Is it Summer Yet?

Well, Hannah broke out the kiddie pool last weekend for the girls to play in, so I guess it's official- summer has begun. I know that the "actual" first day of summer is not until June, but it feels like summer already. Let's look at the facts:

• The weather is beautiful
• I'm off work until the end of July (hooray!)
• Our pool is blue and clean (which is rare for this time of year)

Yep, I think I'm going to call summer vacation early this year. Olivia has been taking full advantage of the weather. She has been playing outside almost every day. I've even had to start putting sunblock on her before she goes to daycare because she has been coming home pink.

Fun with Poppy and Nana

We recently enjoyed a visit from Brian's family. They made the trip down to Georgia from Delaware to see us and the new baby. It is wonderful when they visit, and we wish that we could see them more often. Olivia especially liked receiving all of that wonderful attention that grandparents give.

Easter 08

This year the Easter Bunny visited Olivia at her Gigi's house since we were still at the hospital on Easter morning. Olivia was excited to get a pair of dress shoes, toy animals, and small bags of cookies in her Easter basket. Gigi said that it didnt' take her long to tear into the cookies-Nilla Wafers are Olivia's favorite!

At the hospital, Brian and I were trying to leave so that we could be home in time for Easter dinner. We had discussed early discharge with the nurses on Saturday, and they tried hard to make sure that we were out early. One nurse even called both Owen's and my doctor at home and asked them to be at the hospital early on Sunday so that we could leave. We were able to get home by lunch, so we didn't miss out on the food.

After lunch, we hid eggs for the girls to find. Ava and Olivia caught on quickly to what they were suppose to do. They really enjoyed searching for the eggs. Olivia liked it so much that Brian spent the next week hiding eggs around our house for her to find.

Coming Home

After a long two days at the hospital, we were finally able to bring Owen home on Easter Sunday. The Easter Bunny had already visited our house and had left Owen a basketful of goodies. Among these treats were two new bottles, a taggie blanket, and a chocolate Easter Bunny (which is really more for me than for him). We had another visitor on Monday in the form of a big stork that appeared on our front lawn to announce Owen's birth to anyone driving down our street.

We are all happy to be home now (except maybe Olivia who really enjoyed staying with her Gigi for three days). Brian and I are still trying to get this two-kid thing down, and we are making really good progress. It's not really been hard, but trying to manage two kids while recovering from surgery is not really easy either- especially since I still can't lift heavy objects (like Olivia). Fortunately, we have had lots of help.

Introducing...Owen Walker Sanders

As you all know, last Friday was Good Friday. For our family, though, it was more of a Great Friday. Our son, Owen, was born at 8:14 am. He weighed 9lbs. and was 21.5 inches long.












As you can see, Owen is a much bigger baby than Olivia was. (And with the way he has been eating, he will probably catch up to Olivia before too long.) He has quite a bit of brown hair, and greyish-blue eyes. There is a general concensus that he favors me- which I am happy about since Olivia looks so much like Brian.

Olivia is taking her job as a big sister very seriously. She loves to give her brother kisses, and she is also very helpful when it comes to jobs like covering Owen with a blanket and checking on him while he's sleeping. Brian and I are still trying to get into a routine of managing two small children. It's not been bad so far, and we hope that it continues to be this way.

Here is a picture of our family with its newest member. The only thing missing is Remy, but I don't think that they would let him into the hospital.

Chickens Beware...

Today we celebrated my (great) Granny Moore's 95th birthday with a dinner at her house. [As a side note- I really hope that I have her genes. She is 95, in good health, and still lives in her own home by herself. That's incredible!] After dinner, we walked next door to Uncle Johnny L's house. I remember that I loved doing this as a kid because Uncle Johnny L always had cool things to see and do on his farm. Not much has changed in that area- there are still all kinds of neat things for a kid to see and do on his farm, and I enjoyed watching Olivia play and explore.

The thing that really seemed to be the biggest hit with Olivia were the chickens. She enjoyed watching them walk around in the coop, and then she even discovered one white chicken that had managed to escape. She spent a good portion of the afternoon running around the pen trying to "catch" the chicken. Of course, she could never catch it. Her papa tried to help her out by herding the chicken her way, but it just flew up in the air at her (and me). I held my hands up and screamed like a wimp (I'm not a big fan of a bird flying toward my head), but Olivia wasn't phased. She kept right on chasing that chicken around.

In addition to having cool animals to look at, the farm was also equipped with one of those machines that you use to walk the horses around (I don't know what it's called). Uncle Johnny L had put a kiddie swing on it, and Olivia had a lot of fun going around and around on it. There was a switch in the middle that could make it go forward, backward, and stop. Olivia loved riding on it when it was her turn and did not really want to get off.

All of the running really wore Olivia out, and she was out like a light soon after we got home. How great it is to be a kid!

A Trip to the Zoo

This afternoon we took Olivia to the Jacksonville Zoo. This is a trip that we had been wanting to take for quite some time because Olivia really loves animals. All of Olivia's favorite books are about animals, her favorite toys are animal toys, and the only television shows that she will pay attention to are those on Animal Planet. In short, it was time for Olivia to see the animals in real life. She was so excited the entire day. Every time we saw a new animal, she would get excited all over again. She was especially excited to see the elephants, giraffes, and rhinos- and we spent a lot of time at those exhibits. I bet that we spent close to thirty minutes watching the elephants. Every time we asked Olivia if she was ready to leave, she would shake her head and say "no". We stayed at the zoo until it closed, and still weren't able to see everything. Below are some pictures of Olivia with her favorite animals.