Happy St. Nicholas Day!

Tonight we read The Baker's Dozen (Look at that price on Amazon!! We just got our copy at the library) and then we made these cinnamon ornaments. They are amazingly strong scented, I think I am a little light headed as I sit a few feet away from them right now. I am anxious to see if they stay together after drying overnight.

Malachi and our friends' kids that are staying with us all put their shoes out tonight for their big surprise in the morning!

Our Garden Pictures

Newspaper...
Blood meal and bone meal...
Alfalfa...
Straw...
Compost...

I will post more when we see sprouting plants. I hope we see things, I just found Rafiki sprawled out in the garden...we may need to put something around it to prevent that. :)

Advent Pictures

Advent Calendar...filled with fun activities to do each day.Advent Wreath...to light each Sunday. I still need to get a rose colored candle to switch out one of the purple ones, or maybe I won't get around to that.

Jesse Tree...despite the strained look on Malachi's face, he is thoroughly enjoying this. :)

37 Years!

It is Kurtis' birthday today. Thank you Lord for blessing him with 37 years! I pray for many, many more years to come.

Thank you for being an amazing husband and father. I couldn't imagine a better best friend or soul mate. I love you! Happy Birthday!

What were you thinking??!!

Today, Malachi was sitting on his potty. He tends to sit for a while when he needs to go number 2 :). He was in there for a while but I had this feeling something was amiss so I decided to check on him.

I walked into the bathroom and noticed he had a washcloth in his hand that was clearly wet and he was sucking on it. I didn't recall hearing a faucet running so I asked him how he got the washcloth wet. And, yes, he had soaked it in the toilet water. That's my son, a toilet water drinker. :) Of course I proceeded to ask him, "What were you thinking??" but the only response I got was, "Because I like it." Oh, the mind of a two year old boy.

Tonight he threw up a little and had some loose problems on the other end which I was somewhat grateful for. I have no idea if it is related to the contaminated water he drank but it was a great object lesson for why NOT to drink water from a toilet...even when it looks clean!

Advent Festivities

We are having a wonderful time celebrating the season of Advent. We have our Advent Wreath, our Jesse Tree and the Advent Calendar. Last year we had little chocolates in the calendar. This year I have written activities to do each day. Well, if I must tell the truth, I have not actually filled out each piece of paper yet I am kind of doing it as we go. However, The Crafty Crow is revisting her Advent activities she posted on her other site Bella Dia last year. Go here to see the list in it's entirety. I definitely want to do that next year. Maybe not all the same books but she sure has some great ideas.

Garden, Tree and Herpangina...8 months old

So there is a lot going on at the Olson home. This weekend we finally put in our garden. I have been wanting to have one for a while now and since Kurtis has not been working on the weekends lately we have been able to get a lot of projects done at the house and that was one of them.

We went 'organic' and did this crazy layering method that we read about in this article. Well, in all honesty I don't know if it is all that crazy, maybe this is how all of our friends do their gardens and I just am clueless. Anyhow, we layered newspaper, blood meal, bone meal, alfalfa, straw and compost. I have some great photos of the process but I can't find the cord to hook up my camera to the computer right now so you'll have to imagine it until I find the cord. Then we planted broccoli, bell peppers, green onion, spinach, lettuce, carrots and radishes. We also planted a different section with some herbs. It will be so interesting to see what we get especially considering Malachi helped with the planting. :)

Advent started yesterday and we lit the first candle in our Advent wreath (which Kurtis made and did a fabulous job at I might add). Then today Malachi and I put together our Jesse tree and tonight we read the story of creation and hung our first ornament. Again, I would love to post a picture but... I have not completed all the ornaments so now I have the fire under my bum to make sure I stay at least one step ahead.

Today I took Zoe to the doctor and found out she has herpangina, it's also called hand, foot, mouth disease but I like how 'herpangina' sounds. :) She had a fever for a couple days, it even got as high as 103.9 but now that seems to be subsiding and the pain of the little sores in her mouth seem to be bothering her. Hopefully she will get over it soon and the 4 other children that are in our house right now will not get it from her.

I also cannot fail to mention that our beautiful Zoe is 8 months old. I have to admit I actually scheduled her doctors appointment today a while ago because I was not thinking and figured it was necessary for her 8 month well baby...ya, no, that would be the 9 month well baby. So I was a month early :), I only felt a little dumb, I seem to be having more and more blonde moments as I get older. And speaking of getting older...Kurtis is turning 37 on Thursday!

Well, sorry about the lack of photos. Maybe I will find that cord and post them at a later date. I
think I will sign off for now and go sew some more ornaments next to the fire in our "hick pit".