Soccer Parties

This year in soccer Travis and I each coached one of our children's teams. I was also the Area Rep for MAYSL. We were very involved in soccer this year. It was a lot of fun. At the end of the season we held a big pizza/trophy party at our house for all 3 teams. It was a lot of fun, Livie even got a special trophy for being an honorary member of the teams. We had a lot of people here and a TON of food, we had a lot of fun with about 40 kids running all over our house.

Olivia turned 3!!

Last week our baby turned 3 years old. Olivia is the light of our life and we love her so much. Here are some fun facts about Livie;

* She LOVES babies, real or dolls, she loves them all!!

* She loves to dance. More than doing anything, she loves to dance. More than eating or breathing, she loves to dance. And she has got some rhythm.

* She loves to sing. Her favorite songs to sing are "Hey Jude" (The Beattles) and "Our Song" (Taylor Swift) . It is so fun to listen to her when she is playing on her own and she goes to the piano and make up her own songs about whatever she is feeling at the moment (such as "I love my babies and I love to hold them and put them in beeeeed and I love them and I will kiss them".... etc.) she makes up her songs and belts them out. So cute.

* She loves to do homework. Everyday when I have the kids sit at the table and start their homework she yells "Where's my homework? I need my homework mommy!!". I have bought work books that she works on every day when her siblings do their homework. She can write her name EXCEPT the V in Olivia. You would think that V is not a difficult of a letter, but apparently she is having some issue with it. Still, I am proud she can nearly write her name and she can count to 20 unassisted.

*Her favorite color is blue.

* Her Favorite phrase is "What the Heck?!!" (Which I do NOT say.... she picked it up somewhere, we are not sure where. No one in this family uses this phrase- except her)

* Every day when I pick her up from school she say "mommy, can I have a popsicle and watch Caillou?". And every day I ask her teacher if she was a great sharer and her teachers say YES. So Every day we come home and have a popsicle and watch an episode of Caillou. It's how she unwinds after a tough morning at school, I guess.

* She speaks VERY well. She has been speaking in complete sentences for a year and she knows difficult words. She is very polite and uses her please's and thank you's.

* Every day when we get home from picking up kids from school she asks me for the key's to the house and she gets out of the car and walks up to the house. She unlocks the door with the keys and then puts the key's away. I love it... she can do whatever the big kids do!

*She was not quite old enough to play soccer this year, we kept telling her next year she could. But every time we went to a game or a soccer practice she would dress up in cleats and soccer clothes and shin guards and ask the whole time if she could play NOW? She really wants to be on the field playing just like her siblings.

* She has wanted to sit in a booster seat for over a year. We told her when she was 20 months old that she had to wait until she turned 3 years old to sit in one. When she had her 2 year old birthday she woke up so excited and asked "do I get to sit in a booster today?". It was heart breaking to tell her she had to wait for ONE more birthday.... so she would ask day after day how much longer until she turned 3. The day she turned 3 she was SO excited to finally get to sit in a booster seat. We took out her car seat and put it in the garage and she is officially sitting in a booster. She loves it!!!

* Olivia is our happy girl. She loves everyone and she is just a wonderful soul to have in our lives and in our family. We love her so much.

Happy Birthday, Sweet Livie. Your family loves you.

Veterans Day

This past week the kids had the day off of school for Veteran's Day. Travis had the day off of work. So, we decided that we would take the kids to a new play area in Fresno called "Skywalk" . It is a huge indoor trampoline arena. It was a BLAST!! We loaded up our "special-occasion-mobil" (our 10 passenger van, a necessity when you have a large family, otherwise we would never be able to let our children bring friends with us when we go on outings) and put in 10 passengers and headed to "Skywalk". I will admit that I was a little nervous that someone would get hurt. With all that bouncing you would think that someone was bound to get hurt. But they have it put together in such a way that it makes it pretty difficult for someone to injure themselves. The day was a HUGE success. Everyone had a great time, from the 2 year old to the 10 year old to the 34 year old. We were all laughing and giggling and smiling the whole time. We all really enjoyed our time there. That night the kids all slept REALLY well and the next day the adults were SUPER sore, and it was a great feeling to be sore from playing so hard with our kids. There was a giant dodge-ball area at skywalk. All the kids enjoyed being on the dodge-ball court. The balls were nice and soft and it had a trampoline floor (of course) and you could toss the balls at everyone and jump and slide (the trampolines go up the side of the wall, you can run up and slide down) to your hearts content. They had long trampolines that you can run or bounce down and dive or summersault into a pit of foam squares and a huge trampoline floor where we had a great game of tag. We booked a birthday party there for Gray and Olivia- and we CAN'T WAIT!! We will probably go there for family night before then because we all had such a fun time!!

Crazy Sock Day

Last week the kids had a "crazy sock day" at their school. So, I let them make some crazy socks! The socks were so fun, and made with hot glue. So, after we hot glued the socks, it took about 15 minutes to get the socks onto their feet because the socks were so stiff with glue. I tried to have Gloria put the socks on and then glue the items to her socks... but that burnt (poor girl). So we took them off and continued glueing the socks and them put them on. It was really hard. At the end of the day we could not get the socks off, we had to cut them off. But they looked cute all day long, I mean- how many socks do you know that have forks and cranberries all over them ready for a snack at any moment? Not many, and THAT is what made them so crazy!!

Happy Halloween

This year for Halloween we had a full agenda. Halloween is my absolute favorite holiday, so I look forward to fitting in as much as we can!! We started celebrating on Saturday night at our neighbors Halloween party. As a family we dressed up as zombies. The kids loved it and got right into character. The party was a lot of fun and I especially loved the costume of my very pregnant friend... she was a nun! It kept me giggling all night long. The kids had a great time. Our friends home has 6 doors, so they went trick-or-treating to each of the 6 doors. There were games and treats... dinner was served, a tractor ride through haunted cemetary and plenty of friends to hang out with- there was even a dental emergency while we were there, so Travis was able to do some dentistry in the living room, now THAT'S scary!

Then on Monday we all dressed up and headed to school. I started the day in Grayson's class room where we "celebrated fall"... of course we dressed up and then I supplied a tarantula craft and taught the kids about the California Ebony tarantula. Then I hopped over to Cami's room for her class activities. After that I RAN to Olivia's school for her party and finished off the day by SKIPPING Gloria's party and taking Olivia home for a nap!!

Then the kids had a Halloween party at the park.... then we quickly brushed up the makeup and hair and went to the local church for a trunk or treat and bounce houses and games. By the time the night ended we were READY for bed. It was a great day! Happy Halloween.