First Popsicle

Here's Olivia eating her first popsicle. Pretty funny!

Then she wouldn't eat it....

Outside

The weather is finally great and the girls are enjoying playing outside. Abigail can keep herself occupied for hours and Olivia really enjoys watching all of the action. Olivia actually likes crawling around in the grass and try to sneak bites of various plant life. She also likes the swing, especially when Abigail is out on hers. We haven't tried her in the sandbox but have a feeling she would be eating that too. We will probably save that for next summer :)

The girls new trick - both on the same bike. I don't let Abigail actually ride with Olivia like that, it was only for the photo. The 2nd is of the strawberry patch, which has taken over the entire garden. There are lots of blossoms on the bushes, so we are hopeful this year will be a good crop. Being as big as a house prevented me from keeping up with them last year and we didn't have much of a crop. Below is a video of Olivia crawling and Abigail's typical antics.

The Girls

These girls are definitely related. They both like making crazy (and maybe Abigail's is a little scary) faces for the camera.

And another Smith kid rite of passage....the bang trim that makes you look like a boy. Jeremy called Olivia 'sir' for most of the day yesterday. Ha ha. At least I haven't cut one of their ears yet, which is what another mom was telling me happened to her when she first tried to trim her kids bangs. I almost poked Abigail in the eye, but I digress.

We were supposed to be in Tahoe this weekend but the combination of a winter storm warning on Friday, the potential 6 hour drive with two kiddos, a 13 year old Saturn without 4-wheel drive, and remembering that we would all be sleeping in one room for maybe a few hours of sledding, we decided to stay put. We had a great weekend together - Friday we went to the Burtchs and let Abigail watch two movies so that we could play some games. Saturday morning we went to Digger's Diner (a family-friendly biker hangout nearby our place) for breakfast for an amazing caramel pecan waffle and a cinnamon roll that not only had frosting on top but also a huge glop of butter. Awesome! Since it was only 8:30am by that point we headed out to the Lafayette Reservoir. It was a beautiful day and Abigail loved playing at the playground at the end. Jeremy was so kind to let me run around it once too. His only complaint was that we were paying money to walk (which he said that we could have done at home - but not in the beautiful hills and on a paved trail with much of Walnut Creek's upper crust and their dogs). We even saw one dog being pushed around in it's own stroller. Yikes! That night we had some friends over for tri tip and the kids played outside for several hours.

One fun memory...Jeremy was asking Abigail what she wanted to do on Saturday and she said to have some family time together. There will come a time when I know this won't be her desire but it was fun to hear that now. We also learned Abigail's interpretation of what Passover was, which was fairly accurate. She said that the Israelites 'died' a lamb and had to put the blood (ie red sparkle glitter glue on her picture) over the door of their house so that that angel wouldn't get them. We are praying that one day she will come to know in a personal way the fullfillment of that picture, Jesus Christ!

Playing Pretend

Meet Bella. I played with her this afternoon in the backyard. I was Zokeen, Olivia was Pullup and Coupon (make believe Zoe) also made an appearance. These are by far the most original names Abigail has come up with and so I wanted to document the occasion. Zokeen and Pullup were horses in a parade which involved much running around the yard and being bossed around by our owner Bella. Bella had spent much of the morning making jewelry, which included the humongous button necklace that she is proudly wearing in the photo. Every button in the package was utilized on one necklace!

Other conversations that we had today included Abigail pleading with me to let her iron some clothes to which I responded that she could when she was older to which she said I probably won't want to then and I agreed that was probably true; saying that I was the nicest mom because I was going to let her help me with the laundry (she really likes to help); asking who was going to pick us up from the airport when we went on the airplane for Kansas City (she was hoping Ruth or Adam); asking if we could buy Lucky Charms for the airplane ride to Kansas City; being very dramatic when I told her it was about 120 days until Aunt Ruth's wedding and we should probably stop talking about that; and that's all the ones I can remember. Needless to say you always have to be on your toes when talking with Abigail these days - the topics of conversation vary widely!

Jeremy's friend Gerald came for the annual guys ski weekend. Aunt Gail and Ben also come that Sunday night for Zachary's pizza and much Olympic fun.

Look how happy my family is to be celebrating Valentine's Day together! Ha Ha. Abigail decorated the somewhat heart-shaped cake and the table (ie small red streamers). Somehow I forgot that the fondue you buy from the store has brandy as the second ingredient, so she didn't much care for that but filled up on Martinellis and cake instead.

Scenes from our very short but Abigail-friendly hike around Little Mountain near my grandparents. Olivia was enjoying herself as well.

We went to the zoo that weekend that Jeremy was away with a crew of other daddy-less moms. Vincent came along and I spent much of the afternoon pushing them both in our little Graco stroller. Olivia was fast asleep in the Ergo (my new favorite but really expensive baby carrier) and they had gotten tired of walking around.