Christmas part Deux

Part two of the Christmas adventure is the Hermanson Christmas at my parents. We had a great morning at Brian’s, picked up my brother Butch and headed for Faribault. This is the first time in at least 5 years we have had our whole family together for Christmas so I have been especially excited about Christmas this year. We decided to open presents early as dinner wasn’t planned until 6pm or so. Olivia caught on pretty quick to the Andy way of opening presents (rip and tear as fast as you can). She had a great time opening presents and I had a great time watching her. Olivia beat us all in the amount of presents she had to open this year, but I guess that is to be expected. Uncle Bob got her some great books that I think Miriam and I will enjoy as much as she will. All in all it was a great Christmas I will remember for years to come.

Christmas

We started Christmas off with a bang. We had presents to open dinner to eat, and church to go to within 4 hours of each other. Then it was up at 3:00am to get everything ready and get to the airport through the new 8 inches of snow got that night for our trip to MN to see our families. I wasn’t too jazzed at first either about leaving at 5:50am Christmas morning for flight but it turned out great. We got to Brian and Jen’s by 10:45, just in time to meet Miriam’s parents who had also just arrived from Cheriton, Iowa. We had a great Christmas dinner, opened presents and even had enough time to load the kids up on sleds and go for a walk in the park. The sled Olivia was riding had special significance to it as it was made by her great grandpa and used by Miriam and her siblings as children. Olivia, being the seasoned walker and outdoors person she is had no trouble staying on the sled as we walked through the park. This year has been one of the best Christmases I have had in a long time.

Olivia uses the potty!

Ok so most of you are going to think we are crazy, but we are slowly beginning to potty train Olivia. She has gone poop a couple of times on the toilet with Mom being the one to recognize when it is time to go, but last night was a whole new story. Olivia was crawling over a very large item in her way to get to the bathroom. Andy asked her, “Olivia do you have to go poop?” She responded in a baby babel, “Yeah.” We both looked at each other like, “Did we hear that?” Then Andy asked her again, “Olivia do you have to go poop?” This time she said a bunch of nonsense then said, “Yeah Dadda.” Again we were both completely shocked but thought what the heck. So Andy took off her pants and diaper and had her sit on the toilet. Within a couple of minutes she went pee. We of course were both thrilled. Not that she is potty trained, but that we are moving in the right direction. We have been told that because we are using the cloth diapers she is able to recognize the fact that she is wet more often and therefore be more motivated to use the potty.

On a side note last week Andy and I also got to experience having a sick child for the first time. Poor little Olivia had a temp of 106 at the highest. Which caused great alarm for her parents, but the doctors did not seem nearly as worried. They did check her blood and urine, but were unable to find anything alarming. With 3 days she was back to her normal self. Thank goodness!