Still only 29

Sunday we celebrated Great Grandma Olson's birthday. As you can see she looks great for 29! :). I got the pleasure of making her cake...which you can see I took full advantage of making it very "girly" since most of my cakes are themed around things like batman, race cars, and space aliens. I actually got to break out the pink!

Allie did a superb job with the decorations as always.

Most of the family (minus Scott, Scotty, Dylan, and Amanda's family) Grandma and Grandpa with 2 of their children (Tom and Dawn)

Happy 29th Birthday Grandma Olson...

We Love You!

A Harry Potter Cake???

Last month was Dylan's 9th birthday (yeah..I'm a little behind). We actually had a small get together with just family for some cake and presents a few days before his big bash. Here's cake #1 that I made for him...

So...a while back I guess I told Dylan he could have a slumber party for his birthday and invite a few friends. He immediately decided that it should be a Harry Potter theme party. Dylan has read all 7 books (which is not very normal for an 8 year old) and I had to remind him that most kids at his party would not yet be familiar with Harry Potter but...that did not deter him. He had 5 friends over plus his 2 brothers. So that would be 7 little boys running amuck in my house!!!! For those of you that have been to our house you know that it is very conducive to running laps and that's exactly what they wanted to do the whole time! We had to continually try to break up the madness with games and activities. A few parties back I discovered the best "quiet" activity....I printed some Harry Potter worksheets, word searches, mazes, etc..and they all just sit there like they're in school. It's awesome! (As you can see Dylan's cousin Jake was not too into the worksheet thing) We also had a "pin the glasses on Harry" game, some crafts, and movies in between the running around playing tag, wrestling, etc.. They took a break to open presents... So when Dylan decided he wanted a Harry Potter birthday I thought to myself...how in the world am I going to make a Harry Potter cake??? Dylan offered many suggestions of what I could put on the cake quoting all kinds of foreign words to me that only a Harry Potter fan would know (which I am not!!). I finally just took one of the covers from his books to copy and free handed it. When I was finished I was pretty proud of my creation... Happy 9 years!!! After cake it was time to "STAY IN BED and watch your movie!!!" time. Not an easy task with 7 little boys. I think Jake came into the living room at least half a dozen times after 1o:30pm begging aunt Jo for some more cake.

Well after Mark and I having to get out of bed to tell the boys to be quiet and go to bed at least half a dozen times I think they finally fell asleep about 12:30ish. We finished off the morning with some donuts and of course more running around in circles at high speeds. Thankfully we only ended up with one injury which was Tryg getting knocked down in one of the chase sessions....and he's pretty used to that stuff living with 2 older brothers.

So...I think Mark and I are done with the whole slumber party thing. Don't get me wrong...they were as good as 7 little boys could realistically be...we're just getting too old for this stuff!!!

Just a few things about our little 9 year old...

• He reads huge novels in about the time it takes me to read a few chapters and often gets in trouble at school for reading when he's not supposed to
• He's a total perfectionist (wonder where he gets that one? :))
• He enjoys writing his own comic books and has written some very creative stories
• He's a great big brother...always wrestling, reading to them and putting up with the crazies
• I never have to help him with his homework
• He likes camping, golf, baseball and is becoming a natural at the piano.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DYLAN!!!

What a cool mom

Check out my totally cool race track that I built for the boys in our backyard. I must say...I was feeling like a pretty cool mom :).

This is why we live in California

So it's February 15th, a 3 day weekend, and 82 degrees....gotta love living in So Cal!

We headed down to the San Diego Bay to ride bikes with the kids. Well, we ride and Luke and Tryg get pulled by Dad in the bike trailer. Unfortunately the fam was not complete since Dylan was in Las Vegas with his Dad :(.

First we had to do a little rock throwing with the boys.

It was a gorgeous day!!!

As you can see the kids were ready for their strenuous ride...

So everything was going well. We were cruising along enjoying the scenery and pointing out all the cool boats to the boys. As we approached the USS Midway, Mark slowed down to about a 2 mile per hour crawl as he tried to get the boys attention and point with one hand at the big ship. The rest gets a little fuzzy...I was right behind him and I think the bike trailer kind of clipped this big cement tree planter thing in the sidewalk as Mark sort of fell over the handlebars in a slow motion kind of way. I think my exact words were "oh crap" as I quickly got off to rush to his aid. I found him lying on his back looking a little dazed and confused. Then I noticed the blood dripping from his head! Scary!! Not the kind of thing you want to see! We had a couple bystanders offer to call 911 and one offered a band aid but Mark got up and I quizzed him on what my name was, what year it was, etc.. He gave the right answers so I guess he was okay. We cleaned him up and he wanted to continue with our day so we did. NOTE: no children were harmed in this accident. The bike trailer actually never moved and Luke's comment... "Daddy don't do that!"

Here's a picture of the nice gash in his head....

To fast forward ahead...Mark was feeling some pain in his chest and shoulder and being the loving and concerned wife that I am (and having scary thoughts of him dying in his sleep because of some internal brain injury)...I convinced him to get checked out by a Dr. when we got home. Turns out he got three STAPLES in his head and suffered a BROKEN RIB! This is a guy who used to ride BMX bikes doing all sorts of dangerous tricks and never managed to break a bone and now...this is how he does it! He may have to come up with a better story:) I have a feeling there is a U Tube video out there shot by some tourist featuring Mark's graceful encounter with a tree planter :).

Anyway...back to our beautiful San Diego day...

Next on the agenda...a picnic overlooking the ocean. A little tree climbing. Of course, the day would not be complete without another injury as Tryg was trying to copy his big brother and proceeded to fall out of the tree on to his face! He had a nice scrape/bruise to show for it. Just love this pic.. Then it was on to the promised Merry Go Round ride which they both loved! And....if they didn't cry when it was time to get off of the horsey, they got ice cream. Sooo cute... We managed to ride our bikes back to the car with no additional injuries :) And...as you can see, we had 2 tuckered out little boys. Minus the traumatic incident with Mark's head, it was definitely a day that made us smile and say..."This is why we live in California!"

Happy #2... (and #4)

Yesterday was Tryg's 2nd Birthday. He requested a "Buzz Lightyear" themed party with Lemon Cake of course. Being the good mom that I am....I was happy to oblige :). Okay...maybe he didn't actually ask for those things but I'm pretty sure that's what he wanted.

He had plenty of helpers... Brandon and Melanie get the prize for "favorite present"....a mini buzz lightyear with chopping arm action. Tryg has a way of saying..."to infinity and beyond" in this 2 year old gibberish language. He kind of makes some sounds that resemble "to infinity" and then you hear a clearer version of "AND BEYOND!....whoooosh" So cute! Of course Superman is "BAME" and Luke is "GAGA" who knows how he comes up with those but.... we know what he means :). On to the cake. I was kind of stressed about this one. I know I could just slap some frosting and some sprinkles on his cake and he wouldn't care..but it's just not in me :). Free-handing a Buzz lightyear on top of a cake using nothing but frosting was a bit tougher than I anticipated but I think it turned out okay. At least he knew who it was. Taste testing the frosting.... one of the perks of being the birthday boy.

a close up of my masterpiece....including a little 2 year old's finger :)

Oh how time flies...

Happy Birthday Tryg!