Memorial Day Weekend

We packed up the car and headed to North Augusta for a trip to Grandma's to begin our long weekend. Aunt Andi and her 2 dogs, Butters and Sandy, joined us as well. It sure was a full house with all 4 dogs, but Olivia loved bossing them around. She would firmly point her finger and say "NO, NO Claire!" when Claire wasn't behaving. When Sandy was being too noisy, she said "Sandy, hush!". When Butters got in the way, she said "Butters, move." Sandy tried to clean out Olivia's chair after she was done eating, but Olivia stood in front of her chair with her arms out wide and said, "No Sandy! My chair!"

These are only a few of the phrases that Olivia is now saying. Her vocabulary continues to expand and she continues to put more and more words together. Lately she has been giving possession to items. She'll say "my shoe" or "mommy's phone" or "daddy's hat" with objects all around the house. My favorite is when she points to me and says "my mommy!" Her other 2 favorite phrases of mine that she has been saying lately are "I did it!" or "I got it!"

Saturday afternoon, we headed to a nearby lake for a picnic and some sun.

Olivia kept herself occupied playing in the sand in the beach area.

She had so much fun in the sand; we probably could have kept her there all day.

Olivia with her cousin Megan.

Next, we played some soccer.

Olivia was a pro!

She had fun on the playground with Grandma.

And she even loved getting in the water!

We came back to Grandma's and had cake for Andrea's birthday. The cake was such a big hit that Olivia begged us for more. First she politely said, "more cake please" but then when she didn't get more right away, she impatiently started saying "cake pleeeeeeeeeease" "please cake." So, she got a second piece of cake.
After some shopping on Sunday, we headed home. We were surprised to find a block party going on right on our street! We didn't even get the car unpacked before Olivia was running around with all the other kids and Jared and me were playing corn hole and getting to know some of the neighbors. It was 9:00 before we came inside to get Olivia ready for bed. She desperately needed a bath! Can you tell she had fun?

We were going to stay home Monday for a lazy day but then got invited to an impromptu cook out at the Sasine's. Olivia's schedule had been non-existent for the weekend with all the activities so when nap time came around; she was not interested in napping. After a struggle to get her to nap, I decided it wasn't worth it and let her stay up. We assumed we'd have to cancel the cook out due to a cranky toddler but Olivia proved us wrong. Once she realized she didn't have to nap, she perked right up and was her sweet, cheerful self again. So, we headed over for the cook out and you wouldn't have even known Olivia had skipped her nap!

She had fun watching Greg cook with Alyssa.


The wagon toy was a big hit with all 3 girls. After Meghan and Alyssa both had a turn sitting in the wagon, Olivia was more than ready for her turn!

She wasn't quite as daring as the other 2 girls and wanted mommy's help in getting in the wagon. Then she decided it would be fun to read a book while she was in there.

She then decided she wanted to sit in Jacob's seat.

But had a hard time getting out of it.

We had a great long weekend and while the weekend is now over for me, Olivia is still enjoying another day off with her daddy as he decided to take the day off since I'll be taking vacation later that he won't be taking so he has the extra days. I wonder what they are doing for daddy/daughter day....