Sing Sing

I am not a great singer. I've never taken any kind of voice lessons. I've never sung in anything I had to try-out for. I can read music and I like singing, but that's about as far as my talent goes. However, at church I've been branded as a singer. So I go to choir every week and now it seems like I'm asked to sing at every event. I guess it's my fault for saying yes.
With that caveat, here's a video of me singing in a group.

Catching Up

I realized I better update my blog since all our Christmas cards are advertising this blog as a way to get up to date with our family. I'll just have to use my camera to remind me what we've been up to.
It got cold. Like below freezing!!!! (That's really cold for here.) We didn't see any snow, but anything above 1,000 feet had snow. I wish I had watched the news because there were probably some funny stories about Californians dealing with their first snow in years. Here we are taking a family walk before it got too cold. Will likes to wear hats like Daddy.
We got sick. All of us were sick, but Will was the only one with a fever and his sickness lasted the longest. Then the doctor said he might have asthma! We'll see. Here's my boys catching up on some sleep on Uncle Alex's bed. We spent about a week at the Olson Sr. house for Thanksgiving. Luckily we didn't have to sleep in Alex's room the whole time.


We kept the murder mystery dinner tradition going strong. (Three years in a row now.) This year's theme was Cruising for Murder. I played the spoiled captain's daughter, and I'm pictured below in an old, old mink stole with "Daddy!".
Britton was "Buddy Call" the towel boy! I know he was innocent, but I can't actually remember who the murderer turned out to be. Maybe Derek. He has a little too smug look on his face.
The whole Olson clan packed up a couple cars and went to the Train Museum in Sacramento. It was pretty awesome. They have a lot of old train cars and engines you can walk through, and see how they used to look.
Lately we've been spending a LOT of time doing stuff for church. One of the biggest time-consumers was preparing for the annual Christmas party. We were in charge of finding a way to print the santa pictures at the party. Sure, Polaroid has created a new, easy way to print digital pictures instantly, but that would be too easy. We used two memory cards, a laptop, and two printers to get the job done.
Will's first Santa picture is pretty hilarious. Too much candy, not enough sleep, and weird guy holding him led to this picture. Happy Holidays everyone!

Silly Face

Halloween Nintendo Style

For our Halloween costumes this year we went with a Mario Bros theme. Will still doesn't have a say in his costume so it's easy to coordinate. Britton doesn' have too much choice in his costume either. He's lucky I let the t-shirt fly this year. I'm already planning something more outgoing for him next year. Our neighbors joined us so we had almost the whole Mario mushroomy crew.

Halloween was pretty busy because we attended a party at church and then went straight to another one in our courtyard. I'm 0 for 2 in the annual chili cook-off. Maybe I'll have better luck next year if I use bacon. The church party was really crowded, and Will was mostly overwhelmed by all the weird looking people and noise. I loved seeing all the cute kids in their costumes. There were lots of princesses for Will to save, but luckily there was another Mario there to help out.
Britton's parents, grandma, and secret service agent brother joined us for both parties. Alex, Will and I toured the neighborhood for candy and did pretty well. The kids go to the back doors, and our neighborhood is a concentrated wonderland of candy at Halloween. Except for those houses that hand out things like pretzels and inedible things like play-doh. Oh, wait, that was me. I thought I'd give the kids a break from all the sugar. I hope they weren't too disappointed.

Happy Halloween

This was the first thing that popped into my head after I woke up this morning. Weird, I know, but enjoy.





Also, here is a link to the entire "Ware-wolf Bar Mitzvah" song for those who aren't satisfied with this small snip-it.

Home Again, Home Again

I flew back to Washington to see this...


But--surprise, surprise--I mostly took pictures of Will. It was a great trip. I saw almost all my family, a TON of people from growing up/church/school, and even a college roommate. I have no photo evidence of hardly any of that. Pretty much just pictures of Will. So enjoy.

One of Will's new words is pumpkin. He found lots of pumpkins at G & G Sommercorn's house.

No one's looking right...?
Yoink! I've got you now pumpkin!
Ha ha ha, run away!
I seem to have fallen down and I can't get up. Mom...?
Will did a great job on the flight there and back! It probably helped that we had lots of space as you can see from the pictures below. Will just entertained himself with the armrest, the tray table, the window shade, the buttons everywhere, etc. I got a few games of Anagramarama in. I love Virgin America planes.
We also saw pumpkins at the Woodland Park Zoo. We went with one of my old roommates that lives in Seattle now. Morning is definitely the best time to go to the zoo! I've never seen so many animals moving around at a zoo before! We also happened to be there the day that they fed the monkeys and hippos a pumpkin treat. Good timing for my pumpkin lovin' boy.

From the Desk of Will

I must give my apologies for my mom's negligence in blogging. I've been doing cute things every day, but the camera just doesn't come out. I have a bunch of new words like pumpkin, car, and light. I've spent a lot of time playing with other kids on the playground. Mostly I try to keep up with them and they take away toys from me. But it's OK. I'm just biding my time until I get big and RULE the playground!

Until then adieu,
William the Future Playground Conqueror

Week in Brentwood

While the boys went to play, on a scouting trip to the Channel Islands, Will and I decided to spend a week with family in Brentwood. The change of scenery was nice as was the company. With all the wide open spaces Will finally decided to walk around on his own! He's turned into a full-blown toddler. We spent a LOT of time with Moto the dog actually. Will got plenty of cuddle time with his Nana, and then we took a lot of trips shopping and to parks with GG. I didn't manage to get a picture of GG. But if I had remembered I would've loved to get a picture of her sitting on the slide at the park playing with Will. She's such an active great grandma that just celebrated her 88th birthday!


GG took this picture for us at Blue Goose Park. It's such a fun, cute little playground. It was just perfect for the hot day!

These were some of his favorite things to play with at Nana and Papa Olson's house. Not toys...of course not! Candles and dishwasher soap and random pots and pans in the kitchen.


It was great to have company while Britton was gone. I hardly missed him! Just kidding. After Will went to bed my MIL (mother in-law) and I went to work on projects. She gave me lots of ideas and props for music in nursery, and I helped her with a quilt. The week went by really fast!