Traveling Time: PA Trip!

Here's the lowdown:
email 1- from dad listing his travel itinerary
email 2- from me saying "woohoo, glad we can see you for a whole week and wish we could join you in Pennsylvania to see the other family members".
email 3: from dad asking, "you guys want to come, I can make that happen". (nice perk having a dad who travels a TON and has miles upon miles and who likes to share)
email 4: from me typing with excitement, "I wouldn't want to take your miles, but yes we want to come!!"
email 5: from family members in PA, "make it happen".
email 6: from dad listing our travel itinerary to PA. :)

Enjoy the pictures:

Airplane fun for Alivia and Nolan. They enjoyed the first hour or so then were ready to move. Nolan was a hot mess an hour in and would not fall asleep even though he was beyond tired. I finally got him to rest about 30 minutes before landing. This was his first airplane trip and the first one Alivia actually remembered.

 

We celebrated my dad's birthday while in Pennsylvania. We went to Joe's Crab Shack and it had the coolest little playground attached to the restaurant. Genius!! The kids loved playing before and after we ate. My dad had a wonderful time and enjoyed a nice crab dinner, singing, and lots and lots of ice cream cake. Nolan once again broke out from cross contamination, but my uncle was with us and he is a chiropractor so he adjusted Nolan on the spot. It was so neat to see him become calm and stop itching altogether from being super itchy and restless. I think I always need a chiropractor when we go to eat. :)  

 The neighborhood where my aunt and uncle's family and cousin live had a Easter Egg Hunt. The kids had a blast. Alivia thought it was so fun to go and grab eggs. Pure joy! She grabbed eggs left and right so fast and we had to ask her to put some back for the other kids. Nolan fell asleep on the walk over and missed this hunt, but he will have many more to come. :) One sweet girl picked up the jackpot of all eggs, a $25 gift card to Toys-R-Us and gave it to the kids- Jackson, Kylie, Alivia, and Nolan- to share. We had a fun Toys-R-Us trip later in the week where all the kids got to pick out a fun new toy.

Easter day cuties!! Look at how cute they all are. I love cousin fun!

More Easter day pictures of the family! Uncle Chris joined in on the fun for the weekend too. It was such a fun family reunion trip. So happy to see that side of the family!

Look at this sweetness!

 

Alivia with my aunt Terry- LOVE this picture!!

 

 Last day of the trip pictures. I wish I would have got more pictures with the whole family, but we were busy having fun. So glad to have the time spent with my dad, aunt and uncle and family, and cousin's family. I love, love that Nolan and Alivia were able to meet there cousins.

 

 

And She Said (When I grow up)!

Putting Alivia to bed can sometimes bring up funny conversations, especially since a non-sleepy (she is really tired, but does not like to go to bed) little 3 year doesn't want to go to sleep. Tonight Alivia said something so cute, she said "mommy, when I grow up, can I help put Nolan to sleep, read to him, get him out of his crib, make dinner, make smoothies, clean up, get dressed all by myself, and help the elephants back to their home". (I think the elephant part is from watching Dora and Diego) I told her, "Of course honey, you can do anything you set your mind to". She then replied, "Even be a firefighter, oh thanks mommy". As of right now, her dream is to be a firefighter when she gets older. :)

I love to watch her get so excited about things!

And She Said (Healing Snow)!

This week, there has been on and off snow showers. It's been fun. It's been lazy. It's been cozy PJ, tea drinking kind of days. I have enjoyed these few weeks of slowed down life before summer approaches with the busy & hot days. One snowy morning, Alivia looks outside and says "mommy, when will the snow heal?" I had to think about that and she said again "the snow will heal soon right?" And then I totally got it and said "you mean the snow will melt and go away?" She told me, "yes, the snow will heal just like my boo boo did on my hand, it will go away". LOVE, LOVE her little thinking brain!

Traveling Time: Denver Trip!

After the 2012 holidays, I became travel-sick! I wished for a vacation like crazy. I started saving money by selling things around the house. We planned on making a Denver trip once we saved enough money for a few fun things, food, and hotel. One morning we woke up to discuss what we should do since Ben had the day off, and he suggested we make our trip since he had 2 days off in a row and we had enough money saved up. So, we packed and went up spontaneously for our Denver trip. We wished after the trip that we had planned a few more things as timing on a few things didn't go as planned (with the kids), but it was fun none-the-less to go up to Denver and get away from our every-day life. We went to the children's museum and ate at several local Denver spots. We wanted to do more but as I mentioned before- timing just got away from us. Here are a few fun pictures- the kiddos LOVED the museum! Definitely going again in the future.

Trash Love?!

There's just something so amazing about trash trucks at this age. Here is Alivia with some friends watching the trash truck during her birthday play-date! (Elijah Fong, Aida Honken, Alivia, Drew Williams, Abigail Fong)

And She Said (Airplane Talk)!

We recently took a trip to Pennsylvania to visit family (a post in the works) and Alivia loved the airplane. As we were walking through security, I had to get my hands tested, supposedly for drugs, because I was carrying Nolan in the carrier. Alivia asked the gentleman why he was wiping my hands down and he responded, "to keep your mommy safe on the plane". We left to put on our shoes and Alivia asked me "Mommy, why don't I get to be safe on the plane too?". It was super cute. I brought her over to the station and asked if they would wipe her hands down also, so that she would be safe on the plane. :) They obliged, thankfully.

Operation Catch Up: Alivia's 3rd Birthday!

Here is my last post of Operation Catch Up! Hopefully I can stay caught up.

We celebrated Alivia's 3rd birthday with a button themed party. She loves to play with buttons, and so we made a party out of it. It was super easy, the decorations were cheap and/or free (as I already had lots and lots of buttons), and it was fun to set up. Alivia helped out with putting buttons all over our house. We had a few more decorations throughout the house as well, but I didn't grab pictures of everything. In the past we have celebrated with one big party- family and a few of her friends. This year, we spilt the family and friend parties up so it wasn't so big and overwhelming. Both parties were successful and fun! Alivia had such a fun time and she was such a joy to watch. I think she loves being the center of attention!! Enjoy this picture college of our darling 3 year old!

Here are a few pictures of celebrating Alivia on her actual birthday with just our family. We made breakfast birthday muffins and put 3 candles on it for her, which she loved. She wanted to blow them out over and over. We gave her some princess themed gifts that she absolutely adores!