He's Back!!

Our elf, Hank is back! Olivia is over the moon!  When we woke up this morning Hank was here!  He brought breakfast and his book that we'd been missing!  We read it together and ate a yummy Christmas donut for breakfast before daddy left for work.  Olivia called Mema and Grammie to tell them our elf was back!  She was so cute all morning as she turned to Hank and whispered "I've really missed you!"  It was such a fun morning!

 We love this book!  Such a cute story!

 Hank left us a note!! Olivia was so excited to read it!

I think Johnny LOVED the donut!! Yummy!

Pumpkin Fun!

Our little fam hit up the pumpkin patch a few weeks back.  Olivia was so excited to go pick a pumpkin and eat a pumpkin cookie! We headed to Carolyn's for a fun day! The kids loved feeding the animals, going down the slide, dancing on stage and posing for a few great pics.  We had so much fun!!

Cheese!

 I love pumpkins!!

 Lately, she is loving the camera!!

 We love you, daddy!! 

 I'm such a big boy!! 

 Carolyn's had a stage with music playing and Miss Olivia LOVED it!  She walked right up to the front  and started doing her boogie woogie piggy dance from DSOD!!

 I LOVE to dance!!

 Johnny loved it too!

 I love pumpkin cookies!!

 Daddy, this is the one I want!!

 How about this one??

 I got it!

Cheese! What a fun day we had!!

Family Pictures

For Lori's birthday we had family pictures taken! It was a beautiful day and we got many great shots. It was hard to get a 1,2,3 and 4 year old to freeze, look and smile at the same time!  As you can see, some of the best pictures of the day were not perfectly posed! Here are a few of my absolute favorites! I can't wait to hang them all over my house!

My favorite picture from the family photo shoot!  LOVE!!

It's official!  We have a preschooler at our house!   Olivia started preschool yesterday at Good Shepherd.  Michael , Johnny and I got to take our sweet girl on her first day! We met her teachers, Ms Tonya and Ms. Vickie, and got to see her classroom.  We could not have picked two sweeter teachers!  We know she will be in really good hands!  

When Michael picked up Olivia, Ms Tonya said she did great!! Olivia was excited to share all about her day!  She played play dough, went to the dress up center, made a new friend named Owen, and learned the word October! I think she has a great school year ahead!

We are so thankful to Mema and Auntie Em for their help getting Olivia to school and taking care of her before and after school on days that daddy and momma are working! We are blessed to have great family!

Cheese!  

I am so excited mommy and daddy! Can we go now?!!

I feel like she was just a baby! How is she already for school?? Stop growing up pretty girl!!

Poor Johnny was not a happy boy!  I think he knew his big sis was leaving him for a few hours!

There goes a little piece of my heart. Saying many prayers God will take care of her when we aren't there!

Cheese!

Waiting patiently to meet my teacher!

I love school!!

Big smile with Ms. Tonya and Ms. Vickie!

I am such a teacher! I had to take a picture of her special spot in the circle!

Checking in!

My classroom is so fun!!

Such a fun classroom!!

I had to sneak one last picture before we left.  Good-bye my big girl!  May you enjoy school and make many new friends!! We love you and know you are going to do great!!

My Little Gymnast!

Have I mentioned that I ADORE summer time??!! We are just having so much fun!  Olivia started gymnastics this summer and absolutely LOVES it!! She is taking at Mercury and doing great.  We go once a week on Tuesday mornings.  Olivia adores her teacher Miss Christine.  She is great with the kiddos and Olivia loves that she gets a little homework and a popsicle at the end of each class.  She enjoys playing on the rings, balance beam and trampoline!  I love that she has to listen, follow directions, and wait her turn. Olivia has had a cheering crowd at several of the classes!!  Thank you Mema, Rylie, Emery, Grammie, Daddy and Johnny for coming to watch our little gymnast in action!!

Olivia Turns 3!!

Our sweet girl turned three (over a month ago)!  We had her birthday party at the park in our neighborhood on Memorial Day.  Friends and family joined us as we celebrated Miss O!  The weather was sunny and beautiful and the kiddos enjoyed playing on the swings, slides and monkey bars.  Olivia is really into Hello Kitty these days so this momma threw together a little themed party.  Olivia partied with her besties and had a blast!! Michael grilled hot dogs and hamburgers and we finished with cupcakes and ice cream.  It was definitely  a day filled with fun!!  Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the day.  Sorry dad and Rod...I didn't have a single picture of you two!

A Little Rewind

Summer is here and I am loving my time off!!  It has been so nice to sleep in a little, play at the park, go to the pool and just relax!!  I finally have some down time so I am going to focus on updating this blog!!

I was looking through photos on my computer and realized I never made a post back in the spring when Olivia gave up her binky!  This is a HUGE deal!! Michael and I had talked to Olivia several times about the binky fairy and decided to bite the bullet and help our sweetie give up her habit! We knew it might be a painful 24 hours so we wanted to make sure we were the ones to suffer and not Mema or Miss Robin!  While Olivia was napping on a Friday afternoon at the beginning of March the binky fairy stopped by to grab Olivia's binkies.  She woke up to find baby Alive!  She was immediately excited.  The binky fairy left her a note telling her she would be taking Olivia's binkies to the babies at the hospital.  Olivia was quickly into playing and feeding baby Alive.  

After an hour or two she started asking about her binky but Michael and I quickly changes the subject.  We ate pizza, read books and it was time for bed.  This was the time I was dreading! Olivia ALWAYS had her binky anytime she slept.  I went in to lay with her and after an entire hour of crying she fell asleep.  It was heart breaking, but Michael was there to encourage me not to give the binky back!

The next day Olivia woke up happy and wanted to play with her new baby that she decided to name Katie!  She played with her all day and only asked a few times for her binky.  Honestly, each day got a little easier and we are so proud of our little girl!! She sees binkies of Johnny's ever single day and never sticks them in her mouth!!