Christmas and New Year

His first bubble bath
Bathtime with cousins: Sophia, Oliver, & Danielle
Sophia and Oliver on Oliver's new couch from Aunt Kathy & Uncle Dale
Our family picture at the Steffen Christmas
Henry and Oliver playing on Christmas morning
Henry on Christmas morning
Oliver excited about his new toys on Christmas morning
Checking out his new phone- Christmas morning
On Christmas Eve, we went to the fire station with some cousins and aunts and uncles. Oliver liked driving the fire trucks and ambulance.
The ball popper Oliver got at Grandma & Grandpa Shook's house. All of the kid's played with it that day.
Oliver with his stocking at the Shook Christmas
Oliver and cousins on the Shook side- (left to right) Tanner, Savannah, Kaydence, Oliver, Sierra, Alexis, & Braden

The day after we got in, we went to Heritage Farms with Grandma Shook, Aunt Amy, Uncle Mark, and cousins: Sierra, Savannah, Kaydence, Caitlyn, and Dimitri. We rode in a horse-drawn sleigh back to a cabin in the woods. In the cabin, we had cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate. We also saw Santa Claus. After we were done there, we rode the sleigh back and went inside a big barn. They had lots of animals that the kids could pet and a rocking horse to ride. Outside, they had horses and ponies that the kids could ride. Oliver enjoyed his pony ride. It was a fun and cold day!
On the pony ride
Petting the goat
Riding on the rocking horse
Our family in front of our horse-drawn sleigh
The cabin in the woods we went to
Oliver playing out in the snow
Walking in the snow
Oliver sitting (very briefly) with Santa Claus
On the sleigh ride trying to stay warm
Our family on the sleigh ride
The horses and sleighs
We celebrated Christmas just the three of us before heading to Iowa. Oliver thought climbing on the boxes was just as good as opening them.
Grandpa and Grandma Steffen with Oliver, Braydon, Sophia, and Henry.
The three little boys in their matching Christmas clothes from Grandma & Grandpa Steffen. Oh the memories that brings back! :)
Oliver got a much needed haircut upon his Oliver tractor. It worked for a few minutes to keep him entertained, then we did the lock and hold.
As you can see, the front was getting pretty long. Thanks Aunt Donna for the haircut.

We were very blessed and lucky to be able to spend a little over two weeks back in Iowa with our family and friends. It was cold and there was a lot of snow, but it was wonderful to be with everyone. We did spend some unexpected time in the hospital with my dad, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer while we were back. We were glad to be there to help out and support both him and my mom during that tough time. Please keep him and my family in your thoughts and prayers and visit http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/cletussteffen to see updates on him.

I wasn't very good about taking pictures while we were back, but we did many fun things. We celebrated 5 different Christmases. We went out to dinner numerous times with extended family. We went to see Santa Claus with cousins. We went out to dinner for my mom's birthday with a group of 30 people. We celebrated New Year's Eve at my parents' house with lots of food and fun.

I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas and that your 2010 has started off well.

Swimmer Boy

A short video of Oliver swimming with Eric Sunday morning.

Chicago Weekend

We took an overnight trip to Chicago for a wedding this weekend. A friend of mine from KinderCare got married and so we headed up north for some fun. My niece Amy met us there to watch Oliver while Eric and I went to the wedding and reception. The wedding was fun and we had delicious food.

Sunday morning we went swimming right after breakfast. Oliver had a blast. The hotel had a kiddie pool that went from 6 inches to 18 inches and had fountains and was warm. It was perfect for Oliver - and it probably helped that we were the only ones in the pool. After swimming, we all got ready for the day and checked out by 11:00.

We went to downtown Chicago to go to Macy's. Amy had a bit of shopping to do and we wanted to get Oliver's picture with the Macy's Santa. The Macy's there was huge (12 floors) and way too crowded for our likings. We walked around a bit and ate lunch there and then headed out. We didn't get the Santa picture- it was a 2-hour line and we were not going to wait that long- I'm pretty sure the Santa at our mall with work just fine.

After our shopping excursion, Amy headed home and Eric, Oliver, and myself went to Millenium Park. We took some pictures and did a little sightseeing. They had an ice skating rink there too.

It was a very fun weekend. Oliver was a perfect traveler- in the 6 total hours we were in the car, he only fussed about 5 minutes. We couldn't have asked for a better trip. A huge THANKS to Amy for meeting us in Chicago and watching Oliver!

Our Countdowns:
12 days to Iowa
29 days to Christmas

Our Christmas Tree

We went on November 21st to get our Christmas tree. We went to a farm that also had reindeer. It was pretty cool- I think Oliver will appreciate it more next year. It was a little strange getting our tree- it was almost 70 degrees out. We picked out our tree and Eric cut it down. Oliver had fun walking around outside and touching all the different trees. When we got home, we decorated the tree (no tinsel for fear of a certain little boy eating it). He got his Christmas ornament from us- a chatter phone. He seemed to like it. I still need to wrap some presents to put under our tree. Oliver does pretty well with the tree- he does mess with it pretty much everyday, but we are working on not touching it. Hopefully by the time we go back to Iowa, he will understand not to touch trees and he'll leave all the Iowa trees alone (one can hope right?).

Our Countdowns :)
15 days to Iowa
22 days to Christmas

One Year Appointment

Hanging out with dad before bed.

Playing in his bedroom. You can see all of his band-aids in this picture and the next one.

Painting with Christmas colors today.

Playing outside yesterday. It was over 50 degrees so we figured we should get in another afternoon of playing outside.

Oliver had his one year appointment today. He is 29.75 inches tall (44th percentile) and weighed 20 lbs, 7.5 oz (16th percentile). His weight actually went down since I had him weighed at 11 months. The doctor said it could be some due to different scales, but she didn't seem too concerned with it. She said he is still a healthy weight. His head circumference is 18.46 inches (65th percentile). The doctor said he is doing really well.

He had to get 6 shots today :( He did really well with them as he has in the past. He cries while he is getting the shots, but as soon as one of us pick him up, he calms right down. He even smiled at the nurse who gave him the shots when she left the room.

Today Oliver did some painting. He liked squishing the paint in his hands. He is doing more and more everyday. He has been having lots of fun with his new birthday toys. Here are some of the things this one-year-old of ours can do:

• wave hi and bye
• shake his head yes and no appropriately
  
• blow kisses
• play patty cake
• play peek-a-boo
• walk all over
• crawl up the stairs
• pick up pieces of food and feed himself
• make lots of babbling sounds
• find his nose sometimes and find other people's noses
• more and more everyday

Happy Wednesday!