Family Picture

So hard to get family pictures, but Brad's mother organized a big huge Olson one over Christmas, and we had a smaller one taken of just us immediates as well. Such fun to get together with all the Olson cousins.

17 weeks

I am 17 weeks pregnant today, as anyone with access to this blog knows we're expecting by now. But I have to say it's REALLY nice to be in the second trimester. Everything is going well, and I've already started to feel the baby move. Earlier today I ate some chocolate (which is happily not as nausea-causing as it was before :-) ), and the baby REALLY moved around a lot. I was quite surprised to feel that much movement so early.

Soren has been delighting his sisters lately with all the things he does to make them laugh. This is such a fun age for communication, he is always talking, and some of the words and phrases come out quite amusingly. Lately my favorite is when he drops something or breaks something apart and says, "wookit Soren did!" Just like his sisters say :-) He loves his blanket and puppy, it's been so easy to put him to bed, just pick him up with his fuzzy blue blanket on your shoulder and he snuggles right in.

Christmas!

A little out of order here, that last post of Soren was after Christmas. Christmas Eve we had our traditional dinner of Shepherd's pie and salad and a yummy drink. Then after telling the Christmas story, reading some scriptures and singing some carols together, we opened one present of the kids' choice, and one they would wear to bed that night :-)

Here are a few scenes from our Christmas Eve and morning...






Soren played with this all day!!!

The kids got foam swords and ax in their stockings and have had a great time fighting each other with little injury :-)

Soren's tea party

The girls got this tea set for Christmas, and Soren REALLY likes it :-)


Soren also REALLY likes candy canes.... (oh, and his sunglasses!)

RenFest

The Texas Renaissance Festival!! SO cool, we had a great time with the kids. I had no idea how HUGE it would be, you could spend all day there easily (if you didn't have three young children, that is). I wish I would have gotten pictures of some of the great costumes many people wore there, but in place of it, I downloaded this one above from their website to get the "effect" of the place.


Face painting a must!!


Cool dragon


Cora may have chosen this one from having watched "Bolt" a lot lately...


These boat swings were so cool!! They could pull a big long rope to go higher, the girls love it.

In the meantime, Soren had a blast running down this hill over and over again.


The girls getting harnessed up for a pretty thrilling ride...

An easy start, Isabelle was a little nervous at first...


This is Cora way up there. Pretty amazing, eh? Isabelle went up just as high also. They LOVED it. Before they had their turn, watching other folks flying up, Isabelle said she definitely did NOT want to go on. But when her little sister said she wanted to try it, well, she had to go too. They asked to go again the rest of the time we were there. I would have done it too if I didn't have my current issues with motion and nausea.


A fun elephant ride with just the girls. Brad took Soren on a camel ride, but the picture turned out too dark. We ended the evening watching fireworks as we trekked back to the van. What a day!!! Earlier in the day Isabelle had her last soccer game, a piano recital and the girls attended a birthday party before we went to RenFest. Needless to say, this happened on the way home:

Halloween!

It was hard to get pictures of the kids right before going out to trick-or-treat. Just a little excited! Isabelle and Cora helped make their fairy costumes. Cora also got to wear hers to her little pre-school a few days earlier and was quite thrilled with it all. Such fun. The girls were looking forward to Halloween all month! Soren really got into the getting candy thing. But he got a little mixed up as to what he was supposed to say. After "trick-or-treat," the girls would shout "Happy Halloween!" So eventually Soren would say something that resembled "Happy Birthday to you treat!" (he loves the Happy Birthday song), with a few other mumbled Sorenwords mixed in. His MO was to have me hold his bag while he reached into the candy-givers bowl and grab as much as he could with one little paw and put it in his bag, then attempt another grab before I would stop him. Our neighborhood was wild with kids and parents, lots of fun!

Cora gets ready to show off her costume at pre-school

My little green monster....

Ducks

There's a park not far from here with a man-made pond and lots of ducks. The ducks have no fear of people, and some aggressively approach if they sense food is available. It freaks out the girls a little, but Soren is totally unfazed. That expression he's got is not fear, he is laughing and chasing them!