Tis the season to be jolly....

... Fa la la la la la la la la!!!

Thanksgiving and more

We had another Croatian Thanksgiving.  This time hosted by the Dukan family.  The menu is slightly different from your traditional Thanksgiving dinner, but the overindulging part is the same as anywhere.

This was Olivia's 2nd Thanksgiving dinner, and the first one where she could taste a whole variety of foods.  Below are some shots of her with Duke and Toni (for the Croatian reading crowd, Lambasa is still in action).

Posing in her outfit.

Olivia loves to read!!! Every night she brings us books and wants us to read to her.  Thankfully, we are fully stacked with children's books in both English and Croatian. 

Last week, Olivia got her first haircut.  The bangs were getting a little too long, and something needed to be done.  This is Olivia before the action started.  What followed could not be filmed...

She also loves to play with blocks.

On Saturday, we went to get some professional pictures taken.  During the photo shoot, she acted like a Diva and would not cooperate much.  We still managed to get some good pictures.  This is the outfit that she wore.  

Fall

We had some unusually warm weather lately here in Chi town. We tried to be outside as much as possible to soak in the sun while we can. Olivia is learning new things every day. This morning she took a brush from Karen's makeup bag and started brushing her face. This afternoon she was dribbling a basketball and scored her first basket (she put the ball back in the basket with the rest of the balls, but it still counts for 2 points)

Halloween

We had a fun Halloween night.  Bruno, Tamara and their daughter, Tanja, joined us for trick or treating in Highland Park.  We went to McCarren Street, traditionally the busiest street in HP on Halloween.  After that, we stopped by Toni's house to show the girls off.

Where's Waldo?

Pure Michigan

This weekend, we made our annual trip to Michigan to visit Karen's family.  We usually go to Port Huron to her uncle's place, but this time we went to cousin Steve's house in White Lake.  

And just like the TV add says, it was pure Michigan: many lakes, house in the woods, breezy weather and family atmosphere. It all made for a great weekend.  Olivia had a blast too as she had a chance to play with her cousins Anthony and Summer.

Not a baby anymore

As Aunt Kelly suggested, we should really change the name of this blog to Olivia because she is not a baby anymore.  She is walking all over the place, exploring everything, learning a lot of new things and developing her own personality. Very fun stage for the parents.

It cooled down a lot in Chicago, but we are still able to enjoy the parks and our nightly walks so here are some actions shots from the last couple of weeks:

We are back :(...

We had an amazing time in Croatia. It was so nice to see all the family and friends again, and of course, to show Olivia to everyone. She had a great time hanging with her cousins Ivan and Dora, swiming, playing on the beach and getting pampered by everyone. We have around 1000 pictures from this trip and it is impossible to even attempt to pick the best of them. Here is just a few of Split, Maslinica and family.