Rule of Life

Rule of life: If there is chocolate anywhere in your house, a toddler will find it.

Winterfest Fun

Our church held its Winterfest this weekend complete with hot dogs, chilli, and fun. The kids had a good time, but the highlight of the event for Olivia was the bouncy house. She has never been too keen on them before, but she really enjoyed herself in this bouncy. She acted a little nervous about jumping at first, but she soon got into it. I think that watching Ava bounce and go down the slide helped Olivia warm up to doing it herself. Owen also got in, but he was too little to do much. In case you're wondering that beautiful young lady standing behind Owen in the picture is my niece, Claire. Claire got around surprisingly well in the bouncy. The turnout was good for the Winterfest, and I think that the church is going to try and make this a yearly event. So... I guess you can be on the lookout for future Winterfest posts.

Super Dolphin Day 5K

This morning my cousin Thomas and I went to St. Simon's Island to run in the Super Dolphin Day 5K. I really liked the course that we ran because a good part of it was on a road that ran parallel to the beach. I completed the race in 29:21. This is 4 minutes faster than I ran in January! I am so excited that my time has improved so much. Thomas also ran a good race and finished about three and a half minutes before I did. This was his first 5K, and he liked it so much that we are planning to run another race in March.

Valentine Surprises

The past few days have been great. In addition to being Valentine's Day weekend, this weekend was also my school system's Winter Break (4 days off!). I used most of my time off to clean and get caught up around the house. But, there were a few surprises sprinkled in to make the weekend super-special. On Saturday morning I awoke to the sound of Olivia saying (rather loudly) "Mommy get up, I have a surprise for you". I went into the dining room to find a dozen roses and a delicious breakfast of bacon and heart-shaped, chocolate-chip pancakes. I knew that I was getting flowers because Olivia had let the cat out of the bag the day before, but the breakfast was a total surprise. Later that evening, Brian grilled steaks for our Valentine dinner.

Owen and Olivia also had a wonderful Valentine's Day. To begin with, they got cards in the mail from their Granny and from their Gigi. Olivia loves it when she gets letters in the mail! Brian and I gave them both a new pair of tennis shoes on Saturday morning, and Gigi and Papa gave them a small bag of goodies on Saturday night. In Olivia's bag of goodies were a pair of heart-shaped sunglasses and a crown- which she has worn all weekend. Owen's bag contained bubbles. We soon discovered that Owen LOVES bubbles. I think that his face in this picture says it all.

Meeting the Fairest of Them All

The Southeast Georgia Children's Theater put on a live version of Snow White this weekend, and I took Olivia to see it. Snow White is Olivia's favorite "princess", so she was excited to get a chance to meet her. The play itself was really cute. It varied from the traditional story and incorporated a lot of "kid" elements (like Snow White and the forest animal dancing the Hokey Pokey). All of the singing and dancing really kept Olivia's attention.

I didn't realize it before we went, but the girl playing Snow White was a former student of mine. She was great about talking to Olivia and letting Olivia hug her (which Olivia did on three different occasions). At one point in the play Snow White had to walk down the aisle close to where we were sitting. When she got to where we were, she leaned over and said "Hi, Olivia". That really made Olivia happy. After the play was over, we gave Snow White one final hug and left. On the way out we passed the mean Queen who told us good-bye. Once we were in the car Olivia said, "Mommy, the mean Queen told me bye-bye. She is nice".

The Circus

This week the small, family-run Circus Pages came to town. Admission was free for kids, so we figured that we would take Owen and Olivia. Cirque du Soleil- it was not, but we still had a really good time. There were a variety of acts including acrobats, clowns, and two lion/tiger trainers whose job you could not pay me a million bucks to do. Olivia loved the show- especially the elephant and camel acts. At intermission, we had the chance to have our picture made with an elephant. I thought that Olivia would like the chance to get up-close-and-personal with the elephant, so I gladly paid the small fee. Olivia liked seeing the elephant, but she didn't want to touch it nor did she want me to put her down. I think the size of the elephant intimidated her. The picture that was taken of us with the elephant was a polaroid which is why it looks fuzzy on the computer.

The circus was held at the fair grounds, and the whole set-up was very make-shift. We ended up sitting on 2x4s that were suppose to be bleachers (I think). It was very uncomfortable. My back was killing me the whole time, but the kids didn't seem to mind all that much. Olivia was transfixed on the action throughout most of the show. Owen squirmed during the first half, and then fell asleep for the second half.

Brian was very upset that he didn't get to go. The original plan was for him to meet us at the circus at 4:30 for the show. Unfortunately, he got a stomach virus and had to leave work early (and is still in bed sick). I couldn't back out of taking Olivia to the circus because I had been hyping it up all week long. The good news is that Bailey and Granny Buie were able to make last-minute plans to go with me and help out with the kids. I think that they both enjoyed it, too.

Ew too ittle, purdy 'sane

Okay, so I've stolen the title of this post from an expression that Hannah and I (and sometimes Daddy) used to say to our younger siblings whenever they were too small to do something fun that we were about to do. It's basically "you're too little, pretty thing" in baby talk. Although Olivia doesn't use this expression to rub it in Owen's face, she still gets to do a lot of things that Owen doesn't. The good news for Owen is that his time to do fun stuff has come. He is now old enough that he can go places with his sister. On weekends, for example, Brian usually takes Olivia to the park. Last weekend Owen got to go too. He enjoyed swinging on the swing and walking around on the grass. I was hoping that we would be able to take him again this weekend, but it was too cold.