Gingerbread House

Kate and I (with a little help on the building from Dan) put together this gingerbread house this morning. I actually cheated and bought the kit online. Kate had fun "gluing" the candy on. Overall, it doesn't look nice and neat but it was a successful first try.

Dan's Man Space Makeover...

My parents flew here a couple of weeks ago to build a storage loft in our Garage for Dan as our Christmas present. Dan's Dad drove down for the weekend as well. Here are a few pictures from the project:



Here is one more from the Children's Christmas Party...to show the decorated helicopter:
Dan and I got dressed up for the adult party and tried to take a few family pictures before we went out. Not the best idea I've had but here is one of the better pictures:

HSC 22 Children's Christmas Party

A friend and I were not using our "pregnant" brains very well and volunteered to organize Dan's command's Children's Christmas Party. We (with A LOT of help from the command and other spouses) decorated the hangar and one of the helicopters to turn it into sort of a Christmas Carnival. There were games and craft events and most importantly, Santa's arrival via helicopter. I think these children will grow up thinking Santa delivers his presents from a helicopter but it was fun for all (including the adults). Here are a few pictures from the day.

This was our back drop set up in one of the helicopters for pictures with Santa:
Santa's arrival:
My Mom graciously volunteered to man the playdough booth. I think some of the adults enjoyed it more than the children:
Kate's visit with Santa:
Dan and Kate (with her binoculars) looking for Santa:

Trying to catch up...

It has been a while since I updated this. Life just seems to get away from me sometimes. I'm going to post some pictures from our December events. The first is from Kate's school program. The teachers did a wonderful job preparing the kids and Kate really did a nice job. The program was mostly singing of fun children's christmas/holiday music (including Kate's favorite Frosty the Snowman and the Dreidle song) followed by the kids that take a dance class putting on a little dance show. She did really well. Here are a few pictures from the dance portion (the singing ones didn't turn out very well).

Busy Bodies

We took Kate back to her play gym that she went when we lived here for an open gym yesterday. It was fun to see the difference from 6 months ago until now.

More Thanksgiving pictures

Thanksgiving

Here are some pictures from Thanksgiving in Annapolis. It was a beautiful day (74 degrees).

Kate's Birthday II

Here are a couple more pictures from the weekend.

Kate's Birthday I

Kate's birthday pictures may take two posts. Here are the first ones. We (Dan, me, Grandma and Grandpa Olson and Auntie Virginia) took Kate and her friend Lucy and her mom to see Sesame Street Live on Saturday. We thought it would be a fun way to celebrate her birthday. It was pretty entertaining to watch the girl's reactions to the show. Kate had a great time. Here are some of the pictures:

Kate's reaction to the Sesame Street characters when they came out on stage:

Kate and her friend Lucy dancing at the show:

Who said adults couldn't possibly enjoy elmo?

Happy Halloween!!

What an exciting night. Dan and I both rushed home to get Kate ready for her and Dan's first Halloween out trick-or-treating together. They were so cute. Kate was ready to "go to Halloween" as she put it. They returned 2 hours later, both on sugar highs and tired all at the same time. Dan's was metabolized from alcohol handed out to the parents in place of candy.
I hope you all had a great Halloween!!

My beautiful sister...

I apologize profusely for omitting my sister from the blog heaven knows she looks better than I did after having Kate:)....here she is.

Last post from Wisconsin

Our time here is coming to an end, which I think Dan is happy about. We had a great time with family and friends. Here are a few more pictures from the trip. There are so many good ones.

Olivia...check out that hair!

Kate and Olivia

I'm taking advantage of the free time I have right now to post pictures as I am taking them. Kate is enjoying having a baby around and occasionally takes an interest in playing with her.

Celebrating Kate's Birthday in Wisconsin

We decided to have a little birthday "party" for Kate with family and close friends while we are here.

Kate's new princess dress

Kate and Allison