Thelma & Louise

Well, not really but I could not resist the title with pictures like these! The pictures below were taken last Friday at our Mamatoto group (see previous posts on what a mamatoto group is) meeting at Shoreline Park. The hit of the playground was this cool "radio flyer" car that both Olivia and Sage LOVED. Although we talked them into sharing, they did pretty well, minus the "not so sure look" of Sage.

Snack Time @ Toddler Times

On Monday we went to our first "Toddler Times" with Laura Sobel offered through Adult Ed. It was AWESOME. Song and music the first half hour, then an hour and a half of out door play with lots of cool toys that we could never fit inside our little casa but that Olivia LOVES to play with (i.e. little tykes car, shopping cart, big swing set, etc) followed by snack time, then closure with reading a story and a small little song.

When it came to snack time Olivia took it pretty serious. Even with her little girlie friends (Isla and Devon). I guess she is already serious about her food palate. ;)

Butterflies Alive take II

Well, if you remember a post a while back, Grandma C took Olivia to the Butterflies Alive exhibit at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History in May. The exhibit closed it's doors on Monday but we were lucky to meet up with some of our mamatoto buddies and check out the butterflies one last time.

We all met at the Mission Rose Gardens for a little play time (see below) and then walked over to the museum just in time to see the exhibit. What was most amazing was to see Olivia's reaction and compare it to our last visit. Although it was really only a couple of months Olivia was so much more AWARE this time. As you can see by the pic's below, Olivia thought the butterflies and the watermelon were super cool!

Olivia's Birthday Bash

For Olivia's Birthday bash we had tunnels to navigate, pools to swim in (hot tub and regular pool, of course balls were included because if you don't know by now, our little lady LOVES balls), finger painting, friends, family and food. All in all a great celebration for our little lady!





Rollin cousins take part in some pool time fun



Dada and Olivia :)



Sage explores the tunnel!



Nala and Cash Roy, hanging out, deciding what drink to open next

Ashton's Birthday Party

Ashton, another one of our mamatoto friends celebrated his birthday party the day before our birthday bash for Olivia (Ashton and Olivia are 8 hours apart with Ashton being the elder). The party was a hit according to Olivia as Olivia LOVES balls. Although they had kindermusik at Tuckers Grove Park all Olivia wanted to do was kick it in the giant blow up pool of balls. Below are pics of our little lady and some of her friends have a well... you know I have to say this... having a BALL :0






Olivia and Brody








Olivia and Braeden

Backyard fun...

Summer in Santa Barbara really starts in September when the weather is truly AMAZING! We have been taking full advantage of the warm weather days with our little backyard pool (thanks Grandma C!). The other day we finished picking the last of our green beans (you can see Olivia chewing on a green bean in the pics below) so we thought we would cool off a little in her kiddie pool. Well, Olivia thought she would cool off. FUN, fun FUN!

More birthday wishes!

Our little lady is so blessed! So many birthday wishes and they keep coming. Our first week back at Yellow Bird Music (see previous post on Yellow Bird) was a couple days after Olivia's real birthday... so of course we had to celebrate! :)

Olivia's first dress up party!

Our friends Chris, Cameron and Malachi had a fun party recemently. A "Dream Jobs" Party to be exact.

The premise was simple. Here was their invite premise: To commemorate the .1% drop in unemployment last month, we're throwing a "Dream Jobs" party. Come as what you wanted to be when you grew up.

So.... Olivia dressed up in her ballerina outfit but found a tennis racket at the party. Perhaps we have a ballerina/tennis player on our hands?? Or just a curious little lady!

ta da.....

Olivia's godparents who also happen to be Aunt Christina and Uncle Don recently gave Olivia this dress. Thanks so much! We feel so blessed to have you in our lives!

We love you!

Labor Day Weekend in Cayucos

Labor Day Weekend we took the family (ok, it was just Olivia, Kevin and myself, no Astro) to Cayucos. We had a fun time exploring playgrounds, eating at our favorite spots (TACO TEMPLE = yum!), hiking, running, surfing, playing on the beach and just relaxing! Below are some of our highlights.



Olivia gets ready for a run with mama: Morro Bay Rock to the bird estuary and back.... oh what fun!


At the playground....


More playground!


Olivia gets ready for a car ride

Happy Birthday Olivia!

Can you believe our little lady is ONE YEAR OLD TODAY? We sure can't! For Kevin and myself it was a time for reflection. Did we parent the way we wanted to? Were we there for Olivia? Is she thriving? Did we enjoy ourselves along the way? Does Olivia feel nurtured and loved by us? The questions can go on and on. For us, the answer is yes, yes, YES!

We feel so blessed to have Olivia in our lives and although we cannot believe how fast the time has gone this past year, we have truly enjoyed every second of our little lady. Yes, we love everything about Olivia, even those sleep deprived nights, gooey fingers, snotty kisses and cries of emotion. We also know that for every wail of frustration we have received countless smiles, kisses and hugs from Olivia and this makes all the difference.

All in all, as a family, we feel we have grown so much this past year. For Kevin and myself, we have learned more about ourselves and our relationship than we ever could imagine. In fact, we both remember a while back listening to a lecture by a local psychiatrist, Dr. Peter Brill and one aspect of the lecture on family and relationship stages was discussing how married couples' happiness goes down exponentially when they have a child - yes, we did the research before we had Olivia ;) Still, guess what, yes, we had our ups and downs this past year, but together, as a team, we did! We became parents and actually feel even more happy now than before Olivia's birth! Now, we are still learning to balance "our time" with "Olivia time," but all in all, this has been an incredible year!

Lastly, thank you to all of you who are reading this blog, it is all of you, our family and friends who have supported us and helped us nuture and grow as a family!

Until next blog post....

We are truly blessed,

The Moores