Valentine's Day Revisited

We walked by a lonely heart-shaped balloon on Valentine's Day. Someone left a message on it: Love is in the air! It was a wet, cold day and I wasn't really feeling the love on Stanford's campus. Is there something about Mormons and dressing up, decorating, and really getting into holidays? I seem to remember people making a big to-do about Valentine's Day at BYU. Maybe that's just because BYU is full of love-crazed singles and sickeningly sweet newlyweds. I digress.

Will and I donned our rain boots for a morning walk to school with Britton. It was very romantic. I felt really scrubby and hoped we wouldn't run into anyone I knew. Luckily Stanford has a large, sprawling campus and a small student population so running into someone you know isn't very likely. Elliot slept in the plastic-covered stroller for the whole trip.
Will was pretty disappointed that he couldn't really go to school with Daddy. I told him that it was just a bunch of boring computers and nerds inside, but he was still really mad. Splashing in some puddles on the way home helped him feel better. By the time lunch came around he was much happier.
He likes to ride this rusty, old scooter which he affectionately calls "my skateboard". There's no rubber grips on the handlebar so I'm afraid someday he'll accidentally fall on it and impale himself. But he loves it.
He got out the Valentine's pillowcase Nana just made for him, and had a quick picnic by the playground. PB&J with oranges is the default lunch around here.
I felt bad asking someone to babysit for us on the actual Valentine's Day so we waited until Wednesday night when Britton's little bro Derek volunteered to babysit for us. He took both boys and did a great job. He actually got engaged on V Day! A DD devoted post is soon to come.

I was craving seafood so we went to the local Fish Market restaurant and enjoyed some prawns, clam chowder, and spicy tuna rolls. Then we headed to Borders to browse and pick out some books for ourselves. You can see our personalities in our book choices. It was a low-key night, but a treat considering we haven't spent much time as a couple at least since Elliot came along. Hope you all had a fun V Day too.

Part-time Job

Apparently there was an opening for neighborhood sprinkler inspector and Will heard about it. I've never seen such dilligence in a part-time summer employee before! Except maybe for Britton's stint as a pool boy. Will knows each sprinkler at the Olson's house, and knows which ones need to be pushed back down each day. He also knows his route around the neighborhood and which sprinklers usually require his attention. He even volunteers to check the sprinklers outside of each store we visit in town. The only thing better than pushing down rebellious sprinklers is of course, running through them on a hot day. A cold morning is also acceptable.

Happy Birthday to ME!

Meet Will 2.0. He's faster, smarter, funnier, and better dressed. This year he was completely aware that it was his birthday. He would sing, "Happy birthday to ME!" to anyone who asked. He can also tell you how old he is, but can't tell you his name anymore. If you ask his name he'll tell you, "I'm two!"
This year we stretched out his birthday into two days. We opened presents on his actual birthday and then had a party with cake and ice cream the next day. It was hilarious to see the different reaction to opening the toy presents vs. the clothes presents.



Grandma and Tia were in attendance at Will and Alex's party along with a family from church that we're all friends with.


We decided that Alex and Will might share a birthday, but they don't have to share a cake this year. We made sport-themed cupcakes for Alex representing each sport he plays. His favorite is now tennis! Surprisingly the tennis cupcakes were the only ones eaten. I guess people were afraid of the black frosting.

For Will we designed a Lightening McQueen cake! It was really fun to make, but not the best quality cake I've even made. It included a chocolate cake mix from a box, three Twinkies, two blue M&M's, waxy chocolate-covered donuts, and a whole lot of frosting. But it sure was cute and eaten very quickly. Will was a little sad to see it disappear so fast.

Little Rockstar

There's so many fun things to play with at this house!

We're Ready

The past couple months I've been watching another baby part-time. It's been great to have another little person around, and Will has loved it more that I anticipated! He gets so excited every time he sees the baby and even though it seems like they wouldn't have much to do together, Will has found plenty of activities to do with the baby.
Here Will wishes that the co-sleeper was a bunk bed. This game doesn't go on very long, or the baby would never sleep.
Here's Will and his buddy doing some ninja tummy time together.
Will, who hardly used a pacifier as a baby, dug up a pacifier and spends some quality paci time with the baby.
Hopefully his love for babies will continue because Will is going to have his own little baby to play with ALL the time! Come November-ish, another little guy/girl will join the Olson clan. It's still quite a ways away so hopefully Britton and I will be ready for number two by then too.

Slice Like a Ninja

I walk in the front door one day to find myself ambushed by ninjas!



Britton gets so creative when I'm gone:) Now it's a regular thing to dress up as a ninja (or as Will says, "jinja") with my hair bands and run around kicking and making sound effects. We also use ninja sounds when we cut our food with knives.

Keeping Track

Now that Will is talking and understanding so much I need to find a way to keep track of all the cute/funny things he does. Until I find a better way, this blog will do. :)

Yesterday I said to Will "You want to be potty trained?"
Will got up very excitedly and put his train in the potty.

EVERY morning we take Will downstairs, get him some milk, and then get him something to eat.
One morning he woke up and the first word out of his mouth was, "Juice!" As soon as he got downstairs he said, "Watch TV".
Is that how it's going to be now Will? He knows what he wants!

This is how Will asks for help. VERY loudly and several times in a row. I love it. Except for when it's annoying. But someday he'll say it the boring, normal way and I'll be glad I have this video.

Weekend with Rachel II

Most of my posts are about 1-2 weeks after the actual event, but at least I'm consistent.

My friend from high school happened to be in the bay area again so we invited her to stay with us another weekend. This time I scheduled garage sale shopping, a train ride in a beautiful park, and some beach time at Half Moon Bay.

Will's current obsession is trains. Specifically, Thomas and friends. I think Thomas, Percy, Gordon, or Emily make it into every other phrase he spits out. Thanks to this TV show, he can say things like, "shunting trucks" and "engine shed". He also picked up "cheeky" and "bother" which is really cute to hear.
So I've been looking for trains in the area he can ride. I found a small train ride in Los Gatos (30 min drive for us) at Vasona Park. The best part is it's only $2 per ride! (I found another train in the Santa Cruz mountains that was more like $22 per ride.) They also have a carousel for $2.

We had a beautiful walk through the park after the train and carousel shut down.
There were baby geese! I can't help squealing with joy when I'm around baby geese/ducks. They're just so adorable I could watch them for hours.
We stopped at a wonderful Mexican restaurant in Los Gatos called Las Esquina (The Corner). We watched a cute Mexican grandma make our tortillas from scratch...yummm! It was so fresh.

Once again, I didn't take ANY pictures so I'm completely relying on Rachel's pictures and she, understandably, hardly takes pictures of herself. Here's some from our trip to Half Moon Bay.
The flowers below are called Ice Plants! I never would have guessed, but I love seeing these flowers. I learned the name of many plants while Rachel was here. I really admire her passion for gardening and nature. She even planted some flowers in my patio when I wasn't looking! I'm trying to make sure Will doesn't destroy them.
The highlight for Will was running after the many dogs and horses on the beach.
It was a beautiful, fun weekend, and well photographed thanks to Rachel.

Overcome Fear of Slides...Check!

Will was never very interested in going down slides for some reason. It's not like he's had some really traumatic experience where his mom sends him down a dark tunnel of doom and he comes out head first screaming into Daddy's arms. But if he ever did have an experience like that, I'm sure the mom had no idea it was a slide meant for older kids.
Well, the point is, he's overcome whatever fear of slides he had before and is loving them now.

Prince Charming

We had a tea party activity with our courtyard last week. (I had many a memorable tea party as a kid. They were more sugar than tea, and they got pretty wild.) Kids were encouraged to dress up so I did what I could with Will's clothes and helped him look smashing for the tea party. One of the little girls actually said "We're all princesses, and Will is our prince!"
It can't be helped. Will is surrounded by girls! Pretty much all the kids that go out to the playground are girls. He recently started greeting them all with hugs. He used to give the little girl below lonnnnng hugs. It was so cute, but then she moved back to Canada. 'sniff'
Luckily, the girls aren't all about tea parties. They like to get messy too. Here's Will splashing around in puddles with one of his favorite neighbors.

Obsessions

It's so funny to watch Will go through phases. He becomes completely obsessed with some toy (usually car/truck) and won't let anything come between him and that object for a few days or weeks...until suddenly he moves on to the next obsession.
Here is a good example of an obsession with a truck. He was immediately attached to this truck and luckily its former owner was about to trash it. He refused to put it down even though it's really heavy and awkward. It was hard to get him to eat sometimes because this huge truck wouldn't fit in the high chair with him.
This little remote control car fits into the palm of your hand. It has these tiny wheels that have all been lost or damaged. This was one of Britton's birthday presents, but Will took such a sudden, severe interest in it it didn't last too long. At first it was cute to hear him say "Get it! Get it!" as he chased it around. But there was no way to distract him from it. He knew exactly where we hid it and was so persistent in asking for it and throwing tantrums until he was holding it again. For about a week he took it everywhere.





No more fake cars. Will needs the real deal now. He can spend an hour "driving" unless it's too hot and I worry and drag him inside screaming to make him drink water.

Rachel's Visit

I love it when old friends come to visit! It's like part of me has been forgotten, and then suddenly comes back to life while they're around. Rachel and I have been friends since middle school. We used to tell people we were the same but different. I'm still not really sure what that means but I think we were trying to tell people we were happy to have a friend we shared so much with, but we also had differences and that was OK. I'm lucky that she has business trips in this area because I never seem to make it over to Boston.
Rachel almost always has her camera out so I hardly ever take pictures while she's visiting. So I'm using all her pictures for this post. She took a LOT of pictures and I can't help but share a LOT of them with you.







We did other stuff besides playing with Will. In fact, I think I planned so much stuff we were all exhausted by the time Rachel left for her conference.
First I took her for a quick walk up to "the dish". We just walked up the first hill of this nearby trail to get an amazing view across the bay, the Santa Clara valley, and the small mountain range between us and the ocean.
I can't believe how green everything is right now. It was a wonderful way to start the day.

Later we met up with another friend of mine and went out for Crepes. Yumm! We went to Crepes Cafe in Menlo Park and I still dream about the caramelized apple crepe. The apples were swimming in butter and I think Julia Childs would have approved.We also went to the Stanford Cantor Arts Center.

My favorite was the Asian art section. Will can say Buddha now. Ashley and Rachel held Will a lot during our trip which was so nice for me. My arms are getting a little too buff lately.
And Rachel came to church with us on Sunday and graciously helped entertain and comfort the little kids in nursery. I think Will really appreciated having someone he knew in there.
We had tons of fun in a short amount of time, and she just told me she might be out here again in April. I'll try to make any future visits more low-key, I promise.

18 month pictures via Galen

I was trying to figure out where to take Will to get some professional 18 month pictures, but wasn't sure how to go about it. As I was visiting a friend her step-dad started taking pictures of Will and I asked him if he would mind doing a quick photo shoot. He loves photography and has taken other cute photos of Will whenever we cross paths.




Let me know if you would like any prints or if you want to see more of these pictures. There's plenty!