Four months!

Little Eli hit the four month mark this month. I cannot believe how quickly its going! We took him in for his checkup and he is now weighing 13lbs. 11oz and is 26 inches long. His length puts him in the 85th percentile and this Olson family has NEVER seen a baby quite that long!

He's smiling all the time, giggling out loud and starting to make sounds that are getting a bit closer to mama and dadda. He recognizes his name now and will turn toward you when he hears it. Just the other night he discovered how to turn himself around in his co-sleeper. So now when he wakes and you lean over to check on him he is all scrunched up with his feet propped up over the edge. Too funny! He's grabbing at everything and checking out our food. Doing all the normal infant stuff thats so fun to watch.

Happy Birthday Uncle Andrew!

Andrew O. is turning 19 years old. He's off enjoying his second semester at Cal Poly, SLO. Well the girls wanted to send a Happy birthday message. Here they are sporting Cal Poly gear, supporting their favorite hockey team and showing Uncle Andrew their Lego houses.

We love you, Andrew!

Mission trip Prayer request

So the last few weeks at our church, Venture has been offering a short term mission trip to Kiel, Germany to assist in the rebuilding/reading of the Logos Hope ship for ministry work.
http://www.logoshope.org
Well this has really excited me (Jon). Normally I would chalk this up to a "That would be fun" moment but after Sunday's service, I felt like I should pick up the flier to find out more. Well it turns out to be 10 days and $900. The cost includes airfare, insurance, food and lodging (you live and work on the boat). Now I have not officially signed up, but would love to ask if all you blog readers would pray for Sara and I. I'd really like to go. I think this is right up my ally with hands on projects in renovations including even opportunities to work with the engine groups or builders or whatever. I've had a desire over the years to find a mission trip or something I could be involved in with my skill sets. So far, helping others go has been God's plan. Is this my time to Go, don't know. But if you blog readers could pray that God makes it really clear whether to this is the time, I would really appreciate it. Please pray for us that God will make it clear that I should go. That my Job will be understanding and that my projects at work will slow down during the time I'd be away. That Sara and the kids will be safe. That all of the financial needs would be taken care of. Its hard to think of leaving my family for any length of time (can you tell I don't travel for work) but at the same time I'm feeling a little like this might be a place where one of my kids could be involved in furthering the message of Jesus Christ. That excites me to no end. Please let me know if you will pray for this opportunity in the comments section or via email at brainfrz at sbcglobal dot com

Jon

New Pictures

Been a couple of weeks, man life is flying by with three kids. Here are some of the fun pics we have from January.Here are the kids all in smiles!
Mommy and son - I love you Mommy!
Eli Meets Jillian's love for body art. Sara turns her back for a second and the dry erase marker found Eli. He's stunned. I love this shot. :)
Its the Moon.
This is an image from the telescope the girls received at Christmas. Still working steading the telescope at the same time as trying to have the camera focus through the lens.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all of our Blog Readers! Keep us in your prayers this new year and lets us know how we can pray for you.

Jon and Sara

Christmas Day

Thought I'd post some Christmas Day shots. We had a great day. Starting out at 7:00am at our house, the girls had a blast opening gifts and eating a special Christmas day meal. Ava got some Legos to build with while Jillian opened a cash register (which has quickly become the favorite play gift for both girls). Jon outfitted the family in new Sharks gear. Even little Eli is game ready. Go Sharks!

Our friends the Johnson's sent us a great snow globe with Finn's picture in it. The girls carry their new friend around all over the house. Give us a big smile Jillian!We next loaded up the van with some gifts and headed out for the day. A grueling 5 minute drive down Blossom Hill road to the Olson's. Uncle Andrew was home from Cal Poly and delivered a group of packages with a theme - Cal Poly Gear. Grandpa O spent a lot of time holding Eli. Grandma O had hot danish - yummy - for breakfast number 2 and we enjoyed some time outside swinging the baseball bat.
Lunch time meant that it was off on the next grueling drive - a whopping 7miles south on highway 85 to the Benson's. Grandma and Grandpa B were waiting excitedly for us to arrive. Uncle Andrew(#2), his girlfriend Michelle and her daughter Haleigh were there Christmas excitement. Some snacks, stockings, and then an early dinner. It was a world wind of excitement during the gift giving. Ava and Jillian got some matching sleeping bags and pillows. The girls had a long day but a fun day. Here we are in front of the tree.

Eli hanging out on the floor with daddy. What a smile!

Merry Christmas 2007!

Stockings - creativity exercise

So Ava reminded us that Eli needed a stocking to hang over the fire place. Since Sara made the girls ones, she needed to run out and get materials on Christmas Eve to make one for Mr. Eli. She made a new one for us too with extra material so that we all matched. She also has been wanting to add something to the stockings to represent the year for the girls. Well we settled on using their birthday party idea for the stocking. We then needed to break out the creativity juices (after the girls had gone to bed) to cut out shapes.


This in the results. Felt cutting was really fun!
A Rocket, a train, a little chick, a butterfly even a hockey stick for Mom and Dad.

Christmas Cookies

Sara had a great idea to make some Christmas cookie for the Grandparents and our friend Rachel. So the girls and I rolled out the dough and then cut all the cookies with cutters - stars, snowflakes, reindeer, snowman. The frosting part was the most fun, but keeping Jillian's fingers from getting into her month was a real challenge. Well those became a tray for us to eat! Ava's choice was the pink sprinkles.


Jillian cutting shapes.

Ava and Daddy having fun!

Frosting time

Jillian's cookies, with little finger licks.

Ava and Daddy's bunch. YUMMY!

Our three month old little guy

Eli celebrated his three month birthday today. We cannot believe how fast time is flying! He is growing quickly and is really starting to show his personality. He smiles all the time and laughs, loudly, at almost any familiar face. He has really taken to his bathtub and is kicking like a swimmer whenever he is in there, soaking the bath giver and everything around him. He is still sleeping fabulously (7'ish pm to 7'ish am) and while naps seem to be intermittent, I'll take the sleeping through the night anytime! His hair is growing in a bit more though his little cowlick seems to be sticking with us. He's considering rolling over and gets to his side before he gives up. Any day now I imagine I'll see him on his belly.

The girls have started calling him Mr. Man and Whammer Hammer ("because he whams his hands like a hammer!") and are absolutely in love with him. I have to keep my eye on Jillian who I have now found feeding him Playdoh and, just today, a watermelon lollipop. The girl loves food and I guess she's trying to share her love with her new little brother. Ava is an adoring big sister and a huge help to me and Eli seeks her out whenever she comes into a room.

We hope you all have a very Merry Christmas. My good friend Rachel from Westmont will be coming into town from Chicago on Saturday and I cannot wait to see her and spend time with her. We'll then be doing the family shuffle on Tuesday celebrating Christmas morning with the Olson side and then enjoying our time with the Bensons and sharing a meal. We hope you all have a great time with your families and celebrating God's gift to us in sending his Son.

Decorating the Tree

Our Tree in all its glory!

Which one can I put on the tree Mommy?

Careful, don't fall.

Merry Christmas from the Olson Kids!

The tree went up perfectly except for the weak branches. We found out how heavy our ornaments were. Oh well. The spirit of Christmas was hopping and we enjoyed a nice cup of hot chocolate with lots of marshmallows. The girls love the the lights and looking at each of the new ornaments we added this year.

Jon

Christmas Tree Farm - the hunt is on!

So the tradition we have for bringing or christmas tree home is to go up to the Los Gatos / Santa Cruz mountains to the Summit tree farm and cut it down. Its a fun tradition because of the hunt involved. Will the tree last till christmas, will it fit in the house (I like tall trees), will it have a random hole we couldn't see before we cut it, or my family's personal favorite, will it fall down this year! (I've gotten some real winners in the past - like my dad; string, wire, support boards, towels anything in the house becomes a great prop to keep the tree up! Well this year was new b/c our newest addition Eli. The girls are more into the "Hunt" and it was a beautiful day up on the hill. The tree we got looked really good, but ended up having "weak" branches. The next post will be about the tree decorations.

Jon

Ava's Creative side - medium Playdoh

Here's a fun shot of Ava's creative side sprouting out. She created all the detail: hair, fingers, the face.

Eli finds his fingers

Here's a great shot of Eli going to town on his middle fingers.

We love our swing set!

The backyard was leveled and then I spent the day on Black Friday putting up the swing set or "Play structure" as Ava likes to call it. Its such a fun addition to our family. Also included is one more picture front yard. Nice and flat.

A visit with the Great-Grandparents

Four Generations: Sara, Eli, Ava, Jillian, Great-Grandma "Gigi" Howard and Grandma "B"

Great-Grandpa "GPa" Howard, Jillian, Ava, Great-Grandma "Gigi" Howard and Eli

We had a great time visiting with the very great Great-Grandparents. Sara's grandparents came down from Roseville to meet little Eli. The girls were excited to see their Gigi and GPa and I know the Howards were excited to see their great-granddaughters and their newest great-grandson. We had a fun time and its always really special to be able to take pictures like these. We are so blessed to not only have such wonderful grandparents to our kids but for the kids to have two sets of wonderful great-grandparents!

Eli at two months

Eli had his 8 week checkup last week and he is a big boy! He weighed in at 12lbs (55 percentile) and was 23.5" (75%). WOW! He is a good pound bigger than either Ava or Jillian was at that age! Otherwise he was healthy as could be. We're enjoying him so much. He's starting to talk a lot more and you can even get a bit of a giggle out of him during diaper changes. He is getting to his side now when laying down and just yesterday grabbed at a toy and held on. Amazing how quickly they grow!

Watch out Elton John...here comes Jillian!

Just for a good laugh.

Ava's Brachial Plexus Procedure

We are so fortunate to have found a new procedure to address Ava's brachial plexus injury! We saw Dr. Hentz this summer who told us they were doing something new: injecting the pec muscle with botox to temporarily paralyze it then casting the affected arm. The idea is it will allow her arm to have a slow, deep stretch in underused tissue, muscle and joints. Once its removed her arm should be stretched out but her super strong pec muscle (which has overcompensated for years now) will have no ability to move. Her now stretched arm will have the chance to move in ways it never has!

Step two will involve putting a constraint cast on her non-affected arm. This cast will be on for around six weeks and will restrict her from using her non-affected arm and force her to use her newly stretched left arm.

We're especially excited as this "Constraint Therapy" is a research project out of Stanford meaning it is being fully sponsored and paid for: cast, specialists, therapy, everything! God is so good!

We'll keep you posted on the results!

Home Improvement - Back yard

Before

Loads and loads of gravel - (three plus pickup truck loads full)

After #1 - no more gravel

Preparing for a swing set!

Home improvement - Front yard revisisted

Well, with all this fine California weather, we needed to continue on our home improvement projects. The front yard was first. Last post showed the removal of the faux river. Now we had to scrap and scoop up layers and layers of tan bark(two truck loads). Remove old sprinkler system pipes. Remove hidden cement paths and the rototill it all flat. Lots of back breaking work. But its nice to do it yourself. Thanks to Dad and Dad for all the help.

J&S

Game on!

A follow up to our soccer star post. Ava really got into the game aspect of soccer and had a blast on her last day. She scored the first goal with a keeper dribble down the field and shooting it in. Then she volunteered for Goalie! She made a great stop. In the end, everybody got a medal.

J&S

Our brief sports experience

Well seems our little Ava may have inherited her mother's mad sports skills. Which really just means that she tried it out and decided it wasn't much for her. We signed Ava up at the YMCA for their soccer "experience" and have so far completed exactly 2 out of 4 of the Saturday skills trainings. She wasn't too impressed with it and, along with her friend Grace, decided putting the soccer balls in their shirts and pretending to birth babies was much more entertaining. We got an adorable picture out of her though!

Family Resemblance

We were looking through some family pictures and found these two. Often people ask me where Jillian gets her round face. The pictures to the right are of Jon's maternal grandmother. One is of her at five weeks of age and the other is of her on her wedding day. The five week old picture looks so similar to Eli and the wedding day picture reminds us an awful lot of little Jillian! We think so far that Jillian and Eli really resemble one another. Hope you enjoy them!