Thanksgiving Part Three

While we had Matt's brother here we wanted to take him to see some of the sights...there are so many pictures!!! Here is Olivia getting ready to "go bye bye" in the car!
The first place we went was Alamo Square where the famous "Painted Ladies" or "Full House" houses are. There is a really fun park in the square too, so we stayed for a while and let the girls play.
Olivia loves the slides, and the swings. She could back and forth between those two all day!

While we were playing I looked up at John and noticed there was a butterfly just sitting on his shoulder!! I thought it was so neat I had to take a few pictures. It loved John too, it stayed on his shoulder for what felt like ten minutes!!
Such a cute picture of uncle Johnny! The butterfly looks fake or something, how it is just sitting there. It flew away right after this picture.
We were trying to get some pictures of Matt and I and the girls...but we know how that goes, so we tried to take some of just the girls. Olivia hammed it up for about ten minutes!
This is honestly the greatest picture of Maddie, it captures exactly how she was feeling about taking picures!!!
Matt and Uncle Johnny with the Painted Ladies.

Matt and John at the Golden Gate Bridge...I was in the car with the girls circling around the parking lot.

We took John to Ghiradelli Square which of course meant we had to have a Kara's Cupcake. They are the yummiest things ever, we love them!!! Everything that they use to make their cupcakes is grown locally, which is kind of neat.
Maddie and Johnny devouring their cupcakes!
All of us in front of a cute Christmas tree decorated with huge, fake Ghiradelli chocolates.
This is just for fun Olivia loves to climb in the toy baskets, I thought it was a cute picture. She always climbs in while there are still toys in it and then continues to throw eveything out under her.

Thanksgiving Part Two

During Thanksgiving weekend we went to see "So You Think You Can Dance" on tour with Dan and Ashley. It was so much fun! Matt and Dan had gotten us tickets for our birthday's back in August. We were so grateful to our friends the Budd's, in our ward for watching our girls for us so we could go. Matt's brother was still at our house and was so nice to just hang out that night while we went.
Ashley and I outside of the Oracle practicing our dance moves! The show was so good, I wasn't really sure what to expect but it did not dissapoint!! I loved watching all of the dancers, they are so amazing on t.v. but that doesn't even compare to watching them live. I am dying for the new season to start!!!
We were so excited to go, we don't go out very often without our girls so it was really fun to hang out with our great friends like we used to before all the babies came along. Thanks again to the Budd's for making this possible for us. We felt so bad asking them to watch our kids over the holiday weekend when they probably just wanted to be doing stuff as a family. We really appreciated it!
On the way home we stopped downtown for about 30 seconds to take a picture in front of the big Christmas tree in union square. You can see the snowflakes in the windows of Saks in the backround, it was really pretty. I love this city, we are really going to miss living here.

Thanksgiving Part One

We love Thanksgiving and look forward to it all year, and this year did not disappoint! We were lucky enough to have Matt's brother John come visit and we got to celebrate with Dan and Ashley, and Dan's brother Matt and his wife April. We had so much delicious food, I think I ate about ten rolls at dinner alone!! This is a picture of Olivia during Thanksgiving dinner. A while back we loaned some of our baby stuff to Dan and Ashley for baby Cal and I swear Olivia remembers that it was hers. She always wants to sit in the baby swing, or she helps herself to the bouncer. She is so funny, so it being a holiday and all we had to stick her in the swing....she is enormous!!!!
Our Thanksgiving dinner was so yummy and we ate it up so fast we don't have any pictures of it, just this delcious carmel pumpkin cheesecake Ashley made.
Here we are in the kitchen after dinner with the turkey carcass. We had such a fun time stuffing ourselves, and hanging out with family and friends, and were so grateful to have John here visiting. After dinner we wached the movie Elf. Maddie had never seen it before, so it was really funny to watch her reactions. She was really enjoying it until the end when Santa's sleigh crashes in the park. She about died, and so did I watching her! She sat up on the couch and started screaming "Oh no, oh no, oh no, Santa's sleigh oh no, oh no"! It was hysterical, she was practically crying. She is such a tender little thing, and we love her!

Pictures Pictures

Maddie and Olivia love to play airplane with Matt and I, they just crack up when they are up there. We sure love these girlies!
A while back we had a little photo shoot during dinner. Olivia was loving her some pizza and polished it off pretty quickly.
Her face usually looks like this when she's done eating.

Maddie was a little more into the posing than her pizza. Her little hand under her chin is killing me in this picture. Notice Olivia was done eating and Maddie had barely started at this point...pretty typical in our house.
So, I am pretty into sanitizing in our house, and I guess it has made quite an impression on my kids. I came out to find Maddie playing with her barbie dolls, and all of the dolls were naked and had a squirt of sanitizer on their bums!!! I was dying! I asked her what she was doing and she said "I'm just sanitizing their bums so they could get in their tubby"!! -we call the bath tub, "tubby" in our house.
She made their "tubby" with her tea set container, she was so proud of her great idea!
Olivia thought this was pretty silly and really wanted a picture of herself while I was trying to capture the moment with Maddie.
I promise I don't sanitze these cute little bums before I put them in the tubby!

Halloween

For Halloween this year Maddie was Tinkerbell and Olivia was a Pumpkin - the same costume we used for Maddie a couple of years ago! The girls were so cute all dressed up and had a lot of fun at all of the festivities.
Here we are at our Ward party with Dan, Ashley and baby Cal. Obviously Dan and Ash were Tigger and Pooh, at the last minute Matt and I decided to dress up as Dwight and Pam from one of our favorite TV shows The Office.
When Matt wasn't wearing his nasty Dwight glasses I think people thought we weren't dressed up and had just come back for the Temple or something. I felt like I had to give anyone I talked to a disclaimer " Oh, I am dressed up...as Pam from the Office". It was pretty funny. The party was great, oh except for Olivia's MAJOR meltdown, like nothing I have ever seen! I left early with her and drove around for a while, so Maddie and Matt could stay and have fun with her friends.
Carving pumpkins! We had such a fun time carving pumpkins with the girls. We hadn't carved pumpkins since we got married!! Maddie wasn't so sure about shoving her hand in and pulling out the seeds at first, but eventually she warmed up.
Yummy Yum!!
We decided to carve the pumpkins to look like the girls. At the time Olivia was still really into making the face she's making in the picture, and for Maddie we did a smiley pumpkin for our happy girl.
Another fun thing we did to celebrate Halloween was go to Pottery Barn Kids for story time and face painting. Maddie enjoyed the stories and Olivia just played in the store. Afterwards Maddie got a cute little butterfly painted on her cheek.
On Halloween Sandee and I took our kids to go trick or treating at Corte Madera. It was really fun and easy, the kids ran from store to store that was passing out candy. I love this picture of Maddie and Brock, they are such adorable little friends.
Olivia and Blake just hanging out. Have you ever seen a more precious cowboy!?! Blake was darling in his costume he had such a little strut, perfect for a cowboy.
We had a little bit of a rough start to our trick or treating but we ended up having such a fun time. Dan, Ashley and baby Cal were sweet enough to take the bus over to join us. It was so freezing outside so we weren't out for too long but it was so much fun. Maddie jumped right in and Olivia followed along with a little help from Matt or I. We can't believe how fast the girls are growing, it is so much fun while at the same time it breaks my heart. I would just giggle as I watched Maddie go to the door and say her little "trick or treat", she is so sweet.
I love this picture!!! I know I will have pictures like this every year for the next million but I can't stand how cute it was to see the girls go to the door together and get their treats.
The stash.
We were checking out the girls candy and pulling out anything that looked questionable when we looked over to see Olivia going to town on a tootsie pop! We couldn't resist a picture of her sitting in front of her big pile eating her lollipop.

Pumpkin Patch

This year we went to a Pumpkin Patch that I have wanted to go to for the last few years and I am so glad we did. It was really fun, there were lots of great pumpkins to choose from and they had a bunch of jump toys for the kids to play on. Maddie and Olivia had a blast with Brock and Blake.
Great picture...The funniest thing that happened that day was when Maddie and Brock were going down this astro jump spaceship slide. Sandee and I were waiting and waiting and they weren't coming down and none of the other kids in line were either. So, I decided to go up and make sure everything was okay. There were about six kids in line behind them and they were all screaming and pushing on Maddie and Brock, who were freaking out and stuck in a space so small that I nearly had a panic attack trying to get them out. Not to mention there was this big girl who was sitting on Brock's lap trying to get past him and go down the slide.
I love how much Olivia was hating this picture! Poor girl...I love pictures where she is so mad and crying, they just make me laugh.
These pictures of Maddie crack me up! She always comes out of her room with the best accessories and funniest little get-ups.
Crazy girl!

Just Hanging Out

I was going through the girls clothes trying to see what still fits and Olivia was a great assistant during the process.
I don't really know what this is I just threw it in for fun.
Look at that profile! She is a crack up!
A few (well quite a few) weeks ago we had Maddie's friend McKenna over to play, and the girls had a blast playing dress ups. McKenna is such a fun friend, she and Maddie get along really well. My favorite thing about this picture is the bunny ears...what!?
Olivia couldn't miss out on all the dress up fun. She could hardly walk in the dress, but she loved every second of it!