Beautiful Beautiful!

As I've posted before Olivia is a HUGE Fransesca Battistelli fan!  So I thought I'd share Olivia's version of this lovely song... Sure there is a lot of mumbling but she gets some of the key words in! And pleasejust look past the part when she gets bossy and tells me not to sing :) I also hope you don't get motion sickness easliy, if you do you might not want to watch, just listen.  And last but not least, yes she's dancing with a doggie "backpack/kid leash!"  I know many people don't approve of these but we've actually never used it, it's turned into more of a toy! (had to make sure and cover my tracks on that one)

Finished project

Well here it is... Not great (as I expected) but you can tell who it is! haha I had a little mishap with the black icing. Apparently I didn't get it on thick enough and half of it fell off so I had to fix that.  And I realized its not real easy to ice a cake and make it smooth. Who knew? And I didn't even attempt to write anything on it because me writing with icing would have ruined the whole thing.  Definetly going to need some lessons from my momma, but I'm pleased with it being my first try! I did taste the cake and I must say it was pretty yummy! Can't go wrong with a straight from the box cake mix though! :)

When I showed it to Olivia she said "*GASP*! It's my birthday cake! We have to take it to my birthday party!" I tried to explain to her that it wasn't her birthday yet and that mommy was just practicing, but she insisted that it was her birthday. So I guess after dinner today we'll have a small "birthday" celebration by eating some cake! haha

Not so little anymore

Benjamin is growing so quickly (as I say in every single post).  Tonight I had to lower his crib :( Not sure why this bothered me so much but it did... I guess because it means he's not this tiny little baby anymore. He also started crawling yesteday.  He's been getting around pretty well for a while but yesterday he was on his hands and knees and taking off... I'm still holding out for a possible third child someday, but for now I'm trying to soak in all that I can from this sweet baby stage.      

He has this whole bed and he chooses to curl up at the end. :)

A post full of smiles

Looking back at all the pictures I have taken of Benjamin, I realized I didn't have very many pictures of him smiling! So here is a small collection of my sweet boy showing off his charm and good looks!!

Since Ben has started scooting/crawling, he has decided his favorite place to play is under the table!

A parents getaway!

Although we love our children dearly, mommy and daddy need to getaway once in a while! This past weekend we decided it was time for a Cardinal game. Both of us being huge Cardinal fans, it was rare that it had been 2 years since we'd been to a game.  We splurged a little and bought tickets 2 rows behind the visiting dugout.  Nate had never sat this close before so he was very excited! The seats were amazing, would have been more amazing if we had been behind the Cardinal dugout but those tickets were going for hundreds more! And of course they won the game and we got to see a homerun, from Mr. Molina!! Very fun and much needed weekend!!

Nate took a baseball and was able to get an autograph from a Dodger player. I had no idea who he was but Nate said he was a good player :)

Matt Kemp (the guy that aurographed the ball)

if you follow baseball at all you know who this guy is... Manny Ramirez, not a well liked player! lol We heard many boos and many comments about steroids when he stepped out onto the field :)

Albert Pujols! My personal favorite :)

Matt Holliday, the man they spent 17 million dollars on this year!

Yadier Molina... another personal favorite! Go Yadi!!

and last but not least, Fredbird and myself.  I have been going to Cardinal games for YEARS and I have always wanted my picture taken with this silly bird! It's not a great picture because the zoom was zoomed all the way in and Fredbird decided to jump towards the camera as Nate took the picture, but non the less it is me with that famous bird! :)

Running, eating and bowling!

When playing around outside I asked Olivia to run toward me so I could take her pictures. She wanted to do it about 20 times but I ended up getting a couple of really cute piggy tail flying pictures! :)

Olivia enjoying her first piece of corn on the cob this summer.

I took Olivia with me as my date to my 10 year class reunion.  Nate had to work and it was just bowling so I thought she might enjoy it.  A guy from our class was working and after he'd gone down our lane to get Olivia's 8 lb ball she couldn't hold by herself, he came over and started her own lane with her own ball, and of course with bumpers! She loved it!!

Good new for the Rich Family!!

It is official! Nate is going to be on day shift!!!! when we aren't sure of yet. They said it could be 16 weeks or earlier, or it could be the first of next year. EVEN SO I can wait another 16 weeks or longer, just to know that our family can do normal things... We can sit down and eat dinner at 5pm instead of 3pm. We can watch a baseball game together after the kids go to bed! We can sleep in the same bed again! lol We could start going to church functions in the evenings, we will get our saturday mornings back! I'm so happy and so thankful that after almost 3 years of praying for this to someday happen that it is. 

All about Benjamin!

I seem to always post a ton of things about Olivia so this post is all about Ben! The weather has been so amazing the past 2 days. We went outside this evening for a bit and Ben loved it! These pictures are a bit dark because he was in the shade but they are cute none the less.