Mary Poppins

The dance center Olivia attends does a large production for anyone enrolled in classes there.  This year they did Mary Poppins.  Olivia was excited to be in it.  She had a great time at all the practices and loved hanging out with the bigger girls.

 

 Her character was a baby swan in the Jolly Holiday scene.

She just loves dancing on stage and got so excited!  Actually she became so sad when she thought I was missing the show.  After I dropped her off for the first show, I had to run back home (but had plenty of time).  They took the kids on stage to practice the last scene and Olivia thought it was time for the performance and I hadn't made it back.  I felt so bad when I learned how upset she was.  All was better once she understood and saw that I wasn't going to miss the show!

They never practiced with all the scenery and everything so during the 1st show, Olivia was a little more distracted by everything than anything else.  While Mary Poppins rode away on the turtle, she stopped to watch being left on stage alone until she realized and fluttered off!  So cute!

By the 3rd show, the scenery was less distracting and she did such a great job keeping up with everyone (she was the youngest)!

This was such a fun experience for her (and me) and it has me so excited for her recital this May (there will be a big surprise there)!

Everyone came back out for the last scene of "Lets Go Fly A Kite."

 

Abigail even came to watch her sister dance.  She got a little board during slower parts, but absolutely loved the more upbeat dances and of course her favorite part was watching her sister dance!

 

Abigail - 10 months old

 You are now crawling and the day after your started crawling, you mastered it.  You are into everything.

 

Your personality continues to blossom.  You are such a happy, silly, yet stubborn girl.  You love to be tickled and are so ticklish.

You continue to look up to your big sister and she continues to think you are the cutest baby ever.

 

You have a mouth full of teeth.  4 on the top and 3 on the bottom.  When one comes, at least 2 more come with it leaving you in a teething nightmare for a few days.  But you love food, so these teeth are good for that.  You are losing interest in your bottles.  Hard to believe you won't need them much longer.

 

Olivia - 4 Years Old!

Olivia's 4 year questionaire:

What is your favorite color?  Rainbow

What is your favorite toy?  My tigers Tigressa & Roary

What is your favorite fruit?  Watermelon

What is your favorite TV show?  Jake & the Neverland Pirates

What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch?  Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches

What is your favorite outfit?  The dress Emma Grace gave me with the big bow

What is your favorite game?  Hungry, Hungry Hippos

What is your favorite thing to do?  Play hide and seek with mommy

What is your favorite animal?  Lion

What is your favorite song?  Get Up & Go Go (Fresh Beat Band)

What is your favorite book?  All of my barbie books

Who is your best friend?  Alyssa

What is your favorite cereal?  Maple Crunch

What is your favorite thing to do outside?  Take my puppies for a walk

What is your favorite drink?  Juice

What is your favorite holiday?  Valentine's Day

What do you like to take to bed with you at night?  My tigers

What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast?  Pancakes

What is your favorite dinner? Pepperoni pizza

What do you want to be when you grow up?  A mother who has so many kid & lives in a big house

 

A few other things about Olivia at 4 years old:

She still only wants to wear dresses

She loves animals, especially her dogs (she calls them puppies)

She loves being a big sister

She is very good at entertaining herself and can play in her room for hours

She loves barbies

She loves watching movies with popcorn

She loves going to shows

She loves rides  (amusement parks)

She loves the beach

She loves dessert

 

 Personality wise, Olivia is still more on the serious side, although she can be quite silly at times. 

She has a great imagination.  When she plays, she really plays.  

She loves playing vet, or she'll have her barbies go to school or dance.  She doesn't just get stuff out, she actually has a plan for the stuff she wants to play with.  Which makes it difficult for her to play with multiple kids of her age at the same time because they are generally more rambunctious and less structured than her and usually grab the stuff she already has a plan for.  She does much better playing with older kids or one on one.

At her 4 year appointment, her pediatrician was shocked by her personality.  He said she had a mature type of sass to her that most kids her age don't quite have yet.  He said it was as if she was an older girl trapped in a 4 year old's body.  I've always felt she a little more serious and mature than most kids her age.

At a recent Monkey Joe's birthday party, while all the other kids were running around going crazy, Olivia found the empty bounce house made for kids 3 and under that has the animals inside and went in there and started making up dances and songs using the blow up animals in there as props.  Definitely isn't something most 3 year old's do!

She loves music.  She loves dancing.  She really loves just about any activity she tries.  She's very open to trying new things.  The other week she said she wanted to start doing soccer and karate that is offered at school.  I would love for her to do every activity she wants to try but the budget only allows for so much so I told her if she wanted to do that instead of dance when dance was over we'd sign her up, but then she said she was just kidding, she didn't want to do soccer and karate, she just wanted to dance!  I love that she loves dance, but we will still continue to have her try different things as well.

Happy 4th Birthday Olivia!  We are so lucky to have you and we love you so much!

Olivia's Barpie Popstar Dance Party!

 For Olivia's 4th birthday she requested a Barbie Princess & the Popstar, Fairytale Dance Party!  She was definitely very specific!  She is really into barbies and loves the Barbie movies which is where her different themes came from.  That was a little long for making invitations so I shorted it up a bit with a Barbie Popstar Dance Party!  Since most of the invitations were be delivered in person, I got a little creative by making a CD of the music that would be played at the party.  I love the way the invitations turned out!

I had fun setting up different barbie scenes as decorations using Olivia's barbies.

Love pinterest for giving me this idea to do the Barbie box!

A popstar dance party wouldn't be complete with colored hair extensions, echo mikes and blow up guitars!

And you certainly couldn't have a dance party without a stage!  This is the same stage Jared built that stays in the corner of the FROG.  The engineer he is, made 2 even triangles so we can keep it set up in the FROG in the corner as a large triangle but also put together as a square when needed.  Love it!

We actually took the furniture out of living room so we could have seating for all the kids.  Thank goodness we have a large master bedroom right next to the living room so this wasn't that difficult.

Olivia loves these overpriced character balloons so I get her one each year for her birthday which she remembers because she reminded me not to forget she needed a Barbie balloon for her birthday this year. 

We kept the snacks simple.

Olivia waiting for her guests to arrive!

There were several instrument crafts for the kids to make.  Kazoos, tambourines and harmonicas.

The boys being the boys they are, thought of there own game using the blow up guitars.  We are so not used to this type of rough house with 2 girls in the house!  Olivia being the drama queen she is, at first said "mommy, they are ruining my party!" But then I said they were just having fun and it was alright and she was ok with that.

Abigail stayed away from all the craziness!

When it was time to sing Happy Birthday, we got the kids to use their microphones to sing.  So cute!

I can tell Abigail is going to have fun with her very own cake at her birthday party!

The day before her party Olivia says to me, "you know mom, it's almost my birthday and stompeez are not ordinary slippers."  A very subtle hint there I suppose!  But she was excited when she saw she got them from nana and papa!  And she changed her dress into a new dress she got.

Once the kids cleared out, Abigail finally got her turn to take the stage!

And Olivia got to try out her new skates (and another outfit change).