Category Archives: Fun

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Forcing Spring

It’s sunny with clear skies, but a week after our epic snow, it’s still pretty chilly.  But the snow is melted, I see sprouts pushing their way up through the dirt, and for the first time ever, I’ve noticed tiny buds on our giant trees.  (Usually I don’t notice until they are flowering and then I think, when did all of that grow in?  Why wasn’t I looking?  I’ve been more intentional this year.)

After winter, I always go through intermittent insanity where sun equals warmth.  It doesn’t matter if it is still in the 40’s, if it is sunny, it is WARM.  That’s what I tell myself.  And yesterday was in the 50’s and today was in the 59-60 range, so that counts as real spring!

Yesterday, we arranged for Matt to buy Pancheros for dinner (I always sing “Pancherooooooos, Pancheros!” in the style of Fiddler on the Roof’s “Tradition” and my kids look at me like I’m crazy, which of course I am during this season and I already admitted that in the last paragraph).  We put on our coats and met him at Crystal Lake Park for some frigid playground time and a picnic.  It was too cold but we were so desperate to get OUT that we didn’t care.  Well, we cared… but not enough to change our plans.  We ate and left lots of crumbs for the squirrels, then we ran laps and climbed and played with the other kid/dad that were insane enough to consider it warm enough for playgrounding.  We resisted urges to chase the geese.  And then we went home when we were bone-cold and the sun was dipping down.  Matt is so thrilled that there is still sunlight available when he gets home from work that he is crazy enough to participate in my sun=warmth plans and do these sorts of things.

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Today, I lured the kids into cleaning up their toys in the living room by promising a bike ride when the Lincoln Logs/crayons/Easter eggs were put away.  I piled them into their coats and mittens and bike helmets, strapped the bungee cords to Nathaniel’s tricycle so that I can tug him along to keep him a) with us and b) moving when he gets tired, and off we went!  We biked all the way down to the gas station and then I had us stop to get “gas for our bikes.”  Rissa giggled and said that was silly, and I said I’d explain when we got there.  We talked about how our bodies are the engines for our bikes and we run on fuel.  There are two ways to get more fuel in our bodies.  Rissa thought of sleep (!!!! Go, Riss-Riss, my little genius!) and I added food.  I told them that we could pick out a treat and eat it and then they’d be fueled up for the ride back home.  (The whole trip was a giant ploy to entertain my children whilst finding me some cappuccino, so double win for me!)  We sat on the curb and they ate their Cheetos and shared a slushie while I happily slurped my mocha.  Then we cleaned up the orange fingers, got back on the bikes, and headed home!  There was the usual amount of “can I be in the front?  how come I’m not in the front???  you’ve been in the front longer than me!” sibling comparisons and the usual amount of “GET OVER ON THE SIDE/STOP/BE CAREFUL, A CAR IS COMING!” mommy-handling-3-children-who-are-prone-to-self-destruction screeches from me, but overall, we had a great deal of fun.  And Mommy is caffeinated.  And my kids are wiped out and likely to enjoy their nap after lunch.

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I couldn’t help but reminisce about my happy childhood playtimes with my best friend Beth.  We used to ride our bikes to a nearby convenient store almost every time we played together at her house and spent our money on Airheads and ring pops and other dental care travesties that taste oh so good.  So many happy memories, and now, I’m making them again with my own Tinies.  And someday, perhaps no one will spill my cappuccino onto the sidewalk and no one will whine that the slushie is all gone because they sucked all the juice out and the rest of it isn’t melted enough yet to go up through the straw and no one will fall off their bike and look at me with questioning eyes to determine whether this is a freak-out moment.  (It isn’t.  I smile, and say, “Ooo, that was a good one!  Good thing you are wearing mittens so that your hands didn’t get scraped!  Get back on, you’re doing great!”)  Maybe someday they’ll pull ME in the wagon!  I can dream.  But until then, I have happy bike ride traditions to pass on and we can continue forcing spring to come by pretending it is already here.

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Turning Free: March 18

Nathaniel’s party with friends was on Monday at the indoor playground.  (Major shout-out to First Christian Church who provides a giant INDOOR playground open to the public on weekdays!  It costs anywhere from $75-$200 to book a birthday venue in town, but FCC offers their playground for free!  What a ministry they have to our community!!!!)

Since Gramma and Granpa were still in town, they were able to attend BOTH parties!

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It was spring break, so we weren’t sure if our friends would be available to join us, but a good number of them were still in town!  Nathaniel listed out his friends and we invited them!  He had SO MUCH FUN running around like a crazy man and trying out all sorts of things that he was unable to do on his own prior to turning three.  This picture encapsulates his identity right now and a large portion of my life:

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After some much-needed rest time (Mommy took a massive nap too!), we headed over to Toro Loco for dinner.  Toro Loco is the new El Toro – they moved to a larger location.  We ate deliciousness.  And then to commemorate Nathaniel’s birthday, we repeated the events from his first birthday at El Toro… and even had the same waiter!  Here we are 2 years later, with more sombrero fun, more singing amigos, more whip cream, and a LOT more shuffling!

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Epic SNOW!

There are more Nathaniel THREE! Olson updates on the way, but piles and piles and piles of snow have forcibly landed in my life.  I’m making room for them, but only because I’m being forced to and I refuse to go quietly!  Because frankly, snow days aren’t fun anymore.  They mean more work for Mommy when she and everyone else could seriously benefit from a school day.  Never mind that we had a Friday off of school for parent-teacher conferences, then a week of spring break, then a SNOW day tomorrow, then one day of school attendance, then off again for Good Friday and Easter Monday…  sigh.  My kids will have gone to school for 3 days in 3 weeks… that is a LOT of time at home.  This must be what summer will be like…

So the snow.  The lots and lots and LOTS of snow.  It was really fun the first two times it came!  We loved it!  We played, we ran, then we moved on with our lives.  And then it came today, grinding life as we know it to a halt with 10 inches in two hours and more on the way.  Our round patio table looks like a giant frosted cake, and the number of layers just keeps growing!

I have lots of fun pictures of our snow play that I never bothered to post, so here they are in one big shebang so that you can be as overwhelmed by our snow as I am!  Don’t worry too much, there are lots of cute kids to fill in all of the fluffy white space.

I’m going to add insult to injury by beginning with two spring photos from January.  What is going on???

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January 25, one week later.  Snow!  Yay, we are legitimately thrilled.  Zach and Rissa were at school (I’m trying to remember what that’s like), so Nathaniel helped me shovel our neighbor’s and our driveways.

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Three weeks later, the snow is gone and we are back to enjoying our spring!  February 15, outside play time with the kids and Clara and Janny.

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 One week later, the snow is back on February 22!  We even tried Becky’s snow-painting idea with great success!

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 This snow lasted TWO days, which was thrilling to Matt since the second day was a Saturday and he didn’t miss a sledding opportunity!  February 23.

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March 5 provided more snow.  By March, I am done with snow.  March is for crazy rain and mud.  Not snow.  We stayed strong and replanted our tree.  At least we can drink hot chocolate.  Conjuring hot chocolate is my most popular Mommy superpower with the kids.  Conversely, my least popular Mommy superpower is knowing what they are doing when they don’t want me to know what they are doing.

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Which brings us to today, March 24.  SO ready to be done with the snow, yet we get our biggest and best snowfall of the season!  At least the pictures are really cool.  I’ll try to remember that when my kids are NOT at school tomorrow… maybe it will help. 🙂

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Turning Free: March 17

Nathaniel has anticipated his third birthday for over a month!  I had forgotten about the magical third birthday when anticipating an event is possible for children.  At two, they have no concept of waiting… if there is something good, it must happen right NOW!  And at four, they know exactly what a birthday involves and begin planning it themselves months beforehand.  But three, adorable three… that’s when my kids have been able to hold a concept in their mind and remember that it is coming, though not yet here.  For just over a month, we’ve been talking about Nathaniel’s party.  He listed off the people he wanted to invite, he chose his theme, and he began associating every happy thing in his life with “my party!”  Seeing friends?  That goes with “my party!”  Eating yummies?  Just like at “my party!”  How old is he?  “I not know.  Oh, I be free at MY PARTY!!!!”  (These announcements were often followed by a spontaneous shuffling dance out of sheer almost-3-year-old exuberance).

The theme was a no-brainer – dinosaurs!  “Dih-sohs!” are his favorite right now, just as trains were his favorite when he turned two and puppies were his favorite when he turned one.  He kindly shifts obsessions just often enough for his mommy to plan his parties!  He was absolutely certain that he wanted lemon cake.  We had no idea that he even knew lemon cake existed!  It does, but had he ever even had lemon cake?  I bought some lemon bars from the day old bakery section at the grocery store, he ate one and continued with his commitment to “wemon tate.”  Lemon cake it is!  I had plans to bake a sheet cake and then either carve it into a triceratops and a T-Rex or draw those two dinosaurs on with frosting.  Always particular, Nathaniel thought the triceratops should be purple and the T-Rex should be green (just like our stuffed animal versions).  Purple, green, and lemon – okay!

We decided to have his family party at our house on his actual birthday, Sunday,  March 17.  I made invitations.  (Actually, I overdid it on the invitations since it took 2 weeks to cut out all of the pieces and assemble them and Matt had to help me color in the words with markers because our color ink is gone and I was too cheap to buy more).  But they are so cute!  And I swore to myself (just as I do every time I plan a birthday party for my children) that next year I am doing evites and never handmaking an invitation again, EVER.  We’ll see if it lasts this time.  (In other news, I would TOTALLY make handmade invitations for you/your kids/your event/your whatever!  You may always contact me and request work!)

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When I asked Nathaniel what he wanted for his birthday, it was so sweet to hear his answer.  “I want dih-sohs, tooties, and tuptates.”  My sweet little man has no concept of demanding toys or gifts or something else because it’s his birthday and all about him!  He is happy with dinosaurs, cookies, and cupcakes.  That I can do, little man, that I can do!

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We went out for a special  lunch and told Nathaniel that he could pick.  He immediately said, “MitDonole’s!”  Ew, not McDonald’s, Buddy!  (We go to McDonald’s sometimes – they have video game touch screen kiosks and the kids love to sit and play.  If we eat, it’s an ice cream cone).  We offered him other choices – he was firm about McDonald’s.  We can’t eat ice cream cones for lunch… how about Za’s?  Monical’s?  “Za’s!!!!” our birthday boy decided.  Oh thank goodness!  I felt awful telling him he could choose and then telling him that his choice was not a good one… but Matt and I did NOT want to eat at McDonald’s!  Because, well, ew.  It’s McDonald’s.  We saw Super-Size me! so we know!  We headed to Za’s.

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Nathaniel’s party was Sunday afternoon.  A few at a time, the family members who were able to come arrived!  And then we just went crazy with all sorts of delightful fun!

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I try to remember to take pictures of the the guest(s) of honor with each of their party-goers at each birthday.  Here is 3 year old Thanny-man with family!

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As a final note:  we attempted Nathaniel’s grow dinosaurs.  They were supposed to grow 400% in a few hours…

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Peas in a Pod

People always comment on how much my kids look like me.  Which is ridiculous… Thanny has his daddy’s brown hair and skin tone!  And while Zach and Rissa both have my skin tone and hair color, and all 3 kids have variations of my blue eyes, we each have our own distinctive faces!  The obvious first-glance features may look like mine, but anything further than a one-time glance at them indicates that they don’t actually look like me.  It is the same concept as saying that Zach and Rissa look like twins.  They don’t.  They look like siblings… and yes, they happen to share a birthday. 🙂  But their faces, the sweet faces on each of my children… those little faces are special and different and the people that they represent are individuals!  I do enjoy the many older adults who have said, “Well, no one would believe those kids belong with you!” and then snicker at my 3 little ducklings.  We do have strikingly similar hair, which makes it easy to figure out which adult should be (but isn’t) attending those 3 rambunctious Tinies at a store. 🙂

People especially mention that Rissa looks like me.  I have often guffawed at the very thought of it.  To think of her looking like me – HA!  I wish I looked like her!  She is the most beautiful person I have ever seen in real life, and her appearance is the least impressive thing about her.  Matt tenuously rides the middle when I discuss this with him; he acknowledges that Rissa definitely has her own little face but he can see a resemblance between us.  We already share many temperament and personality features and it is hard enough to be someone’s mini-me — can the girl just have her own face please???

And then one fateful day earlier this week, my mom sent me some pictures from my late Grandma.  And I saw this one for the first time and said (and I quote), “Holy crap, Rissa looks EXACTLY like me!”

   

Of course, Rissa has the distinct blessing of being born in any decade besides the 1970’s, a dismal time for children when haircuts came in one size fits all – the classic bowl cut.  Actually, I’m pretty sure the classic bowl cut devastated several other decades too, but it certainly exterminated pretty hair in my time.  If only I’d had a cute little sprout on top!  Nevertheless, our resemblance continues as evidenced by my stack of old pictures from Grandma.

   

There are two conclusions to draw from this new evidence.  First, I must admit that Rissa does indeed look like me.  I finally see it.  Not exactly like me, of course.  She’s still the most beautiful person in the whole world and I’m too reasonable to think that description could apply to me.  I look fine, I’m happy with how I look, it’s fine.  But Rissa.  Amazing Rissa.  Rissa is the apple of my eye!  Nothing ordinary about that girl!  Her brains and smile and charm and brilliance and social skills and many other gifts overshadow her appearance, as lovely as it may be.

Second, if she continues onward with anything resembling my trajectory, she’s going to have to rely on her brains and smile and charm and brilliance and social skills and many other gifts when she turns nine.  And pretty much from then on until sixteen.  Because if my own appearance at age 9 (and following) is any indication, her lovely face will be a bit distorted by giant adult teeth that are too big for a little girl. 🙂

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Regarding the hideous giant glasses and the boring school uniform, I solemnly swear to do better by my daughter than my mom did by me!  Oh, she’ll need glasses; there is no question about that given her genetic heritage on both sides.  But they will be cute glasses and she’ll have less boring clothes – I can promise her that!  And the teeth?  Well 4.5 years of tortuous orthodontia did wonders for dealing with mine, but let’s hope she escapes that pitfall.  Either way, she’ll be her same amazing self no matter what!