roller skating diva

 a few weeks ago i went roller skating for the first time with my besties. i thought this was going to be super easy, you just put some wheels on your feet & off you go, whee... wrong! the first thing you need is balance & i don't have very much of that, so i knew i was in for trouble. thank goodness my friend's mommy rented these skating balancers for beginners to help us learn. after i got the hang of it (which was at the very last 20 minutes), skating was a blast! i think it's safe to say i did more falling than skating, but somebody told me the more falling you do the better you get. finally we got brave enough to put the skating balancers to the side & go off on our own & WE DID IT!!! holy cow, were we proud of ourselves & all the bruises were totally worth it! who knows, one day i might be a roller derby dive going by the name of 4 eyes... you never know, it could happen!

superhero sunday

we've been waiting weeks for this & finally it's superhero sunday... whoo hoo!!! since most of our superhero costumes from halloween are in storage, we had to improvise on looking like superheroes. i just wore my earthgirl shirt & wore my hair back. livi wore her shiny legging, tutu, a dino shirt, a tiara & a gold cape that we have.

mommy wore her supermom shirt & superstar headband. at church livi's class watched "megamind" & talked about even villains can become superheroes. in my age group we watched "brave" & talked about how important it is to listen to your parents. for all of us there was juice boxes & an endless supply of the nummiest popcorn! we also had face painting & i got furry monster superheroes painted on my arms.

 of course mommy had to get a mustache painted on because all superheroes need a disguise. we had so much fun & we loooooooove our church soooooooo much! after church we had to pick up a few things at the grocery store & let me tell you if you're dressed up as superheroes & it's not halloween you get A LOT of funny looks, pointing & being followed around the store. 

garden hose fun

playing in the water hose makes the perfect summer evening lots of fun!!!

mountain aglow

pop sent us a video by this awesome guy named joel schat & we found a video he did of mt. baker. it's so beautiful, we just had to share it & it's the mountain we played on when were in washington!

mee maw... a special message just for you

happy birthday to you cha cha cha, happy birthday to you cha cha cha, happy birthday dear mee-maw, happy birthday to you cha cha cha. have grrrreat day!!! we miss & love you so, so much.

annual cousins sleepover

this weekend we had our "annual cousins sleepover" at my tia liz's house, i look forward to this for months & months! this year we started off the festivities at the pool! we loooooove the pool & had so much fun, it was definitely the best way to start out our sleepover!

after the pool we went back to tia liz's to get cleaned up, have dinner & then we went to our 1st baseball game! we saw the sugarland skeeters play the bridgeport bluefish. constellation field is so cool, they have the best playground, water park, carousel ever... we got to the game early just so we could play! then it was time to take our seats (our really good seats) & let the ballgame begin. the skeeters lost, but we still had a good time watching the game. after the game their was an amazing firework show that was spectacular! then it was time to go home & watch a movie until we fell asleep... at 12:45 am, we're party animals. the next morning we had cinnamon rolls & fruit for breakfast. then it was time to hit the movie theater to see "despicable me 2" & it was so funny, we loved it! then it was time for hugs & goodbyes. we were really sad at first but then we started talking about ideas for next year & the countdown has begun all over again. i tell you every year our sleepovers get better & we can't wait  till next year!

our week

yesterday it rained all day & livi thought it would be the perfect day to break out her plaster dinosaur kit. so we set off to make the coolest glow-in-the-dark mould & paint dinosaur magnets! first we had to  mix the plaster & pour it in all the different dinosaur moulds to set. then after about 30 mins we popped them out of their moulds to finish drying so we could paint them. a paint kit was included, but it only had 6 colors so we got to mixing to create some more. after we painted them & they dried a little bit we put some glow-in-the-dark accent paint on them... so cool! we loved the way they turned out & we have enough plaster to make them again sometime. aren't they awesome, they're the coolest magnets ever!

today all the girls from k-4 in my church came in for a class called "i am a treasure." we talked about how i am a treasure to God & there is no one just like me. the scripture that inspired today was... the lord your God is with you. He is mighty enough to save you. He will take great delight in you. the quietness of His love will calm you down. He will sing with joy because of you. -Zephaniah 3:17

we went through all these papers with different words & we got to cut out words that we thought best described us. i picked the words: fearless, loving, awesome, outgoing, strong, confident, determined, loyal, gracious, responsible, creative, moral & blessed. then we glued the words onto a our favorite color paper then we mounted it onto a canvas & spray painted it with sparkles to hang in our rooms to remind us. then we also painted a frame any way we wanted, decorated it with jewels & then we wrote on the board inside i'm a TREASURE because...  next our parents write the ways they see that we are a treasure on our board daily. they'll write about the things that they see in us that reflects God's character & they'll try to find things things that are not just based on our performance. they'll be letting us know that they love us just for being the treasure God made us to be! 

for a really long time livi has wanted to try tumbling, but whenever we've set up a time for her to try she's gotten scared & hasn't been able to do it. well there's a really awesome place right by where we live & we went inside to check it out a few days ago. livi got really excited & was so all about signing up & doing this! we talked to the coach & set up a day for livi to try it out before we signed her up. this evening was livi's big try out day & boy was she excited, she counted down the hours all day long. when we got there she was bouncing up & down, patience had flown out the window the day before. when the coach came to get her, all of a sudden livi got scared & was trying to cling to mommy, but mommy just told her to take a deep breath & to go have some fun, then she gave livi's hand to the coach & off she went! daddy was in complete shock, he didn't think livi would make it through the door & she did... whoo hoo!!! then we ran upstairs to the viewing room so we could watch livi's tumbling hour. they started out with stretching, then they worked on running, handstands, forward rolls, backward rolls, backbends, cartwheels, balance beam & the trampoline!  i just have to say livi was AMAZING, she did soooooo AWESOME!!! we couldn't believe all the things they were working on, it was crazy, they really filled that hour all the way up. livi did so well with the other girls in her class too, whenever they moved stations they had to hold hands when they were walking & livi just went with the flow.  at the end of the session, the coach let us know how wonderful livi did & that she was super proud of her! livi was so happy, she had the best time ever & couldn't wait till her next class. she was covered with stickers & stamps for doing such a good job & her confidence was out of this world. we're so stinkin' excited that livi did this & we know it's going to help with her anxiety & going to school because this was a huge leap for her & she did it & she loved it! she so she'll be starting the 1st week in august & i'm so excited because i'll be starting in the fall.

30 pounds

so today livi had her 3 month check with her gi specialist (who we love) & guess what our lil livi weighs... 30 pounds!!!!  yes, you read correctly livi finally hit 30 pounds... ahhhh!!! let me tell you there was a lot of screaming & jumping for joy in that room when the scale read 13.6 kilos! we've all been waiting for this day for so long & we're sooooooooo proud of her. dr. gopalakrishna was so happy when he came into the room & saw her, he pulled her onto his lap & said he knew she could do it! we also told him how she's eating mac-n-cheese & shredded chicken now too. our next goal is for livi to gain 5 pounds in the next year & i'm not sure how we're going to do that, but i know we'll try like heck to make it happen.

to celebrate livi hitting the BIG 30 we went to the movies & saw "monsters university" (which we loved) & livi ate the whole medium sized popcorn daddy got us all to share! we couldn't believe how she kept digging & digging & digging into the popcorn bag until it was empty. we're thinking we should go to the movies at least twice a week & those 5 pounds won't be so hard to put on as we first thought. then after dinner livi said she wanted 3 mini cupcakes for dessert so we loaded up her plate & let her go to town. she didn't quite make it trough the 2nd one, but we it was awesome that she wanted to try. she dedicated her 2nd cupcake to dr. gopalakrishna because he wanted her to eat one for him & she never wants to let him down. we're so happy he's been with us on this journey & the bond livi has with him. every time she tries a new food or eats a lot of something, she knows how happy he'll be & can't wait to tell him.

livi we all are so proud of you & know that we love you so much. i promise that i'll even share my desserts with you to help tackle those next 5 pounds... well most of the time.

superheroes

at church we are talking about superheroes & how every one of us has the potential to be a superhero. so every sunday of the series we are uncovering the superhero qualities found in each of us. this morning in the main worship center they had a slide show of members of the church that they feel are superheroes doing what they think are superhero things to help inspire people in ways of being a superhero that they may not have thought of. none of the people in the slide show knew this was going to be part of the service & i was in the slide show for my help with the homeless. mommy & daddy were so proud of me & livi was yelling "look it's ella, it's my sissy", of course mommy got all teary eyed. the point of this is

1. don't allow who you aren't to keep you from being who you are...

2. don't allow what you can't do to keep you from doing what you can do...

it doesn't matter how old you are or what you can or can't do because God blessed us all with gifts to help one another & do great things. we just need to open our hearts & jump in with both feet knowing that God is with us. i always say this but i truly believe it, it doesn't matter how big or small you give because everything makes a difference! so go find your cape & become a superhero with me because the flying is amazing & there's lots of good that needs to be done!

with great power comes great responsibility... luke 12:48

snow cones

ok, for as long as i can remember mommy has wanted to go to this snow cone stand & we finally tried it. oh my gosh, we looooooove it there! everyday that daddy is off, that's where you'll find us! they have so many flavors & you can mix them up or add cream, spices & natural fruit! every time we go we always try something new, when we're leaving we're already talking about what we're going to order next time. can you believe they're only a $1.50 & they're huge, sometimes daddy can't help himself & will have 2 of them. it's always fun to see whose tongue & lips are going to be colored the funniest too.  i have to say that these snow cones are definitely making up for all the HIGH hot temperatures we have here... sheesh!

extra dessert

here's a tip if you want to butter up your parents for a lil extra dessert after dinner. i wrote a special message with my spaghetti & sure enough i got an extra scoop of sherbet for dessert... hee hee!

our fort

one of our favorite things to do is build forts with our blankets, scarves & whatever else we can find. last night daddy made us snacks & put on one of our favorite funny movies. we were so excited to be able to have food in our & we were very careful not to get crumbs anywhere, but we did have sadie with us so we were pretty sure if we missed some she'd find them.

 since it's summer mommy let us sleep under our fort, knowing we'd be up late giggling & being silly... of course she was right!

livi even brought her special night light in the fort so we'd have stars on the top of our fort to look at, just like we were camping out under the stars.

finally we talked ourselves to sleep & were out for night.

magnets

something we've always done is whenever we go somewhere special or new we always get a magnet to put on our fridge for a souvenir. if they have a christmas tree ornament we'll one of those too, but those can be harder to find. the funnest part is we pick them out as a family so it may not be the most popular or the one you would think of getting, but to us it was just what we thought our fridge was missing. so for our road trip we made sure we got a magnet for each state we drove through except oklahoma (because we weren't there for very long & the place we stopped at didn't have magnets, so we'll just have to drive back there one day to get one) & an ornament if we could find one. livi & i also started a post card collection because those are a lot easier to find & we bought tons of them on our trip! mommy even got us a special book to put them in so we can go back & remember the things we did there. here's all the cool magnets we got & at christmas time we'll have to take a picture of our tree with our new special road trip ornaments. by the way, if anyone goes to oklahoma soon we'd love a magnet, ornaments & some postcards pretty please.

curly redwood lodge

the hotel we stayed at in crescent city, ca was called the curly redwood lodge. it's called that because it was built from one curly redwood tree that produced 57,000 board feet of lumber. curly redwood is unique because of the curly grain of wood, unlike typical straight drained redwood. the hotel was in the perfect location because it was right across the street from the beach & only 5 mins away from the national redwood forest. the lodge was really unique & pretty you can read all about the lodge here!

this is the view looking across the street, it's amazing! we wouldn't have minded waking up to this everyday!