Christmas cookies and jammies

I got this idea off of one of my photography message boards. Thought it was cute plus my mom bought Livi a new pair of Christmas Jammie's today it was the perfect opportunity to take them. I put 7 cookies on the plate and she went to town! Just wanted to share. Also a few random photos for this weekend. Ohh Livi also learned how to blow kisses this weekend my friend Arlene and I taught her last night it's so cute. Drinking her 'milk' it was cool whip she would spill real milk in a cup this gave the effect

Yummy cookies!

Sitting by her bedroom door ready for bed
Not spoiled at all

Always with her blanket

Happy Holidays!

I usually always dread having to get the Christmas decor out seems like to much work to set everything up. This year how ever i'm actually excited! Hopefully Matt can get everything out Thursday and we can set it up on Friday since we both have the day off. I'm looking forward to starting some new family traditions and enjoying the old ones. This is going to be a busy month. With shopping, Christmas parades, Santa photos, Zoo lights we have a lot to do. I made Alivia a ABC photo book for Christmas. It has every letter and a photo of her that relates to the letter. I ordered it 2 weeks ago it should be arriving this week sometime. Something she can keep forever. I was excited about it and it was free a $30 value we only had to pay shipping. We got out Christmas cards in the mail a few days ago they turned out great and I got them each for a penny I love having codes for websites to get awesome deals. We don't plan on getting Livi to much this year she has way to much stuff the book, some new clothes, stocking stuffers I think that will be about it. She has way to many toys! We hope you all had a great weekend!

Warm and friendly wishes for a merry holiday from our family to yours ~ The Rapp Family

Turkey day & Black Friday 2008

We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! We had a great time over at my parents I wish I was able to eat more but I wasn't. Ohh well i'm heading over for leftovers once Alivia wakes up from her nap. I love thanksgiving leftovers those are the best. It was nice being able to spend time with family yesterday kind of weird not having Kyle around. Matt worked last night and I went to a movie with a friend. My mom watched Livi for a few extra hours for me. I picked her up around 1am we came home slept for 3 hours and headed out and survived black Friday woo hoo. We loaded up on 1/2 price socks, movies, got a new HD DVD player some memory cards. We ran into some friends at Target we hadn't seen since I was pregnant with Alivia. They live a few hours away now. It was nice being able to catch up real quick while standing in the checkout line. Well Livi's up and i'm off to get some grub! Hope you all have a great rest of your weekend. Happy Holiday's!

Walking around

Eating a little bit of everything

Black Friday 4:30 am All snuggled up and ready to shop
Passed out waiting for Daddy to get off work

Happy Thanksgiving!

I have so much to be thankful for this year. Alivia, she's my greatest joy i'm truly blessed to have such an amazing daughter. A wonderful husband, awesome family, friends and good health. I'm thankful for my friends who are over in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday! We'll be going over to my parents house tomorrow. Kyle has to work so he wont be there which will be awkward. I always make green bean casserole my fave dish, I'm also going to be making maple-cranberry sweet potatoes http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/recipefinder/maple-cranberry-sweet-potatoes-recipes?click=recipe_sr

(there's the recipe) try something new. Alivia loves anything with sweet potatoes so hopefully she will like it.

On Friday morning Alivia and I will be heading out at 4:30 am to start shopping. I love black Friday! We didn't go out last year. Livi was 2 weeks old and did not sleep very well that night. I'm looking forward to taking my future shop-o-holic out with me.

We hope you all have a great Thanksgiving.

Flower girl dress

Alivia's flower girl dress arrived yesterday afternoon. It's so cute but so big. Atleast she has about 9 months to grow a few more inches. I ordered her a 2t the same as her Christmas dress. Thinking they'd be about the same but this one is a lot longer. Better to long then to short I guess i'm sure we can get it hemmed if need be. Shea saw it today and said we're going to take the white sash and the flower off for sure and replace it with a black sash to match the bridesmaid dresses. Here's a few photos of her in it.

1 year check up

Today was Alivia's one year check up. It was suppost to be a week ago but her Dr. Schoos had something come up. She has always been very good at the doctor's but today geez... she was ticked. Livi wanted nothing to do with that place. Thankfully daddy pinned her down for the shots and not me. Here's her one year stats

Weight~ 25 lbs 14 oz

Length~ 31.5"

Head circumference~ 18 3/4"

Matt and I both thought she's be heavier and taller. She is in the 95% for everything. She's healthy and happy everything looked good he said. That's always reassuring.

On another note Twilight came out last night. My sister watched Livi so Matt, my mom, Kyle and I went to see the midnight showing. It was an amazing movie to say the least. I even saw it again this evening. I know lame 2 times in less then 24 hours. I can't wait until the other books come to the big screen. I'm hooked!

Not so sure about this place

Twilight

One last post before I head off to finish reading before bed. Shortly after I had Alivia I started reading Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. I have to say it is the best book I have ever read! The movie is coming out this Friday, Matt and I along with a bunch of friends, co-workers, mom and Kyle included are going to the midnight showing. Shea is going to watch Livi. So with all the hype of the movie coming out I finally decided I better start reading the other 3 books in the series. Why oh why did I not read them sooner? I'm kicking myself now! I can't put the books down! So basically the whole reason for this post is if you haven't read the books I encourage you to read them you wont be disappointed I promise. I'm more then half way through the second one and plan on finishing it tonight. My goal is to have all 4 read by the time I go to the movies on Thursday night. Wish me luck off to read!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNW5A0HfzDM

What a steal!

I was online tonight on one of my mommy message boards and there was a post about Britax car seat on sale at Target.com for $43. They usually retail for $280 I woke Matt up and told him we had to buy it! Livi's car seat now is starting to get a little snug and the Britax one has a weight limit up to 65 lbs we could use that one for a long time. Turns out it was a glitch in Target's system and they were priced wrong from what I read, but as long as you have a confirmation code they're going to honor the price. YAY! I keep checking my in box to make sure I don't get an e-mail saying they're not going to honor that price. On another note i've been trying to think of other ways to save some money especially on groceries. I go to a website called Coupon mom.com I heard about it from a co-worker and Oprah has talked about it. You can print coupons off of the site and it will tell you what sort of deals are going on the grocery stores in your area. With the help of that site and the weekly ads from Matt's work I saved almost $20 at Safeway this morning. My bill was originally $52 something and after my coupons and club card my total was $32.79 I was able to buy items for meals for everyday this week including a few extras here and there. I'm pretty pleased with my success with money saving today.

Here's a few photos of Livi from today. I hope everyone had a great weekend!

Ostlund wedding update

Well in the week Shealun and Jared have been engaged the whole wedding is basically planned. Today they got the date set, August 15th 2009. A day after our 5th wedding anniversary. 9 months from today will be the big day. The venue is book, photographer, DJ, videographer everything comes in a big old package at the Tracy Castle. They have a meeting in February to confirm everything including food and flowers. Basically all we have to do is show up and it's all taken care of. Today we got Shealun's dress ordered it's beautiful. I have pictures, but I wont be posting them sorry! Can't have Jared see the dress before the big day. Plus it will be a nice surprise for all of you who will be attending the wedding. I got Alivia's dress today. We actually got it on Ebay from the same seller/store I got all the flower girl dresses for my wedding. It was $25.99 what a great deal. All the dresses we were looking at the bridal stores were over $150 there's no way I was going to spend that on a dress she will wear once. I'll add a photo of her dress at the end of this post. This afternoon I met up with Shea and Jared and took so engagement photos so they can put an announcement in the news paper.

Watching Auntie Shea try on her dress

Playing with my keys at the Bridal salon

The flower girl dress Livi got. There will be a black sash and the ugly rose is going but you get the idea. Also she's not wearing the flower hair wreath

Video clips

I wanted to share a few little video clips of Alivia from today she's getting so good at walking and she's fast! We went dress shopping this afternoon for my sister's wedding. Shea found a beautiful dress. They decided to get married this coming summer instead we'll know the date tomorrow after they go to the venue and see what dates are open this summer. They're going to get married at the Tracy Castle. My sister and brother both used to work there. http://www.tracycastle.com/

Real quick I have a funny story. I was taking a shower this morning and Alivia was napping. I went into her room to check on her and I saw white paint chips all over her mouth I looked at her crib rail and there's bite marks everywhere. We have a little chipmunk on our hands. She has 4 teeth coming in right now so she's been a little fussy.

A year in review

Matt and I made a photo montage to share at Alivia's birthday parties. I wanted to share it with all of you as well. If the volume on your computer is off turn it up. Also mute the music I have at the bottom of the blog or else you'll be having tons of different songs going at the same time. Enjoy it's just a small glimpse of memories we have of Livi over her first year.

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Happy Birthday Alivia

November 9th 2007

Daddy's first time holding you

Mommy's first time holding you

Happy Birthday Miss Alivia! Can't believe you've been in our lives for a whole year already! You have changed so much over the last 12 months from relaying on us for everything to being little miss independent. Seems just like yesterday I was holding you for the first time. I hope one day you'll be able to experience the same amount of love and happiness we have over this last year. Happy first birthday our sweet baby girl!

Good morning birthday girl!

Walking around at Grandma & Grandpa's
Hanging out with the soon to be Mr. & Mrs.
Livi checking out the ring

Auntie Shea's ring so pretty!

At Colton's birthday party
Happy 1st Birthday Livi & Colton

Livi sucking her thumb and her blanket

I snapped this photo right at 8:22 pm the time she was born

Family shot
One year old!

Enjoying her last bottle after tonight no more bottles!