DALLAS

We took a road trip to Dallas well Mansfield this past weekend because my Uncle got married. My Granny, T-Ella, Olivia, my cousin DJ, and I all went up together for the special occasion. Olivia had a blast and enjoyed being away and staying in the Hotel we picked, she didn't want to leave. While we were in Dallas we went by to see my Papa's older sister. She is a fire cracker and soooo funny if you met her you would not believe she was 92. We really enjoyed the visit even though it was a short one. If you know T-Ella then you know we had to stop at the big Buc-ee's off of 45 to get some beaver nuggets and drinks. But on to the real reason we made the trip, the wedding!!!

Olivia was the flower girl, T-Ella was a bridesmaid, DJ was a groomsman, and my Granny was the mother of the groom. The picture on the bottom left is Olivia and the groom, Uncle Roderick. I may be a little biased but I think that she is the cutest flower girl ever!

In rehearsal I told her to drop the flowers as she walked down the aisle but I was not sure if she would do it because it would be so many people there. Sooooo for the wedding I put some candy in her basket before we put the rose petals in. Then I told Olivia that there was candy at the bottom and she had to empty out all the flowers as she walked down the aisle so that she could get to the candy. However the wedding planner just told her and the ring bearer to hold hands right before they walked down the aisle so she couldn't drop the petals. But I noticed that during the wedding as she was standing on the stairs she was looking around and slowly dropping the flowers out of her basket. I guess she had forgotten about the candy and as she was standing up there she remembered that it was under the flowers. It was so funny and all the bridesmaids noticed what she was doing, it was too funny.

Olivia's favorite part of the wedding was the reception, of course. We had a choice of foods and Olivia being herself wanted the messiest dish, spaghetti and meatballs. Never mind the fact that she had on an off white dress. So I took my napkin, my Granny's napkin and Olivia's napkin and did what I thought was a great job of covering her whole dress. But as any mother knows that just made it seem as if I were betting her that she couldn't get spaghetti sauce on the dress. And as she does in everything, she rose to the occasion. I must say that it really was not that bad, there was just a spot on the bottom half of her dress at the back and a little splatter on the top which I got out before we even left the wedding. But to this day I cannot figure out how she got the sauce on the back of her dress because that is the part she was sitting on, not to mention on the bottom because she was well covered and that whole part of her body was under the table. I guess it's not for me to know, but as you can see from the top middle pic she really enjoyed the meatballs. As you some of you may already know Olivia is allergic to eggs which means there are a lot of things she cannot eat, wedding cake being one of them. Thankfully they had chocolate covered strawberries so while we ate cake she had two strawberries so she didn't feel left out during dessert. You can tell from the above pic I was not taking any chances with the chocolate getting on the dress so I hand fed her the strawberries. After she ate, it was time to boogie! She did not want to leave the dance floor which normally would not be a problem for me but dancing the night away in 6in platform stilettos are no longer my feet’s idea of a good time. Nevertheless being the mother I am we did do our fair share of dancing even if I was dancing in my chair some of the time. Now with all the weddings I have been to in my life I have seen the couple’s first and last dance, father/daughter dance, and even the mother/son dance. However I have never in my life seen the groom/flower girl dance until this wedding. Everyone needed to clear the floor for Hollywood (what my uncle calls Olivia) and the Groom. They really cut a rug as you can see from the pictures. It was a beautiful wedding and  needless to say we all really enjoyed ourselves and we would like to congratulate the bride and groom.

Mr. & Mrs. Roderick & Tiffany Russell

Like I stated in the previous post we hung with my mom while she was off for spring break. However in addition to helping her do somethings around the house and going to the pool we also had my brothers two youngest kids. I really enjoyed seeing them and helping my mom with them while they were here. We took all the kids to the Rainforest at Moody Gardens in Galveston and as you can see they enjoyed themselves. We saw all kinds of birds, fish, butterflys and even some monkeys. It was so interesting because they let the birds and the monkeys be free so we saw birds flying around. We also saw monkeys climbing in the trees but that is not all they were doing. They were mating and Olivia saw it and asked what they were doing so I had to think on my feet and I told her that they were dancing. :)

My friend Dacia from high school lives in LA and I have not seen her since before Marcus and I got married. But she just turned 30 and she was down to celebrate with her family so she invited us to share in the occasion. It was really good to see her again after all these years. Plus she had never met Olivia and I had not met her husband so it was good for us all to get aquanted. She took it upon herself to try to teach Olivia to hula hoop because I can't. (I am hopless at it) It was so funny and she really made an impression on Olivia. But it all was so cute that I had to take pictures.

There has been a lot going on in these past few weeks and it is going to take me blogging for the next two days to get it all on here. I guess I should start from the day after the last time I blogged which was the rodeo day. Every Monday after dance class we go to the library so that Olivia can check out some books and a movie. She loves putting all her books in the basket as we walk around the children's section. She likes the Olivia series of books as well the Fancy Nancy series other than those she just goes through the stacks and picks up the books that she likes the binds of. She has picked a lot of good ones that way. Even though she loves the books I think that her favorite part of the whole thing is the self check out. At our library you take the books to the end desk and there is a scanner and cards and even though it extends our library time by about 10 mins I still let her do it all by herself.The top two pics are of her sitting outside the library reading a book because it was such a nice day. The ones on the bottom are her doing the self check out and her with her stack of books in the car.

That week just happen to be spring break so my mom was off and we got to enjoy hanging with her all week. We helped her do some stuff around the house but Olivia's favorite part was going to the pool. She is a little fish and even though it was windy and the pool was cold she did not want to get out when it was time to go. She is our little diva so when I took out the camera she wanted to have a mini photo shoot.

Ok I have to go cook now so look forward to more posts tomorrow or hay the lakers play so I may do some tonight.

Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo

This weekend Marcus, Olivia, and I went to the Rodeo for some good family fun! This was Marcus' first time and he didn't know what to expect but he really enjoyed himself, we all did. I think that the thing we all enjoyed the most was the food. We ate a little bit of everything. Unfortunately we didn't try any fried cheesecake, snickers, or Oreos because Olivia couldn't have them and Marcus doesn't do sweets.

We went to see the animals while we let our food digest. Olivia really surprised me she did the camel ride all by herself and she loved it. She was a little more nervous about feeding the animals in the petting zoo because they kinda attacked you as soon as they smelled the food but daddy took over the feeding for her.

After the animals all the food we ate had settled so we started riding the rides. I didn't know how Olivia would feel about them so we started with a kiddie airplane ride that you could make go up in the air and back down to the ground. Every time I went up she screamed with excitement and every time I went down she asked me to go up again. After that she said she wanted to ride the big Ferris wheel. I thought she was going to be scared when we got to the top but she loved it and really enjoyed pointing out to me how small the people were. I, however grew more and more nervous as we went up higher and higher but her excitement calmed me and helped me to enjoy it more. Marcus rode with a little girl that had come to the rodeo with her grandma because she couldn't ride by herself. After that we rode a dragon roller coaster and every time we went down we would raise our hands up in the air.

We also played some games to try to win Olivia some stuff but Marcus was the only one to win and he won her a basketball. But it was a really fun day and we cant wait until next year so we can do it again.

Mardi Gras Galveston Style

This past weekend was the first weekend of Mardi Gras in Galveston and we wanted to take Lil O so she could experience it all. We made sure we took her this weekend because next weekend is the big parade and things can get a little crazy at that one. There were three parades Saturday but because it was so cold we decided to take her to the one in the afternoon. It was such a pretty day out and because the sun was shining it didn't feel as cold as it really was.

I think Mommy and Daddy may have had a little more fun than Lil O. I think her favorite part was seeing all the marching bands and their dancers. The parade was on the seawall which if you have never been to Galveston that is the beach. I was happily surprised that we didn't have to park too far away just about a block so it was a short walk to the parade. While we waited for the parade to start we bought Olivia the horn you see her holding in the bottom left pic. Unfortunately neither Marcus nor I with our college degrees could figure out how to blow it. However there were lots of kids running around blowing theirs putting us to shame.

We did go home with quite a few beads as you can see by these pics. I had some Lil O had some and we didn't even stay the whole time. We had to leave early because Lil O had to go pot and that girl does not do Port O' Potties. We have family in Galveston so after we left the parade we made a few stops to visit some family. When we went to my Granny's house she saw Lil O's beads and decided that she needed a mask as well. When we got home she shared her beads with her best friend since birth Brown Bear. She also got a new outfit for dance thanks to G-Ma and G-Pa. So when we got home she put it on and walked around the house blowing her Mardi Gras horn. Side note: Once we got home the hubby and I did figure out how to blow the horn. :)

Here is Lil O fast asleep. She has been sleeping on the floor next to her bed for a little over a week now. I don't know why she does it . The night of the Super Bowl when it was bedtime she laid the blanket that my brother and Sister-in-law gave her for her birthday on the floor and told me she wanted to sleep on the floor. Thinking that this wouldn't last I said OK baby that is fine and she has been doing it every night since.

Photo Shoot

About once a week  I let Olivia put on some of my lip gloss and she puts on her jewelry and play heels. This dress up time sometimes leads to a photo shoot which it did about a week ago but this time It was Olivia and I who did the photo shoot. So here are the pics from that day...

Olivia starts Dance!

Olivia's  T-Chon has been trying to get me to update the blog for a while now. Today was Olivia's first day in her dance class so I figured this was the best time to get back into the rhythm of blogging. I think that I was more excited about the class than she was. However I was worried about how she would do being left in a new unfamiliar place with people she had never met. But thankfully I was wrong, she had a great time and according to her instructor she did a great job. Unfortunately I wouldn't know because I had to sit in the lobby and all I could do was listen at the door, it was torture. I wanted to see what was going on behind those doors so bad but NO Parents Allowed in the dance room. I don't know when I am going to get to sit in on a class but I must say she looks too cute. Don't you agree?!

In the first pic she is in the dressing room at Backstage a dance wear shop trying on her first dance outfit. The other two photos at the top are of her showing me what she learned in class.

This is Olivia's instructor Carol Ashworth the owner of the Academy of Dance. Olivia really seems to like her. Neither one of us can wait until her next class which is tomorrow!