Goodbye and HELLO!

For those of you that take the time to share in our memories...

We can now be followed at:

www.julieandjoelolsen.com

All of our current and past posts are now there.

Wordpress seems to be a bit easier with the uploading of pictures and exporting to our annual blogbook. You can become a follower and even get emailed posts.

Thank you again for reading about our family. We love sharing updates on the little munchkins and all the eventful parts of our adventures in parenthood.

Snow Day

It has finally come... our first snow day of the season. I woke Bennett up this morning just so that I could be there when he opened his eyes and they peered out his window into a winter wonderland. It was totally worth it when his bright eyes shot open and he yelled " Look Mom! It is Christmas MAGIC!" it was darling.

After a morning at Bennett's last day of school before break where he got to wear his pajamas to school (very exciting in a preschooler mind), we played in the snow and made cookies.

After making Grandma's famous ginger cookies we packed up and went into Daddy's work to spread the Christmas Magic Cheer. When I was dressing his little sister Bennett used a few minutes when mom was distracted to "draw a mustache just like daddy's" on his face with a non-washable marker. Awesome... so I packed him up anyway and I think it added to his cuteness as he went around to every office at Dads work in his pirate pajamas, rubber boots and drawn on beard yelling "want some cookies? I made them, they are ginger snaps! Merry Christmas!"

There is only so many occasions you can wear a magic marker beard and I must say Bennett rocked it today :)

Sadly we had to scrub it off later in bath time. I love that they can bathe together now, Bennett on the other hand is not so much a fan of his sister messing up his tractor and painting fun and I am sure he will dislike these pictures years from now even more ;)

 Both kids totally entertained...

 such a helper...

 This is the condition of our master bath jet tub... gotta love these little ones...

 Bennett helping me rinse... Dont worry she really liked it :)

Annie at Ten Months

I can not believe how much my little girl has grown up lately and that she is 10 months old!

I could gush about how amazing she is all day long but I will try to keep it short and sweet (kinda like my little girl haha)

She has some amazing speed lately and buzzes around us all day long. She pulls herself up on stuff and cruises like crazy, She will stand next to something for a couple seconds but thankfully is a bit more cautious about taking steps.

She is a talker and a smiler. She thinks everyone is always talking about her and she can easily get on her brother's nerves and giggle about it already. I actually hear lots of "mom! Annie is laughing at me!" or "mom! Annie is making fun of me" secretly I think she actually does it to drive him nuts but you cant get mad at her sweet little face.

She loves eating bananas and sweet potatoes (see below) and is finally starting to hold her bottle (yes this little princess just likes it better when mom holds it :)

She is great about being carted all over town following her brother to school a couple times a week or hitting Costco. She rocks those cute piggies and she draws a lot of oohhhs and aaahhhs of her adorableness :)

I love this girl and love what she adds to our little family. This season has been so fun watching Bennett learn about the magic of the season and knowing what is to come as Annie grows the next few years. We have so much to be thankful for!

Just in case you were wondering how those littel piggies look after they get pulled out :)

Annie and Grandma enjoying her first Pasta... what a lucky girl to get Home Made Aunt Katie Pasta! YUM!

I think she likes it :)

 Grandpa letting annie taste some sweet frosting... Pretty sure she was excited! OK now no more until her Birthday :)

Christmas Traditions Continued

This year I have made a pretty good attempt at getting all the shopping, wrapping and running around done early. I have loved looking at all our wrapped presents under the tree since the first of the month (and mostly just chasing Annie around the tree keeping her from unwrapping any more)

So this week has been officially dedicated to everything Christmas fun for me and Bennett. All those things that I swear I am going to do but never get around to during the busy holiday season... but this year he has loved so much about Christmas so I knew it was our year to dive into more traditions from when I was little.

We headed down to Grandma Jones' on friday morning and Bennett was so excited to play with the "magic Christmas Playdough that turns into candy" or our Christmas Taffy pull! The recipe wasnt perfect but he got the right idea and loved it.

Then on Saturday night we poured some hot chocolate (and some hot spiced wine for mom and dad) and popped a ton of dry popcorn. I got out some fishing line and Bennett and I worked on Popcorn chains for hours. He obviously loved the fact that he could eat as much popcorn as he wanted the most. We put them up on the tree and he was so proud. I bet next year they will be twice as long!

 Happy second birthday Cash Man!

Polar Express 2012

Tis the season for another fun and busy trip to the North Pole via the Polar Express!

We had such a great time last year we knew we would want to get those golden tickets again! Bennett loves this story and experiencing it first hand is even more magical.

We set off with around 35 family members all in one car of this special train and the kids loved listening to the story, drinking hot choclate, eating the cookies and especially meeting Santa himself!

Bennett was in an exceptionally mischevious state that kept his Mom and Dad busy the whole night chasing a little boy with a mouth full of cookies the rest of the family kept feeding him... tis the season I guess :)

We finished the night off at Teri and Denny's house with a white elephant gift exchange cocktails and lots of laughs with the family!

Another magical year with our special family! Love you all!

Oh Olsen Christmas Tree

Once again we have spent another wedding anniversary (SIX YEARS!!) trudging around in rubber boots, eating candy canes and searching for the perfect Christmas Tree. This year there was a bit of an intense search due to the pouring freezing rain. But in the end we found a beautiful tree and had a blast doing it. Just as both Joel and I were gearing up to heave this enormous tree the 100 yards to our truck which is usually when Joel starts getting annoyed that we cant just get a normal sized tree and out of nowhere these two young men come out of the clearing and offer some help! It was perfect!

We got it home and after some more heaving to get it through our front door we started in on the decorating with the kiddos help (or lack there of) as we blasted some Mariah Carey Christmas Pandora. We went out for Pizza that night to celebrate the Anniversary and it was just a good day all around with the family. It is hard to get these days with just the four of us this time of year and today was a great one.