A new tradition

This year we decided to try a new Christmas activity with the boys...decorating gingerbread houses. Grandma and Grandpa came over to do it with us. Here are a few pictures from the fun evening...

The boys LOVED it and each of their houses turned out to be a work of art! I think that it will definitely be a new tradition!

His Favorite Chore

Andrew LOVES to help me with anything around the house. Cooking, washing windows, vaccuming, dusting, making beds, you name it...if we can do it together he loves it. He's a natural worker, it's amazing. But, this is by far his FAVORITE chore...

He actually gets mad if he catches me washing the pans without him. I sure love my big helper!

An attempt at family pictures...

Over Thanksgiving weekend my brother Danny blessed their new baby so the whole family (except Elder Jon O) was together for the occasion. That doesn't happen often, so we of course had to try for a family picture. Here's the best attempt...

While we were at it, I thought we'd try for one of just our family, you know for Christmas cards maybe? Well, the kids were not cooperative and it was way too cold to try for very long, so this is what we got. Oh, and the Christmas cards never happened :-)

And, just because she's cute, I thought I'd throw these in!

Sledding with the cousins

Over Thanksgiving break Joe took the boys sledding with my brother Rob and his kids. They had so much fun! They went up in the mountains to some friends' property, so they were the only ones there. I heard all the exciting stories when they got home!

Here is Sam with his cousin (and best buddy) Ela...

This is my favorite series of pictures, I love their faces as they get going faster down the hill...

Abby's Birthday...only two months late!

I know these pictures are way overdue, but for the sake of keeping up on our "family journal" I'm going to do my best to catch up!


We celebrated Abby's 1st birthday a couple of days late after Joe got back from a business trip (shh, don't tell her!) We had family over for dinner and then presents/cake/ice cream. Abby didn't actually get a chance to open many of her own presents because her brothers were both so eager to "help" her. She got lots of cute and fun stuff.

This is the new coat and walker that she got from Grandma Olson...Here's the cake. It was pretty simple, but I thought it turned out pretty cute! I made a separate smash cake that was just for her!
Of course, every first birthday has to have messy cake pictures, right? Well, no one told Abby that she was supposed make a mess... ...she didn't want to have anything to do with that cake! I even pulled out a spoon to try and get her taste it......but she was so not interested! I was determined, though, that I would have messy cake pictures!!! So, I kept trying to get her to try it......until it made her cry. :-(
"Give up Mom, I'm not eating that stuff!"Meanwhile, the "big kids" are testing out her new toys.Once we got her down, she went straight to what she really wanted to be doing on her birthday...playing with boxes!
I was pretty disappointed that she wouldn't touch her cake. So, I did what every dedicated mom would do, I gave it to her for breakfast! :-) No really, I did...

...and this time she gave it a chance!

Yay!!! for messy face pictures!

Mission Accomplished :-)