All About Ashlyn

Things have been really slow for us here at the Olson residence, and I really haven't had tons to blog about. So I thought, why not do a random blog about my sweet little girl... So here is a blog all about Miss Ashlyn Jade...

Ashlyn Jade is pretty much what you would call a "tomboy". This picture above is from when I "forced" her to do some modeling for me. I personally think she is a gorgeous little girl, and would love her to be a little princess, but in the end, she is just a rough little girl at heart. Here is a picture taken at the same "photo shoot" wearing what she wanted, and acting the way she wanted...

I really can't blame her for the way she is. She is the only girl in her family with a big brother that she admires, and a little brother whom she adores. She has always wanted to do everything that Blake does, and has followed in his footsteps. (And lets be honest, her mother isn't much of a girly girl either, so she really doesn't stand a chance in that department.) Her most recent thing that she has aspired to do is play soccer. She was so excited when I signed her up, and even more excited when we got to pick up her soccer uniform. The whole week after we got it, she would change into it any chance she got, and would wear it around as long as I would let her. She is the only girl on her team, and that doesn't bother her a bit. She is loving playing, and asks me everyday if she has soccer that day. And let me just say, she is the cutest little soccer player I have ever seen...

Its too early to tell if she is going to be any good at it or not, but I have a pretty good feeling she will be. Plus she seems to be a really fast runner. Next on the list for her is t-ball, and if she is anything like her mom, this will probably be her favorite.

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Now, while she is very much a tomboy, she luckily has given me a little bit of girly stuff to watch her do. She is still involved in dance, and though I have a feeling she might decide to make this her last year, we are enjoying watching her while we can. When she first started dance last year, she was actually pretty good and took her classes very seriously. Now that she is in her second year, and the year is coming to an end, she is starting to show signs of uninterest. She does a really good job when she actually tries, but for the most part she just goofs off and tries to be silly....

Here is Ashlyn with one of her newest friends Kinley. This was taken right before one of her performances.

And here she is with her group of dance friends.

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Ashlyn really is a sweet little girl when she wants to be. She absolutely loves her little brother, and would do anything for him. (Even if it means giving him her last bite of her favorite treat.) She loves to share with him and make him happy. She also loves her big brother. Even when he is being mean to her, she will do whatever she can to please him. She really loves her mom, and I dread the day when she decides she doesn't want to be friends anymore. (hopefully that day never comes!) And she has a soft spot for her dad. (though, I'm happy to say that I am still her favorite.)

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One of the things that has been on her mind lately is who she is going to marry. She always asks me who I think she will marry, and I always tell her she probably hasn't met him yet. Then she will go through the list of all of the little boys she knows, and asks me what her last name will be if she marries (blank). I think it is pretty cute. What's even cuter is, is that she pretty much has her mind made up who she is going to marry. (And that is Blake's best friend Dallin.) (Sorry Ashley! Looks like for the time being Dallin doesn't get a say in the matter!!) She always asks me what Dallin's last name is, and then giggles when I tell her. I think she has a little crush!

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One thing about Ashlyn that drives me CRAZY, is her eating habits. If I cook it, she doesn't like it. If she has been playing outside, and walks in to see me cooking, the very first thing she says is, "I am not eating that!!!!!!" Even though she has absolutely no idea what I am even making. And when she sits down to eat, her mind is already made up that she isn't going to like it, and refuses to eat. We will try to make her take bites, and when we do manage to get some in her mouth, she immediately starts gagging and has to run to the garbage to spit it out. UGH!!! I have never claimed to be a good cook, but come on, what little kid doesn't like spaghetti???

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My little girl is getting so big. She will start kindergarten this fall and is really excited. I must admit, I am a little nervous for her. When Blake started I wasn't nervous at all, he has always been so independent, I knew he would be fine.  But my sweet little baby girl is going!!! Its just going to be weird. She has always been the little one, and Blake has always been the big one, its just weird for her to be big enough to go to school. I know she will be fine though.

Here's one last picture I wanted to throw in. I just think her true personality shows through this picture... and if I would allow her to dress silly like this everyday, I think she would!

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I just love my little Ashlyn and am happy that she is the person she is, and I wouldn't want her to change for anyone.

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Here is a list of some of Ashlyn's favorites:

Food: Mac and Cheese, chicken nuggets, carrots, peanuts, sandwiches, and pancakes.

Things to do: Play wii, ride her bike, ride her 4 wheeler, play with her friends, and go to church

Best friends: Blake, Damon, Hailee, Ellie, and Kinley

Damon's Freak Accident

Here's sweet little Damon. He is just over 16 months old now. He is walking around, and in the stage where he likes to get into everything. Well, now that it is starting to warm up a little bit, his new favorite thing is to be outside. So yesterday, when it was time for Blake to get home from school, I decided I would take the kids for a walk down to the bus stop to wait for Blake's bus to arrive.  It was a nice day, and I was chatting with Mindy (one of the other mom's at the bus stop), while Damon was enjoying walking around in some weeds that are along side of the road. Suddenly I hear Damon start to cry, and when I look over I see this...

sticking out of Damon's nose!

Damon had fallen, and landed just right, so that this stick went up his nose. My first reaction was confusion. I thought, "Is that stick really hanging out of his nose?" My next thought was, "Oh my goodness, there is a stick hanging out of Damon's nose!"

So I run over to him and start to take it out, thinking that it probably just poked into his nose a little bit. But to my horror, as I pull on it, it doesn't just come out quickly, it had gone up his nose anywhere from an inch and a half to two inches. So here are a couple of pictures so that you really get the full visual of what took place...

Here is a comparison as to about how big this stick is. This is just a regular size butter knife next to the stick.

(This is not the actual stick. Mindy and I searched for the other stick, but couldn't find it. The actual stick had blood on it. This one is very close to the size of the actual stick, but the actual stick may have been a little bit bigger.)

Here is the size of Damon's little nose.

From the top of the stick, to where my fingers cut it off, is approximately how far the stick went in.

And here is the little nose next to the now huge looking stick!

I was HORRIFIED! And I am pretty sure Mindy was too. I scooped Damon up in my arms, and ran him home as quickly as I could while he screamed into my ear. Once I got him home, I immediately called Terry at work to ask him what I should do. We decided that I needed to first try to calm him down so that I could figure out if he was actually injured or not. Once he was over the initial crying, he pretty much turned right back into being his normal self. His nose never really "gushed" blood. After pulling the stick out, his nose only bled like a normal kind of nose bleed. And throughout the day a little bit of watery blood would come out. But other than that he seemed just fine. He was a little extra fussy throughout the rest of the day, but really, who wouldn't be after having a stick shoved up their nose. In the end I think we got VERY lucky. He seems to be doing just fine today, and his nose isn't bleeding anymore. I CRINGE thinking back about it, but at the time, I think I just jumped into "super mom mode" and took care of the situation. I was really more sick about it last night, than I was at the time of it happening. But I just can't help thinking how luck we are that it didn't turn out worse. Could you imagine if it had hit his eye!!! I'm cringing just thinking about it! Anyway, I am happy to report that he is alive and doing well.
Here is a picture I took of him this morning admiring his little gun...

I sure do love my little guy!!

Indiana Jones turned 7!!

So if you remember, last year for Ashlyn's birthday I went "all out" and threw her a really cute tea party for her birthday. Well this year it was Blake's turn for a "thought-out" birthday party. I asked Blake what theme he wanted it to be, and with no hesitation he chose Indiana Jones. I thought, "this should be a piece of cake!" Boy was I wrong. Its been a few years since the most recent Indiana Jones movie came out, so it was IMPOSSIBLE to find anything Indiana Jones. I spent a whole week going from store to store looking for things I could use for the party. In the end, I had to make pretty much everything I used. So below are pictures from the party and descriptions of all the work that was put into it...

First off, is the Indiana Jones gear...

Blake's Indy hat in the picture above was something I bought from Michaels a couple of years ago, but I really wanted the kids at his party to have a hat to wear as well. So I searched and searched until I finally found some green St. Patricks Day hats at the dollar store, and with a little bit of brown spray paint I transformed them into Indiana Jones hats...

Here's the whole group of them wearing their hats...

(Ellie, Hailee, Ashlyn, Max, Charlie, Haydn, Blake, Levi, Shawn, Dallin, and Connor)

Then comes Indy's whip. Once again I came up with nothing at the stores, so I found some cheap rope at the dollar store and made my own. First I made a loop by the hand grip, then I braided it and left some unbraided pieces at the end. Then once again took some brown spray paint and painted it to look like leather. Here's a picture of it...

Blake was SO excited for the whip. The entire week before his party he begged me to play with it, but I made him wait because I wanted it to be special on his birthday.

And of course you have to complete the outfit with the little side bag that Indy always wears. So I found an old handbag of mine in the basement and and old belt/tie thing that came on one of my skirts, and WALLA, you have Indiana's little bag...

Next comes the party games...

I made the game kind of like a scavenger or treasure hunt. First I read them the introduction to the game...

1st clue...

Here are some pics of the Archeology Dig. I hid the next clue in it for them to find, along with some snakes and "treasures".

(Bins filled with rice, plastic snakes from the dollar store, candy rings, bracelets, and golden coins.)

3rd and final clue...

Here the kids had to dig into the different "yucky dishes" to find the golden idols. First one was "eyeball soup", which was a bowl of grapes in water. The next was "monkey brains", which was cold spagetti noodles, and the last was "snake guts", which was green jello. The "golden idols" that they found were these...

(Army men that I spray painted gold. We already had these so all that it cost me was a can of gold spray paint.)

I also had a pinata for the party.(Something Blake requested.)

I couldn't find an Indiana Jones one, so I just got a treasure chest to represent "The Lost Arch".

The kids each got 2 or 3 tries to break it, but in the end the birthday boy was the one to smash it open. GO BLAKE!

Last, but definately not least, was the birthday cake...

This was by far the biggest stress of the party planning. First I just made a regular 9x13 cake. Plopped it on a board and frosted it. For the cave and boulder, I first made rice krispy treats, and formed them into the shapes I wanted. (the cave was threatening to cave in!) I frosted them the colors I wanted by just taking cream cheese frosting and adding food coloring until I came up with the color I wanted. And the rocks you see on the cave and randomly on the cake, are just these chocolate rock candies that I found in the bulk candy section at Winco. But the biggest problem about this cake was finding and Indiana Jones figurine to put on it...

So now that you see a closeup, you can probably tell that this in not Indy at all. I finally had to deal with the fact that I wasn't going to find him anywhere, so I took one of Blake's Obi Wan Kenobi action figures (from Star Wars), made him a hat out of paper, and a whip out of brown thread, and there you have it... Indiana Jones!!

Blake and his friends LOVED the party!! I'm glad they had a good time, cause it was alot of work on my part. Here are a couple more pictures I wanted to add...

Blake's Grandpa showed up for the party also dressed like Indiana Jones.

And I couldn't leave out this GREAT reaction to one of his presents!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BIG GUY! WE LOVE YOU!

Here is Blake's "famous" Flo Rida dance. (Try not to judge me for letting my kids listen to this kind of music.... it just happens to be one of our favorite songs to dance to!) He dances just like his dad!

There are some good times too...

So lately I feel like all I have done is complain about my kids. I'm sure all of my friends think I am a terrible mother who doesn't love my kids, cause all they ever hear about are the negative things that happen, and how I just need a break from them. Well, I figured it was time that I brag about the good things that happen around here, cause believe it or not, there are some good times too...

Like this morning, Ashlyn and Damon were playing a game where they would run from one side of the kitchen to the other, and when they would get to a wall they would crash into it. Well, for Damon's sake, Ashlyn was pretending to run as fast and hard as she could, while really barely running at all, just so that Damon would think he was faster than she was. In all reality, Damon couldn't care less about winning a race, but that isn't the point. In Ashlyn's mind, winning is EVERYTHING, but she was willing to lose just cause she wanted to make her baby brother happy.

And just a few minutes ago, while Blake was playing Wii with a couple of his friends, Damon started screaming for no apparent reason, and Blake chose to pause his game to go kiss and comfort Damon.

And I'm sure most of you have heard me complain about how Damon empties out all the kitchen drawers like 10 times a day, well the part that I never mention is how happy he gets to clean it all up while looking at me for smiles and approvals. He might not put things back where they belong, and he might empty it back out as soon as he picks them up, but it melts my heart how happy he gets when he thinks he is helping me out by "cleaning" it up for me.

And nothing cheers me up more than the "dance parties" that me and the kids have. We blast the music up high or turn on our "Just Dance" Wii game and all dance. It is so much fun and pretty darn funny (videos to come on a later post!) to watch my kids, including Damon, dance all crazy!

So you see, we do have some good times around here too, even if you don't hear about them that often, CAUSE MAN I NEED A BREAK FROM THESE KIDS! :)

Blake's Basketball Video

Here is a video of Blake's last basketball game of 2010-2011. Try to ignore the annoying voice in the background and try not to get nauseous from the shaky video!

Christmas 2010

We had a very low-key, but wonderful Christmas this year.

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To start it off, on Christmas Eve we had Terry's parents come down and join us at the Paramount to see the movie "Mastermind". Blake has been wanting to see it and it turned out really cute. I would recommend it. After the movie we had them come over for a small dinner of "Super Bowl" food. (Super Bowl food just means the kind of food you would have at a Super Bowl party: You know, like lil smokies, and little sandwiches, and chips and dip. Things like that. Anyway...) We also played some cards with them... something we always do when we get together with them. At the end of the night we let the kids open one present, which is always jammies.

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Then on Christmas morning the kids woke us up at 8, and we went downstairs to see what Santa brought. Here are the kids showing off a few of their presents...

Here the two big kids are playing Wii in their brand new Snuggies.

(Yes my kids wanted Snuggies for Christmas!)

It was really funny... Ashlyn unwrapped her Snuggie first, and when Blake saw it he was really jealous. So as he was unwrapping his other presents,he was quietly saying to himself, "Please be a Snuggie, Please be a Snuggie!" Lets just say he was pretty excited when he finally opened his! (Yes, my kids are nerds! Don't be hattin!)

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After opening presents and playing with them for a few hours, we slowly made our way over to Terry's parents' house for a yummy Christmas dinner. It was very relaxing and nice to not have to travel for the holiday!

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Here are a few of our favorite things we got for Christmas this year:

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Damon: A ride on toy, a car ramp with little cars, and a baby swing to hook up to our swingset,

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Ashlyn: A dog purse, a Mp3 player, electric keyboard, Zhu Zhu pets with a habitat, and Wii games.

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Blake: Electric drum set, Mp3 player, huge star war lego kit, remote control car, and Wii games.

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Aubrey: Kitchen stereo that connects to my Mp3 player, books, Just Dance 2 Wii game.

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Terry: Blu Ray player, flat screen t.v., wrench, Wii games.

(Terry took back one of his main gifts. The Blu Ray and t.v. were family gifts but I had to list it on Terry so you didn't feel too sorry for him!)

We hope you had a wonderful Christmas!