California Christmas, Round IV

Yeah, sunny California! We were blessed with wonderful flights and a smooth drive from LA up to the central coast. We arrived around 3 am at Erik's parents and it felt great to crawl into a bed. The kids were great travelers, sleeping for most of the flights and car rides. We were so excited to see everyone and spend some great quality time together. The last time Erik and all his siblings and families, and his parents were together for Christmas was five years ago, so this was definitely a treat. Now, anyone that knows the Ouimette's knows that there is no shortage of photos to capture the memories while we are together. After sifting through about 600 pictures (not an exaggeration!) I made a slide show marking some of the highlights while we were together.

We loved being in a warmer climate and getting a much needed break from the coldness that has gripped the Midwest this winter. The kids and I enjoyed going on daily walks and outings to the park. We also spent time together taking in all the wonderful sights and events: exploring tide pools during low tide, observing the 2 ton elephant seals giving birth on the beach, having a tea party under the eucalyptus trees filled with thousands of migrating butterflies, walking the beach looking for pretty stones and shells, watching sunset from the pier, running and jumping in the amazing sand dunes, celebrating Patty's 60th birthday with a skit filled with memories and sharing, and so much more. Our time in California was so relaxing, rejuvenating and refreshing! We so cherished this time together!

California here we come!

We were all so excited to fly out to California. We went up to the observation tower and Daddy gave the kids some lessons on plane identification...perhaps I should take a few notes too. During this trip I discovered one of the best travel items, a inflatable beach ball. It was great! We would inflate the ball, let the kids play and burn off a lot of energy kicking, throwing, catching, and chasing the ball. Then when it was time to get back on the plane, we would deflate it and tuck it back into our backpack until the next lay over, perfect!

Nelson Christmas, Round III

In the afternoon of the 23rd, we drove up to Spring Grove for the Nelson family Christmas. We had our traditional oyster stew and clam chowder dinner. We usually open gifts in the evening, but the kids were all tired and ready for bed, so we decided to wait until the following morning. And good thing we did! Soren opened up a drum and instantly fell in love. He would pound on the drum and then go and give everyone in the room hugs and say thank you, thank you, and then go pound some more and then repeat the hugging and thanking. He just minght give the little drummer boy a run for his money! We then went to church in the afternoon before Andrew and his family had to go back to Stewartville so that Andrew could sing in his church choir.

"The stockings were hung, by the chimney with care,

in hopes that Saint Nicolas would soon be here!"

Since it was Christmas Eve, Olivia put out her thank you note, cookies, milk, and carrots for Santa and his reindeer. After the kids went to bed, Erik and I prepared for our Christmas day flight to California!

When the kids woke up, they were very excited to see two full stockings full of lots of goodies. It was filled with so many great new activities for the airplane, like sticker books, DVDs, etc...that darn Santa, he is so smart, how did he know we were traveling today?

Our Family Christmas, Round II

Monday morning we woke up to celebrate our family Christmas. We made birthday waffles, complete with peppermint ice cream and a candle and sang "Happy Birthday" to baby Jesus. We then opened up a few gifts and spent the morning playing with new toys and lounging around in our pajamas. What a fun morning!

Phares Christmas, Round I

This weekend we went up to my parents' house for my mom's side Christmas party. This was suppose to be the first time in about ten years that everyone was going to be together. My cousin and her family flew in from Las Vegas, and family from Minnesota and Iowa were going to be there. Unfortunately weather put a dampener on these plans and my uncles and aunts, as well as Grandma from central Iowa weren't able to make it. We still had a fun busy household with seven kids under the age of 7 running around. Mom, as always, out did herself with amazing food. We played our usually gift exchange game and just enjoyed catching up, playing 500, and hanging out together.

Sunday School Program

This year I have had the great opportunity to teach Sunday School to the 3 year old class at our church. It has been a real joy to have Olivia in my class, it is great to know what she learns each week and to be able to talk about it throughout the week. We had a Christmas program in the late afternoon on Sunday. The group of about 60 three and four year olds sang "Away in the Manger" and "Give Me Oil In My Lamp."

Advent Nights

One of the highlights of this Christmas season were our family Advent nights. Naana sent the kids Advent presents to open each week to retell the Christmas story. The first week was Mary and an angel to represent the angel coming to tell Mary that she was pregnant with Jesus, the second week was Joseph and a donkey to represent when Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem on a donkey, etc... Erik, with the help of a friend, made a small Advent log for each week's candles. We all looked forward to lighting the candles each night, singing Christmas carols, and retelling the Christmas story. Olivia is now a real pro and remembers the Christmas story so well. Soren, on the other hand, loved all the animals in the stable and would tell us all the sounds they make. :-) Thank you Naana, the kids loved it!

Ice Cream and Christmas Lights

On Friday night, we decided to introduce a new tradition to our family. After supper we bundled up the kids and went to Moo Roo's Ice Cream Store and got 4 very delicious Candy Cane flavored ice cream cones. We then enjoyed our cones while driving around various neighborhoods admiring all the Christmas decorations while listening to Christmas songs and singing along with those most familiar to us. This will definitely be an event that will be repeated next year, and perhaps many after that. :-)

Soren was thrilled to get his own cone.

All of us with our candy cane ice cream cones!

Yummy!

Let's go look at all the lights.

As expected, Soren was a giant sticky messy. :-)

One of the many houses we stopped to ooh and ahh over...

Preschool Christmas Program

Olivia had her Christmas concert this past week. There is just something about preschool aged chrildren singing that brings a hugs smile to our faces. Erik and I were enjoying the kids' "character" on stage. There was a boy who refused to hold hands, some kids wiggling around, some acting rather stoic, and those like Olivia that were enjoying the "swishiness" of their dresses. Olivia looked so happy as she sang the words and did all the actions. Her dress had an under layer of a tulle ruffle to give the dress some volume. She enjoyed swaying back and forth and twirling her skirt for the performance. She had such a great time. The preschool teachers did an amazing job of preparing the kids and making a memorable concert.

Olivia already to go, you can see Olivia's excitement in her eyes.

Soren's ready to go and clap too.
This number included ringing bells, how fun!


Grandpa & Grandma made the trek down for the concert, we enjoyed some yummy popcorn afterwards.

It's Beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

This Christmas is our eighth Christmas as a married couple, but our first year with a full size Christmas tree. We have been blessed with the opportunity to spend Christmas in many different parts of the world. Now that we are settled into our first house, we were so excited to get all of our Christmas decorations that are making their first debut this season. We have had a great time singing Christmas carols, doing advent nights, cutting down the tree, hanging lights on our house, and filling the house with splashes of red and green and many twinkling lights. We have had a few ornaments that have had to got to the "Ornament Dr." thanks to Soren, but he is slowly learning to leave the tree alone. The kids picked out their ornaments for this year. Olivia chose a pair of ballet slippers while Soren picked a John Deere tractor. Both very fitting choices. After Soren's tractor lost its steering wheel and 2 wheels, it has now been quaratined to the top of the tree. Here are a few pictures of decorations...I will take more and post them later.

The two warmly bundled munchkins fell asleep on the way to the tree farm.

We found ours quickly...the frigid temperatures made us not too fussy. :-)
Olivia held the tree while Daddy cut it down.
Decorating the tree.

One of my LONGEST days...

This past Friday, was one of those days, that just seemed to go on and on...Yes, a big part of that was due to the craziness of my decision to partake in "Black Friday's" Christmas shopping extravaganza. As Erik and I looked through the adds on Thursday night, the vacuum cleaners caught our attention. Our vacuum cleaner has been smoking and we decided that when a vacuum cleaner leaves the carpets dirtier than when you begin that it is probably time for a new one. Erik researched all the vacuums in the ads and we decided on one that was being sold at Kohl's. When I flipped to the front to see the timing, my heart sank when it said 4 am. Oh dear, a short night. So, we made a plan that I would get up early and then later get to nap as Erik drove to Spring Grove. I was at Kohl's at 4:20am, which apparently was late. I could barely find a parking place and was greeted with mass confusion when I walked inside. The line wrapped all the way around the circumference of the store. I got the last vacuum on the shelf and went to get in line...an hour and a half I was out of there. I had so many things on my list, but had to settle for the most necessary. Then I made a relatively quick stop at Target and Sears and made it home by 7:10. As I walked in the house, I was greeted by a pale looking husband who had gotten the flu while I was out. He convinced me that he was ok and could manage to watch the kids while I did my 4 hour shift rating the English proficiency exams. It turned out to be quite the difficult shift. Erik could hardly stay awake, so the kids kept wandering in to my work space. I was trying to do various arts and crafts and listen to the examinees on the computer at the same time. I sometimes had to listen to them 3-4 times, but I eventually got the job done. After I finished working, I fed the kids lunch and packed the suitcases. Erik had progressively gotten worse and decided to just stay home. So, the kids and I drove up to my parents' house in Spring Grove to leave him to a quiet house to rest and heal. The car ride was nice and quiet with two sleeping kids in the back. A few hours after we had arrived in SG, my mom wanted to go and check out the Festival of Trees. This was simply a marvelous event. They had all these adorable store fronts that made you feel like you were walking in this quaint village with places to buy candy, cards, decorate sugar cookies, watch Christmas movies, and visit Santa. In the past, Santa has not been one of Olivia's most loved people. But I had hopes for perhaps just one tiny photo this year with her standing maybe within 5 feet of him. As Santa came in she waved and said, "Hi Santa!" But she had a death grip on my jacket. Soren turned around and was frightened by him and his cries were just enough to feed Olivia's fear. She screamed and clung onto me so tight. I reassured him that we wouldn't go and talk to him and was finally able to get her settled down by going over to watch a movie. She checked Santa every few seconds just to make sure he was still sitting in his chair. She was ok with him now, because she knew he was going to stay there. But then, out came Frosty! Frosty, unfortunately had the misfortune of not having a predictable location and was walking around greeting children. As he approached the movie area, Olivia stood on her chair and began screaming at Frosty at the top of her lungs (I can't emphasize that enough) while wagging her finger. "NO, NO, FROSTY, YOU GO AWAY, BYE, BYE, NO, NO!" I could feel my face getting red with embarrassment. She was wrapped so tightly around my head and body. Her fear had been just enough to send Soren into a huge screaming fit as well. They were both wrapped around me so tightly and screaming so loud that I had the attention of the whole Fest Building. As I was walking out, Soren was screaming so loud that his pacifier fell to the ground. So now I know I was quite the sight as I had to try to pick up the pacifier with 2 screaming kids wrapped around my body. Oh dear. I was so relieved to get outside. All the tiredness of the week and the day engulfed me and soon we had the Ouimette, party of 3 crying outside. I was so thankful to get back to my parents, feed the kids supper and put them to bed, so that I too could hit the hay. Sleep cures so much, as I woke up the next morning with a refreshed view of the prior day's events, I could hardly stop laughing thinking about what a spectacle we must have been. Rest assured Santa, we won't be making any visits to you this Christmas. That's ok, this gives us another opportunity to focus on the true reason for the season.

Healthy Snacks

This past June I had a lot of fun picking strawberries, and like usual, I got a little carried away. I made four batches of strawberry jam and frozen many to have for snacks. Now that there is a blanket of snow covering the ground, these strawberries are tasting even better than I could have imagined. The kids especially enjoy strawberry smoothies. I use this great recipe from the book, Super Baby Food. It has yogurt, wheat germ, flax, a little brewer's yeast, and of course, strawberries. It is definitely a favorite around here!

I used another recipe from this same book to make homemade wholegrain pretzels for Olivia's preschool class. These soft pretzels along with some grapes made a great snack for her class. It must have been a hit because they were all eaten! Olivia loved helping making the dough into a "snake" and then twisting it.

Siblings!

As Soren gets older, it is becoming easier for Olivia and him to play together. Olivia usually makes up a game and gives a variety of commands for Soren to do, and he most often happily follows her lead just thankful for being included. It has been so fun and rewarding to watch them become closer. While I have been looking forward to the development of this relationship, I seem to have neglected that along with this relationship would come fights. We have entered the world of sibling rivalry, and what a world it is! Soren doesn't have much language so he usually tries to get what he wants by grabbing, hair pulling, and biting. He usually does these behaviors when Olivia provokes it with not sharing, or not giving Soren a turn. Some days I feel like a interpretor and referee, but those moments when they play so well together, I just love to sit back observe.

Enjoy the following sequence of photos/ videos that illustrate this roller coaster ride.



Best Friends 1minute...

Come on Soren, let's go play "hotel." Let's go buddy!

30 seconds later...

3 1/2 and 1 1/2...Wow!

Can you believe we are already at the half way mark of another year? Just the other day I was looking through some pictures from their birthday party in May. Somehow it feels like we just had this party, but looking at the pictures I was amazed at just how much they have changed in the past six months. I have heard many times about how time goes faster as you get older, but I never quite understood it...now, I am getting it. I want to cherish each stage the children go through, they are such rich blessings in our lives that we are so very thankful for!

Benchmarks in Development:

Olivia: She is such a delight! I so enjoy her witty humor and honest insights to life. She is making friends and learning such important social skills, such as sharing, taking turns, being helpful and kind, apologizing and forgiving, ect. She listens very intently and is detail-oriented. Our conversation about the day's events at preschool can go on for 20 minutes as she gives me the run down of the exact directions the teacher said for each activity (First, we needed to color the squirrel, then cut...), the snack (sugar-free red Kool-Aid with graham crackers in the shape of animals), and even may include a pretty outfit she noticed (My friend had a sparkly pink shirt on today...). She doesn't miss much. This intense observing has served her well also in the alphabet area as she knows the majority of letters and their sounds. We are working on rhyming, phew, what a tough thing! She can identify numbers to 20 and do simple adding. She has made friends with the scissors and loves to cut out just about anything! Olivia has enjoyed imaginative play for a long time now, but in the recent weeks, it has shifted up a couple gears and she gets very emotionally invested in her make-believe world. We were pretending to play Cinderella, I got the role of Cinderella, while Erik and Olivia were the wicked stepsisters. They were ordering me around to clean this and that and then we got to the part where they ripped off Cinderella's pretty dress and necklace. I made a sad face and pretended to cry, until I looked at Olivia and she had a couple sympathetic tears running down her cheek. Oh, game over and time to talk. I just love her compassion! While the imaginative play has increased, so has the drama, she can cross her arms, stomp her feet, and push out that bottom lip further than we knew possible. She is definitely testing her boundaries and learning how to control a large range of emotions.

Here's her name:

And she started writing mom and dad.

Soren: There has been a common phrase we have heard since he was born, "He is all boy." And that continues to be the case. He is rough and loves to play hard! He doesn't only play with his toys, he jumps on them, stands on them, throws them against the wall, bites them...this whole gentleness is very difficult to teach. When he is eating, we need to be ready for the moment he is full and get him down otherwise, we will have food all over our kitchen and living room. He talks more everyday and always attempts at repeating any word you say, some more successfully than others, but we are happy that he at least tries. His most commonly words are: Mommy, Daddy, ma (milk), ju (juice), agua (water-we didn't teach him agua, he thinks he is saying water), yeah, eat, ca-ker, cook-ie, cheeeeese, tuc (truck), tac-tor, puppy, kitty, pony, hot, up, down, ba (book), and numerous others. We are also beginning to wonder is something is wrong with his legs because he has forgotten how to walk, he only runs full speed in every direction. He loves to dig in the mud, play with rocks, and give me bugs. (I think he found about 10 ladybugs in our house yesterday.) His favorite toys are anything Olivia is playing with, stroller, babies (he will be a great Daddy someday...once the gentleness develops!), Little People, balls, and the number one favorite is books. He is always bringing me a book that he wants to read. His favorite is a photo book that Naana made about his birth. He always says, "ouch!" on the page of me pushing...very funny. He is so full of life and his infectious-dimpled smile brings a lot of older ladies to our grocery cart while we are shopping. He definitely keeps us on our toes!

Although some days we get frustrated with tantrums, hair pulling, biting, fighting, messes, we wouldn't trade these days for anything. We are so thankful for being entrusted with the responsibility to raise Olivia and Soren. They bless our days with much happiness and thankfulness! Happy "Half Birthdays" you two!

Happy Halloween!

"Trick-or-treat!" and "Boo!" followed by "Thank you!" and "Tang doo!" may have been the words you would have heard if our little chicken and bumblebee visited your house last night. We had such a great night. First of all, the weather was a beautiful 60 degrees. When I bought the kids' costumes at a local garage sale this past summer, I never dreamed that they would actually be a little hot in them. We started the night out at a friend's house where we did a pumpkin craft and played Pin the Face on the Pumpkin, a spin off of the game Pin the Tail on the Donkey. The kids thought the faces were so silly! We then enjoyed a potluck, complete with Mummy hotdogs, they were so cute. We then walked around the block going to about a dozen houses. It was just so much fun to not be shivering as we were trick-or-treating. We went back to the house and had a great bomb fire, the girls got in their pjs and watched Winnie-the-Pooh Halloween movie, while the one years fell asleep. Since Soren fell asleep, we were able to sit outside and enjoy, what might very well be, the last pleasant night of the fall. It was so great to just sit around the fire, talk, and enjoy the night! Happy Halloween!

Our Pumpkins in the Pumpkin Patch

It was a beautiful weekend, so we decided to take the family to the local pumpkin patch. The hay ride through the pumpkin fields was fun. Olivia could easily spot all the orange pumpkins and gourds throughout the fields, while Soren on the other hand loved the tractor and said, "Tac-tor" about 30 times. The hay ride was so peaceful until we heard a loud bang. They had a huge 'pumpkinator' that shot pumpkins at the targeted school bus. Needless to say, the bus was pretty banged up and covered in pumpkin goo. Our kids were a little skeptical of that loud noise, so we tried to warn them when there was going to be a loud bang. In the petting zoo section, Olivia showed some improvement in her fear of animals, I don't think she screamed once, but we still didn't manage to get her to actually touch any. Soren loved every animal and wanted to touch them all. Olivia surprised us again...She normally hates paints and temporary tattoos on her face, but she decided she would like to get her face painted. She looked the choices over carefully. There was an adorable pumpkin, but I decided not to say anything and let her choose...hmm, she chose the skeleton. Erik and I just looked at each like, really? But the hit of the day was the tower of hay bales that had 6 different slides coming out, they played on these slides for about an hour! Well, you may be thinking, what about the pumpkins? They were, unfortunately quite expensive, and after paying an admission fee just to get in to have the privilege of buying their pumpkins, we decided to take the kids to Fareway grocery store where all the pumpkins were $3.49. Now that's more like it. The kids were so excited to carve the pumpkins. Olivia wanted hers to look like it was laughing, all I can say is, I tried my best.

Our little Jumping bean

For the past 3-4 months, Soren has been trying desperately to jump like his big sister. He would bend his knees and thrust his weight up, trying so hard to get his feet off the ground. His feet always looked like they were glued to the floor, until recently that is. The past few weeks he has actually been able to get both feet off the ground. I have been meaning to get a video of this so tonight when we got home from Olivia's dance lesson he was jumping around, so I grabbed the camera. Olivia, not to be outdone by her brother, also does a new little trick that she made up on the spot, something she named 'under cat bridge.' :-) Enjoy our little monkeys!

Cousin Nathan turns 2!

On Sunday we went to Stewartville to celebrate our nephew's second birthday. It was an absolutely beautiful fall day with temperatures around 70, amazing! The party was held at a gorgeous park and the leaves were so vibrant. I was able to get some good pictures of Soren in the leaves, I was so sad that Olivia was so defiant and wouldn't cooperate with my "fall photo shoot." I guess that's what I get for letting her stay up late the night before dancing the night away.

Nathan LOVED his Elmo cake!

Olivia must have forgotten to brush her teeth

Nathan and his cousins

My brother's family

Soren, as always, on the run!

This is what we call the "Grandpa face" because it looks just like my Dad when he is concentrating.

Playing in leaves is fun!