Christmas cookies!

Today we had two exciting events in the Abernathy household: Aunt Mere came to visit (woo-hoo!) and we held our first annual Christmas cookie baking day! I didn't do anything fancy this year, just store bought cookie dough, canned icing and sprinkles. Maybe in the future we'll try be more creative. We did try to use the fancy cookie press that I have... "try" being the operative word. :)

Yea! Aunt Mere!

"I'm not exactly sure how this is supposed to work..."

"The sprinkles I can do!"

"Mmm... icing..."

Cookies

More cookies (pay no attention to that half eaten one at the bottom)

A few of the finished product

leaves!

Now that we've moved to the new house, we have a much bigger yard and no landscapers to take care of it! (Part (most?) of our HOA dues paid the landscapers to mow grass, seed, blow leaves, etc.) So this year we are raking our own leaves.

Olivia "helps"

Playing in the leaves with Daddy

Wheelbarrow rides

At first Olivia wasn't too sure about riding in the wheelbarrow with a bunch of leaves. Then she decided to lay back in the leaves and loved it!

playing catch-up

As promised, here are a bunch of pictures from the last month (while our computer was sick and in the hospital)...

Me and Livi all decked out in our Independence Day duds (we actually took several pictures; this was the only one that even came close to being good of both of us)

Olivia having a blast with her cousin Wyatt

(Wyatt is actually wearing Olivia's sweatshirt on his head in this picture. She thought it was hysterical when he tickled her like this!)

Olivia wearing Wyatt's Groucho Marx glasses

We saw cows while we were in the mountains! This was the best one I got of Olivia and her Daddy. They were both saying "cow" and "moo".

This was taken one day back home after Olivia "helped" me water the garden:

Olivia "reading" to her baby:

Our friends the Dutys came to see us! They used to go to church with us, but now live in Texas. Olivia and Beckett were too busy checkin' each other out to be bothered with taking a picture.

Kathryn came over to play! I'm not sure that they really know how to play with each other yet; Olivia just kept following Kathryn where ever she went. I'm not sure if she wanted to play with Kathryn and didn't know how, or if she was just concerned about her toys. :) They did have a blast with those boxes.

Alathea also came to see us one day. At some point, Alathea decided that Olivia needed to eat her lunch. (I had tried to feed her earlier, but Olivia was too excited about her friend that she didn't eat much.) Alathea took Olivia by the hand, lead her into the kitchen, and proceeded to feed her split pea soup:

The same day Olivia found both her bunnies. (We keep a back up handy, in case we misplace one or in case one needs a bath.) She was pretty happy.

Granddaddy came to see us one day because he needed some cheering up. I think Olivia worked her magic! (Grammy also came the same day; I don't know why I didn't get any pictures of her! This was the day we all piled into Mama's car and drove over to the new house so Mom and Dad could see it.)


Now I know my little girl is growing up! She's already learning to walk in heels! Next, she'll be wanting to borrow my jewelry in addition to my shoes...

And, finally, we celebrated Paul's Birthday! Happy Birthday, sweetheart! I'm glad God put you on this earth 29 years ago!

harvesting

We have a garden this summer. Well, Paul has a garden this summer. I just water it occasionally. We've been collecting many cherry tomatoes (which we didn't plant, incidentally) and yesterday we picked a carrot! (We did plant the carrots.) We also have some onions, which the local rabbits have found very tasty, some basil, spinach and maybe some peas. We have tried to grow cilantro, but so far no luck. Olivia thinks that the garden is a lot of fun - she loves to dig her fingers into the pots!

Paul with the lone carrot. Behind him are the tomato plants.

croc offs

Earlier this month my mom treated Olivia and me to some new shoes. (As she put it, it was "our turn" for her to get us a surprise!) I thought I would share some pictures of us enjoying our "croc offs" (as Paul calls them).

Olivia's are so much smaller than mine!

She is ready to get down and run around!

Okay, Mama! I've got our shoes; let's go!

We went to Latta Plantation Park yesterday for a picnic with some friends. Olivia and I both wore our "croc offs". We took a walk down to the edge of the lake there and Olivia and I waded in - with our shoes. I thought, Why not? It was a lot of fun for Olivia, as was evidenced by her soaking wet clothes! Good thing I brought her pjs with us! Unfortunately, I didn't have the camera with me, so I didn't take any pictures. You'll just have to take my word for it that she was cute!

Guess what I did!

Hi Friends and Family! After much jealously, I mean, admiration over my friends' blogs, I finally decided to write my own. This blog has 2 primary purposes: 1) to post cute pictures of Olivia and 2) to keep up with the Joneses. Seriously, I have so enjoyed catching up with all my friends via their blogs, I decided to return the favor and write our own.

So, in honor of purpose #1, here is a cute picture of Olivia:

Okay, she's a little mad in this one. I think she's trying to say, "Mama! You gave me pigtails for the first time and they look really weird!" So I put her down for a nap, gave her a snack and redid both the pigtails and the picture:


Much better! Happy "birthday" Olivia! You are 16 months old today!