The Details

I had a lot of fun getting ready for Olive's birthday! We have a tradition in our family to only do a big party every other year and on the off year the child gets to go on a special date with just mom and dad. This was Olive's date year. I still wanted to decorate and make things festive. Here is what all her presents looked like. 

Olive is so fun to give gifts too. She is a great gift receiver. She is always ecstatic and jumps around with enthusiasm for whatever it is. She is also so easy to buy presents for because she loves everything. Some of her gifts were a Polly Pocket play house (some other family members gave her loads of Polly Pockets), a grown up water bottle, bubble bath, stickers, books, memory book documenting her year, among other things. Like I said, most of it was small and simple but we went for quantity over quality!

I saw this idea on Pinterest about having to bust through this on their birthday to get out of their room. Well, her room didn't work as well so we put her presents in the dining room and then she had to bust through in the morning. She was a little confused about what she was supposed to do. It was kinda funny. 

Since we weren't throwing a party I didn't know what to do for her cake. I've been obssessed with owls lately. Have you seen the Pottery Barn kids "Hayley" line that is all owl everything? Adorable.  I wanted to make her and owl for a present so that sparked an owl theme for her party, thus she had an owl cake. I know it doesn't look like an owl cake, but that was what it was supposed to be. 

Here is her birthday crown that she got to decorate with some owl stickers. 

A few weeks back Olive mastered riding a big girl bike. It was a hand me down from a cousin. She was very proud of herself but she did tell me that she wanted a "girl" bike. A friend gave me the idea to paint the bike we already had, thus saving loads of money and the headache of finding the perfect bike (because you know I'm weird like that).

Scott did all the paint and bike assembling. It turned out really cute! We got her some accessories as part of her gift. She was thrilled!

Yeah for a big "girl" bike!

Here is the owl I made her. It kinda looks like her cake right?

I also made her a matching bow head band out of the left over yarn. 

Olive's 4th Birthday

Olive had a great 4th Birthday. I wanted to make the day as special as possible because now that she is 4 she knows what birthdays are supposed to be about!

We started off the day by opening a few presents like her new dress. Then it was yummy pancakes with whipped cream and strawberries, as per her special request. 

Then we headed for a little outing to this Children's Garden.

It was cool to see all the koi fish so close up.

Olive climbed to the very top of this play set and then got stuck. 

They had some cool hands on stuff to explore, and we would have explored more if it hadn't been so blasted hot!

So of course we needed to cool off with some birthday ice cream!

Then it was home for some cake....

and presents...

I love that her birthday is right before the start of school so we can get some school stuff and wrap it up!

Then it was off to our special date! We decided to go bowling and mini golfing. Olive was into the bowling but got really bored during the golfing. She kinda just laid on the floor and crawled around as we went from hole to hole. 

We of course had to get her favorite dinner of pizza to celebrate!

Olive bowled her first strike! She was so proud of herself!

Ready to golf!

Lots of Olive's cute friends dropped of gifts and her cousins made a special visit. It was a really great day and very surreal to think that it has already been 4 years with our sweet Olive. These years have flown by, probably because she is such a joy to have in our lives. This is going to be such an exciting year for her and we are so proud of her. Yay for our 4 year old!

The Beach

The only thing we did while in California is spend some great days at the beach. Lots of sun and lots of sand. Sooooo much sand! 

 

The Beach Beauty!

Scott made Olive into a mermaid. Needless to say she loved it.

Cutest boys at the beach.

Other than begging snacks off of everyone there (seriously he just ate and ate all day long) Milo liked climbing on these beach chairs for entertainment.

This was our sand castle. It is a pretty weak attempt because it is really hard to build something when your one year old thinks its hilarious to demolish everything. 

Matching sunglasses.

Daddy and the kids.

We were very grateful to whomever had dug these big holes. They provided hours of playing for our kids. They loved running back and forth in them, and sliding down the sides. They would laugh and laugh. 

Scott also buried Olive. I was surprised by how brave she was. 

Then it was really hard for her to bust out so this is Scott cheering her on as she climbs out of her mound of sand. 

Overall it was a great trip. It is very surreal to me that I was taking my own kids on the exact trip that fills so many of my childhood memories. 

Sanders Family Vacation 2012

I am pretty behind on blogging. I have a lot to catch up on so be ready for some fun posts. 

One of the reasons I am behind is because we went on a road trip to California. My family goes every year and this year we decided to drive. I was very nervous for lots of reasons about this trip. I was worried about the drive, having 14 people all at my grandma's house, how/ where the kids were going to sleep, etc. I read every Pinterest tip I could find. We were loaded up on treats and books and toys and movies and everything I could think of. Turns out all of my worries either made us very prepared or they weren't actually concerns because everything turned out wonderfully!

We rented a car here and drove it. Here it is loaded to the brim.

We turned Milo around to face forward just for this trip. We thought it would be a brilliant idea and make handing him treats and such so much easier. Turns out since he could see us it just made him angry and he yelled at us a lot. So once we got to St George we turned him backwards again and we were all much happier. 

I bought dollar store toys for the trip and I saw a tip that said to wrap them for extra excitement. It certainly worked in Olive's case. She was so overjoyed at such simple, small toys. She was a champ traveler. She just read books or played toys or her leapster seamlessly. She didn't even have any "I'm bored" meltdowns. Maybe those come when they are older.

Here we are all packed in. I used every square inch of that car!

Apparently it is Patterson family tradition to stop at the train depot in Barstow and eat lunch. It was rather underwhelming and just crazy crowded with people. I don't know if we will continue that tradition. 

These two were peas in a pod and loved looking at every single trinket this touristy shop had. 

Once we got to Cali we started the trip off right and went to play at the park/lake by Scott's childhood house. Our most favorite shake restaurant was close so we walked and had shakes before dinner. It is vacation!

Yum!

Then of course it wouldn't be a Sanders trip without some intense card games. I am proud to say I won this game of frustration!

We had to document Conner playing 3 jokers at a set. It was quite the spectacle but fortunately Grandma Mae didn't notice or Connor might have got some yelling at. 

Our last day there my thoughtful aunt Suely had the people at the restaurant sing happy birthday to Olive to celebrate it early. I didn't get any pictures but it was so cute. When they came over and she realized they were singing to her she had the most surprised look on her face. Then grandma had made us a birthday cake and Olive got some presents from Suely. 

Olive Mae and her name sake Grandma Mae. 

Coming up...beach pictures!