There Were Kids Everywhere

On Saturday, the three of us trekked up to the Paso Robles Children's Museum {which kinda puts SLO's museum to shame} for a friend's birthday party.  I had a feeling there would be a lot of kids there because I know the mom has a lot of other mom friends, but I was blown away by just how many kiddos were there!

Olivia We all had a great time - with lots of yummy food and cake - and with so much to do right at our fingertips, there was definitely never a dull moment!

Ever seen a ballerina chew on raw meat?  There's a first time for everything!

The birthday boy and his Mama.  If she wasn't one of the sweetest girls I know, I would have a hard time liking her.  She always looks so well put together, with make-up on and her skinny little jeans, and she's usually rockin' her little four month old too!  You'd want to hate her too, but you couldn't.  She's that sweet.

Funny story, if you know David's family - her name is Marisa and her husband's name is, wait for it, Kyle!

Believe it or not, there were still kids playing when this picture was taken.

Sweetie pie, Brycen.  Remember that face {and then age it some} because he's got an arm like no other two year old!

What do I need to put on my camera to get her to look at it when I take pictures?  I must have snapped at least 50 pictures and she never looked in my direction once.

Look Aunt Patty!! She LOVES the piano!

Believe it or not, we were all exhausted after two hours of non-stop play.  We were pretty lazy on Saturday afternoon and since we have a male guest in town, our television was tuned to football all evening.  We did manage to make it over to Jocko's {on time even} for a yummy steak dinner.

On Sunday, David and Sean went out to lunch and Olivia and I went over to the Farmers' Market and then headed to the playground.  

I love that precious little face more than anything!

Olivia must have played so hard at the playground (that is literally two minutes away from our house) that this is what she looked like when we pulled into the garage.

Bless her sweet little heart!  

After her nap, we had a little dress up party and Olivia had some fun trying on different hats.  This one was made by one of Grandma Irma's friends and it is just absolutely adorable.

Although, I think she looks like she belongs in this family instead of ours.  I need to head to Nordstroms, huh Jill??

I love these girls like they are my own family.  Each and every one of them.

Happy Monday from the Central Coast!

I Wanna Ride on a Firetruck

Two things Olivia loves - footed pajamas {these penguin ones, more specifically} + fuzzy socks.  And, she is thrilled when she can combine the two.

Oh wait, let's make that three FOUR things Olivia loves.  Her new baby and the stroller she pushes her around in are her faaaaavorites!

I have seriously been waiting for this day for so long.  I love to bake - like really love to bake - and now I have my own little baking buddy!  She had so much fun stirring the banana bread batter.

And, let's not forget the all-important chocolate chunks!

This morning we headed up to SLO for Music Time at Boo Boo Records.  I was a little worried how Olivia would do today.  Since our last time there, Olivia has become {and I know I use this word often} obsessed with Ivan Ulz's Firetruck.  Like, we can listen to it once and by the time it ends, she is requesting to hear it again.  Rinse & Repeat.  Firetruck is always played at the end of the class and I was worried she would be screaming for it the whole time.  However, today she wanted me to hold her almost the entire time and finally got down a few songs before Firetruck....and then she went NUTSO when Heidi finally played it.

After class, we stopped by a restaurant with a few steps and turned it into a little playground for the kids. I swear I took 50 pictures of the kids and never got them all looking at the camera at the same time.

Jacob was so excited to see Olivia.  Pretty sure he is crushin' on her big time.  His mom told him to sit closer to Olivia and he was all over that!

Was he going in for a kiss?

This was probably the best one I got.

Happy Wednesday from the Central Coast!

Pictures A Go-Go

How about the next few blogs just be all about Maren??  Ha ha.  Maybe not, but she does deserve a lot of credit for this posting.  Back in November, one freezing cold afternoon, Maren came over with her camera and her fancy schmancy lenses and snapped a quick photo session of the three of us {er, four while he could stand the cold} and we used two of them for our Christmas cards.  I've been not-so patiently waiting to share the rest of them with you.  She is really so talented.  I know it doesn't take a lot of work to make Olivia look as cute as a button, but I think she even managed to make me, dare I say it, kind of purdy!  Thanks Maren!

Ready for the picture overload?  GO!

Poor David, I cropped him out of this one...he was making a funny face and didn't like the picture anyway!

Our Christmas card photo

I love this one...like really LOVE this one.

Perfecting her Saturday Night Fever pose.

Those boots...she's killin' me!

I can't stand it...she is just too ridiculously cute.

I'm thinking she hates our kissy face.

Our photographers are always asking us to play kissy face during photo sessions and we always oblige, but we ALWAYS say to each other, "Who wants to see pictures of us kissing?!"

Apparently nobody and that's why she made us blurry!

We got cut out of this one for the second picture on our Christmas card.

I bet Maren had a million shots like this one.  Olivia has a bad habit...can you guess what it is?

Whatchu talkin' bout, Willis?

Happy Monday from the Central Coast!

My Little Hula Girl

Our friends Maren & Michael and their daughter, Avi, went to Kauai a couple weeks before we left for our Hawaii trip and Maren brought Olivia and her friends back a little grass skirt set.  Last night as we were putting things away, we came across the skirt and decided to try it on.  Olivia looked as cute as could be in the little outfit and kept calling herself a ballerina.

Her little Hula Doll, Emma.

I'm thinking a return trip is in order!

Happy Sunday from the Central Coast!

And, it was back to the cupcake pajamas a few minutes later!

No Cookies for Me

Ugh, I am a bad blogger!  I really wanted to get some pictures up from our trip with a nice description of all the things we did - you know, for prosperity's sake.  But, like I said in my last post, I didn't take all that many pictures and I didn't get the ones from my brother onto my computer before we all flew to our respective homes.  So, I'm now waiting on him to get those pictures (hint, hint, HINT).

I think I left off after our evening out to see Ulalena the last Tuesday night of our trip.  Fortunately, we had two more shows left to get the disappointment of the much-hyped show out of our system.  Even though the Cirque Polynesia wasn't as magnificent as the Kooza show we saw in Atlanta, it was still amazing.  I am always blown away by the talents of the people in these shows - watching someone walk across a high wire, dangle from their ankles, or balance on several cylinders is just incredible.

On Thursday, Ryan and David decided to do the Road to Hana.  I decided not to go at the last minute because I was fearful of getting car sick.  I also didn't want to leave Olivia alone with Mom and Dad, knowing that we would rely on them watching her that night when we went to the magic show and then again the next day when we went on our snorkeling trip.  I think the guys had fun, but it was a long trip. Olivia and I enjoyed hanging out with Mom and Dad at the beach and the pool.  She absolutely LOVED both and our villas had a great pool with a little 1 1/2 foot baby pool attached to it that she loved splashing around in.

Thursday night's magic show was beyond incredible.  As soon as we left the show, we called to see if there were tickets again for the next night.  {Unfortunately, the next night was Christmas Eve and they weren't doing any shows.}  If you are ever in Maui, you MUST go see Warren and Annabelle's show.  Warren is beyond hilarious, uses almost all crowd participation, and his sleight of hand is lightning fast.
This is one of the main reasons I want to go back to Maui.

David and I had a blast on Friday on the Four Winds Snorkeling Adventure to Molokini.  Although the call time was 7am {I hate mornings}, it was well worth it.  I had never been snorkeling before, and to be quite honest with you, I am not a huge fan of swimming in large bodies of water.  After arriving at the partially sunken volcanic crater, David was the first to jump in.  My stomach was still in knots and was only slightly less so after David did two solo excursions.  I figured it was do or die time and so I went in.  The wet suit top I had rented definitely came in handy, as the water was fairly cool.  We stayed in for about 30 minutes and then hopped on to the boat and had a nice lunch of pulled pork sandwiches and macadamia cookies.  We were fortunate enough to see several whales {including a yearling showing off some breaching for us} on our ride back to Maui.

Friday night, we had dinner up the road at an outdoor restaurant at the Westin and went back to our villas to do a small gift exchange with each other and to decorate some break-n-bake cookies.

Mom, Dad and Ryan all flew out on Christmas Day, but our flight wasn't until the next afternoon.  We relaxed on Christmas Day and spent the next morning exploring the sweetest little lagoon in Waikiki.

Well, David & Olivia explored it - I chose to keep myself sand-free and watched from the boardwalk.  Our flight home that afternoon was relatively easy, thanks to an open seat between us and a baby who napped for almost two hours.  She did great on the drive home and even slept in for us the next morning.

We had a fantastic trip and it has been a tough week adjusting back to the chilly California winter.  Our Christmas decorations are almost completely put away and there are only a couple more loads of laundry to be done and then life around here will be back to normal.  Whatever that is!

Happy New Year's Day from the Central Coast!