Archive for October, 2008

Well, it’s been a little while.  Things have been busy.  Dave gone for a week, Olivia sick with a cold and ear infection and new teeth coming in, me trying to finish up some projects before ramping up again at work (after having a couple weeks in October off, which was great)… First, a congratulations to our dear good friends Nick and Amanda, who welcomed their first baby today.  Little Josephine was born this morning, and apparently has Mom’s dimples.  Check out their blog for some great pictures of the new ankle biter.  Second, a HUGE HUGE thanks to Jeff, who I mentioned before is serving in Iraq right now, and managed to send Ava an amazing Dora blanket.  Really Jeff, we should be sending the care packages YOUR way.  Too, too sweet!!!!  And I don’t even need to mention how far up Ava’s superhero-Uncle-ladder you moved…

To continue the update, here are some photos of the veggie garden.  We finally got the fall stuff planted and the peas and beans are doing great…I can’t say the same yet for some of the other stuff.  We’ll see how it goes.  I can always claim novice status if everything fails.

Olivia has become the daredevil, attempting amazing one year old stunts for family audiences lately.  Dave was home this weekend after being gone over the week, and at one point he was just sitting and watching her run from one end of the living room to the other while laughing and babbling like a crazy person when he looked at me and said, “What happened while I was gone?” …   She is climbing everything, and while I couldn’t catch it…she was doing her headstand-yoga-downward-dog on top of this crate before I could snap the picture.

Finally, one of the projects I am trying to finish up are two baby quilts for the girls made from their old baby clothes.  This was a project I started about 6 months ago, before we knew we would be having another baby, and definitely before we knew that the  baby would be another GIRL!  Yes, that’s right, our family tradition continues.  Watch out testosterone, you are no match for our mighty Sasser household!  Of course, that made it sad as I was looking at all our snipped up baby clothes and thinking of how this new little one could have worn some of our favorites.  Ahhh well, I guess it is a good excuse to help out the economy a little bit.

Have a great week!

Crazy how time flies!  The youngest member of our family (for now) celebrated her first birthday this weekend with lots of decorations, some presents, and of course the sugar-high-inducing frosted cake.  We had a slight mishap when Aunt Ginny’s little pup Peanut (size of the dog matches the name) walked across the cake…but we decided no one really cared and moved on.  It has become a tradition for us to have cake problems at most occasions, so this was simply following in our own footsteps.

I made some little bug cakes to go with her plates and napkins, so we used those too. 

Olivia was so happy to be eating sugar (who can blame her, right)!

She had fun opening presents (with a little help from big sis).

She is really coming into her own personality these days.  Girly-girl, loves new shoes and beads, and anything sparkly and pretty.  She has a quick temper and knows what she wants.  She is strong-willed, independent, and determined, which are great qualities for a little young lady to have I think (although they make parenting difficult, as we are learning from entering the oh-so-monstrous-threes….really people, who coined the term “terrible twos”, were they kidding?  Three is the new terrible-two…on crack!) Olivia is a very sweet little girl.  She loves to get kisses and snuggle.  She is a real ham whenever we are out.  She doesn’t shy away from anyone and is seems to get a kick out of it when people fuss over her at the supermarket or wherever.  If I had to pick one word to describe her at this stage, I would say content.  She is such a content little girl.  As long as she is not hungry, tired, or wanting something immediately beyond her reach, she is content.  She will play and read books on her own, loves to throw balls and run after them, loves to swing, and loves anything musical.   She really loves being in the thick of whatever is going on, but she is content to be part of it;  she doesn’t shy away from any attention but she also doesn’t seem to need to be the center of whatever is happening.  What a great trait to have.  I hope she always feels this way.   It is amazing to watch your little ones grow into their own souls.  So interesting and heart warming and endearing at the same time.  I feel like one of my greatest challenges as a parent is to help our children develop their own strengths and bolster their weaknesses in order to be their best selves, without placing too much of my own bias and self-interpretation in the mix.  Just letting them be who they are, and guiding them in the development of their own individualities, while maintaining fairness and harmony in our household…yikes!    So far, this little one make it easy. Happy Birthday baby girl!

We are celebrating this weekend, but the girls and I hit the zoo today to mark our baby’s first birthday and have some girl time.

We finally got internet and cable restored, so our home phone works again.  There are still people in the city without power, so we are very fortunate to be back to normal again.  Our neighborhood is cleaning up and the houses that were severely damaged/destroyed have already had contractors in and out.  I have heard that all the families intend to rebuild and stay in their homes!