happy birthday livy lou!!

we had two great b-day parties for this sweet girl. one at the park with all of her friends and the other at wendy and kenny's with the fam. olivia was in heaven.

we are singing happy birthday and she is wearing a too small birthday hat.

here is the cake she picked out herself. she LOVES princesses.

no, i didn't make it not enough time.


liv was so excited to open all the great presents. she has such great friends and they all gave her such fun stuff. we need to practice opening gifts though, she wasn't too good a the rip and go fast technique.


these are pictures of the family gathering. greg made ribs and ckicken, it was soooo good. as with minnesota birthday tradition greg also brought an icecream cake. wendy and i did fill in the gaps in the dinner and didn't make greg do all the work. aren't we good sisters!

we were actually celebrating all of the september birthday's,
greg(23), liv (26) AND wendy(30).
at the family party, olivia thought all her gifts were from nana! it was really funny. i can still catch her asking mallory, "these jammies are from nana, aren't they pretty". so cute, so thanks nana!

what a fabulous time for olivia. thanks to all her friends and family for making her 3rd birthday such a great one. we had tons of fun. thank you!!

announcement

i think almost everyone knows, but i am pregnant!! we are shocked but very excited. i am due jan. 26. we actually found out the sex of the baby today and if you can't tell already...

we are having a boy!!

i can't believe it is true. we are all very excited and i am still in shock. i feel kind-of scared. i feel like i don't know how to have a boy?? what do i do with him? ahhh!!

brett is beside himself. he has produced a male. the first thing he said was "we have to go on NFL.com and get him a tampa bay bucs outift". so funny. now, on to the shopping!

summer of '08

i know, i know. you are all so excited that i am finally back to blogging!! yeah. we had a great summer with tons of playing and swimming and all sorts of stuff!! here are the highlights.

we bought a new van!! for anyone who knows us, this was a very hard decision for us because- truly we really don't like minivans, but we needed to think of the future and this chevy venture gets MUCH better milage than the durango we were in love with. the girls LOVE the van. livy gets to open the sliding door EVERYTIME we get out. she loves it and she never gets tired of it. it has TONS more room and we are liking it.

this is a cute picure of the girls and brett on father's day. aren't they so cute??
this is the fourth of july. we got to go to wendy and kenny's and have good food with them and greg. we played in their pool forever. brett and i even got to play since mallory slept and wonderful cousins took care of olivia for awhile. then went home to go to a ward party and watch the fireworks. liv was in HEAVEN. she ran around with all the other kids and had so much fun. she is even flushed in this picture because of the running around.
both girls LOVED the fireworks and brett and i even had a fun time!! we really like our ward.
here is another great picture of our van and my cute girls!! isn't mallory so cute.
we went swimming atleast once a week. either at a cute little tot-lot, at a friends or at one of the lakes around here. the girls loved it.

i take care of a friends kids once a week, adam is above with olivia. adam is a year older than liv but they are the best of friends and play really well together.

this is adam sister, emily. mallory and her are only 2 weeks apart and they love eachother as much as 1 and 1/2 year old can.

the girls having dinner one night. mallory loves to do everything by herself and this is usually the result!

we got to go to the primary pioneer celebration since brett and i are both primary teachers. the girls had alot of fun. don't they look adorable in their cute pioneer hats?

this picture has a story. liv is running after some birds, as you can see. whenever liv sees some birds she always says, "mom, birds! i want to catch one". so this is her running to catch a bird!! she is so cute. livy still hasn't caught one yet!well, there is more. so keep looking.

the minnesota state fair

wow! i have been to a couple state fairs and some in canada, but i have never been to one like the great minnesota get together!! we were there for over 3 hours and we didn't even start to see everything!! i could not believe how big it was. really. it is about 5 times as big as the utah or idaho one. yikes. we didn't get to see that much because olivia LOVED the rides. she went on lots. here are several pics of her and the fun rides. this is how mallory ended up after only one ride on the merry-o-round!! she was to scared!! she is so silly. mally loved watching liv so she was happy.
i thought this was the cutest ride i have ever seen. it was a tiny ferris wheel for olivia. she loved it and even got to ride it all by herself!

i don't know who liked the bumper boats more, brett or olivia!! the funny thing was that you had to steer them and olivia didn't get that. so, by the end she was going in a circle for so long she started to feel sick and cried. it was so sad but so cute. brett went and rescued her.
here is mallory on the sidelines. isn't she so cute. really!!

we got some famous food on a stick and had a great time. brett's only regret is that he didn't find a pork chop on a stick. maybe next year!