Blog clean-up

I think it's time to refresh my sidebar links of fun blogs but it just seems like such a daunting task. I'm a poor typist so it takes me some time to get it done correctly. If I end up leaving someone out who wants to be added just send me a comment and I'll add you to it.

I have actually wanted to do this for some time but life happens and it gets put on the "to do" list. Then my "to do" list gets on the "maybe next month" list. You know how it goes...

Today is officially Olivia's 3rd birthday. We went to the grocery store and picked out a big turtle cupcake. Ava and I are going to sing Happy Birthday to her after lunch so she can blow out another candle. Sadly, Dave won't be here to join in but that's ok. I'll take a picture of the event for WW.

Manic Monday #15 Baking Season

This is the season for baking in my house. During the summer we buy most all of our cookies and cakes because the weather is so hot and it costs so much to run the air conditioner all day long. But now that the weather has cooled down, ok it is 80 degrees today and supposed to be hotter tomorrow but it is definitely cooler than it was over the summer, we can now bake cookies all day long. Then we hand them out to all of our neighbors and friends at Dave's job.

Here's a few pictures of the baking team...










Yip those cookies taste as good as they look...Yummy!!

Those are just are first batch for the season and we have many cakes and pumpkin bread loafs to make too. With my helpers we should be able to make great treats!

Manic Monday image courtesy of Jannaverse.

Olivia turns 3!!!

This is Olivia waking up on her birthday:

As you may have guessed we all woke up with colds. This is always wonderful on the day of your child's party. So many things to get done and we're not feeling like doing anything.

We figured maybe we should just begin simple so we started with breakfast.



After huge amounts of coffee and a lot of cold medicine, temperature takings, and snot wipings we were ready to set things up. Grammie moved out all the toys from the family room and re-arranged some furniture, Dave was on pick up cake, ice, and pizza duty, and I blew up balloons, set out all the food, and made a bunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. This was actually a very easy party to set up for. All the food was pre-packaged and the favors were put together the night before.

This is the cake Olivia picked out...Right now she is really into Ariel and she wanted chocolate cake which I love so it was great.

Soon all the guests arrived and everyone ate and played and had a great time. None of the kids cried or had tantrums. I do believe it actually went off without a hitch. We sang happy birthday and Olivia opened her gifts...




After the party I went to bed. An hour or so later Grammie came and joined me. Poor Dave, he was tired too and he had to stay downstairs and feed the girls dinner and wait until their bedtime before he could come up and join us. But when he did he brought a movie and we all laid in bed and watched it. It was nice, we all felt like crap but got to relax.

Fairyland

Grammie's never been to Fairyland so of course we had to show her how wonderful it can be.



We walked around and got to see the animals, ducks, and chickens. We checked out all of the fairytale stories. We rode the rides...

There was a big dragon slide that Olivia just could stop going down. Grammie would catch her at the bottom. As we were getting ready to leave we caught the last play at the puppet theater. This was a really fun day.

Berkeley- Our Most Exciting Adventure Yet

Wednesday we went to Habitot in Berkeley. This is a discovery museum for children. What it really was was one of the best times of our lives. We loved it. Here's proof:


This is Ava creating a science project using Styrofoam peanuts and a paper plate.

Ava has discovered that Gak is messy, stringy, and she does NOT like it on her hands. EEEW!!! Yuck!!!

Livy loved the big painting wall. She was making circles and ovals.

These are pools for the kids to go fishing in. I don't have a picture of them playing because as soon as Ava saw the pitcher she filled it and dumped it down her shirt. Water, water everywhere... To preserve the life of the camera I left it outside.

This is a big fan and on the ground there are piles of leaves, buckets, rakes, and a broom. Olivia really enjoyed playing in the leaves.

This is a wall maze for the kids to climb around in. Both the girls seemed to like playing and climbing in here.

And lastly, this is Ava driving the big space shuttle. She's blasted off and ready for flight. The only other thing that we didn't get pictures of was the face painting center where I painted bunnies on the girls' faces and Olivia drew some funny stuff on my face and Grammie's face.

The Zoo

Dave had today off so we made plans to head to the Zoo. The girls are big enough now that we have to pack very little for them which is a huge blessing. I used to hate having to cart all that stuff around that you need just in case the baby pukes, poops everywhere, or something worse happens. Now we bring an "in case" pull-up and our snacks. It's fantastic.

Again we somehow forgot that it was a holiday and the Zoo was packed with people. Despite everyone else, we ran around and looked at all the animals, had some snacks with the Meerkats, and played all over the park area.

Olivia found a fox hole with a cute little statue in it. She pet it for awhile and then crossed the lily pond with Grammie.

After a few hours it was time to say goodbye to all the lovely animals. Olivia grabbed onto Grammie's hand and they headed for the exit.

If you notice in this picture Olivia's feet never quite touch the ground. She is continually hopping and jumping. Grammie said one of her arms is probably going to be longer than the other because of this!!

Fun Outings

Now that we've captured Grammie we get to do all kinds of fun stuff with her. Sunday we went shopping for Olivia's birthday party. We bought balloons, party favors, floam, party food, and some cool gadgets for Grammie and Papa that we have yet to figure out really how they work. We topped it all off with a big spaghetti dinner, one of the girls' favorites.

Monday we went to the store to order Olivia's cake and then went to Pump It Up for a pop in play time. The girls just love this place. Somehow mom and I forgot that it was a Holiday for all of the school kids so it was very crowded. We still jumped in all the houses and went down the big slide. At first I was afraid Olivia wouldn't be able to make it up by herself so I helped her all the way up the big slide. She quickly went down and left me on the top. Ok, so I don't like slides as much as I don't like roller coasters:) But I had to go down because the kids were coming up so fast. Yes, I probably looked like an idiot but Liv was happy to watch me slide down. The next thing I knew she was all ready back at the top of the slide making her next leap off. I guess she didn't need my help.

Now Ava's my pal. She's not into the slide either, Woo Hoo! She likes the idea of it but actually going down is very frightening for her. We made our way to the smaller slide, which let me tell you- you have to go through this maze on your knees and hands to get to the back to get to the ladder for the slide...not easy and very sweaty. But she liked it and requested, "Go again...help" as she spread her arms out to the side for me to lift her back in. She jumped and jumped until there wasn't a jump left in her.

Then we made our way to Target and some other fine stores. We had a pretzel, another of the girls' faves and cheese. After shopping Ava fell asleep in the car and woke up as soon as we got home. This was the day of no naps. Whew, it was a long day. It was fun and totally worth it. By the time Dave got home from work we were all ready to go to dinner at the buffet. There we ate all we could and came home and literally went to bed. It was exhausting but totally worth it. Grammie got to do all the fun stuff we usually tell her about but this time she was a part of it.