Sunsets and Birthdays

Tonight was another Olivia celebration night. Her request was that we stay at home for a special dinner. SO, we did just that and we made our own sushi! Our friends the Colvigs came over and joined us and it was a great time! (I would have some photos of the sushi making, but it was a little labor intensive for the adults helping children, so we will have to take some the next time - because, OH YES, there will be a next time. Yummy!)

The below series are of the sunset tonight. Cameron didn't bring his camera, but he headed outside with mine and got some great shots of tonight's gorgeousness. :) Enjoy.

Oh yes, and the night wouldn't have been complete without a photo of the birthday girl and her cake. YUMMY!

6 year olds are the best...

Here she is. The fabulous 6 year old Olivia the morning of her birthday.

Still hard for be to believe that she started out like this.....

The highlight of today (aside from the obvious presents and being the center of attention for the day) was that it was Field Day at EC Killin (Olivia's school), SO the second half of the day would be spent outside...

The event started with a 1/2 mile run (I won't go into the details, but Coach Yost (the PE teacher) had suffiently freaked Olivia out about hurting herself - I think he had asked them to "be careful" while they were running. Well, she took it pretty literally and was a little skittish. All in all, she finished up just fine.

Here she is running with her best buddy from school, Alexa

Running around the tree (not sure why)

Who doesn't love a Slip-N-Slide?

They kids got split into groups. The mixed Kindergarteners with 1st and 2nd Graders. I think there was only 1 other Kindergartener on Olivia's team. She was with a pretty good group of mostly boys. Above - the tug of war...

Climbing the wall in the gym

Some of the fun water activities!

After school we came home and enjoyed some down time. Here is Olivia talking to Daddy on the phone yesterday afternoon. SO happy to hear from him!

This is a photo that Alessandra took. She is a bit obsessed with my camera, so I had to include this, because she actually got my face in the frame. I may need to do a post on all of the things she gets in the frame (think: floor, ceiling and toys).

Our little celebration. We will have cake tomorrow (Saturday) when we celebrate with friends, but I kept aside a couple of cupcakes from those we took to class so we could sing to her on her actual day. Happy Birthday Sweet Pea! We love you!

Is she really turning 6?

So here it is, the night before the big day. Well... Olivia's big day that is. The BIG 6 years happens in the morning, and well, I am just not sure how I feel about it.

The funny thing is, we have been talking a lot about her birth this past few weeks. The similarity to where we were a mere 6 years ago is so surreal. I remember it like it was yesterday and having Brad in Iraq now, brings back the memory so clearly.

6 years ago. Pregnant, busy, working Kelly. Learning what being a Marine Wife was all about (because I really didn't know up until that year), going to my first Marine funeral, meeting Marines who had actually been wounded and becoming patriotic beyond my imagination.

Being at Naval Hospital, Camp Pendleton. My mom and best friend Jennifer being with me and having this amazing little person show up. She blew my mind - I remember not being able to grasp that I was a mom - that I, was now responsible for the life of another human being. That I could ever, ever love someone as much as I did at that moment.

I love her now. Still beyond words and still beyond my grasp of understanding. But this I know, the first 5 years with her have been an amazing experience. I think the next 5 will be even better.

Happy Mother's Day!

We just wanted to pass on a heartfelt "THANK YOU" to all of our favorite mom's out there. Between Brad and I, we have 4 fantastic mom's (how great is that?) and we hope that they all have a GREAT day!

Lots and LOTS of love to you,
Kelly, Olivia and Alessandra (and Brad from afar)

Summer has come!

After a well awaited (and many false hopes) that we would finally be in (mostly) all summery weather. I think I can safely say we have gotten there! YIPPEEE! The nice part about this time of the year - not too much humidity. Ask me how I feel about the great summer weather come August.

This was one evening a few nights ago. Olivia was home sick from school 2 days this week, so we took a walk to enjoy the evening. It was also "Golden Week" this week, so LOTS of people were out and about (although I didn't get any photos of any other people than Olivia and Alessandra)/

And yes, both small people got really, REALLY wet. Again. Maybe one of these days I will think to put a dry pair of pants in my bag.

This was tonight. Just a few short hours ago after we got back from karate and dinner. We ran out to the jetty in front of our apartment to catch the sun as it went down.

And here they are at bedtime. Snuggling (oh, how I wish that cute snuggling lasted longer).

Transcending

So, this post has NOTHING to do with my family...

When Talyn was here she left behind a book called "The Middle Place" by Kelly Corrigan. It was a wonderful book and in the last few pages there was an additional essay called "Transcending."

I went to find it today online so I could share it. And here is the author reading her essay. It was profound to me, made my heart happy and felt as though I could have written it myself (although, I totally couldn't).



Enjoy and thank you to the women in my life.

sunset for Todd

My friend Todd once lived in the Florida Keys and commented how much he missed the sunsets there...

So my friend - this one is for you!!

Taken Friday evening on a walk down to Daisy's...