Yee Haw

Livi loves animals, so the horse rides at the birthday party the other day were right up her ally. I thought she might be scared to get on the horse, but other than looking a little nervous she did awesome. Thanks to Dale for taking the kids around on the horse in the heat.

Photo Update

Ok, I am a blog slacker, but this time its not entirely my fault. A month or so ago Livi decided to pour a full glass of water on our laptop so we were without a computer for a while. Luckily they were able to recover the stuff that was on there.

We haven't been up to too much lately, just eating mass amounts of popsicles and enjoying time outdoors. Here are a few recent pics that are my faves.

Grandma's Birthday Dinner at Taggarts. I'm a sucker for the big cheesy smile.

Playing Rockband: Livi always has to sing. She's quite the mic hog.

This is probably a little lame, but we decided to use the kiddie pool as a sandbox until its warm enough to use as a pool. Livi loves to play in the sand and also thinks its quite tasty (yuck). Getting sand out of her hair definitely isn't the easiest task.

Clearly Livi isn't the only fan of the sandbox.

Love these two.

Baking cookies with mom. No one should be allowed to scowl while eating cookie dough. She needs a little help with her baking skills - notice the flour everywhere.

Baby Animal Days

On the 10th of April we made the trek to Cache Valley for Baby Animal Days. Olivia is kinda like the little girl "Darla" in Finding Nemo in that she loves animals, but doesn't quite get why they run away in fear when she charges them while screaming or squeezes them too tightly. So I knew Olivia would love the baby animal days, but I was worried for the poor defenseless animals. Surprisingly enough the animals escaped unharmed and we had all had a blast. This will definitley become an annual tradition from now on. There were mostly farm animals, but they had brought in some bear cubs from Idaho that were so cute.

These baby goats had just been born the night before!

One of my favorite photos from the day!

You should have heard the tantrum when the pony ride ended and we took her off the horse! Actually, if you were anywhere within a 50 mile radius of Cache Valley you probably did!

She was literally hugging this goat right before I took the photo

So cute!

Feeding the donkey

*no animals were harmed in the creation of this blog post : )

When is the last time you had this much fun?

These two just crack me up. Before this April blizzard hit we enjoyed some time outside on the few days we did have some sunshine. Livi and Eli got in yet another dirt fight (there have been many) so I just let the fighting continue in the tub. We love having such good friends to play with.

2

On March 12th we celebrated Olivia's second birthday! I know I've said this a million times before, but I cannot believe its been two years. That day we had a playdate with Livi's little pals and then that night we celebrated with family over cake and ice cream.

This age definitely has it challenges, but we are having a blast discovering new things with Livi and spending time together as a family.I love this little girl and am so proud to be her mom.

Testing out her new bike from mom & dad. We waited until the next morning to give it to her because I think she was a little overwhelmed with all the gifts on her birthday. She is one spoiled chica.

My attempt at the barbie cake. It looked ok from the front, but was a little pathetic from the back.

Testing out her new scooter

Happy to get a new doll. This one goes potty so hopefully it will help with our potty training efforts.

New purse & dress up shoes

Say cheese - pretend camera

Update

Ok so I'm pretty tired of staying indoors all the time. I'm ready for spring, I'm ready for our cruise, and I'm ready to get the ball rolling on another adoption. Thank goodness for neighbors and friends that are willing to get together for playdates and lunches to help keep us busy until its time to hit the pool and the zoo again and put some miles on our new bike. I really don't have much to blog about, but just want to post these cute pics.

So Sweet

The Princess Tent! Be careful, those who enter are rarely allowed to leave. Dallas and I don't exactly fit, but Livi doesn't mind. You can see Dallas' legs sticking out in this photo.

And of course it wouldn't be a party unless Livi forced both dogs in the tent too

Hanging out in the princess tent with Grandma and Grandpa Hamblin

Also, I don't think I ever posted about the little remodel project we did. Our house only has two bedrooms and we've felt a little squished since we added Livi to our family. And now that we're hoping to adopt again we decided to turn our "home teacher" room into a bedroom. Construction went really smoothly and the contractors finished up just in time for Christmas. Right now I am using the room to stash all the toys (its ridiculous how many toys she has) and when we get a baby then we'll turn it into the baby's room. Anyway, here are some before and after pics.

View from the front door before

View from the front door after

Before

Before

After

After

Our new toy room/future nursery

Do I have the best hubby or what? Clearly he should be in charge of our blog. He is so much better at putting himself out there than I am. He is such a sweety and Livi and I are lucky to have him.

I've kind of been in the post Christmas slump so I thought I'd fill some time and finally update our blog with some Christmas pics. I didn't take nearly as many as I wanted to - with everything going on I neglected the camera that day. We had a great Christmas and I think I was spoiled more than Livi this year. Livi didn't really get the concept of Christmas and Santa yet, but she did know how to tear into those gifts and she loved all the new toys. She was also able to say HO HO HO when asked what Santa says.

This was the best Christmas ever! My hubby gave me a 7 night Mediterranean cruise for Christmas - we leave in June. My awesome mom and dad gave me a cricut machine (can anyone show me how to use it?) and my inlaws gave me a bike with the kiddie trailer for Livi - can't wait for some warm weather. How spoiled am I! Dallas gets so excited for Christmas and I love that about him even though I have to remind myself of that when he wakes us up at 5:30 to open presents.

At the beginning of December we took Olivia to the mall to sit on Santa's lap and get her picture taken. She was a little leery of Santa, but sat on his lap for a minute and did great. Then, a few days before Christmas we took her to a Christmas party at Dallas' aunt's house. Santa made a stop at the party and when we tried to put Olivia on Santa's lap at that time she flipped out and would not go near him. Tears, drama, the works. The ironic thing was that Santa was Dallas' dad. I know Dallas' dad felt bad and wanted to show Livi it was him, but he couldn't ruin the secret for the 20 other kiddos at the party.

All in all we had a great Christmas and hope all of you did too. I still can't believe its over let alone a month later. Here's hoping the rest of these winter months pass quickly so we can update the blog with some fun summer pics from the pool.

My Two Ladies

I am not the official blogger of the group, but I felt that I should contribute on some level to this record of our little family. As is the case with most things in our lives, Sarah does the work on this blog and I sit back and enjoy it.

Every day, I take a moment to open our blog and smile as I realize how wonderful my life is and how lucky I am to be part of such a great little family.

These two ladies that live with me make it a total joy and privilege to come home from work every night. I often feel overwhelmed by the idea that a beautiful child like Olivia is in our care. I feel totally unworthy of her seeming unconditional faith and love for me. It's humbling to think that Heavenly Father has left this child's potential in our hands.

Then there's Sarah. What can I say? I don't know why she loves me the way she does. I don't know why she puts up with everything that she does. She is truly the best mother, wife, and friend that I could ever imagine and she does it all without saying a word. I don't know why. (Maybe I never will.)

I love these two ladies more than life itself and am grateful that they have confidence in me as a dad and husband. Growing up, I had always hoped to get married and have kids. I never thought that I could trick such an amazing person into marrying me, first of all. I never thought that such a tiny little child would ever carry my heart around with her everywhere she goes.

Thanks to my two ladies, I feel like I'm living the life I was meant to lead and becoming the person I was meant to become.

Makeup Tips

Tip #1: Make sure the make up you put on your skin matches your skin color and tone.

Livi's First Movie

Saturday night Dallas and I decided to be brave and attempt a movie with Olivia. We decided to take her to see "The Princess and the Frog." I am still in shock at how good she was. I think Dallas and I both thought we'd be in and out and that it would be hard to get Livi to sit through a two hour movie. But she surprised us both and behaved wonderfully. She sat in her chair with her popcorn and actually watched the movie. About ten minutes before it was over she said "all done please," but she waited patiently until the end. It was a really cute movie and had some great music, I highly recommend it. Here are a couple pics from our night out: