Cookies and Milk

Enjoying chocolate cookies and milk at the lake with Nana

YUMMY!

More Swimming

Olivia also enjoyed showing off her swimmin skillz to Nana & Paw Paw:

proud of their little fish!

running

running from me

blowing bubbles for Daddy

floating with Daddy

backfloat

trying to escape into the big pool - she gets a little over-confident :)

Cousins

Olivia loves playing with her cousins so she was so excited when Lindsey, Nathan & Preston came down for a few days. One morning Lindsey dropped off the boys so she could run an errand and this is what happened:
Preston thought it would be a great idea to ride Olivia's 4wheeler off the step from one room to the other. I watched thinking it didn't have enough power to make it over the lip of the step (as did Kitty, LOL) but it sure did and went right on off the step and me, Nathan and Olivia cracked up! Then Olivia (being the little dare devil she is) wanted to join him...

they refused to look at me!

still won't look at me!

Then Nathan decides he'll try it...

but Olivia didn't want to be left out and I thought it would be cute to put her in front JUST for a picture...

I took as many pics as I could to try to get a good one of them all looking but...

this is the best I got

THEN Preston decides to take off with all 3 of them on there. Olivia braces for the step and Nathan decides he's not interested and bails off as quickly as he can. Preston and Olivia are cracking up as they approach the step and as they are going off of it the weight of both kids leaning forward flips it over landing on top of Olivia and Preston rolled and jumped up as if nothing happened. I grabbed the 4wheeler off of Olivia and she was already getting up. Tough cookie. Preston thought he was in trouble because the 4wheeler was in pieces (the seat just came off) so he kept looking at me waiting for me to yell, LOL. Olivia must have learned her lesson because she has yet to attempt the step and she rides her 4wheeler all the time in the living room.

Weekend at the Lake With MiMi and Poppy

My parents met us down at the lake one weekend in July and we had a lot of fun. I think this was the first time I switched the lenses on my camera because I wanted to try to get some closer pics of the deer.

Olivia was so excited to show MiMi and Poppy her swimmin skillz!

Playgroup

A couple of other things we started this summer are swimming lessons and playgroup. Both have been GREAT! Swimming lessons deserve a separate post. We started playgroup at the beginning of July and have met some great mommies and kiddos. Our first activity was at the Fritz Petting Farm in Irving which was a lot of fun but SOOO hot! Fritz Park is a city park in Irving and in the months of June & July they have a petting farm. It opened at 10am and we got there shortly after and Olivia loved it! She got a kiss from the cow and she pet the goats, sheep, deer, pony and donkey. It was just really hot so we didn't stay long but I'm so glad we went and that we know about it so we can go every year.

For our next activity we went to Stovall Park and made puppets out of brown paper sacks. It was Olivia's first art project and she had a lot of fun.

For our next activity we went over to another members house and played. All the kids had fun playing inside and outside and eating lunch together. It was also where Olivia had her first popsicle! Popsicle makes "slow melt mighty minis" which are the cutest little baby popsicles and Olivia LOVED hers. I hurried out and bought a box for the kids to enjoy at the lakehouse :)

For our next activity we went to Stovall Park again and the kids made bald eagle paintings using their handprints. Everyone brought different things to be painted on - little canvas bags, a little denim purse, t-shirts and canvases. I brought a little square canvas for Olivia's and it turned out sooooo cute! It will definitely be displayed every year as a 4th of July decoration.

For our next activity we went and played at the Splash Pad at Misenheimer Park in Arlington and Olivia had so much fun but she was still crawling and was the only kid there that wasn't walking. I told Johnnie it must've bothered her because as soon as we got home that day she started walking :)

Our next playdate was a one-on-one playdate. If we chose to participate we were matched up with another mom and we were to hang out and get to know each other better. I was matched up with an awesome mom of twin 2 year old girls and Olivia and I went over to their house to play. The twins have an awesome playroom and Olivia had a lot of fun with all of their toys and us moms had a good time talking and watching the girls play.

The last activity we went to was an 80's themed playdate at another members house. If we RSVP'd to the playdate then it was mandatory that mom and kiddos had to dress up. I got Olivia a Madonna concert t-shirt and she wore it with a black tulle skirt, leg warmers and jellies. I found an 80's jackpot at Kohl's. Apparently that kind of stuff is "in" because the entire junior section was filled with it. I found a one shoulder dress (hot pink at the top w/a thick black elastic waist and pink tulle skirt) and black leggings with zippers up the sides and I wore my hair in a side pony tail and went overboard on the blue and purple eyeshadow. It was not attractive. We watched the kids play and laughed at each other and listened to 80's music in the background. We ate lunch together and it was a fun time. I'm really glad I joined the group and look forward to our 2 playgroup activities this week - a trip to the childrens museum and a luau pool party!

Bows and Faces

When Olivia was a little baby she always wore headband bows and they worked really well for us because she never pulled on them. She eventually got to the age where she would pull them down though which is when I switched to the one pony tail on the top of her head. I could clip a bow over that pony tail but no matter how sneaky I was she would always know it was there and pull it out. That has not changed. Her 2 pig tails are so cute and don't really need bows but every once in a while I'll try to sneak some in but she is too smart for that. Her bangs are so long and hang in her face when she doesn't have pig tails in so I've really been trying to get her to let me pull her bangs back with a bow for a quick fix. It is rare that she'll leave it in but one day she did for a little while and I got some cute pics of her and her silly faces.

Hair Dryer

I rarely dry my hair when Olivia is awake so the hair dryer is pretty mysterious to her. My mom stayed the night one night and the next day when she was drying her hair Olivia wanted to be involved. She has a little toy hair dryer so I went and got it so they could dry their hair together.