The Altman's

Playtime With Abby!

2012-02-08T14:38:00.000-08:00

Nessy’s Dressy’s

2012-02-05T12:53:00.001-08:00

Ok guys! If you want a beautiful homemade gift for a baby or child you have to check out Vanessa’s new blogsite! She is so talented and we all have been begging her to start a website of all the amazing things she sews. She finally did! You can check it out here: Nessy's Dressy's.

Enjoy! =)

Libby’s Baby Shower

2012-02-05T12:46:00.001-08:00

Yesterday, my friend Michele and I hosted a baby shower at my house for our wonderful friend Libby (Cami’s mama)! Unfortunately, poor Michele (who is also pregnant) got hit hard with the flu the night before so couldn’t make it to the actual shower! We sure did miss her!

Libby is having another baby girl in March and we are all so excited to meet her! Since she’s having another girl, and didn’t need much of anything besides diaper and wipes, what do then to throw her a Diaper and Wipes party!? It was a fun and laid back brunch/get together to celebrate baby girl #2.

Matt and I made these invitations for her shower!

Here’s some shower décor! We had fruit, bagels and cream chees, and a wonderful quiche that Michele made (her Mom brought it to us)!

I made homemade cupcakes! Yum!

We had a coffee, tea, and juice bar!

Here’s the guests for a group picture!

There’s me with the mama to be! Love you Libby!

Stone Age

2012-01-29T08:42:00.001-08:00

Yesterday, we went with our cousin’s Rob and Lara to the rock climbing gym, Stone Age. We took Olivia with us to climb too! It was so much fun! Our arms are really sore today though!

Olivia looked so cute in her little climbing shoes and harness!

There’s Olivia watching everyone climbing!

There's Lara and Rob!

She’s so strong!

And there’s Mommy and Daddy!

Olivia's Ballet Buddies

2012-01-25T06:54:00.000-08:00

First Dentist Appointment

2012-01-18T20:22:00.001-08:00

Is it weird that I cried at Olivia’s first dentist appointment today??? I just couldn’t have been more proud of how sweet she was and how well she did! Matt and I smiled the entire time. I really think she enjoyed the experience and will be excited to go back for another cleaning in 6 months! We love her Dentist too. His daughters go to ballet with Olivia and they are a sweet family! Here’s a look at her appointment.

Look at her precious face! I told her she was going to get to sit in a really special chair because it moves, so her face was priceless when the hygienist started laying her chair back.

Each chair has it’s own little flat screen TV. They asked Olivia what she wanted to watch during her cleaning and she picked Happy Feet. She’s just laying there so sweet and calm.

Holding sooo still for her xray!

One last check from the dentist….

And then she got a prize bag! yay Olivia!!! Her teeth are perfect =)

The Little Gym

2012-01-14T20:46:00.001-08:00

I’ve been looking for preschool’s for Olivia but because of her birth date she can’t actually start until the fall. So in the mean time, I took Olivia for a free trial class at The Little Gym and she absolutely loved it! She actually mouthed to me from inside the gym “I love this!” So I signed her up! It’s a great way for her to build muscles, confidence, learn some gymnastics, and make some friend’s. The class is structured very well and they do so many neat activities! I highly recommended it if anyone is looking for some some extra activities for your kids. Here’s just a glimpse of one of the things Olivia got to do on Friday. There’s not really any sound on the video because I was looking through the glass.

Look what she can do already! haha =)

Power Wheels and Randomness

2012-01-14T20:14:00.001-08:00

A couple weeks ago we went over to Owen and Autumn’s house to let the kiddos ride their brand new power wheels together! Owen and Autumn got an awesome red mustang for Christmas! They had a blast riding around together. Owen even let Olivia drive his sweet mustang!

Lol! Gotta love Nessie!

Here’s the randomness

Olivia was bored one day and decided to move her toys into the hallway

Olivia and Cami playing dress up! They're so cute!

Yay! Story time at the library started back up! Olivia was so excited to go see Pocco (the puppet at story time). We met Cami and her mama there too =)

There’s Olivia watching my Mom (Gagi) on TV! She’s the Jail and Prison Ministry director at our church Sagebrush. Her and her friend were on this channel talking about the ministry. To give you a quick overview, she goes to the jails and prisons multiple times a week and does Bible studies and mentors the women there. You should hear all the amazing stories. She also helps them once they get out. If you run into her you’ll have to ask her all about it! It’s pretty amazing! So proud of my mama!

Little Artist

2012-01-11T15:17:00.001-08:00

The past 2 or 3 days Olivia has been into drawing pictures and has discovered how to draw stick figures. Well, they basically have a head and legs =) But I think it’s adorable and I had to share this little milestone with you!

From left to right: in the sky there’s a sun, 2 clouds and a rainbow. On the ground there’s 2 of Olivia’s friends, Olivia (the short one with spikey hair) and Mommy (the cyclops with a mohawk) and Daddy on the end. I love it!!!

So Silly!

2012-01-03T18:45:00.001-08:00

Olivia cracks us up! She is too cute!

Sweet Girl

2011-12-30T14:52:00.000-08:00

Olivia loves dressing up and pretending to have a birthday party for a baby doll. Then she'll surprise the baby doll and a princess will show up to the party! She also loves to play Nutcracker Ballet. My Grandma and I took her to see The Nutcracker a couple weeks ago. She's so much fun!

Olivia and Uncle the Pirate Prince

2011-12-28T20:19:00.001-08:00

Christmas!

2011-12-28T20:18:00.001-08:00

Every Christmas gets better and better! We were so blessed to get to spend Christmas with my whole family this year! My brother, sister and her hubby, my Grandma and my parents all came over early Christmas morning so we could all eat Christmas breakfast and open up all our gifts together. Olivia was so excited to have everyone there. Here’s a small recap!

Olivia is very loved =) she got some amazing gifts this year from her family and Santa! Thank you everyone so much for you wonderful gifts! Olivia loves everything!

Even Jingle’s the Elf left Olivia a goodbye gift until she see’s him again next year!

Olivia’s first American girl dolls! She takes them with her everywhere we go!

Danny, Kevin, and Matt all got new beanies

Olivia’s new magnet board!

My brother has an app on his iPhone called Brostache…pretty hilarious!

That night my Mom, Dad, and Grandma made a beautiful Steak Christmas dinner at their house. Olivia had a blast hanging out with her Auntie and Uncle who she doesn’t get to see very often.

Here’s some pictures of Olivia in her fun new Jeep! She can’t wait to take her friends for a ride in it with her!

She just had to eat breakfast in it =)

Christmas Eve

2011-12-28T19:10:00.001-08:00

The day before Christmas Eve I had a hair appointment. So my Mom, Auntie Colleen, and GG took Olivia to get a mani and pedi with them. Olivia picked out her colors, gold sparkles for her fingers and pink sparkles for her toes! She loved getting pampered just like every girl does!

Auntie stayed at our house this visit! Olivia and her had a blast painting and reading books together.

On Christmas Eve morning we woke up and Matt made Christmas tree pancakes!

Later that morning, we met up with Matt’s cousin’s who were enjoying their last day in town by ice skating! The ice skating rink is 3 minutes from our house. We have never taken Olivia there thinking she was too little to ice skate. But when we got there she wanted to skate with Kaitlyn and Jill!

After the Christmas Eve service at church Matt and I made dinner for my whole family. We had mashed potatoes, asparagus, and Matt made an AMAZING apricot and walnut stuffed pork loin! It was SO good! Matt is an amazing chef!

How did he do that?!? He had to butterfly the Pork loin then roll the apricot and walnut stuffing inside. YUM!!!

Angel Fire Ski Resort

2011-12-26T12:39:00.001-08:00

We have been super busy as I’m sure everyone is around this time of year. Last week we met up with Matt cousins and their family in Angel Fire, New Mexico! It was so wonderful to get to spend time with Matt’s family and to meet his cousin’s wife Jill for the first time! They flew all the way here from Florida. We were planning on only staying 2 nights there, but we got snowed in and ended up staying for 3 nights! Sweet! We spent time relaxing in the condo playing games and talking, and everyone got to go skiing/snowboarding while Olivia and I had fun playing in the snow and swimming in the indoor pool and hot tub! There were lots of wonderful memories created in those short 3 days!

There’s Matt and the kid's (Tyler, Logan, Kaitlyn, and Olivia) playing Pass the Pigs. That’s a really fun game by the way!

What would a trip to the mountains be without some computer time! haha! There's Kaitlyn and Olivia playing a computer game. Olivia absolutely LOVED Kaitlyn and followed her every move.

There’s my sweet snow angel!

Matt was showing them a card trick

It was Rob's birthday while we were there and Vince and Jill gave him these onsie pajama’s! Rob and Olivia matched! hahaha!

There’s the kiddos (and Rob) playing Simon says!

Sweet girls! Soooo tired!

On our last day there, we went sledding with Jill and Kaitlyn. Angel Fire is really family friendly and they have a place you can go a rent all kinds of snow gear and sleds! They have a huge hill specifically made for sledding. It was a blast!

Here go the girls! And Mommy’s heart was about to beat out of my chest as I pictured Olivia flying off the sled and through the trees! But she didn’t =)

Let me just zoom in on that last picture! HAHAHA

There’s a smile! Olivia actually liked it and went down a few more times after that!

There goes Matt!

There’s Jill and Kaitlyn!

There’s me Matt and Olivia!

There’s Jill going down the the girls!

Here we are building a snow “castle” since the snow was too fluffy to build a snowman. After we were done we tried to knock it down with the sled but were unsuccessful so the girls just decided to jump into it.

The ski slope view from the condo. it was beautiful there! Thank you so much to Rob for putting all that together!

And what’s a post without sharing a video of Olivia’s silly laugh on our drive home.

She’s awesome!

A Nephew!

2011-12-16T13:41:00.001-08:00

I don’t know if you all know that my sister Colleen and her husband Danny are expecting a baby the end of May! Yesterday she found out she is having a BOY! We are SOOOOO excited!!!! I just had to post an announcement! And go buy some baby boy shoes! ……and clothes! =)

Play time and Hair Cuts

2011-12-16T13:36:00.001-08:00

This morning Olivia and I went and played with Cami while her mama went to an appointment. The girls played so sweet together! I painted their nails red with sparkles, then when Libby got home we took them both to Jungle Cuts to get their hair cut. After they were done getting pampered at the salon, we took them to lunch at their favorite restaurant, Chickfila, of course! What a fun morning!

I didn’t get an after picture of Cami, but after they were all done they both had adorable piggy tails, cami chose purple hair ties and Olivia chose pink. Cutie Patooties!

Christmas Lights

2011-12-16T13:23:00.001-08:00

Oh my goodness! Olivia absolutely LOVES LOVES LOVES going to look at Christmas lights! We drive around the near by neighborhoods every other night and she sticks her head out the window and squeals with excitement and yells Merry Christmas to people outside walking. So 2 nights ago Matt heard about a house on the other side of town that does a whole light show to a Christmas radio station. It was amazing! I wish you all could have seen Olivia’s reaction to the house. I captured a couple video’s of her dancing, but it was dark so it’s kind of hard to see her. The owner’s couldn’t get enough of her dancing =) We can’t wait to go back!

Here’s some fun pictures of what Jingle’s (Elf on the Shelf) has been up to lately

We’ve been doing lots and lots of Christmas crafts!

On Wednesday morning Vanessa invited us and our friend Jessica and her kiddo’s over to do a Christmas tree craft! It was really fun and the kids had a blast making their trees and eating all the candy! =)

There’s Olivia decorating her tree and Autumn climbing across the table to get a gum drop! haha!

There’s Owen, Abby, and Isaac

Olivia’s Silly Pretend Laugh

2011-12-15T13:01:00.001-08:00

I don’t this this video needs any explanation =)

Christmas Corral

2011-12-12T08:02:00.001-08:00

On Saturday my friend Charity wasn’t feel well so we decided to take her little boy Gavin with us to the Christmas Corral to let her get some rest. First he came over and had some pancakes then we headed out! We met up with the Williams’ there and the kiddo’s had a blast! Santa was even there!

Chic-fil-a Love

2011-12-12T07:46:00.001-08:00

Olivia absolutely loves Chicfila! Especially on Tuesday nights after ballet because it’s family night and cow is always there! I wish I could have recorded her reaction when she saw cow all dressed up like Santa! Cow and Olivia are good friends now. Whenever cow see’s Olivia on Tuesdays he starts dancing like a ballerina!

See ya next Tuesday Chicfila!

Snow Days!

2011-12-06T13:31:00.001-08:00

We were blessed to have 2 awesome snow days! It has been freeeeeeezing outside but that doesn’t stop Olivia from wanting to play in the snow all day! I wasn’t sure what she would think of it since we don’t get it in New Mexico very often. But the first time we went out in it, she plopped herself right down in the snow… skrit and all and started making a snow angle! Where did she learn that from?? Who knows! Daddy even got to work from home on the first snow day!

Here’s the first night of the big snow storm

Kissing Rudolph’s nose!

Here’s pictures from the next day

She HAD to wear her cowgirl boots her cousin Emma got for her

The snow was so powdery trying to make a snowman wasn’t working out. So we opted for a snow mountain instead.

After a morning in the snow we came back inside for some hot cocoa!

She was eating all the marshmallows =)

Then we went back outside to play in the snow some more! She wanted to make a face for her snow mountain and help Daddy shovel. We measured the amount of snow in our front yard and it was 7 inches! That's a lot for the desert!

Getting Ready for Christmas

2011-12-05T13:18:00.001-08:00

We are having a blast getting ready for Christmas! Every year I keep saying “this is the best Christmas,” but THIS is the best Christmas! haha =) We introduced Olivia to her new friend from the North Pole she named Jingles the Elf. We decided to do the whole Elf on the Shelf thing and Olivia is soaking it up! She wakes up every morning wondering where and what Jingles is doing! If you’ve never heard of Elf on the Shelf you should google it because it’s so much fun! Here’s just some of the things Jingles has been up to:

There’s Jingles on the start of Olivia Advent Calendar. Starting on December first Olivia gets to pull the card out of a day each morning until Christmas is here. Each card has a craft of fun activity she gets to do that day!

Here’s some of the Christmas décor around the house!

Here’s Olivia decorating the Christmas tree! The bottom of the tree is adorable. There’s ornaments hanging on ornaments. I love it and it’s staying that way!

Please excuse her little panties sticking out, she was much for comfortable without her skirt on.

We tried to do a little photo shoot of Olivia but she wasn’t quite in the picture taking mood and the lights kept falling, lol. But we did get that cute pic at least!

Here’s some other fun shots =)

For one of Olivia’s days on her Christmas count down calendar, she got to write Santa a letter and take it to him at the mall! She asked for a Zoo House and a Pink and Purple Power Wheels. We’ll have to wait and see if he brings it!

3 year check up!

2011-12-05T12:46:00.001-08:00

Oh my goodness! Our precious baby girl is officially 3! Look at these pictures of her one month check up with Dr Koil compared to her 3 year check up. We love Dr. Koil. Olivia even made him a card with that one month check up picture on it and drew him a picture on the inside! She was very excited to give it to him. He’s so sweet and he makes Olivia feel so special!

There she is getting her arm “hugged”

Dr. Koil said Olivia is a beautiful, healthy, and smart little girl! She weighs 30.8 pounds and is 37.5 inces tall.

Mimi’s Visit and Thanksgiving

2011-12-05T12:29:00.001-08:00

Matt’s Mom (mimi) has been her for the past 2 weeks and we have had so fun much with her! She just left yesterday and we already miss her! Here’s a bunch of pictures of Thanksgiving and all the activities we did while she was here!

After ballet on Tuesdays we go to family night at chicfila! They always do something special for the kids. It was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and they had a clown there doing face painting. Olivia asked her to paint a Turkey on her face…why she did a blue turkey I’m not quite sure, but Olivia loved it!

Thanksgiving Day

My sister, her husband Danny, and my brother all came into town! We decided to ask Debbie if she would take some family pictures of us while we were all together. It’s hard getting all those people to look good and smile without blinking all at the same time =) But here’s a couple that came out pretty good.

We had Thanksgiving at my parents house. Here’s the beautiful table setting! Olivia made name tags for each place setting and 2 turkey center pieces.

Matt and I did the Turkey again this year and it came out so moist and delicious! It went perfectly with my Mom’s famous sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, and Matt’s Nanny’s cornbread dressing!

I also made Nanny’s amazing pound cake for dessert! There was apple pie too!

Thanksgiving was wonderful this year! It was so nice having the whole family together and it was such a joy to have Debbie get to be here too!

Debbie is a teacher and she could keep Olivia entertained 24/7. She comes up with the most adorable ideas of games to play with Olivia! Here’s Olivia and her babies visiting the zoo.

Mimi would have story time and movie time with Olivia and her babies on Olivia’s bed.

Mimi and I got a little distracted looking at PInterest so Olivia decided to color her nails =) Black!

For Olivia’s REAL 3rd birthday on November 30th, we took her to Chili’s and had them sing to her. It was hilarious! She was shocked and speechless but absolutely loved it, of course!

Mimi is not a huge fan of getting her picture taken but we did capture these two treasures =)

We had such a wonderful time with Mimi and we cannot wait to see her again!!! We love you Mimi!

Christmas is Coming!

2011-12-04T21:14:00.001-08:00

Christmas is right around the corner. We put up our Christmas tree after Thanksgiving and decided to do a quick photo-shoot with Olivia. We’ve got a few more that I’ll share in a couple of days. It’s hard to believe that Olivia is 3 years old now. She’s very excited about Christmas!

Colorado Springs

2011-11-28T12:58:00.001-08:00

I am so behind in blogging it’s not even funny! I will start with our last minute trip to Colorado Springs for my cousin Jenna’s baby shower! Me, Olivia and my Dad decided it would be nice to go see the family, so we packed up a couple weekends ago and made the 6 hour drive. Olivia did really good in the car! Once we got there she walked into my granddad’s house like she goes there every day. She gave granddad a big hug and wanted him to play her some Snow White songs on the piano.

One thing Olivia really enjoys is going to my Aunt and Uncle’s stables to see all the horses! This time she even got to ride one with her favorite cousin Emma!

There’s Olivia and Emma going to get Bandito to ride over to Granddad’s house. Emma was so sweet to buy Olivia matching cowgirl boots for their ride that day! Olivia LOVES them!

Off to Granddad’s! He lives really close so we just walked to his house with Jenna (the Mom to be on the right)!

Look at those sweet boots!

Brushing Bandito after the ride

There’s Olivia and Emma playing Mary had a Little Lamb

Auntie Colleen gave Olivia this adorable hat for her birthday!

It was time for Jenna’s shower! Here she is opening presents! Where ever Emma was there Olivia was also =) She absolutely adores Emma!

My cousin Samantha just had a beautiful baby girl named Annlee and we got to meet her for the first time at Jenna’s shower! She is precious!

There’s my sister Colleen and I holding the sweet Annlee! She was so cute I didn’t want to put her down! I can’t wait for my sister to have her baby! She’s due in May! Yay!

There’s my cousin’s Jamie and Jenna. Awe=)

There’s Granddad and his great grandkids!

We had so much fun in Colorado! Can’t wait to go back! Here’s exhausted Olivia on the ride home.

Ballet Moves

2011-11-09T09:02:00.001-08:00

Here’s Olivia right before ballet class yesterday. She was showing me her ballet moves =)

First Position

Plié

Olivia’s a` la spectacular

a` la seconde

Arabesque

Livie Laughing

2011-11-09T08:44:00.001-08:00

Our dogs are so sweet to Olivia! In this video Olivia is cracking up at Chloe. Her laugh is so contagious!

Olivia’s 3rd Birthday Party

2011-11-06T21:26:00.001-08:00

Today was Olivia’s 3rd Birthday party! We decided to have it a little early this year since her real birthday is so close to Thanksgiving. The theme was “Snow White” and the kids had a blast! All the girls were encouraged to wear their Princess attire. We will apologize in advance for the amount of pictures (Lots to share).

Kaitlyn worked very hard on the Apple Cake pops the night before. They were really tasty!!

Each guest got to take home their own mirror to decorate with jewels.

Here are some pics of Olivia getting ready for the party.

Vanessa and I made her snow white tutu dress. Vanessa worked very hard on the top and I made the yellow tutu out of 7 yards of tulle. I think it turned out very cute!

She is so precious!

We invited Snow White to come to our house and celebrate with us!!! Olivia was VERY excited to see her. I think she was a little star struck at first.

They played the parachute game. This was a hit! Olivia really likes this game at dance class.

Next up in the festivities was Freeze Dance, another favorite of Olivia’s!

The little one’s! So cute!

Snow White had a few magic tricks that the 7 dwarfs taught her. Since Olivia was the birthday girl, she had the “Magic touch” that made things disappear!

Snow White asked Olivia to close her eyes so that she could get her magic powers for the next trick.

Snow White read them a story too!

There’s sweet Cami!

This is Olivia’s precious friend Makaila from her ballet class!

There’s Jessica and beautiful Abby as Belle! So cute!

Jess and Abby

Kaitlyn and Gagi

Snow White also painted everyone’s faces and made them animal balloons!

What’s a Snow White party without Prince Charming himself! And who better to play the part then Owen! He was mighty handsome!

There’s Katelyn, Olivia’s sweet friend from church! Olivia and her almost have the same birthday’s!

Abby P, Olivia, Abby B, and Makaila

Katelyn, Cami, and Avery!

Travis and Marcey!

Autumn’s blue eyes looked so beautiful in her blue Cinderella dress!

There’s Piper!

There’s Abby’s little brother Isaac! He was just excited to be playing with something that wasn’t princessy!

This was so cute! All the girls just decided to hold hands in a circle and do ring around the rosie all by themselves.

Olivia got to sing Happy Birthday and blow out her candles with Snow White. Kaitlyn made her a big Apple Cake with three candles.

It was sad to say goodbye but we all had a lot of fun! This was definitely a moment that we won’t forget!

Thank you to everyone that shared this special moment with Olivia. We had a lot of fun, and hope you did too!

Halloween Festivities!

2011-11-01T09:14:00.001-07:00

Olivia got to wear her costume 3 times this year! On Friday she got to wear it to an Intel family Halloween event. She was so excited to get to go to Daddy’s work! She was very very pleasantly surprised when we got there and saw all her favorite characters. They had lots of treats, pumpkin bowling, darts (safe for little one’s), a photo booth, a haunted house, and lots more! My parents met us there too!

After Intel we went back to my parents house where GG had made homemade apple pie! It was delicious!

On Saturday, Nessie invited us to join them at her hubby’s work (which is right across the street from our house at the Pulte model village) to go trick or treating in the model homes! It was a beautiful day and the kids had so much fun! PS, all their costumes were homemade this year =)

There’s the cutie pie’s, Owen, Autumn, and Olivia all dressed up and ready to go!

That’s Nessie’s niece Abby, she’s so sweet! She was dressed up as a puppy dog but it was getting pretty hot outside so her costume was coming off =)

Olivia loves taking care of Autumn, so here she is feeding Autumn some candy!

This year we decided to have a big Halloween party at our house! The William’s were the co hosts with us and helped us a lot in the preparations! We were expecting around 26-30 people to join us. We had lots of fun games planned for the kids: Pin the nose on the Pumpkin, Bean Bag Monster Toss, Cookie decorating, Freeze Dance, and Trick or Treating!

Here’s some pics of the preparations for the party

Making the Bean Bag Toss Monsters

Of course, we couldn’t leave out pumpkin carving!

Here’s the front door! Of course the Door décor and the Milk Jugs that light up were all idea’s from Pinterest! Libby and I each did 6 milk jugs. They came out cute!

Pin the nose on the pumpkin game!

Just getting ready! There’s Libby the cute and pregnant bumble bee in the background =)

Cami the Lion wanted to help blow up balloon’s =)

Here’s the Monster Bean Bag Toss game Matt and I made =)

Libby sewed together the bean bags!

We had 3 different soups to choose from. Libby made vegetable soup and her famous cheese burger soup! I made a big pot of chili.

Libby made these adorable mummy juice boxes for the kiddos!

The guests started arriving at 5:00

There’s Caleb!

There’s Super Man! Also known as Jace!

There we are getting the cookie decorating table going. The kids had a blast decorating their cookies however they wanted! You should have seen the pile of frosting and sprinkles on Olivia’s cookie!

Cami and Abby Poe!

There’s Owen the dinosaur enjoying his cookie!

Hailee and Sydney. Precious!

Beauty and the Beast! (Piper and her Daddy) So fun!

Little Sam Poe wasn’t in the mood to wear his costume so he just wore his cookie monster sweat shirt. He’s so funny! He had a blast =)

How cute are those pumpkin Rice Krispy treats that Hailee made?!

Travis Dutton’s costume, hahaha!

The kids were very intrigued!

Time for Pin the Nose on the Pumpkin!

There’s Yuri enjoying his juice box!

Freeze Dance!

Time to go Trick or Treating! This was hilarious because there were so many kids! When the person would answer the door they would be very surprised at all the kids screaming “trick or treat!” haha! Also, all us parents were trying to get pictures of our adorable children… so one group passed us and called us the paparazzi! lol!

Here’s a couple video’s. It’s kind of dark but you get the idea! Thanks to Andrew Poe for facilitating and making sure the kids didn’t burst into the people’s houses =)

Me and Libby!

After all the fun was coming to an end, us and the Williams’ cleaned up (thank you WIlliams’!!!) while the girls burnt off their sugar high! They were cracking us up!

Then, I made a surprise trip to my parents house to let Olivia trick or treat there! It was way past Olivia’s bed time but it was so worth it. Plus, she STILL had sugar to burn off!

What a fun way to end an awesome Halloween night! We had so much fun! We already can’t wait for next year! Thanks to everyone that made our Halloween so special =)

Crafts and Such

2011-10-27T16:11:00.001-07:00

Olivia is really into doing crafts. We try and do a fun craft every day! Here’s just a few of the different things we have done over the past week.

Vinegar and Baking soda experiment…This was fun!

Gluing a cute tree scene together from some adorable printable’s I found online.

Sometimes she goes a little crazy with the crafting and decorates me!

She loved this rainbow and cloud craft!

This was before story time at the library today. She was reading me a book just like the lady does at the library. Too funny!

The Interview

2011-10-21T21:27:00.001-07:00

Tonight Kaitlyn and I were playing with Olivia and we were wishing we could capture these times with Olivia. Her gestures, little sayings, etc. So we decided to do an impromptu interview! It was a lot of fun, I hope you enjoy.

Olivia Playing

2011-10-20T15:42:00.001-07:00

Last night Olivia was playing with her little doll house and decided she wanted to play with more little people and that she wanted them all to be named after her family. So here’s a video of her naming each toy =)

What a fun day!

2011-10-18T19:56:00.001-07:00

Today was such a fun day! This morning we meet up with Cami and her mommy Libby at an educational children’s play place called Red Light Green Light! We were super excited to see them because Libby and her hubby got to go on a kid free vacation for the past 7 days. We missed them! Olivia and Cami had a lot of play time to catch up on! After Red Light Green Light we had lunch with them at Chick-fil-a then headed home for nap time. That afternoon Olivia had ballet class! Yay! Then we went to Olive Garden to eat with Daddy. It was a good day!

Here’s a short sweet video of Olivia and her new ballet friends before class started. Olivia has become quite close with the little girl also wearing a pink leotard. Her name is Makayla. Olivia and her always color each other pictures and swap out at class each week. They like to walk into class holding hands. They’re too cute!

Olive Garden =)

Tap Dancing

2011-10-16T19:02:00.001-07:00

Olivia started dance lessons a few weeks ago and we just bought her some tap shoes. This is the first time she’s ever put them on. She’s excited to go to next weeks lesson.

Look!

2011-10-16T08:02:00.001-07:00

Look what Matt made for our windows! He drew the silly monsters out on cardboard and cut them out. Then he put clear contact paper over their eyes and mouth and added colored tissue paper on top of the contact paper. They look awesome!

One Big Blog

2011-10-14T13:40:00.001-07:00

Once again I’m so behind in my blogging! I’m going to try and catch up in one big blog. Cause I know Mimi and Gagi need their pictures! =)

A couple weeks ago I realized Olivia really needed a hair cut….

So I made her an appointment at this adorable salon here called Jungle Cuts for Kids. She loved it and sat still then entire time!

Much better! =)

We’ve been making some fun trips to the park. This trip we went with Owen, Autumn, Abby, and her little brother Isaac.

Olivia loves to help Autumn walk around! And Olivia is getting to be quite the little climber!

Olivia loves making trips to Petsmart to see all the animals. Then afterwards, we always go next door to get her a smoothie. She loves her some Kiva Juice

We had Cami and her parents over for breakfast before church one morning! Olivia and Cami both ordered turtle pancakes!

A couple weekends ago we went to visit Matt’s cousin’s that live here in Albuquerque. They are huge dog lovers so we like to take Tucker and Chloe over there to run their little tails off. While the dogs were getting some exercise, Rob and Lara showed us their amazing garden and let us pick a bunch of veggies and a watermelon!

We walked down their road to a little pumpkin patch and petting zoo!

Olivia wanted to add a clown face to her dress up closet =)

Olivia just wanted me to take a picture of her and Chloe =)

Here’s some cute and long video’s of Olivia enjoying listening and watching Daddy play the guitar. They’re long but I know the Grandma’s will enjoy them!

Deja Vu

2011-10-11T18:35:00.001-07:00

Olivia was resting in the laundry basket today since she decided to skip her nap.

And it reminded me of this picture taken almost exactly a year ago

Freeze Dancing at KFC

2011-10-10T11:01:00.000-07:00

Pinterest Project

2011-10-04T10:57:00.001-07:00

The past few days I have been working on a little Pinterest project to help organize Olivia’s play room a little. My parents have been cleaning out their house and garage and had an extra dresser they wanted to get ride of. I totally forgot to take a picture of it before I painted it white, but it was a rose pink. I took out the drawers, matt hammered off some wood pieces on the inside of it. I painted it white, mod podged cute fabric to the inside. Then, Matt hung a wooden bar at the top and voilà! You get an adorable dress up closet!

Yay!! I love it! I still want to hang a couple hooks on the side of it for her hats and maybe hang a cute picture or sign above it, but here’s the finished product! Olivia really love’s it! And now she can see all the clothes she can dress up in, instead of having to dig through a box. Next project is a little cupboard for her kitchen accessories.

Livie

2011-10-04T10:47:00.001-07:00

Here’s some random iPhone pics again =)

The other day we were over at my parents playing in a tent I made for Olivia in their front yard. She noticed the neighbor kids outside playing too, and she reeeaaaallllyyy wanted to play with them! So she walked her little self next door and asked if she could play with them. Eventually they ended up in my parents yard playing Barbie's in Olivia’s tent. She had so much fun! They taught her how to play Duck Duck Goose. It was really sweet to watch!

Here’s just a fun little activity I saw on Pinterest for Olivia to do

Learning her letter’s

Matt had to work last night so he stayed home this morning and made Olivia pancakes. She wanted a kitty cat! Here she is “meowing.”

Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta 2011

2011-10-02T19:59:00.001-07:00

This morning we woke up at 4:30 and made our way to the Balloon Fiesta! We parked at Intel and rode a bus into the fiesta. It’s a lot better then driving your car and sitting in traffic forever. The buses get to take short cuts! Let me tell you, Olivia was SO excited to ride on a school bus! I’m almost certain it was her favorite part of the entire morning! She sang the wheels on the bus pretty much the whole ride to the park. We got there when it was still dark around 5:30, and headed to the Intel tent for free breakfast! We stayed there and watched some of the balloon’s take off in the dark. They looked like lanterns in the sky, it was beautiful! When it warmed up a bit, we headed out to the field to watch all the balloons set up. The Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta actually broke the world’s record of most balloon’s launched in an hour! 343 to be exact! Pretty amazing! We plan on going to the Special Shaped Balloon Glow Friday night!

Olivia’s favorite balloons:

The beetle lady bug thing =)

The silly skunk

The fishy

The pink elephant

A balloon with illustrations from her favorite children’s book’s by Sandra Boynton

The huge cow!

Peek-a-boo monkey

The angel. This was really funny. If you can see the angel is not wearing shoes, so when she flew right over our head Olivia said “put your shoe’s on angel! Where are your shoe’s?? Pee-eww angel!” hahaha! There was also a zebra and a butterfly that we didn’t see until the bus ride home. Hopefully they’ll be at the Balloon Glow on Friday so we can snap a few pictures.

We ran into our friend’s from our Bible study group Brittney and Travis. That’s their sweet little boy Jace! He was having a blast!

Before we left we had to get Olivia some Tom Thumb mini donuts. She ate the entire bag! Well, she gave Matt and I one =)

Here’s Daddy trying to eat her donut on the bus ride home.

What a fun filled morning with a beautiful little girl! Can you believe she’s almost 3?!?

New Mexico State Fair

2011-09-20T13:51:00.001-07:00

Last weekend we went to the state fair with Olivia’s sweet friend’s Piper, her baby sister Sydney, and Cami. It was so much fun! We spent almost 4 hours there and probably could have stayed longer! We went to a dog show, saw a white lion, went to McDonald’s Farm, a petting zoo, and ate some yummy roasted corn and Indian fry bread taco’s for lunch! The girl’s had the time of their lives and so did the parents!

This was very exciting! they had a big character horse walking around the fair!

There’s McDonald’s Farm

There’s Olivia and Piper looking at the animals!

Look at that adorable puppy!

A cow!

This was super cute! They had an area for the little one’s to fill baskets up with fake, fruits, veggies, eggs, and grain. The girls had so much fun in this area!

There’s Olivia with her basket and Cami and her mommy Libby!

All ready to go pick some veggies!

There’s Piper!

Here’s the pictures from the petting zoo. Olivia absolutely loved petting and feeding the animals!

There’s Piper and her Mommy Piper!

Popsicle break!

Olivia picked this pink dolphin to be her State Fair souvenir. And she had to take one last picture with the Horse!

One tired little girl!

Happy Birthday Pops!

2011-09-15T12:38:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, we had my Dad’s birthday dinner at our house! Olivia is now pretty consistent in calling him Pops. My mom brought Steaks and a salad, my grandma made a homemade angel food cake, and I made jalapeno cornbread stuffing. It was so yummy!

I dressed Olivia up like a little clown! She had a blast being silly with everyone. It was too cute! When Pops arrived, she ran out to greet him and handed him a superman balloon and told him he was her superhero =)

Happy Birthday Pops! We love you so much!

“higher pops! higher!” =)

Precious!

Ballerina Pics

2011-09-15T12:25:00.001-07:00

Here she is before her second ballet class! So Excited!

More Pancake Animals!

2011-09-15T12:19:00.001-07:00

Olivia wanted a pink turtle

Mommy wanted a pink mouse

And Daddy made himself a caterpillar with the pink batter we already had made =)

She absolutely loves when Daddy makes pancakes! This may become a Saturday morning tradition!

Chick-fil-a

2011-09-13T17:52:00.001-07:00

Olivia loves the cow from chick-fil-a! She was excited to see him tonight

Little Ballerina

2011-09-12T13:03:00.001-07:00

As most of you know, Olivia loves dancing, especially ballet. There just happens to be a brand new dance school right by our house! We took Olivia to their open house a few weeks ago and she got to try out ballet for herself with a real ballet teacher! She was the only little girl there so she was a little hesitant to go in at first, but she did participate for a little while for us to take some really cute video’s of her! SO we went ahead and signed her up for ballet class every Tuesday night. It’s only Olivia and another little girl named Macayla. Their teacher is the sweetest girl ever, her name is Miss Kaitlyn! Easy enough for Livie =) Last Tuesday was the first class and both girls absolutely loved it! The parents sit out in a waiting room where we can watch out little princesses dancing on a tv screen so I can’t take any video’s of her classes now. I’ll try to snap a bunch of pictures before class starts next time. It was so fun watching Olivia intereact without Mommy or Daddy by her side. Miss Kaitlyn had them doing all sorts of fun ballet stretches and moves. She even brought in a huge mat for the girls to practice summersaults on and beautiful scarves for them to twirl around! After class, Olivia was so excited to tell me that Miss Kaitlyn is bringing wands and Tutu’s to class next time!

If you’re wonder who that little boy is, it’s the owner’s son. He thought he’d come join Olivia for a bit =)

This was the only picture Olivia would let me take last Tuesday before her first dance class. oh well =)

Super Random

2011-09-12T12:45:00.001-07:00

This post is going to be super random because I have a bunch of iPhone pictures I haven’t posted. So, here we go!

Remember that pound cake I made the other day? Well, it was AMAZING! Thank you Pinterest!

Olivia and I are into doing crafts together! Here she is making a toilet paper tube giraffe (Pinterest) and practicing her skills with her scissors.

Here are some adorable finger print animals we made together! Pinterest…

Play-Doh bakery! …….Pinterest….

Here’s Olivia and Cami playing princess and pirate’s!

There’s Daddy and Olivia painting!

A couple weeks ago Olivia had a slumber party at my parents house! She had SO MUCH FUN! Matt and I took the night to relax. We went to an amazing restaurant then rented a movie. Here’s the overnight bag Olivia packed =)

After we watched our movie I decided to try this homemade mask I found on….you guessed it, Pinterest! I tried to convince Matt to do it with me but I got a pretty strong “I am not putting honey on my FACE.”

I liked it! And I didn’t break out in a weird rash or anything!

Who else besides Costco would have giant Mickey and Minnie Mouse stuffed animals?

We cleaned out the garage a few weeks ago and found a box filled with Matt’s old toys. Olivia had a blast looking through all of them!

A few weeks ago my precious Grandma moved here from Colorado Springs! Olivia is so happy to have her GG here with us and so are we! Love you GG!

This is a video of Olivia entertaining us for dinner when my brother was in town. We were all eating dinner when Olivia decided she’d like to sing every song she knew. It was absolutely precious!

Pound Cake

2011-09-09T12:37:00.000-07:00

Today, me and this cutie pie are getting ready to have some company for dinner! I went to the store with the menu on my grocery list. I wanted to make this yummy gooey pumpkin cake to welcome in the fall season, but there's a shortage of pumpkins so they had no canned pumpkin! So I quickly got onto my Pinterest account and found another dessert. A super yummy looking pound cake! Matt loves pound cake because he grew up eating his Nanny's exceptional recipe. I'll never be able to make a pound cake like hers but I sure hope this one comes close to it! I'll let you know how it turns out!

Cupcake Lollipop

2011-09-07T18:26:00.000-07:00

We're hangin out at Starbucks tonight. Olivia got a cupcake lollipop and she's content. She was closing her eyes and making a wish while eating it haha.

Matt the Pancake Pro

2011-09-04T07:52:00.001-07:00

This morning my amazing husband made Olivia a turtle pancake! He bought empty ketchup bottles and put the batter in them. This opens a HUGE pancake door! I’m sure there will be a lot of pancake posts in the future!

First you make the head and the feet. Then you make an outline of the turtle shell with the plain batter and fill it in with the green batter.

Then make a few extra little round pancakes to help prop up the shell, add two chocolate chips for eye (or raisins if you want to be healthy) and voilà! You get a super adorable turtle!

Olivia LOVED it! His eyes were the first to go!

I wanted to try one so I made a butterfly. Not as cool as the turtle but it was fun to make!

Sandia Peak

2011-09-03T21:36:00.001-07:00

Olivia has been telling us that she wanted to go to the top of the mountain. So today, we went to the top! However, when we told Olivia that we were going to the top of the mountain she said “Ummmmm I just want to go to Sea World…”. Maybe later.

Disclaimer: I did not take the picture above.

It’s probably been about 9 years since I’ve been up there. We really enjoyed it and should go more often. The weather was perfect! Here are some pics from today.

Olivia loved looking through the binoculars. She said “I can see the trees!”.

She was a little nervous which is understandable but she did enjoy it a lot (once the camera was put away).

We hiked to a “rock house”, you can see it on the left in the pic above. Olivia was very intrigued when we told her where we were going. As I came over the hill, she screamed “I see it!!! I see the rock house! Hurry Dad!”.

This is a pic we took along the way. Olivia was not cooperating with the camera. She was putting her hands on her face and saying cheese in this pic… oh well.

Another pic of Albuquerque down below.

We made it to the rock house! There was another little girl named Anna and Olivia became instant friends. They played inside the rock house together.

Of course, this is the only picture that Olivia would smile in. All the others with mom and dad, she refused to smile. haha

Olivia cracks us up! There were signs along the trail telling us about different trees. Olivia, would go up to all the signs and look at the picture, then pretend like she was reading what it said. Of course, we waited a little to long to start recording, but we think the video is still cute.

Grocery List

2011-09-03T21:29:00.001-07:00

Last week, Matt took Olivia to Costco while I went and helped my Dad out. Before I left, I made her and Daddy a grocery list and here’s a video of her reading it. So cute!

Yosemite

2011-08-29T21:29:00.001-07:00

For the past two weeks I had to go to San Jose, California for work. During the weekend I decided to drive over to Yosemite and see what that was all about. It was 3.5 hours from my hotel to the park entrance and it was definitely worth every minute. I only had a day to explore it all since all the hotel rooms were booked. I rented a bike when I got there and took a 6 mile ride to see the sites, here are some of my pics.

Yes the first picture is an HDR image but I like to mix up my style every now an then.

Bridal Veil Falls (Above)

El Capitan (Above)

Half Dome (Above)

Three Brothers and Bridal Veil Falls

Last Nights Lightning Storm

2011-08-29T19:48:00.001-07:00

Last night we had a pretty incredible lightning storm. Unfortunately I didn’t get my camera out until near the end. I’ll have it ready sooner next time. On the first one you can see all the lightning in the background across the mountain. Pretty crazy.

Daddy’s Home!

2011-08-29T11:53:00.001-07:00

Matt has been in California for work the past two weeks and we are VERY excited he came home this weekend! Olivia and I made him a welcome home sign, hung up some balloons and made him a cake!

Olivia was very excited we made the cake pink!

She decorated it all by herself! (minus the frosting and the daddy sign =) The cake came complete with marshmellow’s, bunnies and their homes, bunnies taking naps, and bunnies that were cold so we had to put frosting blankets on them.

We missed you Daddy!!!!!!!

What did you bring me?!?!?

Beautiful Dress

2011-08-22T12:21:00.001-07:00

My bestie Nessie handmade Olivia this beautiful dress and matching bow! I just have to brag about it because it’s really really well made and it’s so adorable and fits Olivia perfect! She did an amazing job and she is so talented! Love you Nessie! Olivia loves wearing it and telling everyone “Nessie made it!”

Gavin’s 2nd Birthday!

2011-08-22T12:13:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was Olivia’s sweet friend Gavin’s second birthday party! It was at the Aquatic Center right by our house and I was by myself with Olivia so I didn’t get many pictures. I went over to Gavin’s house beforehand to help Gavin’s mommy Charity decorate his cupcakes! They came out adorable! She found a picture of these in a magazine. We used Mini m&m’s for the scales, eyes, and lips, then sour patch melons for the tail. Gavin got the special Blue Fish Cupcake.

There’s Olivia enjoying her cupcake after swimming!

There’s Olivia’s friend Abby and the birthday boy, Gavin! Happy Birthday Gavin! We had a blast!

Projects

2011-08-22T11:52:00.001-07:00

Matt has been out of town this past week so to keep myself busy I’ve been working on some projects around the house. I get all my house decorating ideas and pretty much any idea from my new favorite website is www.pinterest.com now. If you haven’t seen it you’re seriously missing out! But, if you decide to check it out be forewarned that you WILL be addicted! Me along with all my girlfriends and mother-in-law cannot get enough of this site!

Project #: My sister’s birthday gift

Homemade wreath and homemade coasters

The coasters are made using 4x4 tile from Lowes then Mod Podging pretty scrapbook paper on top, spraying it with clear spray paint then Mod Podging felt onto the bottom. Super easy and cute!

Project #2 Repaint Olivia’s bookshelf

Project #3 Make an awesome wall display out of a pallet

The Idea from Pinterest

My ugly pallet board I had to rip apart. That was interesting for sure =)

The finished product! I’m still playing around with decorating it, I need to make a quick trip to Hobby Lobby (if that can be a quick trip?), but I think it came out good for my first time ever being a carpenter!

That’s all for now! Matt will be gone another week so…..on to my next project!

Cami Time!

2011-08-18T09:22:00.000-07:00

This morning we went to the park with Olivia's best little girlfriend Cami! They had a blast together!

GG's here!!!

2011-08-17T15:05:00.001-07:00

My Grandma just moved here from Colorado Springs yesterday! We have been so excited to have her! Olivia has been anticipating this day for a while! Welcome to Albuquerque Grandma!

...

2011-08-16T12:08:00.000-07:00

Well, call me a sucker, but I made Olivia a little bed on the floor in our room to sleep on when she wakes up scared at night. Olivia has become scared of every noise and shadow in her room. We've tried all the ways we know to get her to stay in her bed all night. This was my last resort. So when Olivia woke up last night at midnight, I told her she can sleep in her bed or on the floor in my room....she slept like an angel the rest of the night! And so did Mommy :) it may not be the best parenting BUT for those of you who know us well, know Olivia has never been the best sleeper. And if you know me, you know I need my beauty sleep! So problem solved!