Backyardigans!

Olivia loves the Backyardigans! For those of you who don't know who they are - they are a Nickelodeon cartoon about 5 friends who live in a neighborhood together and play outside and have great adventures that turn their backyards into whatever their imagination dreams.

Last week, the LIVE show was in the area - so we took Olivia. We weren't too sure how she would react - since we've never taken her to anything like this before. She was pretty hesitant at first - just staring at them on stage, but after about 10 minutes she really got into it. I'm glad we went and will look forward to taking Liv to other shows.

You weren't allowed to take your cameras in, but here are a couple of pictures of Olivia right after the show! She was pretty excited still!

landscaping project

It seems that each year, we have another project for the house. This spring our projects are the landscaping and the basement. Below are the pictures of our landscaping. I really think it turned out well and exactly how I wanted it. I'll be adding in flowers once the weather is warmer.

We did the castle wall and most of the dirt last fall. Then, we had another 3 yards of dirt delivered and my dad brought over some of that great compost to mix in for our plants! Thank goodness that my dad has one of those John Deere tractors - he brought it right over and we had all the dirt moved in no time! Travis put the shutters up, and then we planted (mom & Aunt Marcy actually did the majority of the work). The following weekend, Travis and I put in the lighting, capstones and the mulch. We were really happy to finally have some curb appeal to our home.

You can probably tell from the clouds, that a storm was coming. We had over 20 mph winds that day and we put mulch down. Not the best time to do it unless you like little pieces of mulch in your eyes! :)

Happy Mother's Day!

Olivia's daycare did a Mother's Day brunch last week - and I went to have lunch with Olivia. She was pretty excited that I was there - not so excited when I had to leave. :(

Hot Dog!

Below is Olivia doing her "Hot Dog Dance" from the Mickey Mouse Playhouse cartoon. She loves the cartoon and can't wait until the end when they do the "Hot Dog Dance". She's also learning how to jump - so she is also trying to implement jumping into the dance. Enjoy!

April Updates!

Well, I haven't been so good at updating the blog this month. Olivia is progressing amazingly well with potty training - we're actually not really doing much training - she just tells us when she has to go. She's even pooped on the potty twice! I'm pretty impressed! (for some of you this may be way too much info)

We've had beautiful weather and we've been working outside a lot! I'll update with pictures of the house in a couple of weeks and all of our landscaping progress. But, what you really come here for are pictures of Miss Olivia - here they are.

Early in April, we had some great sunshine and we took the opportunity to spend some time outside in the yard. Olivia got this slide for her birthday last year, and hardly used it. It sits outside the window of our kitchen table. She had been looking at it saying "slide, slide" - so we went out and she LOVED it!
Olivia has also really taken to exploring her yard!
She loves to hang out down by the pool and playing with all the rocks - she likes to try to find the ones that don't belong!

A few weeks later - you can see the weather continued to improve. Spring jacket replaced the winter jacket and the cap replaced the winter hat!

Olivia finding a rock that doesn't belong with all the other rocks!
The dogs were waiting for Travis to throw their ball to them. They're great with Olivia in the yard - although they move quick - they don't seem to get too close where they might knock her over - but they do LOVE to be close to her!

Enjoying our relaxing chairs and some goldfish!

My cousin Emma had her first prom - and she looked beautiful!
Below, she reminds me a lot of my friend Jamie - back when we were younger!
This looks like a nice family dinner - it wasn't! It was the feeding of the workers! We had the family over and they helped with our landscaping! My mom and Aunt Marcy were the master gardeners - while Kate, Travis & I were the master planners. Kurt and Poppi got the job of watching the kids. After one child got kicked in the head by her mother, and another got knocked down by a dog - everyone was okay and we enjoyed New York Strips that Travis cooked on the grill. You can't ask someone to work hard and then give them hamburgers! Dinner was great and dessert was overwhelming! We didn't "assign" dessert to anyone - so everyone brought something - because our family loves sweets! We ended up inviting the neighbors over to help us put a dent in it!


The girls playing after their bath!

Kate & Jimmy


As you can see - Olivia really enjoys playing with Julia!

This was earlier tonight. Liv's hair was crazy because she had swim lessons - and we had to blow dry it. She likes hanging out in the "bat cave" (the area between the love seat and the chair) but so does Rusty! Sometimes they share the cave.
This is where I asked for a smile! :)
Olivia loves Rusty! She loves to hug and kiss him!
And this is after Rusty left the bat cave - he'd had enough lovin'!

Second Cousins

Below are pictures of Olivia and her 2nd cousins (and a couple of first cousins mixed in). Last weekend, my cousin Becky and her family were in town from California, so we were able to all get together and have the kids together at Jeff & Rachel's new house. I think that Grammie was in her glory with them all here - so we thought it was a great opportunity for a picture of Grammie with most of her great-grandbabies (missing were Tyler & Johnny).

From left to right: Olivia, Julia, Joshua, Grammie, Jimmy, Matteson & Kiera.

Now I will explain who everyone belongs to:

Olivia - Libby

Julia & Jimmy - Katy

Joshua - Jeff

Matteson & Kiera - Becky

Trying to get 5 kids under 4 to sit together for a picture wasn't easy!

I really like this one...

We had a great time hanging out - it was pretty loud with all the kids - but the kids had a great time! Olivia can't wait to go visit Kiera and Matteson out in CA sometime. After spending time with all the kids - that trip has definitely moved up on our list - I just don't get to spend as much time with my cousin Becky as I'd like - so we'll have to make the trip to them next!

Thanks to Rachel for sending out these pictures!

Attempt at Video

Since our new camera takes video - I thought I'd try to post video and see how that goes. We had a much better video - but it was too big. So, now I have a better idea as to how big a video can be that I can post.

So, here is Olivia singing and being silly. She loves to sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and the Wheels on the Bus. Enjoy!