When did Olivia become a teenager?

Olivia had a few friends over today and they played very nicely and independently for a long time. All of a sudded I heard her TV playing in her room. The only thing we use that TV for is its built-in VCR, otherwise we'd have nothing to play our old tapes on. I guess she knows how to operate it all by herself now. I found the girls all huddled up in bed watching Dragon Tales video. They are all ready for slumber parties, huh?

Wasted calories

Noah wanted Nutty Coconut ice cream at Baskin Robins Dollar Days tonight. I ended up eating half of it. Luckily they made it sweet enough I could barely tolerate the nuts and coconut, two things I'd rathar not eat in ice cream. I'd much rathar use my calories for Tax Crunch, now that stuff is awesome. Ok, I ate that too. And some of Olivia's Heath Nut Crunch. I love taking the kids out for ice cream!

Dress-up Day

All Olivia wants to be when she grows up is a clown. She's having some influence on Noah too, I think. The two cutest clowns I've ever met anyway.

Going...

going...



Gone!



Travis fought the old shed and won all in one day. It's finally, officially gone. To celebrate we had homemade brownies, Breyers Vanilla Bean ice cream, and homemade hot fudge sauce. We occasionally look out the window in awe of how the different the yard looks.

Unfortunately, there is still the hard part. More jackhammering. Then plant grass and wait, wait, wait for it to grow. But at that point we might treat the kids to a big, fancy, redwood play structure.

More fun with boxes

Daddy made some houses with the boxes next. Don't they resemble the row houses in San Francisco? Olivia even drew some flowers on them.

Who needs Toys R Us?

Big boxes that a new shed came in are much more fun.

Ain't it purdy?

Check out our new shed. Amazing what can make me extremely happy nowadays. I love it.



Here is a picture of daddy in the middle of putting it up. He had a couple of good assistants.



Let the breakdown of the old shed begin. Here it is emptied out and hopefully it's last photo shoot.

Happy Valentines Day

What else can a girl want for Valentines Day then the two cutest kids in the world playing with a pink balloon together? (Just noticed who is holding the balloon in all the pictures... Enjoy, Olivia, while your little brother is still 2.)

A glimpse in Olivia head

This is what I found in Olivia's room the other day. I asked her why Love-a-Lot Bear and Curious George are wearing her skirts and plastic on their heads. She answered, "because they are going to outer space." Obviously!

Happy Anniversary!

My blog, Growing Up Guacamole, is one year old! I'm not blogging at the rate I used to, but we are eating guacamole at the same rate, so that's good enough, right?

The more the merrier

I've been a bit slack on taking pictures of the kids. It was a cold, rainy, dreary January which always has me a little bummed and doesn't create the best environment for pictures. But today is warmer and sunnier and I'm looking forward to spring.

Here is Olivia and Noah building a train track yesterday with their friend, B. B just became a big sister. In fact, her little brother was the first baby of the new year around here, born just a few seconds into 2007! She played so well with Olivia and Noah, I just know she is going to be the best big sister, other than Olivia that is.

Changes in the air

I'm so excited, another project I've been dreaming about since we moved in has begun. Removing the ugly, old, rusty shed in the middle of our yard. I went into it today to get the pitchfork to stir our compost and I found a cat in it. A BLACK CAT was in our shed. How many years of bad luck is that? The doors don't close properly, you slid one overlapping the other to keep the kids out. But I guess that doesn't keep the cats out.

But now it's on it's way out, take your last look at this eyesore.



Travis began removing shelves from it this weekend. He also started adding dirt to level the ground where the new shed will be, which he also bought this weekend. A lovely *plastic* 8x8 shed that will be discretely nestled between our fig and avacado tree.



Stay tuned at the end of March for dump week pictures. We plan to have quite the pile, including the entire old shed and lots of busted up concrete. Here is already what Travis has taken out of it waiting patiently for the end of next month.

Olivia's latest masterpiece

Olivia asked me today what she should draw and I said "a farm" for some reason out of the blue. I was pretty impressed with what she came up with. Check out the cow, farm, and even the hay stack on the far right!

In da hood

Today I found Olivia dressing up her Pink Princess Cat. You might remember, she made her at Build-a-Bear as a Christmas present from her uncle J.

Well, apparently, Pink Princess Cat wanted to be a little more street, because I found her wearing Noah's dark gray Old Navy hoodie. Quite the change from her purple shell top and green mermaid tail. I don't think this is exactly how Disney envisioned Ariel's wardrobe after becoming human.

Happy Birthday to me!

In honor of my birthday I am indulging in a post that probably only I care anything about. (And since photobucket is down, I needed a place to host the picture.)

Here is a picture of the swatch I FINALLY decided on for the scarf I am making out of the angora sweater I unraveled. After a bazillion test swatches of different partterns feeling like I was knitting with dental floss, I decided to use two strands together and use this pattern from knitty called elbac.

The thing I like about it is that, since it's done entirely in 1x1 ribbing, it's reversable and looks identical on both sides. The only thing I changed about it was making the center cable 12 stitches wide instead of 8. Switching from knit to purl stitches so much will probably make it take forever, but the angora feels so heavenly, that's perfectly ok with me.