Andrew's Antics

He needs another post for his shenanigans.

Last month one night when the girls were doing homework, he insisted on being at the table with them coloring. If I tried to set him on the floor with paper and crayons he would scream.  He now constantly tries to reach something off the "craft" table.

Almost captured his scrunchy face look.

He found the cute tips and will pull the cotton off the ends and then eat the stick.

The day of his fever he found a lollipop in the Halloween candy buckets still on my bedroom floor.  Look at that face, he knows he's been caught and he doesn't want it to be taken and I can tell he isn't feeling well so I let him finish his treat.

No breaks for Mommy, I just went to use the restroom quickly and I came back to this.

He loved to climb onto the fire place in Mt Green which we tried to manage because we didn't want him falling and getting hurt, but he would still manage to get up and this time he decided he didn't want his slippery socks on any more.

Finally I've arrived at the big kid table with my cup of milk (man, transitioning from a bottle is rough for everyone--probably not a good idea to do it over Thanksgiving when there is no routine, but we survived and if all goes well the bottles will be put away soon).

No vember = No school

That's right we had the whole month of November off of school.  I thought it was a wonderful month to have off and then day light savings ended--some what unexpectedly here at our house and you know what happened the first Monday of our break?  The kids were up at 6 am and so were we.  Not quite the first relaxing morning I was hoping for.

The girls had swim lessons at the Clearfield Aquatic Center for the first two weeks.  It was nice to have a planned activity each day and good for them to continue to practice their skills from the summer.  Ellie can efficiently back crawl now and Lila is learning strokes--she can still jump in and go to a back float which is a good skill.

Below you can see Ellie swim through hoop while Lila jumps in and back floats and Ellie went down the slide several times on the last day of class. :)

We had dental cleanings.  Ellie was referred to an orthodontist--poor girl and her crazy teeth.  Since we went straight from swim lessons to the dentist, we had a special lunch and went to Sub Zero to redeem our coupons.


I canned chicken and beans and made my first batch of refried beans from my canned beans--yummo.  We also updated our water storage and 72 hour kits and talked about emergency preparedness with the girls.

Andrew helping me can.

The Natural History Museum had their annual behind the scenes tour and members reception so we went to that.  It was fun.  They collected corn DNA and learned a little about DNA.  Then we saw all the collections of rocks, fossils, plants etc.  The girls and Steve went into the wet collections where they have preserved things like snakes and bats (Andrew and I waited outside of that room).  We had bagels, fruit, cookies, and punch at the members reception and then gave Steve a quick tour of the museum since it was his first time.

 


Later that night we went to Red Robin for dinner for my birthday.  It was a wonderful day with everyone.

Andrew and I ready for church after my birthday celebrations.

Steve and I took a little trip to Pheonix.  We had air miles that were expiring and with the temperatures dropping we decided it would be a nice late 10th Anniversary trip and heaven knows we could use the extra sleep.  Although I almost postponed it because Andrew woke-up Monday night before our trip with a fever of 102.6.  It broke after 24 hours so I'm pretty sure it was due to his 1 year vaccinations he had just got on Friday-poor critter.  So we spent 4 nights in Phoenix.  We had a goal to go to all three temples there and made a good effort.  We went to the Gilbert temple Thursday evening after arriving and it is beautiful.  It was a wonderful experience and I could just fill the wait of life being lifted off.  Friday morning we drove out to the Phoenix temple that was barely dedicated the Sunday before we arrived.  It was a fun drive and we enjoyed the session there.  After that session I've set a goal to start family history work in January--I've always had a desire and feel like this blog and my efforts to preserve current family memories is a part of family history, but I want to get to know my ancestors and teach my children about them (it's just a matter of balancing everything right).  We stopped at a local Italian restaurant and enjoyed lunch.  Then we had scheduled massages and enjoyed an evening in watching a movie.  Saturday we decided to go for a hike and although there were good local hikes we wanted to go to Picacho Peak since we have always wanted to that hike while living in Tucson.  Unfortunately as we started to hike I started experience some vertigo and a little headache so we took a break and drank some powerade and ate some snacks which helped, but didn't take care of it completely.  We reached the point called the saddle and although we both wanted to go on, I think we made the right call as to not risk it.  This is not an easy hike--we had just climbed practically straight up the middle of the mountain and if we had continued it had steel cable hand rails take you down about 800 ft before having to pull yourself up hand-over-hand on said steel cable hand rails for another 1500 ft before reaching the top.  

 












Left: a few hundred yards into the hike with this other peak in the background. 
Right: at the saddle with the same peak in the background-quite a ways up.

This is what you had to climb down after reaching the saddle to then turn around and climb to the peak.

The official top of the peak is there to left of Steve.

The saddle is the middle section of the mountain there that dips.  The peak is just under my finger at the top left (I was trying to block the sun from the picture).

We stopped to eat lunch and did some shopping at the outlet malls on the way back to Phoenix.  Then we showered and were ready to go do sealing with family names at the Mesa temple when that headache came back with vengeance causing nausea so I had to lay down and we just had to take it easy the rest of the evening.

Sunday we went to a wonderful sacrament meeting there and decided to stay for the Family History class (because of my above new goal).  It was nice to go to Sunday School with Steve since my current calling does not allow me to.  We really enjoyed our trip and it was a little weird to not have little munchkins waking us up, but it was so nice to come home to them. Thanks to Mimi for watching the kiddos.

I scrambled to unpack and clean the house while preparing for Thanksgiving.  We enjoyed our traditional surf-n-turf Wednesday evening thanks to Venessa and Nate.  Then Thursday we had a lovely day with the whole family.  Grandpa Elwood Olenslager came down with my Dad to spend the weekend with us and they brought some of his old slides.  My favorite part was watching the slides and hearing the stories, which we videoed (see that counts as family history too, right?).  Friday Uncle Mike Olenslager brought his kids and grandkids up to Mountain Green and we enjoyed visiting and watching a few more slides.

When we arrive for surf-n-turf Andrew held out his hands to be held by Grandpa O, he reached back for his blanket and then snuggled into him (he never snuggles--it was a priceless moment).

The kids dressed up as Indians and Lila taught Izzy how to bow down to a queen--they all took turns being queen and doing these dramatic bows, it was so cute.  Andrew of course caused a little havoc as I think the early pilgrims may have done for the Indians.

Lila said meeting Anson was her favorite part of the whole month.

It has been a wonderful weekend and I have so much to be grateful for!  I think my experiences this past week have reminded me of how grateful I am for the gift of the Holy Ghost and how it constantly prompts me in my daily life (as long as I'm striving to do my best) and I feel the guidance of my Father in Heaven in my efforts as a mother, wife, daughter, leader and I know it is because of his guiding power I am able to do and enjoy so much of life. Life is good!

Officially One!

Andrew is officially one--even though Lila said, "He doesn't look different. I don't think he is really one". I cannot believe how fast the last year has gone and how much has happened.  We are so blessed and so grateful for Andrew to be a part of our lives.  He thinks he is so funny and after he performs something for you he looks at you and laughs like, wasn't that so funny.  He can get down off the couch by himself pretty effectively, but still makes me nervous because occasionally he just likes to flop backwards almost going over head first.  He doesn't bother outlets unless there is something plugged in to it and then he unplugs it and tries to plug it back in.  He has the fastest bear crawl in the west, especially when he is trying to chase down his sisters or get into an open bathroom before being noticed.  He can empty a kitchen cupboard in 10 seconds.  And he has the cutest scrunchy face he makes with some heavy breathing that cracks us up.  We made his favorite scrambled eggs for breakfast and the girls gave him a straw sippy cup.

After dinner we gave him a mini cupcake.  At first he gently picked it up, then he licked it, then he remembered what it was and he shoved the whole thing in his mouth.

 




















Then one more present--we saved the one from us.  When I told Steve that I had bought Andrew a Little People castle for his birthday Steve thought it sounded girly.  Then I told him it came with a knight and a dragon and he kind of shrugged and then I mentioned the catapult, at that point he was sold-boys.  

Andrew caught the cold that has been passed around our house so he hasn't been too happy this week, but we still love him!  Happy Birthday my little scallywag!

Thar Be a Party

We decided to celebrate Andrew turning one on Steve's birthday as a joint celebration while Mimi & Grandpa were in town.  We had pirate hat crafts, served baked potatoes and home made chilli.  Then we served cup cakes or pumpkin cheesecake swirled brownies and ice cream.

The kids had a treasure map to follow where at the end they found pirate treasure.  They did great following the map--Steve doubted my map drawing skills, but it was a success.  It was a lovely party, we enjoyed chilling with the Durbanos, Olenslagers, and Mimi & Grandpa.  Andrew then opened presents.  He wasn't quite sure what to do, but enjoyed his gifts once he got to them. :)

Later we went to Dickeys and enjoyed some barbecue food with Mimi and Grandpa.  Andrew also got his first ice cream cone from Grandpa.

He would actually snort the ice cream up his nose because he would just hold it to his face--his faced turned bright red so I took away the ice cream cone and there were screams.  He's getting pretty good at screaming when he doesn't get his way.  Right now he is standing next to me with the desk drawer open grabbing whatever he can pens, hole punch, rubber bands, oh wait you can't have the stapler--screams.  Steve was a trooper sharing his day with Andrew--I don't think we'll do that to often because I do like to make Steve's birthday special.  He did get to go on a bike ride and I did make him a delicious breakfast upon his return before I had to scurry off to the ward baptism.  Arrr! (pirate shout-out) to the two very special men in my life!