Water/Sand Table Fun

Last night, after eating at church, we went by Wal-Mart to pick up Olivia's sand and water table. This was her birthday present from Granna & Grandad, but they didn't want to get it in January when it was still cold out.

And of course, she scooped all the sand and dumped it into the water part of the table. AHH! I was the kid that NEVER combined colors of playdough or sand and water. I was the kid with little imagination and had to play with things the way they came & how you were supposed to. HOWEVER, my sister was the kid that combined the playdough (which made me so upset) and she also combined sand and water, wanted to make up new ways to play games and was creative. So watching Olivia do this just about drove me UP THE WALL, but it also made me laugh a little because she was acting just like Aunt Beh-ba. Lord help us ;)

Paygoun Picnic

Tuesday night we went to the park in our neighborhood to play on the "pay-goun" and have a picnic.

She loves chicken salad... haha

She was screaming: OUT OUT!

Swinging

This pavilion is so nice!

Zakk

Yesterday was a VERY rough day for our family. We found out my sister's cat Zakk had a tumor in his foot and there was no hope of saving him other than amputation (And they weren't sure he'd even live thru it). Now Zakk was almost 12 years old and had arthritis in many bones and also had a skin disease along with allergies & obsessive compulsive with bathing, so he was in rough condition. So in the end, we had to put him to sleep yesterday morning.

He has been like a part of our family since 1997 when we got him (& his brother Bailey, my cat) so despite what some say about pets being less important than people, this is NOT the case. It really does feel like a piece of my heart is missing, like it's broken. I have walked up onto "his" porch several times today and still expected him to be sitting there. And I remember he's not. He's now in cat heaven, and I have to just keep remembering he's no longer in pain and no longer suffering.

This beautiful picture was taken Monday morning - I saw him sitting under our Japanese Maple and was just compelled to grab the camera even tho I was furiously studying for my Finance exam. I am so glad I did and got to snap some last pictures.

He is a gem & we love him very much.

Saturday of BLiSS

So yesterday I had a "me" day! It was wonderful :) Ben went to Knoxville to go out on the lake with his brother and his parents kept Olivia all day. SOO I lounged in bed until 10 watching Law & Order reruns (hehe). I then went shopping, and got some cute cute stuff on sale! Then I came home and cleaned up a little and relaxed. Then I met up with Amanda at Katie's house to take prom pics of Katie & Annalyce (& friends) which was super fun. It took me back a few years to when I was doing to "prom thing"! I miss getting all dressed up and stuff, but not having to put the effort into planning the whole event.

Annalyce & Me


Katie & me

Annalyce - she's gorgeous!

Annalyce & her bf Cris

The whole group...

After prom pics, I headed up to Emerald Bay to meet Ben, Jeremy, Lesleigh, & Emily at Jim & Beverly's for dinner. It was so fun to watch Olivia and Emily play and talk to each other... some of the snippets we heard:

Olivia sitting on the potty

E (to me): "Olivia's sitting on the potty. She has to sit there and pee-pee cause I said so!!"

Lesleigh & I were in the back bedroom looking at D.C. excursions online when the girls came running in.

O: "Konk Tooey!! Konk Tooey!!!! Konk Tooey!!!"

We could not for the life of us figure out what they were saying... until Jeremy came in and informed us they wanted Conch Coolers which is a Disney Special alcoholic beverage. I laughed so hard I almost cried.

O had on Lesleigh's flip flops. E had on mine.

Beverly: "Where are you girls going?"

E: "Mart Mart. Be back later. See ya!" (walmart)

They walked out of the room & then came back

Beverly: "Are you already back from Wal-Mart?"

E: "Yep. We went to mart mart."

At one point during the evening Emily also told Ben that if he pee peed in the potty, he could go to Disney World with her.

They were hilarious! I just wish I'd gotten pictures or a video of it.

Laid Back Fun Spring Weekend

We actually did a whole lot this weekend, but it felt pretty relaxing for the most part!! It was so fun and I even got a night out!!

Friday morning we played outside, since it was soo pretty! We ate lunch outside, with Zakk, haha - He loves to keep up company. Then Maw-Maw came over and played for a little while

I don't know why, but she wanted to lie down right beside him! haha

After lunch and playing outside, we met Heather & Miranda at the mall for pedicures and Heather's mom (Kathy) & her friend (Jennifer) watched Olivia in the play area. She had a blast!! I think she might have worn them out tho! haha :) I'll have to post pictures when I get them from Kathy.

Saturday morning my mom and I got up really early and checked out the neighborhood yard sale. We went thru Lakesite, Chimney Hill, and North Fork... I saw a friend, Katherine, who I hadn't seen in so long and got to meet her little girl who is about 9 months younger than Olivia. She is also having another little one - a boy - and is due this week! So as soon as things get settled, we are hoping to set up a play date! At a yard sale in North Fork, I picked up this neat chair for only $5! And I have already spent time sitting in it!

It's perfect for tanning in this summer while Olivia plays in her pool!

We then went to the Open House at Olivia's school and took Nana & Pops and Granna to check out the place and so they could really see what she does all day. It was adorable - she showed them her favorite books, her seat at her table, her cubby, and her playground. These pictures are of her playing on the "big kid" playground. Miss Seneca is not going to be happy on Tues when Olivia is begging to go play on this playground instead of the 2 yr old one!

After the open house, we headed home and O just had to go "fwimming" so we put on our swimsuits and went for a dip. The boat that she's in is actually my sister's (haha) that she used to lay out in when we were in high school. Olivia thought it was pretty cool to play with Beh-ba's boat.

After the pool, my mom and I met up with Amanda and ate dinner at Burger King before heading over to Junior Miss which was a blast!!! It really made us realize how old we are getting LOL but it was so fun :) And Miss Katelyn Burdine won the title of Jr. Miss 2010, which is the sister of one of the groomsmen in our wedding (Chris). Chris & Ben have been good friends for... ever. haha and Ben enjoys picking on poor Katelyn. She was amazing during the "paegant" and I loved watching her!

I didn't get home until 11 so we ended up sleeping in this morning and then celebrated my grandfather's birthday for lunch with a meal at my parents (& a yummy Bruster's Ice Cream cake!). Sadly I didn't get any pictures, but we had a good time! Olivia enjoyed opening his birthday presents and thought it was so fun that someone other than her has a birthday. haha :) She thinks everyday is her birthday. At least several times a week, I catch her singing "Happy Birthday" to herself or saying outloud, "My birthday! My birthday!" Does that mean she's spoiled?? ha!

Tomorrow I am back to reality though finishing up my last homework assignment, last class, and a paper for a final all before Tuesday morning! Wow! haha :) Then I start finals Wednesday so say a quick prayer! :)

Easter Sunday

Olivia's Easter basket was filled with goodies from the Easter bunny!

She really loved her Dora towel and eggs with chocolate in them!

We headed to Burks for the Easter Sunday service

Yay for pictures with Olivia!

After church, we came back home and took a few more pictures

And also opened our Easter baskets at my mom and dad's house!

Then we went to Ben's parents house to do Easter with them and his sister. We ate a delicious lunch. (Which Olivia slept thru, so it was nice and peaceful LOL)

We had an egg hunt outside.

We had dessert! Isn't her little bunny cute!?

Then we went to the neighborhood "pay-goun" b/c Olivia was practically begging LOL. She told Allison to "MON Aa-yee!" Which of course means, Come on Aunt Allie. As if she doesn't spend enough of her days on playgrounds filled with children... (she's a Kindergarten teacher.) We had such fun tho!

I hope y'alls Easter was as fun filled and blessed as ours!

Robinson/Oliver Easter

After we went to the Easter egg hunt at TMC, we celebrated Easter with my family.

We had dinner - ham, sweet potato souffle, green bean casserole, deviled eggs, "Tootsie" rolls, and fruit salad! Pretty much all of my most favorite foods! haha :)

After dinner, we had a "big kid" egg hunt

The eggs were ridiculously hard to find.

Then we had dessert... me with my lemon bars :) (and we had Mississippi Mud Cake)

We finished the night by watching the Secret of Nimh - and I have NO CLUE why Olivia likes that movie so much haha... it's WAY over her head.

Easter Egg EGGstravaganza!

We went to The Ministry Center for their Easter Egg Hunt and had a great time! I really like that church and would like to start attending there if I could convince Ben's Traditional Southern Baptist roots that it IS ok to dance, sing loudly, and wave your hands in the air in a church service! I might just have to start going without him!

But anyway, we did have fun and got to see some friends who we haven't seen in a while!

This was Olivia's face.....

when she saw this..... the Easter bunny riding on a fire truck!! She thought it looked really funny!! haha

We went down the slide

She got to sit in the fire truck!

And Tristan did too!

Right before she started hunting eggs

She did not want to pick them up. She just wanted to watch all the other kids do it! Oh and this one mom - my Lord! She ran ahead of her kids and was shoving eggs in grocery sacks as fast as she could (She ended up with two sacks full). If you are a mom that does this - I DON'T LIKE YOU. Egg hunts are for the kids! C'mon!

She discovered a love of tootsie rolls!

And we got to see Jacob! (& Caden, but he ran off before the picture haha)

Dangerously Exciting Egg Dye Day

Otherwise known as Good Friday...

The day began with Olivia being kind of cranky so by 11:30 she was ready for a nap. I put her in her room and then went back over to my parents house to hang out with my sister. Ben was "in charge" of her. Apparently she did not fall asleep, and Ben was playing PS3 and didn't hear anything, but she emptied out her ENTIRE DRESSER in the floor. (As seen below) And she has a ton of clothes. It took me over an hour to fold everything and put it back. I was oh, pretty pissed to say it in a nice way!

Once she had taken a nap, we went back over to my parents house and started to dye eggs. Notice how dark it is outside... this was about 4 in the afternoon. An awful storm was coming (the one from Murfeesboro with the tornadoes and such), so it was almost pitch black outside.

Just as we were getting good and started on dying the eggs, the power went out!!

The storm started to hit and Ben came over and said the weatherman on News Channel 9 had said to head to basements/safe places to wait the storm out. So we left our eggs, found the cats, and headed down to the basement. Bailey was very scared and nervous. I felt bad for him. This toy was down there and it has a little lamp on it, which made Olivia feel better. You can see the look on her face as she's looking out the window at the wind and rain. She was nervous.

While we were down in the basement, Olivia kept asking what we were doing down there. My mom told her that we had to be careful because of the storm so she kept saying, "Caa-foo, Caa-foo!" She was saying careful, but it sounded a lot like "cat food"! It took a while to figure out what she meant!

After the storm passed, the power was still out so we finished dying eggs in the dark!

Just as fast as the storm came, it was over and light outside again, althought the power ended up being out for maybe 45 minutes.

Her hands were soooo stained! I tried rubbing alcohol, nail polish remover, soap... nothing would get it off! So I googled (from my phone, now b/c the power was STILL off) how to get it off and they said shampoo!! So I tried it (in the dark) and it worked! I was amazed.

The END RESULTS:

These in the basket are the ones I did, the others are the ones Becca & O did.

I love the way this heart turned out...