Additions...

See Gracie, See Gracie looking like an over grown sheep....

See Gracie's babies, See babies numbered 1 & 2

See babies 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 & 8!!!!

See the exhausted mama napping with her babies....

Needless to say - things have been a bit busy around here, and THIS was just the tip of the iceberg, but the most fun!!

ANYONE want to buy a Puppy????

SO....since the day Olivia was born I (Sue) have always said she cannot have her ears pierced until she asks. I am not sure why I have always felt so strongly about this. I personally do not like to see babies with their ears pierced. Nothing against the parents that do it, I just have never liked it.

Well, guess when I stated my feelings I should have put an age on the condition as well. Laura has asked Olivia for as long as she has been able to talk, "do you want to get your ears pierced?" To my delight Olivia has always responded with a resounding "NO!"

So...the other day they were driving to school when Olivia asked, "Mama, when can I get my ears pierced?" To which Mama replied - "This weekend!"

Well, I guess I had to come to terms with this. I still feel she is a little too young, but it was her decision. We discussed it throughout the week - how she would have to take care of her ears for 6 weeks or so, she would nit be able to change the earrings for awhile, how it would hurt like a shot. She never faltered. The kicker is that Laura asked me to call around for information and prices!!

So, when she and Laura left for the mall this afternoon I hugged Olivia, kissed each ear lobe, sent them with the camera and wished them well.

Here is the before picture....

And here is the after...

I have to admit, she does look very cute. She does look a little older and maybe that was my issue. Kids grow up way too fast, I just want to hold onto my little girl as long as possible.

Well, I just tucked her into bed snuggling her puppy and wearing her fairytale PJ's...so I guess the little girl is still there! - Laying flat on her back because she does not think she can turn her head - the earrings might fall out!

Happy Valentine's Day

Ok...did I say 2 times a week?? What I really meant was 2 times a month...yeah that's it!! I guess we really are slackers...Anyway...

Happy Valentine's Day!! Here is Olivia writing her obligatory Valentine's cards for school...

And here she is in her Valentine's best....

Notice anything new.....? You need to look REALLY close....

Read the next post for the answer....I promise, it is coming right up!!

Olivia's Pictures

So...we are long overdue for a posting and we really have no excuse for not posting...except that we are lazy. OK it is not that we are lazy...just busy doing other mundane daily activities of living. Believe me, I would rather be able to post daily. I (Sue) will make it a goal to post at least twice a week. Now that I see that Picasa Picture program can upload photos directly...it will make it a simpler process. So, without further chatter...on with the post.

This past weekend Laura, Olivia, and I went to visit my grandfathers in Connecticut. I will post more about the weekend later this week. What I did want to show you is the wonderful photographer Olivia is becoming. She was snapping away all weekend, and continued when we returned home. Here are some of the "better" pictures.
Enjoy....

Back to normal life...

Well, we are finally back to somewhat normalcy in our little part of the world, and I realized today that we ( I ) havent posted in over a month!

A quick post to catch you all up on our going-ons ( is that a word???) :

December 11th we had THE ICE STORM!!! NOT NOT fun and I never want to have the priviledge again! We went to bed knowing it we were due to get hit with a storm, never realizing exactly what we were in for. We woke up around 4a.m. to a freezing cold house with no power! We quickly grabbed Olivia to join us in our bed, and tried to sleep a couple of hours more... Around 6:30 or so we all got up to find the world a glistening wonderland...

This is actually two shots, one of Livie's swingset, and the second of the icicles lining the entire house...

We spent the day at my work, luckily 2 miles up the road, with heat and some power - thank God for generators! That night and the next were spent at Sues moms, only 20 minutes away but a town not hit by power outages! Our power was restored late Sat evening - around 9pm, so we were out a total of 44 hours or so, others in our area were out for a full week depending where their houses were. In total 370,000 homes in NH were affected. We were fortunate not to lose any food, plants or pets, unlike many others. Our biggest fortune is being on the same "grid" as the nursing home as the power companies work hard to restore their power first.

Coming next: A Train trip that never ended ( or so it seemed to some of us...)

Amy Poehler Palin Rap!!

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Preparations for Thanksgiving...

I apologize for the layout of the photos, but still am not adept enough to place them exactly where I want them. As you can see, we were very busy around our house getting ready for Thanksgiving this week!

Olivia made her lovely turkey headress at Kindergarten - then they got to parade around the school making turkey noises - excellent educational value if I do say so myself.

We also took the chance to try to make these adorable cookies we saw in Parenting magazine! They turned out so well we were able to make enough for the two morning K classes "picnic" on Tuesday, AND to sell at the bake sale at my work... EVERYONE was most impressed if I do say so myself!

Today, of course a dress was in order for the day - even though we were not leaving the house, and our only guest was Nana. Deciding WHICH dress to wear however was quite the dilema. We had several to choose from as you can see here!







Also visible is a partial shot of the new Living room color, I know we promised pictures of the makeover earlier, but we are still doing some decorating and picture hanging. That post will come as soon as possible.