happy birthday olivia!

I can't believe that she is four years old already!  She is still pretty small for her age, but she is growing up so fast. She is smart and a bit sassy, fiercely independent, creative and artistically talented, and she loves to make Tucker and Rylie laugh. We had a fun day on Saturday, when we invited her friends Aubrie and Kaiya to come play. They swam in the pool, made some fun foam crafts, and had jello parfaits. Then Lorene, Kaiya's mom, painted their faces, which they loved. By that time a storm had rolled in, though, and so the pictures got a little dark.  (You'll see a purple and pink kitty, an orange tiger, and a purple butterfly - and then you'll see Ironman.)

Then today, Father's Day, we had a family party when Dan got home. She opened her presents and we took her new bike for a test drive. 

She's actually pretty lucky, because we're going to have another family birthday party for her (and Grandma Beth, Grandpa Cary, Tyler, and Brittany who all have birthdays close) at the beach next week. I'll have lots of pics to post then. :)

the first t-ball game...

So tonight was Tucker's first game, and he did AWESOME. He totally loved being out on the field, though even at 7:00 it was pretty hot still. He hit left handed and threw right handed, which I know makes his dad proud, and he was eager to do a great job. :)

how i know olivia is my daughter...

well there are lots of reasons that i know olivia is "mine", but the most recently obvious reason came a few nights ago when we were having family scripture study...

olivia always has a bit of trouble calming down and sitting still for the 2 minutes that we study the scriptures, but on this night she sat down on my lap and very earnestly (and with an obvious twinge of frustration) asked, 

"why do we always have to read about BOYS?"

dan and i looked at each other, and i had to tell her honestly, "i know, hon. it's hard sometimes that there aren't more girls in the scriptures, but when we do read about a girl, we know that she's really special." and then i reminded her about the story of abish, and what an amazing and faithful girl she was, and so now we just talk about abish, or queen of lamoni, and we have a better time getting her interested. i love that girl of mine!

hooray for new friends!!

i don't have much time, but i just want to say Hooray! for our new friends, the Jensens. We stopped by today and Olivia and Aubrie were best friends on sight. I'm just so happy that Olivia has a new friend that's a girl. (We have lots of good friends her age who are boys, but no one to play ponies and dolls with, or to help put stuffed kitties down for their naps...) They played together today for five hours with no trouble. Hooray. :)

tucker's first t-ball practice!

I didn't get to go since I had to be at mutual, but Dan took Tucker to his first t-ball practice and he loved loved loved it. I'm so glad we were able to get a little scholarship and register him for some fun summer activity. He wrote in his journal this morning about how excited he was for this, and drew a picture of himself hitting a homerun (and the ball going so far it went off the page!) I love his hopeful confidence. :)

This is Tucker just outside the fields. 

And here he is at the team meeting - talk about ready to play!

He's pretty proud of the fact that he gets to wear a helmet to bat.