Merry Christmas from the Olsons

Chrismakuh! 2011

On Saturday Grace & I headed to Marissa's house for our annual Chrismakuh party to celebrate with Marissa, Avery, Ben, Emerson, Marci, Isaiah, Sarah, Colin and Rachel. It was an annual ritual that I always look forward too.

It is so amazing each year to see how much the kids have grown. And it is always a treat for me to get some time with my best girlfriends. I think about how long we have known each other and I'm so thrilled we are all still friends.

As usual it is always hard to get the kids to all look at the camera at the same time when taking a group photo, but it makes for an amusing time for us adults as we try to do whatever we can to get them all too look.

After photo time it was present time. This year Aunty Raya picked Grace's name and got her a fun doll that will actually drink juice and pee into her diapers. You can also brush her teeth. This doll has been a big hit. She has played with it a lot over the last couple of days.

And one last shot of us ladies. Still looking good after all these years - and all these kids!

Merry Chrismakuh!

Decorating for Christmas

The last week we have been busy decorating our house and GG's house for the Christmas holiday. Grace had lots of fun setting up the nativity sets and putting ornaments on the trees. She also loves the lights! Our condo complex has a bunch of lights and little deer around the place and she likes to see them each night and say they are pretty.

Here are some photos of our decorating fun.



Santa Visit

The day after Thanksgiving we headed out with GG to visit Santa. Grace wasn't really into him. She stood far from him at first, but when she saw me shake Santa's hand and talk to him she came over and shook his hand too. It was pretty cute. Before we left I tried to explain to her why we see Santa and why we celebrate Christmas. I told her that it is Jesus' birthday and we celebrate by receiving gifts from Santa if we are good. So after that it was pretty funny to hear what she said to Santa.

She told him "for my birthday I want princess stuff and stuff to build." It was really cute. When photo time came Grace was not up for sitting next to Santa or on his lap. Oh well, maybe next year.

Here she is staring out the window ready to go.

Waiting in line for Santa.

Dancing with her shadow.

Talking to Santa.

Here's hoping our next visit to Santa goes a little better.

Thanksgiving 2011

For Thanksgiving we headed to GG's house for the holiday. With mom just having had shoulder surgery, it was Brian & my responsibility to cook the majority of dinner - something we had never done. So it was our first Thanksgiving adventure cooking. I think we did pretty well and had a great little helper.

After we got the turkey in the oven it was time to go outside to play with chalk. It was super nice out on Thanksgiving and a great day to play outside.

Grace was also busy talking on the phone. She still loves to pretend to talk on the phone. I fear her future cell phone bill.

Eventually it was time for dinner. I forgot to talk a picture of the first turkey we had made, but oh well. Here is Grace digging in. She took a few bites, but wasn't super into dinner this year.

Although Grace wasn't into dinner she LOVED the fresh homemade whipped cream we made and the homemade pumpkin pie I made. If there is one thing Grace loves to do it is lick the spindles when we bake.

We had a great Thanksgiving and are happy to report everyone liked the dinner Brian & I cooked. Here is to many more yummy Thanksgivings.

Grace loves Kneip Chip Dip

While we were at mom's house helping her recover from shoulder surgery I made her favorite Kneip Chip Dip. Grace saw Brian & I snacking on it and decided to try it out. She LOVED it and as with most dips the chip was just a vessel to get the dip in her mouth and never really ate the chips. Luckily for GG Grace left her some to have later.

And finally on this football Sunday, Grace is getting very good at saying GO BEARS!

Christmas Card Photo Shoot

A couple of weeks ago when my mom was still in the hospital for her shoulder surgery, Grace & I headed outside to try and capture some photos for our holiday card this year. Grace had tons of fun chasing me and I even managed to get a few good photos. Here are some of the out-takes - even though many of them are fun and cute. I'll post our card in a few weeks.

Conversations with Grace

I thought I would post two conversations with Grace lately that we found pretty funny/cute.

The other night in the car on the way to bring Brian some dinner at his work Grace asked for her song - she loves the Black Eyed Peas song "I gotta feeling." So we are car dancing and in the song it says "I got my money!" Here is how the conversation went after that.

Me: Grace, you have your money?

Grace: YEAH!

Me: Really, where is it?

Grace: In my pocket.

Me: Who gave you money?

Grace: Daddy

Me: How much do you have?

Grace: 3

Me: What are you going to buy with your money?

Grace: Milk and bananas.

Me: Oh that's great.

Grace: And cheese sticks.

I thought it was so cute - at least she didn't say toys or candy and now you know her favorite food of late.

Then this morning while we were finishing getting ready I told Grace it was time to find her shoes. She looks at me and runs down the hall and says: MAMA I wear my boobs today. I wear boobs today.

Boobs=boots. So flipping funny.

It is amazing the things she says lately. There is a never a dull moment with little Gracie.

Halloween 2011

Grace loved Halloween this year. We first decorated our pumpkins with stickers on Saturday. She had a great time putting as many as she could on them. It was funny to see how focused she was while decorating. 

On Halloween we headed to see our friends Sarah, Cameron & Colin to go trick-or-treating. Grace thought trick-or-treating was super fun. Every time we got done with a house she would say one more mama! We had a great time and Grace loved putting candy into her pumpkin pail Nana sent her and loved eating the candy! I let the little stinker hold a box of nerds on the way home - soon I heard her eating them and when I got her out of her seat they were little pink nerds everywhere! I saw them again today and it just made me laugh. She loved her candy.

Our little cupcake had a grand time this year. Looking forward to many years to come!