Zoo and Party

We had a lovely day at the Oakland Zoo last week. Sort of a makeup for what I was planning on doing the day of Olivia's birthday, when she ended up with a fever. We went by ourselves and took it easy, having lunch with the chimps and enjoying a nice ride on the carousel. Below is Olivia's I am so happy to be riding face. She doesn't do quite as well getting off but is learning.

We celebrated Olivia's 2nd birthday with 30+ friends at our place for a birthday breakfast. Had lots of yummy food. She was most happy when all of the kids were singing to her.

Elmo cupcakes and party dress compliments of the Sidors.

May Fun

Here's a photo of Caraline on her 2 month birthday.

Fun with our friend Ashton and Olivia with a few extra stickers on her face compliments of Abigail.

It finally warmed up enough for the girls the swim. They had a blast.

Bangladesh jammies. Abigail pretended like she was doing karate in them, which she calls doing Pilates. Then a photo of us girls with our slings and babies about to go on a walk.

Walk for Life 2011. The girls all had a blast and Abigail walked the whole 2 miles on her own!

Olivia was quite pleased we gave her a burger and Sprite, which she clutched tightly to her body most of the afternoon.

Some pre-birthday celebrations with daddy. Can't believe that Olivia is 2! Then, pink doughnuts on the special day. We have the party next Saturday. I am hoping to be able to make Elmo cupcakes.

Some classic Olivia smiles and outfits.

April

We had a fun time decorating Easter eggs with friends last week. Olivia decided that the green plastic sprinkles in that bowl were to eat and I caught her munching on them several times. Our friend Amelia took a fall last week, hence the nice purple eye there. The older girls really got into decorating all of the eggs, paining them and putting sequins and glitter all over them!

Cute matching outfits from Aunt Ruth/Uncle Adam. Caraline has starting smiling!

Jeremy fixed the swing a few weeks ago and Olivia loves it. The other photo is with our friends, the Lees. Baby Kelsey came 8 weeks early and is doing so well. My girls are looking typically disheveled.

Easter morning. The girls are wearing their flower girl dresses for Aunt Gails wedding.

Easter afternoon. Took a hike in the open space behind the g-parents house. Abigails "I'm not going to make it any farther pose". She was miraclously able to hike another 1/2 hour after this photo was taken. Note Nanis snack pack...looks kind of like a 6-pack holder to me :)

The Easter bunny and great-grandma or "grandma g" as Olivia is taken to calling her. Caraline is giving her a nice smile!

March Madness

Wow, been a month already since I posted anything. Well, as you can tell from the photos we have had lots of visitors and help since Caraline's arrival. We have enjoyed lots of good times with family and friends. We were so thankful Jeremy's folks were able to make it out to visit and it was sad to see them go! After that time, we had a lovely visit from Uncle Adam and Aunt Ruth. Both girls were most taken with Uncle Adam. Abigail was impressed with this Super Mario playing skills and Olivia just liked to maul him. We wished we lived closer to them too! Here's some photos of the time together.

The girls wanted to be just like grandpa and read outside.

An Olivia outfit. Sporting her sling in the 2nd one.

Not Abigail's best shot, but all we had of the four of them together.

One month already!

Some random events....

Today we were walking back from the park and stopped to chat with an elderly man and pet his dog. When he saw Abigail riding up on her scooter he commented, oh it's one of our special friends! I can only assume the helmet threw him off...don't really know.

In other news, found a dead ant in Caraline's barf. We have noticed a few random ants in our house and one must have ended up in her mouth somehow. I am really grossed out by ants so this is particularly disturbing.

Abigail was eating a piece of dried spaghettit and announced that she was smoking. I asked her how she knew about smoking and she said well, lots of people smoke...just like uncle david. All we can figure is that she saw some cigars in the glove box of Uncle Davids dune-riding Jeep that were left over from a previous guys weekend. This would have been last summer and how she connected that all together is beyond me!

She's Here

Baby Caraline Ann Smith arrived on Tuesday, March 1st after four hours of labor! Good thing we went to the hospital when we did...apparently she wanted to come out quickly to meet the two other crazy Smith sisters pictured on the left here. Last weekend, Olivia was determined to wear this bathing suit all day, and she did!

It has been very fun to see them interact with and love on their little sister. Abigail didn't want to leave the hospital, because she said that it was 'too much fun' to hold the baby. Olivia did a great job holding her this afternoon but we don't trust her too much yet. She is very fascinated with baby's eyes. Caraline is a good eater, which is an answer to prayer and likes being held to sleep. We will cut her a little slack since she isn't even two days old yet!

Richard and Connie flew in the day she was born so we are also thanking God for that timing. They are terrific helps to us and the girls love having their grandparents around. Grandpa already took them to the 7-11 for doughnuts after breakfast! Here's some photos of the past two days.

Olivia is in a little disbelief that we actuallly allowed her to hold the baby.

A bed full of blessings (and another gloworm/seahorse).