.reasons to smile.: lunch with friend, basketball, dinner, olivia's party and chairy

There has been a lot going on, but unfortunately my camera has not been put to good use (not sure what my problem has been!) I find that when I have pictures to include it's much easier to explain things we've done. I will give a brief description of some things here... but beware, might be boring. : )

Lunch w/good friend
Kate and I met my friend, Jenny, for lunch last Thursday. Jenny is due on the 18th, so thought we'd do lunch before the baby arrives... which we're so excited about! We met her at Backyard right after Eli got on the bus for school. Kate usually naps then, but I figured she'd be fine waiting... she's usually very accommodating and flexible. : ) Well, bus comes, Eli leaves and Kate immediately says "Nap, nap." I told her we were going to lunch, but she didn't sound too excited. I put her in the car and she cried. Got me a bit nervous about how she'd be once we got there. She fell asleep on the short trip to Backyard. But, thankfully, when we got there she was fine. She ate great and just hung out... no problems at all. We had a great time and it was very nice to catch up with Jenny.

Eli: Basketball Clinic
Eli had his first night of basketball last Thursday. He's signed up for a program through Do-It-All-Sports. He meets once a week and they focus a lot on dribbling since that's a very important skill to learn. He came home with a new basketball, a reward necklace and some new skills that he was very excited to show the girls. I'm very excited that he's doing this and is so excited about it.

Anniversary Gift Card
Mike and I got a gift card from his grandma for our anniversary (end of Sept) and we finally used it Friday. My parents watched the kids for us... thanks! It was really nice. We really need to do that more often, but things just always seems to come up. Was nice to spend the evening together and just talk about stuff. We also stopped at TJ Maxx and bought a couple Christmas presents for people and finally got some new living room lights, which we were very excited about! We've been needing new lamps for a couple years, but just haven't found anything we liked enough to get. Finally found some we love!

Olivia's Big Day
Saturday was Olivia's first birthday party. And, yes, I forgot my camera... ahhhh! She was great and so adorable! It was a big bash... over 60 people (including about 20 kids!) Not sure I would have had a chance to even pull out my camera had I brought it! It was so nice to see so many friends and family there to celebrate and support Christy during this very special time. We get to watch Olivia tomorrow and Wednesday... we can't wait!

Chairy from Pee-Wee's Playhouse
Rachel was setting up the camera/microphone toy and had it pointed towards the chair for a moment. Eli said the chair looked confused... like it didn't know what to do.

[don't mind the mess!]

I asked him if he ever heard a chair talk or saw one move and, as I figured, he hadn't. So, I pulled up this video for them to watch. Wow, did it bring back memories! They thought it was pretty funny! : )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMzduCJG6OU

I'll leave with a few pictures I took over the last several days.

The first is of Mike and Kate just chillin' on the couch. So cute!

These are some from Friday... I decided to take a couple pictures of Kate while we were waiting for Eli's bus to drop him off and, as usual, she just cooperated so well. Wish the other kids would!