Bubble Time

 Broke out the bubbles and the sidewalk chalk the other day - it was a beautiful 70 degrees and sunny and the kids had a great time!  That is Kaitlin, my friend's daughter, hanging out with us above.

 Olivia likes to say "pop" when she sees bubbles, because the Lapsit program I take her to at the library (stories, songs, etc.) on Friday mornings has a bubble machine and there is a song about popping the bubbles.  So she sees them and says "pop!"

After the bubble action Livy decided to shoot a few hoops.  She gets mad that she can't shoot it all the way up yet, so I have to lift her up so she can make the basket.  And yes, that's a soccer ball she's using.  Except that it's not ours...it just sort of showed up in our back yard!  Anyway, it was nice to bust out of the house on a nice day - it has been rainy and dreary for two months now, and the Vitamin D did us some good!

Sunflower Festival

 I blogged about the sunflower festival last year. It is one of my favorite festivals in a land of never-ending festivals!  The weather has finally turned from cool and rainy all the time to mostly sunny and a little warmer, and it was a gorgeous day to see the sunflowers.

 This year, Tommy was unexpectedly here to share it with us, and we were excited to show him the sunflower fields.  Wyatt especially remembered our trip last year and had a good time showing daddy the fields.

 Wyatt thought it would be fun to stand like a statue.  Olivia didn't see it as quite that much fun.

 As a general rule, sunflowers are not my favorite flower.  But there's something about these sunflower fields...  I think I could take pictures of these sunflowers all day!

 Wyatt is in his "I'm not going to smile nicely" stage right now.  He likes to squint his eyes or close them altogether and give me a cheesy look.  I have definitely noticed him growing more out of the "little" boy stage and into the "boy" stage lately. :(

This photo sequence of Olivia cracks me up.  She is starting to look like a little girl, and she certainly has her own little personality. These pictures exemplify her attitude toward life this far, from what I can observe - grab it and stick your face in it full force, but make sure you look cute doing it!!  She is my little firecracker!

The Livy 500

 Olivia gets these bursts of energy, and likes to run as fast as a speeding bullet from our couch, down the hall, full speed into the door (in the background), and back again to the couch.  Then she does it all over again!  She repeats this about 50 times!  Wyatt used to do this at her age, too, and we always got a kick out of it.  My mom gave her the lei she has around her neck - she loves it.  She wears it all the time! Or her babies do :)

She has a silk diaper cover on here too, which she really likes.  She is sort of going through a naked phase, where she likes to strip off all her clothes.  We have finally convinced her to leave her diaper on, I think!  I just love this picture because she looks so happy :)

Wyatt & Olivia's Baptism

Last year I blogged a little bit about the new church that we had found.  Tommy was raised Baptist and I was raised Catholic, and this church was a nice blend of the two religions for us.  The church (coincidentally) happens to be the same place as where Wyatt goes to preschool, and the priest (also coincidentally) happened to be one of our neighbors our first year here on Okinawa.  His two kids match up closely in age and gender to our kids, who played a lot together until they moved off base.

 We have been thinking about baptizing the kids for awhile now.  After much thought and discussion, we had them baptized on Sunday with our friends (Okinawan family) there to help us celebrate!  We hope that when they are older, that they will make the choice for themselves about what they believe... but we also believe it is our job as parents to help guide them in the right direction toward faith, which if I am being honest, is what has really helped us get through this tour in Okinawa.

 The kids did great with the service - despite the fact that Olivia had been awake since 4:50 a.m.!  She is an early bird, that girl.  She didn't even bat an eye when Father Esau poured the water over her head.

 Wyatt was a big ham as always - he had a big grin on his face all the while the water was being poured on!  It was awesome to have Father Esau be the one baptizing our kids, since we have a connection with him outside of the church as well.

 They gave each of the kids a baptism candle, and Olivia, seeing Wyatt holding his, desperately wanted to hold hers as well... a little frightening there for a minute as she was reaching and grabbing for candle and flame!

 I made a bunch of food for the reception at the church, and the church bought this cake, which Wyatt exclaimed was "beautiful!"

 The kid's table... I see lots of donuts and not much of the fruits and veggies and egg bakes that I made!!

We were so grateful that all of our friends here were there to witness and celebrate with us.  It really meant a lot to have them there since our family in the States obviously couldn't make the trip :)  It was a beautiful, sunny day to receive such a wonderful blessing!

Tu-tu Cute!

Grammie (aka Cindy) sent Livy this adorable ballerina outfit in the mail.  Our little ballerina loves to dance so she set about practicing her dance moves... well, some of it was dancing...most of it looked like she was copying mom's workout routine of squats and lunges! :)

Livy's not one for costume dress-up, but she had fun with this one!  I have to admit she was pretty adorable running around the house in this.  She is, however, going through a bit of a no-clothes stage, so inevitably she stripped it off after awhile. 

...But not before we caught our little butterball rummaging through the fridge!  All that dancing sure must have worked up an appetite!