Join Us Under the Sea and Onto the Shore...Olivia is FOUR

Even when we were still in Canada, Olivia said she wanted to have a mermaid birthday party at her house, in her new pool.  I was hesitant as most of our friends still have pretty small ones, which makes a pool party quite tricky for the parents.  We decided to give it a whirl and hope for the best in order to grant the wish of a really cute 4 year old!  "Safety First" Daddy insisted we get a lifeguard and that was a great decision as Olivia and her friends could swim without us worrying too much.

 Her fishbowl party favor

 More yumminess from Sweetish Hill!  They baked and iced the cupcakes and I made the chocolates and decorated them!

 Having fun with Margo!

 Two neighbor friends, Emily and Amanda (Olivia ADORES her big girl neighbor friends!)

 Helping Daddy get the grill ready for burgers

 Pool FUN!

 Lunch!

 Watermelon on a stick....great idea from Pinterest

 LOVE this picture of my big 4 year old!

 E loving the watermelon!

 The tall icing was a little much for the kiddos.  Olivia just turned hers upside down :)

 More watermelon with Will 

 Ella!

 The Lewis Boys

 Daddy with his girls in blue

Ross using 55 noodles :)

Eliza Was Here

Eliza has a profound love of standing water.  Her favorites being the potty and the dog bowl.  It is, oh so much fun!!  We had to get potty locks to keep her out of them.  The potty lock in the back bathroom broke and because we had to move the dog bowl in there anyway, we just keep the door closed while Eliza is awake...most of the time.

 The far right side of this photo is the entire roll of toilet paper that has been tossed into the potty

We all forget once in a while to close the door after her nap or first thing in the morning and this is what can happen if you don't!  If it gets quiet for a minute, my first instinct is to run to the back bathroom and check.  If it has been left open and she sees you coming, she laughs hysterically, gets as many large potty splashes in as she can, while saying, "no, no, no!".  I pick her up and carry her away and the whole time she is laughing, continuing to say, "no, no, no".  She is such a character!

O's Pink Caddy

When we lived in Canada and it was too cold to go to the park but we needed to get out of the house, we often went to Toys R Us.  We would walk the aisles looking and playing with the toys.  If we had time to stay a while, we went to the back of the store and let Olivia climb in and out of all of the Power Wheels.  She could spend hours back there.  I was looking through the ads in the paper a couple weeks before her birthday and saw the pink Cadillac Power Wheel was on sale!  So, we decided to give her that for her 4th birthday. We had every intention to put it together before her birthday, but ran out of time and didn't know where we would put it.  It took us a few weeks to finally get motivated to put it together.  One Saturday night, we got Uncle Matt to help.  Both girls were thrilled to see it in the morning!

 We are proud to report, it only took us 45 minutes to put it together.  Hooray for teamwork!

 Eliza, usually the daredevil, was not a fan of Olivia's driving (I don't blame her!)

 

 She required moderate-high assistance with steering

She LOVED it!

Dance Instructor

Olivia went to a week long magical fairy dance camp at the beginning of August.

 Each dancer had a carpet square during the instructional parts of the dance camp.  I came upon "dance instructor" Olivia with all of her babies, each on their "carpet square", receiving instruction on their dance positions :)

FOUR Years Old!!

Unbelievable that she is already FOUR!  After attending a dance camp this summer that was divided into age groups, Olivia has been extremely excited to turn four.  Before her birthday, she often pretended that she was four and was in the four year old class at dance camp :) 

We asked Olivia what she wanted to do for her "family" birthday party.  She said she wanted to go to Lupe's and then have everyone over for birthday cake at her house.  After clearing it with her birthday buddy, Uncle Matt, that is what we did.  What a great day!

 Enjoying her favorite since moving back to Texas, queso!

 Yummy quesadilla!

 Earlier in the day, we went to HEB and she got to pick our her and Uncle Matt's birthday cake!  She thought that was so very cool!

Our best attempt to get a family photo :)

Watch Out World

Here comes Eliza!  She took her very first steps the Sunday we got back from 4th of July weekend in Rockport.




Here are some more steps to Daddy and Big Sister:

The Lion King

For whatever reason, Olivia has been deathly afraid to watch The Lion King, not that I really care for her to watch movies, just seemed funny.  When we told her we were going to see the musical, she was not too thrilled about it.  I let her watch a couple scenes on YouTube from the actual musical and she got excited about it, "as long as we sit really high up".  We got her the cd of the musical and have since had almost daily Lion King dance sessions.  

She LOVED it!!  She wants to go back "again and again".  I told her that it has to go to all the other cities before it comes back to Houston, and then we can go again.  She said, "That's right.  First it has to go to Dallas so my cousins can see it, then Rockport and then Canada for Mimi to see it".  Ha!  We had a great time with Nonna, Papa, and Aunt Carrie!

Swinging!

Our painter brought his 10 year old daughter over a couple times while he finished up a few things.  Anna taught Olivia how to pump herself on the swings.  So exciting for ALL of us! :)

  

Our Monkey

Eliza is FEARLESS!  She will climb on anything, throwing caution to the wind about how she might get down.  This is very different from how her older sister was!

 

 So helpful, unloading the silverware drawer

 

Helping Daddy install Olivia's ceiling fan