Olivia's 6th Birthday Party

Olivia invited her entire kindergarten party to celebrate her 6th birthday at a playground near our house. It was a beautiful day, we had a great turn-out and the kids had lots of fun, especially the Birthday Girl!

Olivia was all smiles and enjoying her princess cake!

Adrienne, Tomer, Grace & Olivia pose for a quick pic.

McIver took a break from throwing rocks to snap a picture. All the excitement over Olivia's birthday has made him even more excited for his own next month!

Will's Birthday

Will was serenaded by the band at dinner at Poblano's

(Olivia was horrified!).

No birthday of Will's would be complete without a trip to the Marbe Slab!

More Galveston Pictures

Like I said, Murphy enjoyed himself as much as we did.

Gay and me making our way to the beach with supplies.

Mac posing for a beach shot.
Abigail & Olivia in the surf.
Mac & Sam watching Peter Pan - notice that Mac's earphones are not even plugged into the DVD player!

Sleeping Angel

This is what I found when I went in to turn McIver's light off tonight. "Super Baby' has been to school and just about everywhere we've been lately. McIver takes very good care of him (see the blanket carefully placed over the baby, usually there's a pillow, too) - with Olivia as his model parent, how could he not?

Olivia's 6th Birthday

Olivia is about as lucky a kid as you can find. We started celebrating her birthday on Thursday night in Galveston. She opened several presents which were great fun to enjoy during the weekend. She celebrated Sunday morning (her actual birthday) with candles in her cinnamon rolls and then even chose where we went to dinner Sunday night - Skeeters, dressed in her new Sleeping Beauty costume compliments of Nanoo, Cacoo, Pop and Grandma Janet. She has also opened presents from GranGran and GranDaddy which she is not yet willing to share with her very jealous little brother - who is super excited for his own birtday next month.

Uno Attack was enjoyed by all throughout the weekend.

Lite Brite was a hit - whoever created the 4-sided Lite Brite is a GENIUS!

Have you ever seen someone so excited about a new pair of tennis shoes!? They're Hello Kitty and they have not left her feet since she first put them on.

Check out all those candles!

THIS is what Olivia wore to dinner to celebrate her birthday -

a princess, indeed!

Galveston with the Stricklins

We had been planning a long weekend in Galveson with the Stricklins for several months now. But, last Wednesday night we were very concerned that Hurricane Humberto would rain on our parade - literally. We were ecstactic Thursday morning when we woke and not a drop of rain had fallen in Houston! The weekend was a blast from start to finish...

Olivia and Abigail were the first to test out the hot tub, in spite of the

thousands of 'love bugs' floating around.

Sam & McIver took it upon themselves to rid the hot tub of love bugs - and water!

I didn't say it didn't rain in Galveston! Our house was 6 down from the beach. So we had to walk through knee-deep water to get to the beach on Thursday night. By Friday morning, we were golden. The sun was shining and we had a beautiful day to enjoy the beach.

It was great to see Will so relaxed and enjoying some free time with the kids.

Murphy faired pretty well throughout the weekend as well -beach, chasing his dummy in the ocean, free reign in the beach house, a hose down every time he came home from the beach, even a steak dinner on Saturday night.

"A Favorite Time with My Grandparents"

As dictated by Olivia while looking at pictures of each of the grands:

Pop fed me ice cream at Disney World. Nanoo gives me ‘sugar’ and tickles me. Grandma Janet has cats and my favorite animal is a cat.

Since Mamoo’s husband died, she gives me lots of money, $5 or $4 or $1 when I visit her in South Carolina. Grandma Myrtle lives across the street from a train track and we always walk to the train track. And, she has lots of toys.

My favorite time with GranDaddy was one day he took me to play golf in the golf cart and I got to drive with him, but my brother stayed home. GranGran makes good chicken pie for me. And she makes me lots of dresses. My favorite is the one with flowers and my initials.

The End.

Advice from a 4th grader

As I tried to hunt down my tennis racket (I joined a team and will begin playing again for the first time since before Olivia was born!), I ran across a box full of old pictures and letters from high school and college. I found an envelope full of letters from 4th graders giving advice to seniors upon graduating from Stratford. The first one I got to made me laugh out loud. Maybe this is the advice I'll give Olivia and McIver when we have the drug talk...

Dear Nikki,
We're suppose to give you some good advice to make choices so if you ever meet a person who wants to give you drugs just say you're allergic to whatever it is.
Your friend,
Stefano, 4th grader

Duck & Cover

Olivia had a busy day today practicing fire and severe weather drills. She came home insisting that we practice "Duck & Cover" in case of a hurricane. We had to close all the doors in the hallway "in case the wind blows out the windows and glass is flying everywhere." We, apparently, 'are not allowed to take lovies or anything that we don't really need' in the hall with us - 'just our bodies.' As you can imagine, she was very serious about this little project.

Assume the position...

McIver was not taking this excerise as seriously as Olivia intended!

Also, for the record, this was the first night that Olivia was not a complete BEAR after school. A kindergarten-teacher friend (and O's summer reading class teacher) of ours told me : "This is my theory on the complaining issue.....I think that Olivia is trying so hard to following the rules to the "T" that by the time she comes home, she's done. It comes out and you are the one that has to deal with it. I tell parents all the time that you would rather have them complain/misbehave at home than at school. The first week is the hardest because we are trying so hard to set the standard high for behavior. Any negative behaviors that we haven't eliminated in the first month, we will have to deal with the rest of the year. Sometimes I feel just like Olivia does......"I'm not getting up today!" etc. etc. It only gets easier; thank God!!!"

As you can imagine, this made me feel a lot better knowing that Olivia is definitely a people-pleaser and does not typically like to draw negative attention to herself. In fact, she has been coming home (when she's in the sharing mood) talking about a boy in her class who is a 'trouble-maker.' I was more prepared for whatever Oliva could dole out today and thankfully, this was a good day!

McIver's 1st Day of School

McIver has spent the last week with me at school during in-service training and room prep. So, he was glad to FINALLY be able to go to the Ladybug Class Party on Tuesday and start school today. Last week, he kept leaving the room where the teachers' kids were supposed to be playing to wander the halls. I told him he was supposed to stay with the babysitters, but he replied: Don't worry, Mom. I know my way around. I assured him that was NOT the point. He did great today, though, and stayed with his class for music, playground, spanish and all the other fun things the Ladybug Class has to offer.

Showing off his birthdate ice cream cone.

The workshop center is definitely his favorite so far.

Lunch is packed and he's all set to go to the Ladybug Class!

Labor Day CookOut with the Stricklins

Olivia has always been pretty good at hitting the wiffle ball in our backyard so we were glad to see that her talent translates to the real thing. I think she just wanted an excuse to wear the pink helmet and use the pink bat!

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em! When you've had something crazy like 44 days straight with some sort of precipitation, you have to just give in. Abby, Sam and Olivia loved playing in the cul de sac. No one could convince Mac to give it a try, though.
After dinner - delicious ribs compliments of Gay & Don! - we celebrated Don's birthday with a Texas Sheet Cake that Abby had made that day. There were tons of candles. McIver celebrated by dancing the night away. (Notice that he got dressed all by himself!)