Happy Valentines Day!

We had a nice Valentines Day this year! The kids had been begging me (not exactly sure why) for cupcakes lately and for one reason or another they hadn't had one for awhile. I knew that they would be getting plenty of candy at school so I got little heart plates and put a cupcake on each one for them to wake up to. I think they were more excited about these than all of their Christmas presents! It was so fun to see them so excited. I have such fond memories of my Mom leaving little treats out on Valentines morning and I really want my kids to have that too- I hope I can do as good a job as she did!! I gave Paul a mug filled with a big bag of all green M&M's that I thought was so funny and a gift card. Paul made each of us the funnest most creative cards I have ever seen. And for all of you who know Paul, out-doing himself is quite a feat! He made them at the office with post-its, red file folders and heart shaped velcro- among other things. I am realizing that I should have pictures of them on this blog- you will all get such a kick out of them. Thank you for making us all feel so special Sweetie- I Love You!


When Livi saw her cupcake, she opened her mouth and made a fun squeal- I made her do it again so I could get a picture :-)


Lauren had such a cute Valentines party at her preschool. They made these cute hats (the boys had Valentines top hats) and did a little performance for a bunch of teary, grinning parents lovingly looking on :-) It was the cutest little song about love related to all the letters of the alphabet and when it was over, each kid ran to their Mom with a tulip that they had been hiding behind their back- so cute!



Josh had a fun party with parents at his class too. It was so fun to see him interact with the little girl he has a crush on- her name is Baylee. But, unfortunately, she has eyes for the other little boy at their table- Raul. Josh is undeterred however and still tells us that he wants to sing the "song from High School Musical with her". It is the one at the end where they sing together holding hands and looking longingly in eachother's eyes. He makes me play it over and over again in the car- I know he is picturing the two of them every time! :-) By the way, Josh just lost his seventh tooth since school started- he is growing up too fast!



This is Josh's teacher Miss Jackson- she is a wonderful teacher. Josh is having a blast this year and has learned so much.


I just had to include this one. I bought some sponge curlers a while ago and hadn't gotten around to trying them out on Lauren yet when she BEGGED me to put them in her hair. I was pleasantly surprised how well they worked, Lauren's hair is as straight as a rod and previous heat attempts to curl had only made a slight wave. Anyway, she was so proud of her curls I just had to take a picture.

Group Picture From Whalewatch

Hawaii

What a wonderful trip! Emmy was so beautiful and her wedding was such a celebration. Even the whales showed up to watch her get married! The kids had a great time. Not only were we in paradise, but we were surrounded by EVERYONE in my family. My Dad played with the kids in the pool every single day and I couldn't believe his stamina! He was either playing "shark" or launching them into the pool or going down the water slide with them. What a blast! My Mom came and had fun floating on tubes with Lauren- they looked so cute out there!

We went on a dinner cruise and a whale watch cruise where we saw amazing shows. On the whale watch we saw a mother giving her calf a breeching lesson! We got to go to our favorite restauraunt in Lahaina (Kimo's), and spend a fun day at Flemming beach. Other than that, we pretty much hung out at the pools at the Marriott. and the kids loved it. They have a pirate ship in an area that is only about a foot deep and has "sand" all around it so the kids (even Olivia) could just play and play.

The only rough part was the ride home. Livi was in rare form! At 18 months she is at a tough age to be on a plane for 6 hours. She wants to move around, has no patience and LOVES to scream. With 40 minutes left in the flight the woman across the asile from me tapped me on the knee and said "Could you take her for a walk or something? It has been a REALLY long flight" I couldn't believe it! Obviously, Paul and I had been shuffling her back and forth, doing everything we could do to keep her quiet! Well, the good news is that we won't be on a plane with an 18 month old again any time soon! :-)

What a wonderful trip- Thanks for getting married in Maui Em and Mike! We Love you and are so happy for you!

Our 2007 Visit to Santa!

Well- as you can see we had quite eventful trip to Santa this year! I was worried about it this year because Livi has been getting so sad when we go to get group pictures taken. This was during her naptime to boot so it was the perfect storm- that poor Santa deserves a medal! People keep telling me that this will be funny to look at in years to come- I hope so!

Livi is sure growing up though. She is really trying to communicate. She says "Wheeee!" for "please pick me up", "EEEEEE UHHHHH" for "Clean Up!" (we sing a song to clean up and she is saying that to the first to notes of the song), "uh oh" means "Mom, trust me, you don't want to look at what I just did", "EWWWWWW" means ;I have a stinky diaper" or "I am about to have a stinky diaper". She also likes to raise her hand and say "Me!" when Josh asks people "raise your hand if....." And she loves to wave and say "Hi!" to EVERYONE we see when we go shopping. It is so fun to see total strangers grin from ear to ear because of her :-)

Josh and Lauren are SO excited for Christmas. We are going to Hawaii for my sisters wedding on January 6th and I keep asking them if they are excited for that and they say "No, I'm excited for Christmas!" Like they have to choose one or the other. I am very excited though. We just found out that Heidi and her husband and her brand new baby are going to be there so that makes EVERYONE in my family. How fun is that going to be?!?! My sister Tracy is moving to Seattle and I am so excited for that too. It hasn't really hit me yet though, I have been wanting to have family live here for so long- I can't believe it is finally going to happen!

So, I have so many pics that I would like to post from birthday parties and things but my computer is having the download issue again. I have to get it figured out before Christmas and Hawaii, though. I need the memory space!!

Have a wonderful Christmas everyone!

"I hope I hear her wings...."

Josh lost his tooth yesterday. While Paul was tucking Josh and Lauren into bed last night (they are sharing a room right now) they were getting Josh's tooth ready for the tooth fairy. They put it under Josh's pillow, and it was at that moment that Lauren said to Paul and Josh "I hope I hear her wings!" How cute is that! I thought that was a such a sweet way to anticipate the tooth fairy. What a sweetheart!

Lauren's Princess Party!

Our Beautiful Little Princess...
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Probably her funnest birthday cake- EVER!!!


We were so happy to have Grandpa here- he was so proud of his little princess!


Some of Her Hignessess :-)


This is Lauren with her best friend Brooke- if you look closely (click on the picture) you can see that they are both wearing friendship necklaces- so cute!!


Lauren had a great time at her party and keeps asking me if she is "still 4"- Like it is a cool new toy she is going to loose :-) Her most favorite presents were an extensive kids makeup kit from Grandma, Baby Alive from Grandpa and a friendship necklace from her best friend Brooke. I took her to Libby Lu to get her little "updo" for the party and it really turned out cute...

This is definately our birthday busy season with Josh's coming up in 2 1/2 weeks and Paul's a little over a week after that. With the holidays too, we will have lots of fun events to catalog over the next couple of months- so stay tuned!!

Halloween 2007

Hope you all had a wonderful Halloween! The Goates clan had a great time....We had pizza at a friends house and then the kids went trick-or-treating with the dads while us moms held down the fort at home.

Livi just recently started walking so it was really cute to watch her waddling around in her big princess dress. I was surprised that Lauren didn't want to be a princess, but she chose to be a pink power ranger. I think the fact that her cool big brother was a red power ranger might have had something to do with it! :-)

Lauren was in a halloween play at her preschool as the pink power ranger. She did a great job! All the kids had a few lines to memorize (very short ones). When we were watching the play most of the other kids either didn't know their lines or didn't say them so that people could hear- but when our drama queen got up there she belted out her lines- I was so proud! Her teacher later said that Lauren not only knew her lines, she was telling some of the other kids what their lines were!

As for me, I had a big event last night-- MY FIRST PARENT-TEACHER CONFERENCE!! I was so excited! I sat down grinning from ear to ear and told Josh's teacher that this was my "first time and I am so excited" She got a kick out of that and jokingly asked me if I wanted to take a picture or something. Paul is in California right now and was so sad to miss it. But, I gave him and exhaustive play by play over the phone and I think that made him feel better :-)

I had a nice talk with her. She showed me Josh's writing journals and it was really fun to get a glimpse into his world. For a while all his writings were about skeletons and ghosts, then it was soccer games, now its sleepovers with his buddies. He loves to write and uses his punctuation marks and everything. Miss Jackson told me that he was the first one in his class to incorporate quotation marks in his writing- not bad for a kindergartener! She said that he is especially advanced in math and she thinks he will always excel in science- he is always asking how things work and really enjoys that part of the day. So, it went really well and I am so proud of Josh!

Well, have to get Lauren to gymnastics now. I will have some fun pictures after this Saturday because we are having a princess party for Lauren's 4th birthday.....