Happy Birthday, PAPA!!

What? You say it's your birthday, too??!!

Well, then---have the HAPPIEST of birthdays, Papa! Oliver sends sweet birthday kisses and lots of hungry hugs through cyberspace...and we'll all make good on the real things in a week or so. :) Brad and I send all our love.

Love you, Daddy.

Bid

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Auntie Cheri!!

Some special (and SERIOUS) Oliver kisses to you on your special day! Yeah...Brad and I send lotsa love and fun wishes to you, too! Hope your day is wonderful!!

Thanksgiving Week

So, the week starts off with another round of Taekwondo class. Today Maddie and Scarlet were waiting for Oliver outside the class with me. Oliver got a gander at Maddie, lost concentration, and again had to interrupt to tell Miss Lynn "Those are my friends Scarlet and Maddie!" Even Miss Lynn had to laugh.

I realize I am somewhat biased, but I think Oliver is just the cutest thing around in his little outfit. I think Brad took about 300 pictures during this one class!

After class Oliver and Maddie run wild outside. Oh, the freedom of being young and carefree! Ahhhhhhh...............

Tuesday in Preschool the kidlets have a little Thanksgiving party. For our listening pleasure they recite a Thanksgiving poem....very cute, but it was even more fun watching the kids....

The kiddies enjoying their meal...

Oliver wearing the fancy headdress he made in class.

Thanksgiving Day --- Oliver and Daddy do the GUY THING and hang out at the firepit, poking sticks into the fire. Daddy is teaching Oliver the fine art of how to smoke a turkey breast. Gotta love those skinny, little, spidermonkey legs with no shorts on! Hehe...


Inside later, Oliver helps me in the kitchen. He had some serious (and messy!) fun crumbling up the cornbread for the dressing.

We joined the Cline Clan on Thanksgiving for a lunchtime meal. After saying the blessing we went around and we each said something we were thankful for. Earlier, we had explained to Oliver how Thanksgiving is a time when we give thanks for the important things in our lives...the big ones, like our health, family and friends, a roof over our head, etc...So we we a bit embarassed when his turn came and he said loudly, "CANDEEE!!" Luckily, though, Maddie made us feel at ease when she blurted out "NOTHING!" HAHAHA...gotta love the little ones--they are always good for a laugh.

We had tons of yummy food. Maddie and Oliver sat at the kiddie table with their heaping plates of food. Oliver ate his corn kernels one-at-a-time with his fingers, his olives, the cranberries, the sweet potatoes, the corn muffin, and a roll. Who needs turkey when you have all this delicious starch?


After dinner the older kids join us adults for some serious card-playing. I haven't played cards in like, 25 years? It was really fun. The hard part was trying to stay awake after gobbling down heaps of food. A break for pumpkin pie helped.


The Thanksgiving turkey treats Scarlet made for Maddie's preschool class. Aren't they cute?! They saved 4 of them for us, and Oliver was thrilled. For the next few days, Oliver kept saying "how A-DOE-A-BLE" they were. Yummy, too.

A Thanksgiving picture of the boy...

Friday Auntie Cheri and Uncle Sean (OOPS!)--I mean, Jim (inside joke)...stayed in Vegas, so we drove over to their Strip room and hung out awhile. SWEE-EET view!




Auntie Cheri gots loads of mushy kisses and hugs.


Tami, Cheri, and Oliver
Saturday Cheri and Jim swung by our house on their way outta town. Oliver got a few more tickles and hugs... then we had to say bye-bye for now...



What?? You say you haven't seen enough taekwondo pictures yet? Well, then click here for more of those, as well as others from this week. Thanks for stopping by!

A Busy Week ~ November 9-15th, 2008

SUNDAY: Although we were feeling a bit on the lazy side, we decided to go to the annual Aviation Nation Airshow here in Las Vegas. We rarely miss a show as we love them, so in the end we were glad we made the trip. Oliver always enjoys the big bus ride from the parking lot to the airbase. He calls it the "FUN BUS" ride. This year he was thrilled that he got to sit in his very own seat. Whoo HOOO!!!! Oliver does not cry (as I saw other toddlers doing) when the jets roar past, but he is not thrilled with the noise, either. My heart always pounds with excitement and patriotism as I hear, then feel, the thunderous boom inside my chest. We stayed long enough to eat a few snacks, piddle around and peek at the displays, and see the Thunderbirds. I am so bad--i forgot the name of the plane the boys got to sit in. But here they are:

The Thunderbirds weren't even finished and Oliver was whining to go home. It was close to naptime and he was getting cranky. So we headed out. Usually it is pure blue skies but this year there were clouds and a chill in the air. Near the base entrance it started to sprinkle and we were hit with this most gorgeous sight! Is it not SPLENDID??!! The glorious Thunderbirds parting inside a full rainbow:

The rainbow was SO vivid and must have lasted a good 30 minutes. At this point I was SO glad we went!

WEDNESDAY: Oliver had his checkup with the opthamologist. At his 4th year pediatric checkup they detected major astigmatism in his left eye with their screening equipment, so his Peds Dr. recommended we take him to a specialist. We were a bit bummed about this news, but knew there were worse things than having to get glasses. I was a bit worried how he would do, as he is still a bit of a wuss. I have to say that the nurse we had to give a preliminary check and dilation was awesome with Oliver. He kept Oliver calm, and Oliver did just fine. It helps that he loves anything "machine-like," so he was thrilled with all the eye equipment surrounding him. He kept saying "COOOO--OOOL." The long story short, the eye doctor did his thing and said Oliver's sight was 20/20! No astigmatism! He said the screeners some pediatricians use are worthless. Needless to say, we were thrilled with the news! I forgot to take the camera with me, so we only have this picture of Joe Cool with his dilation sunglasses on after we got home. Don't they go well with that binky? Yes, our kid still sucks on one at 4.....get over it!



THURSDAY: Our second Taekwondo class. There are only 2 kidlets in the class, Oliver and another little girl, who happened to not be there this day. So Oliver had special attention from two teachers. I think Oliver really enjoyed having the older boy there for him to look up to. Be ready to be sick of Taekwondo pictures:

Gotta love it -- right in the middle of class, Oliver must interrupt and point right to me and tell his teachers "And that's my friend, Mommy." I'm sure the teachers think that's real cute.

On thursday we got Oliver an official Taekwondo outfit. Here he is showing it off, and being a bit goofy:

Oliver gets in some outdoor time to test drive his fancy Bigwheels he got from ReeRee and GranDaddy. His legs are a tad too short but he still manages to get going pretty fast and fly across the back porch. Watch out!

Here he is testing out the big-boy bike from Kevin and Gloria. Yes, i know--he's not wearing a helmet. We're not bad parents, we just haven't gotten one yet. We walked beside him the whole time. And ran. Phew. He actually does pretty well. He looks so big.

SATURDAY: So today we had Maddie come over for a play-date. Last playdate Maddie was in a grumpy mood, and today I think it was more Oliver. She was giving him hugs and he only had a puss for my camera.

Playing out back in the "kitchen." Oliver was making mashed potatoes with spinach. Maddie prepared tuna salad.

I LOOOOVE having Maddie over just so I can have a willing subject. She's a little beauty, yes?

And now we get ready for another week in Oliverland! Goodnite!

Flea Market Day

Since it was so beautiful today we decided to take a run over to the Las Vegas Swap Meet. It is one of the better flea markets around. Pre-Oliver we would go almost every weekend. After Oliver arrived, I don't think we went again till after Oliver was over a year old, since he was such a fussy baby. Anyways, it was a fun thing to do. Oliver loved looking at toys and junk. Brad and I didn't find anything we had to have, which is just as well since our house is full to the brim as it is. The best part of the flea market here is inhaling the wonderful aromas of all the awesome mexican foods cooking....mmmmmm. Here's a picture of Brad and Oliver.

For as long as we have been going to this flea market, there has been a guy there that peddles his little Capuchin Monkey. The monkey walks around taking dollar bills from people. This funny little fella is named Don Juan. Check out his little face--it looks so human!

Oliver has a thing for monkeys right now. So, naturally, he went ape over little Don Juan. And because we didn't find anything else worth buying, we splurged $5 to let Oliver get his picture taken with the monkey. At least these will last forever...