things to remember about noah

there are a couple things about noah that i just can't let myself forget

because they are so sweet and i love them

1. noah has a little stuffed animal doggie he named ned

he's had him for a few years
 (i think he came from the pullman ER when he had his bike crash. not sure)
 and he calls him his brother

lately he's getting even more in to it and buckles him up in the car

and counts him as part of our family (3 boys, 4 girls)

he hopes that if/when we have another baby, it will be a boy

and that he has blonde hair and glasses and we call him ned

2. noah cares a lot about people

and cannot bear the thought of a homeless person

a couple weeks ago we passed a homeless person at walmart

and noah started getting upset and even said he hated our family

when we asked why he said because we didn't help that homeless person

so i promptly did a u-turn and we took him some of our food and water

afterward, noah felt better 

and said, "remember we saw a house for sale? maybe we could buy it for him"

he often prays for people who don't have food or homes that they can find some

i am glad he has a tender heart and reminds us to share what we have

3. noah takes pictures with his eyes

he has done it for a long time

i often see him either winking one eye or blinking both

when he's taking a picture 

he says he's saving them for Jesus

when he dies he's going to show Jesus his pictures

of all the special moments

he even has us pose sometimes while he takes our pictures

he is such a sweet and special boy

i am so grateful to be his mama

ps. as far as tv free goes, we went 11 days
then today i tried having it out to let them watch one movie
and noah complained about it being out
saying he just wanted to read instead
(despite wanting it yesterday)
and hazel fussed the whole time the movie was on, too.....
so we'll see

one week tv free

we've made it a solid week without watching tv

it has been great

we went on a bike ride to spanish fork and back 

for frozen yogurt and to play at the park

it was 6 miles round trip and noah did the whole thing himself

 olive fell asleep on the way home

 we went to art city days and the kids really liked the rides

(luckily they've outgrown some of their fears)

and we hope they'll enjoy disneyland next month

 we celebrated national doughnut day at krispy kreme

 and went to the rooftop concert in provo

 olive and eleanor had fun dancing

 we went to the art city days parade

 and on a drive to payson to see the temple being built there

so far so good putting without tv

i think we're all more tired at the end of our days because we're doing more

the kids are reading and playing together more

michael and i are more productive in the evenings

it's been pretty great

here's to another week!

olson family pictures 2013

we got our family pictures taken last week

it turns out a family of 6 is kind of hard to coordinate

and keep happy for pictures

eleanor was especially challenging as she is teething which made her grumpy

and is a good walker so she wasn't very interested in sitting still

either way, i am so happy we got these taken

and i love how they turned out

thank you for taking these marci!!

i love them!!!

the most fun wednesday ever!

we had such a fun day

that included meeting up with a bunch of our WSU friends

at the zoo and then out to lunch

between six girlfriends (and two husbands) we had 17 kids!!!  

 they were all so happy to see each other 

and even though it was a little crazy keeping track of them

i'm glad the kids could run around and look at the animals together

 hazel has not forgotten her friend bailey

even though it's been almost a year

hazel pretend talks on the phone with her all the time

and says she's one of her best friends

she was soooo excited to see her

they held hands most of the day

after the zoo

we went out to lunch at red robin

and they gave us a banquet room that was perfect for all of us

the only thing that would have made this more fun

was if the rest of our friends were there

but it was amazing to see all these friends we'd been missing!!!

and so neat to be all together in utah despite meeting in washington

after that we went to trolley square to get some ice cream

and did a little shopping at whole foods and trader joes

 and if that wasn't enough excitement

we bought a second child's bike attachment off ksl on the way home

so we can ride bikes with our kids and without using a trailer

and then went on a little family bike ride

 hazel was super nervous to use the trail-a-bike at first

but she got over it and really enjoyed it

 olive likes being my bike buddy

 noah prefers being in front 

it was seriously such a fun day

and i am so grateful michael came with us to the zoo

i could not have handled the kiddies without him

he is such a darling for taking the day off to come with us

ps. i stole some of the pictures at the zoo and red robin from erin

thank you, erin!!!

pss. we have been tv free since sunday

my original goal was to go all summer without tv

but we'll see how it goes

i'll be happy if we even just make it a week

i am loving all the time we're spending doing other things

instead of fighting over whose turn it is next on netflix

father son camp out

i'm not much of a camper

i kind of want to go this summer

while i'm not pregnant and we don't have a small baby

but in general we never go

so the only time noah has ever actually camped

unless you count this

was on one father son camp out when he was two

and he didn't sleep at all

so when we heard our ward was doing one here

noah and michael were pretty stoked

especially noah

they had fun eating smores and looking at the stars

apparently michael was *this* close to winning the horseshoe tournament

and noah had fun playing soccer with the other boys

luckily he slept much better now that he's 7

and was almost impossible to wake up the next morning

noah came home super excited

and really enjoyed the one on one boy time with his dad

the girls and i had fun shopping

eating krispy kreme donuts

and sleeping in our warm beds 

memorial day

we had such a nice memorial day

it really is the first day of summer since everyone is out of school now

and i was glad to have michael home so we could go have some fun together

we started by sleeping in

then slowly got up and decided what we wanted to do for the day

was go to salt lake and visit the zoo

 we had a popped tire on our stroller so we used a zoo stroller instead

it was pretty convenient for the kids hopping in and out

but it makes me glad we don't have a wide stroller like this

 other than being a little extra crowded, it was a great day to be at the zoo

we got to see the elephants getting a bath

and a really well done bird show

 lots of birds flew right above us

and the kids all enjoyed it

other than eleanor...who got antsy

and isn't a huge fan of the sun

noah wanted to take pictures the whole show

and took probably close to 100 but mostly of the back of people's heads

he did get this one of some doves flying over us

 afterward we went to city creek and ate at the cheesecake factory

with a gift card from michael's parents

i think this picture says it all :)

eleanor was on the table

michael looks kind of annoyed

it wasn't the greatest trip out to dinner as a family of six

but the godiva cheesecake we shared made it worth it

 then we let the kids get soaked before we headed home

we didn't get the kids in bed until close to 10

which seems like a bad idea, but they are still sleeping and it's almost 9 

so i'm not complaining