The Best of Summer

Now that it is officially Fall, I wanted to recap the Best Moments of summer 2012!

We started out with a belated 30th birthday BBQ for my hubby! We worked hard the weekends before to get our deck addition done and get our yard ready for the summer.

Ella and all her friends enjoyed playing on her new structure.

After school let out we went over to McCall, Idaho for my best friend's wedding!

,

Ever since then, Ella has been obsessed with Weddings!

At the end of the month, we went to the track and field Olympic Trails here in Eugene.

For the 4th weekend, we went camping with our friends. I wish we could of went camping more this summer! I guess we were a little preoccupied with something else:) See below!

We were a complete failure at the kid's track meet. Ella was the only kid throwing a fit in the 50m race! Oh well, we'll try again next summer!

In July, we got ready for little sister to join our family.

Ella started sleeping in her big girl bed and couldn't be happier!

In August, we enjoyed our last moments of being a family of 3!

   The next day after these pictures were taken, I went into labor.

The BEST MOMENT of the summer was when Alivia Jo joined our family on August 10th!

It's hard to remember life without our little Livvy!

We spent the rest of August getting to know the sweetest baby ever.

September started with cheering on the Ducks. I love football season!

Alivia turned one month old! Ella has been a great big sister for the most part :)

Alivia has the prettiest big blue eyes! I hope they that stay blue, but if they change to brown like big sister's, I would be happy too!

My friends threw Alivia and I a party! Ella got this cute little doll that we call her cousin. We are SO EXCITED for her real cousin to come this November!

Love my girl!

Last Friday we had a little BBQ because Sara was in town. These little best buds roasted marshmallows together!

Last night, we had a special visit from the Binky Fairy! It was long overdue!

Ella helped me dictate this letter to her, she was very excited for her visit!

This morning, we came down to this left by the Binky Fairy. I was so proud of my girl, she went to bed with only snuggles from mom. This is huge, because she LOVED her binky  was OBSESSED with her binky!

What a wonderful summer! The main reason I do this blog is to document our lives for our girls! I hope they will see how much fun we have together and how much we love them!

A Sprinkle

Almost two weeks ago, my lovely girlfriends threw Alivia and I a sprinkle party. It was just a fun night for us to get together with our moms and celebrate little Alivia!

 Thanks everyone for all the sweet gifts and a great time!

Hilltop Wedding

Last weekend, we went to a fun hilltop wedding of Mark's friend Luke. 

The views were pretty impressive!

All that Ella wanted to do was DANCE!

She finally talked her Daddy into it before dinner!

Her top 3 favorite things right now- Dancing, Weddings, and Babies

She was in heaven!

She also got to drink mommy's drink out of a fancy straw.

I love my family!

We were lucky to spend the evening with Mark's Best Friends

They love Ella and Ella loves them!

My little party animal was one of the last people on the dance floor and chatted the entire 45 minute ride home! Congratulations Luke and Martha!

One Month of Alivia

Our sweet little Alivia turned 1 month last week. The last month has gone too quickly. It's hard to remember life before Liv joined our family.

We've had a busy month- My hard working husband has been working 12+ hrs a day :( Liv and I went back to work for the first week to make sure my classroom was ready for my first graders and Ella has had a big adjustment to being a big sister and being an overall busy toddler.

I'm going to try to take a picture of her every month in our vintage rocking chair.

She is still the laid back, easy going, sweet baby that she has always been. She only really fusses when she is hungry or in the car. She is not really a fan of her car seat. Hopefully that will change.

She is sleeping 3-5 hrs at night, so I've been getting a fair amount of sleep. I'm a horrible sleeper when I'm pregnant, so this is a major improvement!

Alivia has started to give us quite a  few adorable smiles, I have yet to capture it with camera.

We love you so much Liv!

And here is big sister at 1 month...

I think they look so much alike, it will be interesting to see if that continues as they get older.

Sisterly Love

One of the first thoughts I had when we found out we were having another girl was "Ella's going to have a sister!" Something that I have always wanted. Ella is totally in love with her little sister, she has even affectionately nicknamed her "Monkey".  My hope is that these girls are going to be the best of friends. Now we just have to work on "appropriate" ways to show that we love our little sister!