Happy Birthday Olivia!

While we were at the lake, Olivia celebrated her third birthday!  We had so much fun celebrating this sweet, funny, wild, delightful little lady!

 

For weeks and weeks Olivia has been talking about how all she wanted for her birthday was a rainbow cake!  Since we were out of town, I was hoping the local grocery store would be able to come through for us with a fitting cake!  Thankfully, Friday morning they had the above pictured cake (minus the rainbow!), and when I asked if a rainbow could be added it was no problem!  Olivia was thrilled!

 

After opening gifts and enjoying the rainbow cake, the kids played some games together out on the lawn!  First up was a sack race!  The kids loved it!

 

Next was a limbo contest!  The rules were a bit lax, and the kids were able to go low!  After the kids had their fun, the adults took a turn!  I will spare all those who participated and not post the pictures and videos that I have of the limbo contest!

 

Daddy and his three year old!  It's hard to believe that she is that old!  We love you to pieces Olivia Constance!

Havasu Thanksgiving!

Happy (late!) Thanksgiving from our family to yours!  Once again, we have so much for which to be thankful!  Health, family, a church we love, great friends, our home, and so so so much more!  We were grateful to once again escape for a few days to Lake Havasu and spend Thanksgiving with some family!

 

The weather was quite a bit cooler than last year, but it couldn't keep the kids and the dads out of the heated pool.  On the side sat all the moms and grandmas bundled up as if it were about to snow!

 

Thanksgiving lunch was at one of our favorite restaurants, The Springs, and it was delicious!  No one left disappointed or hungry!  And the best part was someone else did all the preparing and cleaning!  Faith enjoyed having Grandma Poelstra and her friend Anna with us!  I don't have any pictures of it,  but for dinner that evening we all brought an appetizer to share.  Shane discovered a love for smokie links, and we all fell in love with Brittany's buffalo chicken dip!  All the appetizers were tasty and enjoyed by all!  It was a fun way to end the day!

 

After the noon meal on Thanksgiving, we went over to the Parker Dam to check it out!  Everyone is looking at the water from the lake traveling into the dam.

 

I don't know what he's telling her, but it's probably something he learned on Wild Kratz, a show on PBS!  Both Shane and Haley have a love for that show!

 

In addition to all going out for Thanksgiving, we also all went out for dinner Friday night to the Golden Horseshoe!  They had the perfect table for our group of 16!!

 

The birthday girl enjoyed her dinner out with all the family!

 

It was a wonderful weekend filled with food, family, and fun!  We were thankful so many wanted to join us at the lake for a bit of a non-traditional Thanksgiving weekend!

Nutcraker Weekend

This past weekend Faith danced in her second Nutcracker ballet! Once again it was a crazy, magical, wild, fun, exhausting, beautiful weekend!  This was a picture of Faith before we left for the first show on Saturday afternoon!  There were three shows this weekend!

Faith is one of the midnight mice in this year's production!  It's an adorable role!!

 

Here she is with most of her mice friends! (Faith is on the far right!)  All the dancers did a wonderful job, and if you missed the show, there are four more the first weekend of December in Ventura!  Even as I was driving home a very tired dancer Sunday evening, she was already looking forward to the December shows!

Halloween and more!

Even though I didn't take many pictures on Halloween, I had to post a few shots that I do have!  The above picture was from Trunk-or-Treat and was taken by my friend Cindy!  Shane just loved bobbing for apples! 

 

One more from Friday night!  Faith is playing our witch toss game! This is also concrete proof that I was not a cowgirl again this year.  The kids helped me venture out into the superhero world! 

 

Because Halloween was on a Saturday, our day started out with ballet and soccer!  Shane's season is almost over. It's fun to see how much he has improved over the season!  He really hustles and seems to understand the game more each game!

 

This is the lone picture I have of all three from Halloween!  Faith was disappointed that she was going to miss out on the first part of the party we were going to because of Nutcracker rehearsal!  As it turns out, the mice were let out early and she and Steve arrived at the party just as we were starting dinner!

 

The highlight of the night for these two was passing out candy!  They were so cute and so excited!

 

Monday morning arrived, and the weather had finally changed after the summer that would not end!  It was finally cool, cloudy, and comfortable!  I was inspired to tackle a challenge, so I offered to buy Olivia a toy on our trip to Target if she threw away all of her pacis!  We usually take them away at age three, but since we will be out of town, I was wanting to do it either before or after our trip.  She actually took me up on my offer, threw them away, and picked out the toy she's playing with in the above picture!  It's a Doc McStuffins Pet Vet kit.  She loves it!  And I'm shocked once again how easily one of our kids has given up the beloved pacifier!  They all seemed so attached that it was going to be a terrible even for all involved, but each of them did fine after a few tears on the first day.  Yeah for Olivia and yeah for us not having to keep track of that thing anymore!

 

Later Monday afternoon it actually rained for about 20 minutes!  These two seized the moment and went to play while it lasted!