts and delicious food.  We love Christmas time!

Olivia and cousin Logan (11 months)

Playing with Grandpa Brian

Trudy, just waiting for one of the babies to drop some food on the floor for her to eat!

Silly babes!

Opening Christmas presents...

Olivia and Grandma Sharon

How to Decorate A Christmas Tree, By Olivia

Olivia's 1st BirthThanksDayGiving!

So everyone was looking forward to Thanksgiving, November 28th, all November long.  But instead, our family was looking forward to November 27th...OLIVIA'S FIRST BIRTHDAY!!

To be honest, I think we were more excited about it than Olivia, but she got into it as the day went on.

We started off the day by singing "Happy Birthday" to Olivia when she woke up.  She loves music so she thought this was pretty funny.  Then we opened a few presents!

Peekaboo!

The love for Legos begins young in the Thacker family!

Then we went and saw the new Disney movie "Frozen", it was so cute!  Olivia was good at sitting and watching it for most of the time, but toward the end she got tired and a little fussy.  When it was over we came home and she took a long  birthday girl nap.  Then we opened the rest of her presents!  She got pretty good at helping take off the wrapping paper.

After playing with her new toys for a while it was time for birthday cake! 

Olivia is a pretty cautious little girl and usually doesn't like trying new foods or touching new things, but she played with her cake for a little and even ate a tiny bit!

Olivia loved all of her presents!  It was a pretty awesome first birthday :)

Oh yeah, and then the next day was Thanksgiving!  It was just the three of us at home, but we made a delicious feast!

"Yum!"

Olivia also got to play lots more with her new toys.

Olivia loves to make music/dance to all the music her new toys play.  She especially liked the music when we watched "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles" that evening.

We are SO grateful for all our recent blessings, especially Becky's new nursing job and our beautiful one year old little girl!

Round of Applause

Bathrobe Babe

Nick's 26th Birthday!

This past week was Nick's birthday!  Lucky for him, it turned into a week-long celebration :)

On Monday Olivia and I decorated the house for Nick and finished wrapping all of his presents.

On Tuesday night we pretended it was Nick's real birthday!  He got some awesome stuff!  After opening presents we (aka mostly just Becky) sang "Happy Birthday" to him and we enjoyed some delicious apple pie.

(Nick was nice enough to let Olivia help him open his presents-- after all, her birthday is coming up later this month and she needs to get some unwrapping practice in before then.  Surprisingly, she was more interested in the paper than what was wrapped in it...)

Wednesday was Nick's official birthday, but unfortunately he had to spend the whole day at school.  A friend from his program took him out to dinner though, so that was a fun treat for him.

On Thursday we spent the day at Disneyland, where Nick got to wear a birthday button and lots of people told him Happy Birthday!

Ok I know Olivia looks very unhappy here, but she really did have a good time celebrating with her dad!

Much better!  Here's Olivia happy as a clam!

Then on Friday Nick got to finish assembling one of his favorite birthday gifts: a movie theater Lego set. Nick's had his eye on this bad boy for a while now and he was pretty excited to get it.  It's pretty awesome, so it may have to stay out on display in our apartment for a couple months.  All in all, it was a delightful birthday week!

Tricks and Treats

We had a lovely Halloween last week!  We spent the day at Disneyland and were thrilled with how empty it was-- guess no one wanted to celebrate with Mickey Mouse!  The downside was we spent Halloween night in the car...driving back home in horrible LA traffic.  Oh well, that's life.

Silly Miss Olivia continues to make us smile with the cute little tricks that she learns.  One morning she just started eating her Puffs like this...huh.

She is such a sweet treat, and in this month of gratitude (and birthdays), we feel so grateful to have her!

It was a little cold this morning!  Perfect weather for a little jacket-sharing cuddle.

Just look at her cheesy grin...

Strongest baby in the world!

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

It's autumn time, hooray!  We've had lots of fun this October doing seasonal activities with Olivia during her first autumn.

We started out the season by enjoying a very Halloween-y Disneyland!

         

We also went to a pumpkin patch!  Olivia was fascinated the entire time we were there.

So excited!

Then Saturday night was our ward's "Trunk-or-Treat" Halloween party.  After weeks of serious contemplation, we finally decided what to be-- the Peanuts gang!  Nick was Charlie Brown, Becky was Lucy, and Olivia was Snoopy.  Even though our costumes were homemade and compiled on a low budget, they turned out pretty good.  Olivia, of course, was the cutest and got all the attention at the party!

Snoopy, always on the move!

Our trunk/Lucy's stand

Charlie Brown and Snoopy