Already?

First thing every wednesday at school, Olivia's class joins the rest of the school for "Open Sing." Noah and I often join them too. One of the songs they sing that always gets me is It's a Wonderful World. I'm always weepy at the line that goes, "I see babies cry, I watch them grow. They'll learn much more than I'll ever know. And I say to myself, what a wonderful world..." In fact, it was this song that made me loose it her second day of kindergarten, and it still does every week.

Little did I know that this line would become true so soon. Not only does Olivia know so much on the violin now, there is no way I could keep it all straight; but, tonight daddy decides to teach her chess, a game I never had the patience to attempt.

As I'm writing this blog I'm listening to her talking non-stop about which piece does which move and which one she should do to "a-tackle" (her version of attack) daddy's pieces.

I've said it once and I'll say it again, it's just not fair my little baby girl is growing up into her own little person. Wah!

Happy Easter

Happy Easter everyone. He is risen!

We got up bright and early this morning so Olivia could sing with the kids at church at both services. Since we were going much earlier than normal, I didn't get a picture with the easter basket. But I did get them playing with their bubble toys that came in it this afternoon after church.





Then they opened a package from grandma with new outfits. Very chic.





Then everyone was worn out from the long day and took an afternoon nap.



All in all, a pretty good day!

We're ready for the big day

Today is Olivia's first performance day, I might have mentioned it once or twice. We all put on our show t-shirts to add to the excitement for the day and officially join the ranks of parents dedicated to the point of cheesiness.



I thought we should have a silly picture but I think when I said "Act like Suess" Travis thought I said, "Attack your Spouse."



Poor Noah is so left out on this blog. He's just too fast when awake to get many pictures of him! ;)

She's here

The day we've all been waiting for, grandma L is here! She came in late last night, but Olivia was all ready to read her a bedtime story and tuck her into bed. Yes, Olivia is now able to read entire Dr. Suess books. Such a milestone!



And I'm enjoying grandma's visit too as she's playing trains with Noah and I'm blogging!

Guess it's bedtime

I knew Noah was tired today from not napping for two days, but I didn't expect this. We have been spending a good bit of the winter hanging out in front of the wall heater. It's the coziest place in the house. I guess that is why Noah cuddled up there at 7pm and went to sleep on the floor for the night. Don't worry, I did move him to his bed! Not that his bed is ever a place he lays in by himself and goes to sleep or anything. No, the hallway floor is so much better.



Don't you love his very uncoordinated outfit. Is there anything else I could possibly display that I'm doing wrong with this mommy thing?

Stage make-up?

We were given two pages of instructions for the "stage make-up" for Olivia's play. It included liquid and powder foundation, blush, eye liner, eye shadow, and lipstick. All this for all the performers, boys and girls. I just thought that was crazy, I don't want to buy all that stuff for her. I only wear lipstick and have nothing. Not only do I not want to spend the money, but I don't want to get her interested in the stuff.

My compromise was to just go get her a cheap stick of really girly pink lipstick and hope that was good enough. I usually wear more brownish shades which I didn't think would be good for a little Who Girl. We found a stick for $1 that we like, she practiced putting it on, and we headed to dress rehersal.

Well, even I could tell that all the other kids are going to look much better on stage with all the other crap on too. I might have to cave it and buy some cheap eye liner and blush. That stuff is not too expensive. And I might be able to dig up some of my old foundation. I'm not buying foundation for her, way too expensive.

The worst part, I brought her to the store to get the lipstick, and she wandered down the aisle looking at everything saying, "Oooo, I love this." I was so happy that she was still in the innocent years oblivious to what she looks like. I just hope she can hold on just a little longer and this doesn't start a trend.

In any case, here she is with her pink lipstick. Dress rehersal went great.



And here she is holding her bag for the "green room." Lipstick to touch up right before she goes on stage, and a wide-tooth comb she will never let anyone comb her hair with. And I guarentee she will be the least prepared performer in there.



Oh yeah, and Noah wanted to pick himself out a stick of lipstick at the drug store too. I put my foot down with that one and let him put on some of my chapstick.

Monterey Bay Aquarium

Two saturdays ago it was raining and Travis couldn't work on the house so we planned a much more fun day at Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Olivia's favorite part is the tide pools where you can touch stuff. It's she adorable in her little slouchy Giants hat that actually belongs to daddy?



She loves the sea stars. I don't think you are supposed to call them starfish anymore because they aren't actually fish? Who knows.



Noah was a bit too timid to touch any sea life, so he was passified by getting his hands wet in the water and seeing how many surfaces he could get wet with them.



Noah was much more amused by the slide in the Sea Otter area.



And here is Noah peering at the jellies. I think they may be my personal favorites.



Olivia and Noah each got to pick one toy to bring home. Olivia picked the squishy, glow-in-the-dark jelly fish and Noah picked the Rainbow Fish sticker book.

Overall another great day in California. Except for the part when we got there and I went to get Noah out of his car seat and noticed his ear was oozing what looked like ear wax which the doctor told us on monday was a pussy ear infection. Poor guy.

Kids ice skating is hilarious

It was like someone had thrown a netful of floppy fish on the ice the way the rink was full of kids falling at Olivia's first lesson today. But I was amazed at the way the kids would get back up and keep going. Except Olivia. She pretty much wanted to quit when she got on the ice and it just seemed scary like she was going to fall. My little drama queen even screamed several times at the top of her lungs, "I'm never going to be the kind of person that ice skates!"

But I was so proud of her, after a little cooling off, she decided to go back and give it a try. By that time it was the "free skate" portion after the instruction was over and they put out little plastic chairs for the kids to hold onto and push around the ice. Olivia loved this concept. At first I could not stop laughing because she would push her feet back and forth like 10 times to get the chair to move an inch. But I think she was holding it so hard she was pushing it down and it wouldn't move. Once she relaxed and loosened up she was able to get that thing moving really quick. Then she didn't want to leave and spent the last 30 minutes with her little plastic chair.

She even promised next week she would try the first half of the lesson with no chair too. I think she'll do better now that she's a little more comfortable on the ice. She really is growing up and becoming more determined and self-controlled. I'm really proud of her trying so hard on such a busy day.

Her day today consisted of celebrating Dr. Suess' birthday at school with lots of Suessish activities. Having her Suessical the Musical dress rehersal on the "real stage." Ice skating lessons for the first time. Then violin lesson where she learned Mary Had a Little Lamb. The girl is amazing.

Olivia's Day Today

Olivia's Agenda 3/3/08

8:30 - 2:30 Kindergarten
3:15 - 4:00 Suessical the Musical Tech Rehersal
5:15 - 6:15 Ice Skating Lesson (first one)
7:00 - 7:30 Violin Lesson

The girl is not going to be home for over 12 hours. She'll have a few minutes in there somewhere to eat dinner on the go. What happened to our slow-moving lives? Last year was the first year she was in any organized activity, and now she's in every one on the face of the earth. She's loving it and doing great, but I think I might drop from exhaustion. And poor Noah is most comfortable eating, sleeping, and playing trains in his car seat nowadays.

The next few weeks are going to continue to be crazy as she has 3 performances over the next two weekends and visits from each grandma to see them on top of all the usual hussle bussle of life. Maybe after the school play is over things will slow down! Yeah right. But we may at least get a day here and there to go to the beach as it gets warmer, I hope.

Olivia's first fund-raiser

I finally got around to getting together some pictures from the walk-a-thon at Olivia's school. It was in September. It was some fund-raising thing, and they didn't raise squat from us, but they still let Olivia walk around in circles anyway.

I dressed her in the loudest most obnoxious clothes I could find for that day so I could spot her easily. It worked. Her pony-tail motion as she walked helped too.



They punched holes in a card around her neck to keep track of how many laps she walked.



Well, Olivia, you *can* take a break if you are that unhappy, no one is making you.



Fine then, time for an orange slice break. I did supply the class with orange slices, so it's not like we're the slackest family or anyting, right?



It was a cute little thing her school did and at least she doesn't have to go around selling candy bars or wrapping paper. Next year we might actually donate a few dollars or something.