Olivia at 6 1/2 Years Old!

Olivia is growing up so fast! She is now 58 1/4 inches tall and weighs 58.4 pounds! I can't believe how much she's changed since she just turned six! Olivia still has many of her favorites, such as sucking her thumb and rubbing her belly. She also really loves to rub my belly because it is "warm and soft." Her favorite breakfast is what CK makes on Saturday mornings: homemade biscuits, scrambled eggs and bacon. She loves orange juice every morning, no matter what she's eating. She also loves spaghetti and can eat an amazing amount of it for dinner. She also loves tomato soup with cheese tortellini in it, which is a dinner I make when CK is traveling since he's not a fan of tomato soup. She really loves sliced cucumbers and likes them in her lunch. She also loves small bell peppers and roasted cauliflower.

Olivia still loves to wear either leggings and a shirt or a short and shirt and always wants a ponytail. I can talk him into a braid, but very rarely! Her favorite movie is "The Greatest Showman" and she knows all the songs since we have the CD in the car and listen to it nearly every time we are driving somewhere. Both girls know every word and sing all the songs. When Olivia grows up she wants to either design rockets or be a teacher. She loves playing with Sofia, who is her best friend and her friends. Her favorite friends are Cora, Scott, Hana B and Hannah J.

Like her sister, Olivia loves to read and has recently started reading the Magic Tree House series. She doesn't read as much or as often as Sofia, but she often will go into her room and start reading on her own. She still loves bedtime stories, although now she generally reads to us instead of us reading to her. She loves reading the Highlights magazines from cover to cover before bed. We saved them from when Sofia was growing up, so we have years of them to go through. They are a good mix of fun, interesting and puzzles.

Olivia loves school and really loves her teacher, Ms. Feaster. She is a serious student and gets frustrated when kids at her table don't take the lessons seriously. She's really come out of her shell at school and enjoys being involved throughout the lessons. She plays tag at recess and has a bunch of friends. She remains our social butterfly and always wants to have a playdate with a friend.

Olivia with her lovey, Giraffey and monkey

Our sweet girl!

Olivia and Cora

Playing in the mud while we walk Buddy

Love this sweet girl!

Enjoying some tomato soup

A little mid-day nap

Skating

Crazy Olivia and Cora during a play date!

Olivia Loses Her 4th Tooth!

Olivia lost her 4th tooth yesterday while she was at school. I arrived at school to pick Olivia up and was busy talking to another mom when Olivia showed up with a bloody mouth! It was very shocking! She was super excited that her 4th tooth was out, and didn't care about the blood. She said she asked Ms. Feaster to try and pull it just before the final bell and out it came! Because it was just before school got out, she didn't get a plastic tooth to hold her lost tooth in and had to carry it carefully. We got to the car and I got her a kleenex for her bloody gum. She was so excited! Her gum stopped bleeding quickly and she looks so cute in her new toothless smile!

The next morning, Olivia woke up to find that the tooth fairy had visited and brought her a container of pixie dust, a sparkly $2 bill and a note. Olivia's tooth fairy is named Alicia and brings her goodies and always leaves a note. She was so excited!

Bloody mouth and happy girl!

Olivia's new toothless smile!

Olivia and her note from Alicia

The note Olivia wrote to Alicia explaining her 4th tooth!

All the goods from Alicia

Happy toothless girl!

Love her new smile and how proud she is of it!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Valentine's Day arrived and the girls were so excited. They eagerly headed off to school for their parties and I made sure we were ready to celebrate at home that evening. I decided to buy a ribeye steak that had been cut so it looked like a huge heart. It was actually pretty clever. Along with the steak, I thought we could have asparagus and corn spoon bread. The girls don't really love the corn spoon bread, so I included cucumbers, bell peppers and radishes that I'd cut up as an appetizer before dinner.

Sofia had soccer practice at 5pm and it ended up being a strangely warm and humid day, well into the low-70s. It's been so cold and miserable, that it was a surprise to get such nice weather. Olivia went over to Antonio's house to play while I took Sofia to soccer practice and stayed during the practice. The team is a lot of fun to watch and the girls ended up playing a scrimmage game, after their warm-up drills. It's going to be a great season!

After practice, we returned to the house and made dinner. The girls gobbled up the cut up vegetables while CK and I made our Valentine's dinner. Originally, I'd decided to make pots de creme for dessert, but CK said that he decided to bring dessert home from Dallas. He arrived home from his meetings with Valentine's cupcakes and I'd bought white and dark chocolate-dipped strawberries. Olivia had seen them at the grocery store and begged to get them, so the next time I was there I bought some.

We ate our delicious Valentine's meal by candle light and then enjoyed our dessert! Everything was so good and the cupcakes and chocolate strawberries were a huge hit! The girls were eager to get their Valentine's gifts, "like last year" as Olivia asked before dinner. She was very eager to know whether they would be getting more Valentine's gifts. Days before Valentine's day, Olivia had seen a unicorn stuffed animal at the grocery store that she was desperate to have. I told her she'd have to wait and see. Of course, she was ecstatic when she saw the unicorn was in the gift bag and immediately named her cupcake. Meanwhile, Sofia had a little stuffed squirrel in her bag and she loved it too! They also had chocolates, gummy bears and little art crafts in their bags. They loved it all. I gave CK swedish fish and chocolates and he gave me a box of chocolates.

The girls also got a box of goodies from Sian that included candy and a stuffed animal for each of them - an elephant for Olivia and a dinosaur for Sofia. Of course, they both were so excited and love their new stuffed animals. It was a lovely and relaxing Valentine's day!

The girls and their Valentine's boxes! Eager for a fun day ahead!

Soccer practice on a gorgeous day.

Enjoying some delicious veggies before dinner

Our yummy Valentine's desserts - almost too pretty to eat!

Valentine's dinner is ready!

Happy girl with her unicorn!

Sofia opening her Valentine's card from us.

Olivia with cupcake and her cute (yet unnamed) elephant

Sofia and her dinosaur

Sofia's Valentine's Party

When it came time to make Sofia's Valentine's box, it was easy to guess that she would want a dragon box. The girl is obsessed by dragons! We spent some time searching Pinterest for some ideas and finally found a very cute dragon box that looked like it might not be too difficult to make. The dragon was made using foam sheets, so we pulled out all of our Valentines and foam sheet supplies to figure out what we had and what we needed. Late Saturday morning, we went to see Paddington 2 with Marco, Stacy, Antonio and Luca and then Sofia and I went to Hobby Lobby for our supplies. Once we were back at the house, we pulled up the image we had of the dragon box and got busy! Since we didn't have instructions, we had to design it as we went along. It's what makes creating and making valentine's boxes so much fun. Sofia really got into it and we started by making the legs first, since it was the easiest thing to make. We then made the body and ended with the tail. We forgot about the wings until the day before, when Sofia made them and glued them to the box, without burning herself!

Sofia filled out her valentine's cards the week before Valentine's and was very elaborate with her cards to each of her friends and classmates. She included a card that included a dragon, taped to another valentine that had a scratch off surface and included stickers and a dragon tattoo. Each card took her a long time, but she really enjoyed making each one. She could have made cards for everyone in Mr. Boykin's class too, but she said she didn't want to because there are a few boys in the class who aren't nice. Luckily, the kids in Ms. Hayes' class, especially the boys are super sweet and kind. Everyone in Sofia's class seem to get along very well.

On Valentine's morning, I also had Sofia fill out a heart for Ms. Hayes and added a $15 Starbucks card for her. I took pictures of her finished box and pictures of both girls with their boxes before we headed to school.

When I arrived at Glenhope after Olivia's party, all the 5th graders were in the library! Mr. Boykin was dressed up with a sparkly red hat, red mustache and bowtie and he called out numbers for bingo. He made it fun and interesting and had different kids call out the numbers too. As the kids made bingo, they got up and picked out a white bag that included an unknown reward. Inside there were bouncy balls, squashy toys and various things that kids seem to love. Sofia sat at a table with Liliana, Frankie, her buddy Liam as well as a few other girls I didn't recognize. Sofia and Liam have become good friends and she always comes home talking about Liam, Joey and a few other boys in her class. All the kids seemed to have fun and enjoyed it for about an hour, at which point they divided up by class and returned to their rooms. As they were leaving, I asked Sofia to stop so I could take a picture of her. While she was standing there, Liam came up to stand next to her so he could be in the picture. It was so sweet, since I know they are big buddies and play together at recess a lot. It turned out to be such a cute picture too.

Once the Sofia and her classmates were in their class, they sat at their tables for a few minutes and then Ms. Hayes told them they could get up and hand out their valentine's cards. I gave Sofia a hug and kiss and headed out before the classroom became total mayhem. Sofia was so excited to pass out her cards and so happy that I'd come. This is Sofia's last Valentine's party, since they don't have parties in middle school, so I was so happy I could be there and see how much fun she has and how much she enjoys the festivities. Even though she's in 5th grade and some of the kids her age are "too old" for valentine's day parties, I love that she enjoys it so much and has so much fun! I hope she always holds on to her joy of parties and celebrating life events.

The photo we found on Pinterest that we followed to make Sofia's Valentine's box

Sofia at work!

The finished box - it turned out to be so cute!

Sofia and her dragon box (now with wings)

Sofia's sweet note to Ms. Hayes

Sofia and her table of fun kids

Sofia! Our sweet girl!

Mr. Boykin as the Valentine's Party MC

Valentine's selfie

Sofia and her buddy, Liam

Sofia at her table

Sofia ready to pass out her valentines to her friends and classmates

Sofia with her heard of dragons and her Star Wars mask. She's so happy from a fun party!

Olivia's Valentine's Party

For this year's Valentine's box I searched on Pinterest to get ideas and came across a super cute idea for Olivia. Using a memory box from Michael's I used pink, red and green construction paper to cut large hearts and then used hot glue to write "CUTIE," "BE MINE," and "LOVE." I added white glitter to the hot glue while it was still hot and then glued each of the hearts to the box. I also added "OLIVIA" to a heart and glued it to the top of the box, near the opening was cut for Valentine cards to be added. It ended up looking really cute and was very easy to make. CK and Olivia spent the weekend before Valentine's Day visiting Grandma and Grandpa in Florida, so I made it on my own. When Olivia got home, I was so excited to show her, but she was a little upset that I'd made it on my own. I offered to get another box and we could make something together or she could decorate it completely on her own. She agreed at first, but then decided she really liked the box I made and decided to keep it.

The week before, Olivia wrote out all of her Valentine's cards and picked out the dog and cat cards for the boys and the mermaid and princess cards for the girls. She added stickers to each and taped on a lollipop to each card. They really turned out cute and she enjoyed filling them out for her friends and classmates. I love the idea of valentines for all the classmates and Olivia was really looking forward to Valentine's Day and the party.

On Wednesday morning, both girls woke up excited for their respective parties, and Olivia was eager to get to school to celebrate. I realized that Olivia hadn't filled out a valentine's for Ms. Feaster, so I gave her a heart to write a message for her favorite teacher. After I dropped the girls off at school, I bought both teachers a $15 gift card from Starbucks to slip into each of the valentine's cards. When she was done with her Valentine's for her teacher, Olivia took her Valentine's box and the ziplock bag filled with her Valentine's cards. I took a few pictures of the girls' boxes and both of the girls with their boxes before we headed out the door to school. Because we were running late, I ended up taking Olivia to school first and she was super excited to see her friends and start the day.

Olivia's Valentine's party started at 11:50am and ended an hour later. I arrived just as the party started and found Olivia, who was busy with her friends at her table. She was so excited when she saw me and gave me a big hug. The kids each got an ice cream sundae that they could add hot fudge, caramel sauce and/or sprinkles. Of course, Olivia was all over that! Once all the kids were done with their sundaes, they played bingo with little red heart papers. After there were a few winners and they each picked out a reward, all of the kids had a chance to pick out a reward. The kids were pretty sugared up and so excited! After they were done with bingo, Ms. Feaster told the kids they could open their Valentine's boxes that held all of their valentines. Apparently, the kids must have passed them out earlier in the day. There were so many creative and cute Valentine's boxes! They were awesome!!

Olivia picked up her box and found a spot on the rug where she opened up her box and went through all of her Valentine's! She got so many cute Valentines, many with candy, pencils, stickers, and even a small box of chocolates! They were all so creative and Olivia LOVED going through each of them to see who gave her each valentine. The party was finishing up, so I gave Olivia a hug and kiss and headed out to drive to Sofia's school for her Valentine's party which started minutes after Olivia's finished up. It was so fun to watch her excitement at the party and for each of the valentine's cards.

Olivia's finished Valentine's box

The top of the box

The "Olivia" heart on the top of the box

Olivia writing her Valentine's card to Ms. Feaster

Olivia's card: "Dear Miss Feaster - You are the (best) teacher in the world. I love you will all my heart. When I'm in 2nd grade I'm going to miss you so much. From, Olivia"

Olivia and her Valentine's box

Our sweet Valentine girl!

Olivia and her cool glasses!

Olivia getting her sundae

Olivia and her friend, Cora.

Valentine's selfie!

Playing bingo

Checking out all of her Valentine's cards

The classroom Valentine's party!