big girl

september 7th

the first day of preschool seems so long ago...well actually we can only remember the second day of preschool because olivia was sick the first day. anyhow, things were certainly different back in september. olivia was a shy little girl who loved to play by herself at school. draw, draw, draw...she used to come home with sooooo many pictures. well she still brings tons of pictures home (it's so cool to see how her artistic abilities has grown...she like to call herself an artiste). but she has also made some great friends. watching her interact with little girls her own age is so much fun.

overall it was a great first year of preschool. we're going to miss her teachers but she's super excited about kinderstart next year at a new school...and i'm VERY excited about her going to school 5 days a week :)

last day of school

what a girl needs

the other day olivia was taking a bath. garrett wandered into the bathroom and asked to get in.
here's what i heard from olivia... mom, i just need some time to myself!!!

how true, how true!!!

i guess no matter what the age, a girl needs time to herself!

too logical

olivia: mom, how does god make people?
me: he makes them in their mommy's tummy.

olivia: how does he make mommies?
me: every mommy was a baby. so they were made in their mommy's tummy. everyone was made in their mommy's tummy.

olivia: who is god's mommy?
me: he didn't have one.
olivia: then who made god?

running with 14,000 people

can you see us? well, probably not cuz we weren't exactly in the front. saturday, emily & i ran the 25K riverbank run in grand rapids. it was an awesome day...weather-wise, at least.

one lesson i learned from the race...it never hurts to train more!
needless to say, it wasn't my best race...but i DID finish and i DID NOT finish last!

happy belated mother's day

happy mother's day to all those mom's out there :) this post is a day late, but i figure that celebrating mom doesn't have be done just on one specific day.

we had a good mother's day here at our house...tim gave me the day off. what a great gift! i slept in late, took a nap with ryan and didn't make any meals. thanks for the great day, tim!

the patience of a 4 yr old

garrett's "why" phase is still going strong. it pretty much drives us nuts. sometimes i think it could be a good interrogation tactic for law & order. after "why mom?" 10 times in a row i'm pretty much ready to break down and say anything. so maybe i should let the law enforcement people know that it works.

but olivia is different. garrett gets on her nerves plenty, but the "why's" don't seem to bother her. yesterday i sat and watched them play dollhouse. she likes to imagine lots of stories and talks to her people. the whole time garrett asked her why she was doing everything. for each answer she gave, he responded with "why, wivvy" (that's what he calls her). each time she answered him so sweetly. it was awesome to see how much patience she has for her little brother :)

i love you to meijer & back

last night i read 'guess how much i love you' to olivia & garrett. we read it all the time and the kids love to throw their arms open wide to show how much they love us. last night olivia decided to get creative.

olivia: mom, guess how much i love you? i love you...
out the door
through the trees
over the bridge
in the forest
down the street
to the cottage
over the river
over the hill
through meijer
through walmart
down the street
over the bridge
through the bushes
back to the house

that's how much i love you!
now show me how much you love me. but don't use your hands!

when mom's busy...

joie de vivre...these are for you. i remember how much you liked the other marker pictures :)

olivia's new friend

i must be out of the loop because i had never heard of webkinz until a few weeks ago when emily surprised olivia with a stuffed koala from webkinz. in case you haven't heard of them...they are a group of stuffed animals that each have a unique code. you enter the code online and then can interact with your animal. you earn money to buy your pet things like food, clothes & toys.

olivia totally loves webkinz! she named her pet koalie and they spend lots of time together. olivia loves to play games on the computer with koalie. this usually involves me because olivia can't read so she usually has no idea what the buttons she clicking on the screen mean. her favorite activity online is buying new clothes for koalie. go figure!

emily, thanks for koalie! olivia loves her :)

the other day i downloaded pictures off our camera. i found several that olivia must have taken. plus lots of movies of koalie. here are a few of her pictures...

updates

well it's been a while since my last post. let's see what we've been up to...

garrett has fully discovered his words. we hear WHY all day long. at first it was cute, now...umm it's not so cute anymore. garrett has also discovered the world of vintage transformers (more than meets the eye... ) he is very good at breaking the little pieces off and asking me to fix it. such fun...

ryan is still our pudgy little guy. Fatty Fatty Ry Ry, as olivia calls him. he doesn't want to crawl or stand up...just sit in front of a bucket of toys. occasionally, he'll face plant into a pile of mr. potato head pieces but for the most part he plays great by himself.

olivia's newest adventure was kindergarten registration. she's not actually going to kindergarten next year, but she had to go get "assessed" so she can go to kinderstart (1/2 days, 5 days a week). we talked about her "meeting" (as she called it) and prepped her for all the questions they might ask. i thought she was ready...but according to the teacher who she met with...olivia can only count to 6 and does not know her shapes. ha ha! i guess the pressure got to her! afterwards we still celebrated with a trip the mall. smoothie, pretzel & a new pair of capris are what my 4 yr old loves :)