Princess Belle and a birthday party

This was a weekend of birthday party fun for Olivia! On Saturday evening we went to our friend Ayva's birthday party at a local community pool! Somehow, I forgot my camera, so I have no proof of our fun, but it was a blast! The kids and adults all had a lot of fun!!!!

Then on Sunday afternoon we had Olivia's good friend Sawyer's birthday party! Sawyer had Belle from Beauty and The Beast come over for her party and all of the girls dressed up in their princess best! Last year we had Cinderella come for Olivia's 3rd birthday and she had so much fun, she was really looking forward to meeting Belle! Belle definitely did not disappoint!

Playing a game with a parachute. All of Liv's friends are grouped together in this picture!

(Maci, Liv, Emma, Sawyer)

Playing with bubbles....
Belle and Olivia
Olivia's curtsy
I love this picture of all of the girls watching Cinderella as she left!

The Splash Park!

Last Thursday, as the wind was whipping somewhere around 50 mph, we went up to a splash park close-by with some friends from church. Despite the hurrican force winds, we all had a great time! Olivia and Kennedy were a little unsure of the sprinklers at first, but by the end, we could not get them to leave!

Obviously I am no budding photographer... neither of the girls could open their eyes for the sun glaring in them! :)

An action shot of Liv once she got the hang of it! She must get that long, lean body from her dad!
Taking a break!
I'm not too sure what they are up to at that pole.....
This pictures says it all.... we had one tired and unhappy girl on our hands as we tried to leave!

Dance Recital Pictures

I am getting a little out of order here, but I just had to post these pictures, I couldn't wait! This morning Olivia had her pictures for her dance recital that is coming up next weekend! They are performing to Under the Sea from the Little Mermaid and their costumes are precious!!!!

Our Little Mermaid

Olivia with her classmates, aren't they adorable!?!?
Posing with their teacher (also adorable!) Miss Erin after receiving their medals for completing the year!

I am working on our pictures from Sea World, so stay tuned! I will try not to bog down the site with pictures!!! :)

The Last Day of School

May 22nd was Olivia's last day of school and thankfully she was there to be a part of the festivities! As I mentioned in my last post, when we came home from Houston, we came home with a sick Olivia. I thought she was on the mend after a great Monday, but over the next few days her fever kept spiking. So she missed her splash day at school on Tuesday which she had really been looking forward to! I think we both cried! I felt so sad for her!!! So, even though she was not 100% on Thursday I let her go to school. She had a great day and we are both sad the school year is over!

Olivia and her teacher, Mrs. Melissa

Sawyer and Olivia

A Trip to Houston

Denny had to go to Houston last week for work. He had meetings Friday and Saturday and then Saturday night his company had their "100 year Gala". So early last Thursday we headed out to Houston. Denny had to stay downtown in the hotel with the other employees, so Olivia and I stayed with the Graney's!

On Friday, while Denny was in meetings and Bumpa and Gigi were also at work, Olivia and I went to the mall. We shopped, had lunch, and stopped to make some wishes at the fountain!

After we came home and we both rested, we went outside to try out her new 3D Sidewalk Chalk and Paint Gigi had given her upon arrival! It was really fun surprisingly! There were animals to trace and paint/color, and 3D glasses included, very neat! The weather was great while we were down there, so it was very pleasant outside.
Probably Olivia's favorite thing to do at Bumpa and Gigi's is swim! They took a short dip Friday evening after Bumpa got home from work. And then first thing Saturday morning they were out there again! Bumpa went outside to clean-up the pool before their swim, so Olivia had to follow! She literally wanted to follow him every step of the way! Here they are practicing kicking and discussing life! :)

Being the forgetful mom that I am these day, I forgot to bring down any of Olivia's swim stuff like floaties, rafts, etc.... Bumpa was generous enough to take Olivia up to the pool store and they picked out a ring, some floaties and a super fun raft! It was pretty chilly Saturday morning so they had to heat up the spa to swim.
Here is Olivia learning to dunk her head under water on her own! It was so cute! She was very proud of herself and rightfully so! I am so thankful she is not fearful of the water! She had to show Gigi and me several times how she could hold her breath and go under water. AND, she can reach the bottom of the spa without going under.
She had so much fun swimming! That is literally all she wants to do while we are there! Thankfully she has a very wonderful Bumpa who is always willing to take her out, rain or shine, hot or cold!
This is Denny and I at the "Gala" Saturday night. His company put on quite a show, they truly went all out, it was very nice!
And here is Olivia on Sunday! This is as good as she got! When we got back to the Graney's Sunday morning, I picked up Olivia to give her a hug and she felt warm, like she had a fever. We took her temperature and it was around 99 degrees. As we were getting ready to leave, she was laying in Gigi's lap and she thought she felt downright hot. So we took her temp again and it was over 102, which is very unlike Liv, she never runs a fever over 100! I didn't really want to risk driving a 4+ hour drive with her feeling (and looking) so pitiful, so we headed out to find an urgent care on our way out of town. The only one we could find was a RediClinic, which was part of an HEB grocery store. There was only one doctor working (come to find out later she was actually a nurse practioner) so it took us almost 2 hours to be seen! In the meantime, we hung out at HEB, on their patio, relaxing (as best we could) in some patio furniture they had for sale, as there were some really sick people in that office! :) We were finally seen and the nurse practioner diagnosed Liv with a double ear infection. She then checked everything else from throat to appendix to make sure there was "nothing else". She asked to do a strep test before she even looked at her throat. Not really reassuring. But she did give us a prescription. So we left there, filled her prescription and then headed back to Dallas. It was SO sad to see Liv in the backseat in so much discomfort! She just couldn't get comfortable enough to sleep more than 2 minutes at a time. She'd wake-up, say something pitiful, her eyes would shut, and the cycle would restart itself! My heart just broke for her! We finally pulled into the driveway around 7:00 p.m., 7 hours after leaving the Graney's! So needless to say, it was a long day! But thankfully she seems to be feeling much better today already!!!! That's a very good thing as we have a full week of fun stuff at school as this is her last week!!!!!

Despite a rocky trip home, we all had a lot of fun in Houston, and a big thank you to Bumpa and Gigi for taking care of Liv while we were down there!

The bedding is in!

Yesterday I went into Cat & the Fiddle to just look at a few things and while I was there I had them to check to see if our bedding had come in yet. It was my lucky day!!!! I thought I'd post a few quick pics for those interested to see! It's not too exciting on it's own, but once the room comes together, I think it will be very warm and cozy!

Poor Denny, I had everything on the crib and realized that when we moved the movers put the crib together completely wrong! So last night he had to completely take apart and then reassemble the crib and move the mattress up. That only took him 2 hours! Apparently all the screws are stripped or something and it made it very difficult! I felt so badly for him! He was a trooper for sure!

And here is the rocker!!!! It is amazing, the picture does not do this thing justice! We decided that we also need the otoman, so that is currently on order! Once we get that I may just sleep upstairs in the nursery! :)

A Trip to the Zoo!

On Saturday we headed out to Fort Worth for a trip to the zoo! Olivia has been to the zoo one other time with her Bumpa in Houston, so this was our first time to go with her! Naturally the drive from Frisco to Fort Worth was a little longer than she would have liked. I am not joking when I say that every 5 minutes she was asking, "When will be to the zoo?". I know it's very typical for kids her age, but that doesn't make it any easier to take! :) Luckily the drive was only an hour (not like a 4 hour trip to Houston!), and we finally made it.

I think this might have been Olivia's favorite part of the zoo... the map! Literally everytime I turned around she was staring at it and going over all the animals we still had to see. She was planning out the rest of our visit. I have no idea where she would get that type of organization!

Our first stop was at the flamingos. I guess we were a little early for their liking, they must have had a late night as they were ALL asleep at 10:45! But Olivia thought it was so funny they sleep on one leg with their head buried in their feathers!

Next were the orangutans, they were funny! I did not remember them being this hairy, but I think the big guy there was pretty old! They were great to watch!
And this is about all we saw of the elephants...
Taking a look at the map

The lion was awesome! He was huge and gave us a roar or two while we were there! Olivia was very intrigued by his need to relieve himself while we watched! After that he was off to a nap!
The Graney's at the zoo!
The parrots

A little joey hopping over to say hello! There were 2 other kangaroos that Olivia was fascinated with, they kept looking at her and she thought that was pretty neat!

The alligator was the only animal Oliva was not impressed by. She said that was the only one she didn't like... all the rest were her favorites!
Hmmm.... where should we go next?
Taking a look at the reptiles.
She's not too sure what to think about all these snakes and lizards. I'm sure her brother will one day be more interested!

I have to say that personally I was a little disappointed in the zoo. Maybe I just remember it from when I was young and all the animals looked so big to me. But Olivia had a great time and immediately asked when we could go back..."next week?" she asked as we were walking to the car. Um, maybe next year!

A Nice Surprise

I went to my OB yesterday for what I thought was going to be just a routine monthly pre-natal visit. We have had a sonogram every time we have gone in with this pregnancy, it's been great! But this visit we didn't have one scheduled, so I told Denny there was no need to tag along, it would be pretty boring! However, when I arrived my doctor thought it would be a good idea to do a sonogram because he wanted to measure my cervix to make sure it's still sealed tight! As luck would have it the sonographer didn't have any other patients and I walked right into her room! My cervix looks great, which is a relief, and everything else looked great as well... another relief, as always! He is still measuring ahead of schedule, about 5 days and is in the 70th percentile for weight at a whopping 2 lbs. 1 oz. It's strange to me that he can measure almost a week ahead and only be in the 70th percentile for weight/size/whatever. But what do I know! Anyway, the sonogram was really a lot of fun! You forget how neat it is to feel and see them move at the same time! And we got some great pictures of him!!!! I know to most of you it might be hard to make out some of the pictures, but I think he is a doll! :)

Here is a picture of him facing the "camera". This is my favorite! If you tilt your head to the right it's easier to see his little face more clearly. You can see his eyes on the right-hand side and his mouth is open with his arm/hand in front of it! And look at those cheeks!!!! I think babies with full cheeks are so cute! So it will be interesting to see how they look in "real" life! But he looks like a real baby in these pictures, not just some skeleton-like image you normally see in sonogram pictures.

Same shot as above almost, just not as close-up!
And a great profile view! He's still got that hand in his mouth....
Here is Denny's personal favorite... just follow the arrow!

I don't know why sonographers (men and women alike) think it is so important to always capture a shot of the male anatomy! We have more pictures of that than anything else! I don't know that we have one single picture of Olivia's "parts"!

All in all it was a fun visit, I was just sad Denny couldn't be there to share! But he had some great pictures to look at when he got home!

A Sleepover... Take Two!

So this weekend, we had Kennedy sleep over at our house! Olivia had seen Kennedy at church on Thursday night, so she knew all about the sleepover on Friday. So all day Friday I had to hear, "When is Kennedy coming over Mommy?" or "When will Kennedy be here?" or "How much longer until Kennedy gets here Mommy?"... you get the idea! By about 10:00 a.m. I was about to call Julie and just have her bring Kennedy over! But finally Kennedy arrived and the girls immediately went upstairs to play, like always! There are a couple of things Olivia never tires of and one of them is dress-up. Luckily Kennedy loves to dress-up as much as Olivia, so they spent most of their time doing just that... and taking care of their babies!

Best of friends

For dinner we bought a pizza crust with toppings for the girls to put together! They were so cute "making" their dinner! They did a really good job with everything too!
Enjoying all of their hard work!
Enjoying their dessert even more!!!
And finally winding down before bedtime with a My Little Pony movie. They look so sweet... and sleepy, but don't let them fool you!
Both girls have the same blow-up beds so Kennedy brought hers over and they slept on those! Just like at Kennedy's house there was much whispering and talking and we even heard one or both of them actually get up. When we went upstairs to check there was a quick scramble to get back into their sleeping bags! There was also a huge pile of books which were not there when we had left them to go to sleep originally! It was pretty funny! I think they finally passed out around 11:00! Luckily they slept in a little... 7:30!
The next morning they woke-up, played, had some donuts, and of course watched a few cartoons before it was time for the sad good-byes!