Summer Loving

I have been a terrible blogger lately due to a crazy travel schedule.  I had to make a couple of significant work trips during June (London, DC, Qatar) that left us feeling quite overwhelmed at home (I may or may not have forgotten Olivia's lunch on 2 separate occasions during this time period and almost taken her to school with no shoes on!).  But, THANKFULLY, things are slowing down and we are getting back to our normal routine.

The day I went to London, Olivia and I enjoyed a mommy-daughter breakfast at Starbucks.  During an attempt to capture a selfie of me and my girl, this impromptu kiss happened.  This picture is probably one of the best things that has ever happened to me and I am pretty sure I looked at it 1 million times during the past month.

London was beautiful and a great work trip!  I got one afternoon off, so I did a little sightseeing!

And Olivia had lots of bonding time with daddy.

Knowing that I would be traveling a lot during the weeks, I basically packed all the family fun time I could into the weekends! 

A toddler tea party at her BFF Cate's house

A "Frozen" dance camp with matching leotards/tutus for Olivia, Cate and Emma

 

I don't understand why THIS is the face I get when I ask 2 toddlers to smile??!!

BFF

 Making "Frozen" trees....(i.e. frosting covered ice cream cones dipped in sprinkles!)

 Playing kitchen

And a trip to Noah's Ark -- an awesome splash pad/kiddie pool close to our house.

Then I was off to DC. The weekend I got back was a very special weekend because it was our 6 year wedding anniversary + Father's Day!  Given all the travel and craziness of the past few months, I was so grateful for a whole weekend to celebrate Matt and how lucky Olivia and I are to have him.  This guy...I won't get all mushy on you, but clearly I'm the President of the Matt Dean fan club and have been for quite a while now.  I read this quote recently and I just love it and pray for it to always be true.

"I hold myself supremely blest -- blest beyond what language can express; because I am my husband's life as fully as he is mine.” Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

We continued our tradition of going to see an Astros game for Father's Day.  Again, Olivia loved it and did much better this year in terms of sitting down and actually watching some of the game.  However, the big draw for her (and for me if I'm being honest) are all the delicious treats! 

  Like her mamma, Olivia loves cotton candy!

 She insisted on going and sitting by herself at the end of our row

And then we finished off the evening with some outside water table fun + make your own pizza/game night.

Olivia's latest obsession is the Sneaky Snacky Squirrel game.  Its pretty fun that we can all sit down and play a game --- until her "Matt Dean competitive side" comes out and then things get ugly . . . here she is explaining to Matt why she should get purple even though the spinner didn't point to it.

The following day, we got a babysitter and celebrated 6 wonderful years of marriage with a delicious sushi dinner.

And then it was on to Doha.  I was glad I went because it was a really beautiful city and a productive work trip, but H-O-T! 

I was SO ready to come home to this little cutie (modeling the dress I bought her from the souk!).