Happy New Year! It was a busy last couple weeks of 2009 :)

The last couple weeks of 2009 were quite extraordinary. We welcomed our daughter Ava Belle Fortier at 12:22 pm on 12/21. She weighed 6lbs 13 oz and measured 20 1/4 inches long. She is a beautiful bundle of joy and we couldn't be any happier to be called her parents. Ava had many visitors at the hospital. Grandma Fortier arrived glowing and very excited to see her granddaughter for the first time :) It was a beautiful moment to see her Brett and Ava together.
Ava's Godmother and my dearest friend and neighbor Melody and her husband Ben stopped by to share in the joy that Ava had finally arrived. We were watching the Vikings game Sunday evening with them when the contractions began. Who would have known that she'd be here less than 24 hours later. Perhaps she was ready to get out since it was quite a disappointment of a game!

The next morning Grandma and Grandpa Tholen and Uncle Matt arrived to meet Ava. Ava had a great first night and was bright eyed and ready to meet more of her wonderful family.

That afternoon and evening more visitors stopped by as the snow was beginning to fall. My great friend Juliann and her boyfriend Luke came to say hello. By this time I was ready to get out of the hospital so all visitors were much appreciated, daytime television was definitely something I had enough of by that point. My cousin Russ also popped by to hold the little bundle and offer some great advice on soothing techniques :) She looks pretty peaceful!

Wednesday morning we were discharged from the hospital, just in time for Christmas and the worst snow storm MN has seen in years! We were hosting Christmas this year so we were very worried our families would not be able to make it down with the weather as it was. But all went well and we had a houseful of Family to celebrate with for a very special first Christmas for Ava.

Things settled down after Christmas and we have just been enjoying the last week of parenthood. Ava has made great friends with her furry siblings. And we have discovered that the wiener dogs are quite protective of their baby Ava. The cats seem indifferent to her. She has had her first bath, she was not really a fan of the whole experience, however the wiener dogs were quite interested in helping out.

I can't believe she is 11 days old today. She's changing daily both her personality and physical features seem to change by the minute. She has a fantastic temperament and doesn't keep us up too much at night. We hope everyone has a fantastic new year!

Love,
Christina

Thanksgiving Up North

We headed up north to Little Falls for Thanksgiving with our whole furry family in tow. Garfield sang Christmas carols the entire 2 hour drive home, at
least that's what I kept telling myself to keep my sanity.

The holiday weekend began with the introduction of our cats and dogs and Zach's new kitty Nel isn't she adorable! Olive really enjoyed playing with Nel all weekend even though at times Nel was not having it.















Our Thanksgiving marathon of eating began at my parents house it was Mike's birthday as well so we had some good conversation and great food. My mom as usual cooked up a storm :) The adventure continued onto Brett's family where we were warmly greeted by 5 dogs and 4 cats.

We attempted a group photo of all the animals, it was entertaining to say the least but we finally got it, and then we took one letting them all go at the same time.

Patty's table as usual looked beautiful. After dinner Brett and Zach actually started a campfire outside that was a Thanksgiving first :) The fire looked so nice paired with all of the Christmas lights outside.

We made an attempt to take a couple pictures outside, pretty good for being dark out.

Friday evening we went over and visited with my Dad, Mary and the girls. Their dog cookie snuggled up to Brett right away, what a cute little shaggy dog. It was a great Thanksgiving filled with delicious food, great gathering and all our furry friends!

Doggone Early Dog Walk to Benefit Home for Life® Animal Sanctuary

Oscar and I walked in the Doggone Early Dog Walk to Benefit Home for Life® Animal Sanctuary this past weekend. We had a blast! We missed Brett and Olive but they stayed home since Olive is not quite ready for such an event.

Oscar always finds the other wiener dogs--it's like he has radar or something. Oscar was quite a social butterfly by the end of the morning other people were introducing him for me :)

Our neighbor Melody joined us with their dog Spliff the Bernese Mountain Dog. He is such a happy dog, and we call our two dogs Peen & Ween, they are quite the dual. Spliff also has wiener dog radar he spots them out of a crowd of dogs too :)

A great start to a Sunday morning! We'll be back next year!

Welcome to our Fortier Family blog!

We are very excited to share our lives with all of our friends and family. We wanted to start this blog with the pending arrival of our first child Ava Belle Fortier.

We want to keep you all updated on Ava, and of course on all of the shenanigans of our 4 fur children-The Wieners-Oscar & Olive and the Furballs- Garfield & Niko.

Hope you all enjoy sharing with us!