Oveson Family

Isn’t it about…time?

I can’t believe my Zach turns 9 today!  Wow!  I keep looking at Olivia and thinking, “Wow!  It doesn’t seem like it’s been very long since I was holding baby Zach just like this!”  But what a great 9 years it’s been!  Zach’s such a great kid, and we are so fortunate that Heavenly Father sent him to our family!  He has such an innate sense of right and wrong, and has such a strong desire to do what’s right.  He’s so responsible, and feels things so deeply.  He’s a great help to his little brothers and sister, and is so nice and fun!  He’s one of those kids that you just know you can count on.  We just love him!

Zach loves Legos, Star Wars, riding his bike, learning new things (he’s full of facts about everything!), playing Star Wars Legos video games, reading non-fiction books (especially books about history and animals), computers (he’s already become my go-to tech support guy when Mike’s not home!), and soccer.  His best friend is Evan, his favorite color is dark blue, his favorite subject in school is either math or computers, and his favorite food is Chicken Nuggets and Fries.

Zach was so lucky this year because his birthday is on President’s Day, and he gets the day off school!  Unfortunately, Mike had to still work, but he got up and make Zach’s favorite breakfast before he left - German Pancakes and sausage.  The rest of the day was a perfect Zach birthday!  He played with his brothers, had a little video game time, and just got to relax and have fun!  One of his favorite parts was that Preston and Kyle had to do Zach’s chores for him!  For lunch he told me he would figure out what he wanted.  Soon he came up with canned cherries, almonds, applesauce, and cheese.  Quite the assortment!  Preston told me this was the best lunch he’d ever had!  They are so easy to please!  For dinner Zach got to choose his favorite food, so of course we ended up with nuggets and fries.  Simple, simple, simple!

Zach was thrilled with all his gifts, and set to work on his big Star Wars Lego set the second he was done opening everything!  What a fun birthday!  Zach’s a very analytical, literal kid, and all day long he kept saying he wasn’t 9 yet because it was not yet 9:00 pm (which was when he was born).  So it wasn’t “technically” his birthday.  We sure love you, Zach!!

Olivia gave us her first, real, recognizable social smile on February 15th!! Now she’s smiling here and there at people, and it’s just so cute and sweet!  We haven’t gotten a really good smile picture yet, but here’s the best glimpse of her sweet smile that we’ve gotten on camera!

Yes we love that baby smile!  However we don’t love that baby rash she’s covered with!  Hopefully it goes away soon!

Last March I started a separate blog where I was doing “A Picture a Day.” In April I got pregnant, and my last entry was the end of June.  Hmmm… you can tell life kind of got tipped on it’s head!  I felt so cruddy, and that was something that could be dropped – so it was.  But now I’m thinking of revisiting it.  But I don’t know if I can keep up a picture a day.  I’m trying to decide whether to do that, or do a thing I saw on a friend’s blog where you do a picture a week that corresponds with a specific theme they give you.  Hmm…. decisions.  Either way I’m going to start using the other blog again, so feel free to check it.  Now I just have to decide what I’m doing with it…

When Kyle gets into something he REALLY gets into it.  He zeros in on something, and it becomes an obsession!  First it was trains… then Cars (the movie)… and now it’s Star Wars.  He eats, sleeps, and breathes Star Wars 24/7 right now!  Not only does he constantly play Star Wars, but he can talk and talk and talk for hours on end about every minute detail of Star Wars!  He’s so funny! He’s even convinced that he needs a “REAL lightsaber for his birthday this year.  I’ve been trying to convince him there are no real lightsabers, but he just doesn’t believe me!

The really fun thing about this latest obsession is that Zach and Preston are really into it right now too, and they can all play Star Wars together for hours!  It’s awesome!  We actually took the boys to see Episode 1 in 3D this week for FHE, and they loved it!  Boy do they make their Star Wars obsessed father proud!  Mike’s even been teaching the boys a couple of Star Wars “effects,” and here are some of their creations:

I came across this other cute picture by accident, and thought it was too cute!  That’s my 2 year old Preston and my 4 year old Zach!!

You know it’s been a mild winter when your 3 year old says, “Why haven’t we mowed the lawn in a long, long time?  I need to go mow it!”

I really enjoy Valentine’s Day!  To me it’s just a low pressure, fun holidays.  I can do some cute, simple, creative things to show love to my husband and kids, but I don’t have to stress.  I think part of the reason I enjoy it is because I don’t expect any over the top crazy expensive Valentine’s Day gesture.  Instead I really love the simple (maybe even free), creative, fun, meaningful and sincere romantic gestures that come from the heart.  Easy, simple, fun = a perfect holiday!

I’ve been thinking back on the many fun Valentine’s Days I have spent with my husband over the years, and I realize I need a better memory!  It all fades together over the years, but I do remember some!   The first Valentine’s Day we spent together was right after Mike got off his mission.  He actually got home in March, but I love Valentine’s Day so much that I decided to “reschedule” Valentine’s Day that year, and we celebrated it in April I think.  We had such a fun day.  We made breakfast together, played at the park together and had a picnic lunch, and ended the night by having a candlelight dinner on the track at our high school where we had met 5 years earlier.  It was so fun!  Another memorable year we went around to places that held special memories for us and took pictures of ourselves, danced, read journal entries, and other similar things.   I’ve decorated Mike’s car at work, left gifts around for him to find throughout the day, and snuck into his work the night before to decorate his office.  He’s taken us to the top of the mountain to watch a sunrise, and we spent it in the hospital when I was pregnant with Pres.   We’ve danced in our living room, made dinner together, gone on overnight getaways … the simple fun memories go on and on (if I could only remember them all!)!

This year I had all sorts of ideas on things I wanted to do for the kids and for Mike.  Unfortunately, I have a beautiful young daughter that takes a lot of my time and energy these days, and I just didn’t do much.  But isn’t she cute in her Valentine outfit from Aunt Liz?

The plan was to wake up early to make heart shaped cinnamon rolls for breakfast.  Of course after being up all night I couldn’t drag myself out of bed early enough to get them done, so they were only half risen when everyone had to leave.  Good thing it’s a low stress holiday, eh?  So Mike quickly whipped up pink pancake batter to make heart shaped pancakes instead.  The cinnamon rolls made a great after school snack, and /i even took Mike one at work.  Once everyone got on their way I scrambled to hurry and make heart shaped bean bags and get everything ready for the preschool Valentine Party… which was fun as always!  I usually help with the parties at the elementary school too, but didn’t want to take Olivia into the germ fest there, so preschool was the only party I did this year.  Zach had to bring a decorated Valentine box to school, and of course we couldn’t do anything simple.  He wanted to make a volcano… of course.  So he did it all by himself.  I told him how to make salt dough, but he measured and mixed it by himself, made the volcano, painted it – everything.  I was pretty proud of him!  The only thing he didn’t anticipate was how heavy it would be!  It was awesome!  Before school I was teasing Zach about all the cute girls in his class, and I asked him who his Valentine was.  He giggled and said, “You are Mom!”  Awe… what a way to warm a mom’s heart!  I gave him a big smooch and told him not to forget that!

The preschool party was as fun as always!  We played games, read Valentine books, decorated boxes, passed out Valentines, and decorated cookies.  That afternoon Ky opened up the front door and yelled, “Happy Valentines Day everyone!”  He’s lovin’ this holiday!

After school Preston was telling me all about his Valentine party, and he got this cute embarrassed grin on his face, and he said, “Mom!  Eden called me a cutie pie in front of the whole class!  It was so embarrassing!”  Hehe – I love kids!  That night Mike had school, and I was fortunate enough to have three other very handsome Valentine dates!  (Mike and I had gone out the weekend before).  We had a very romantic candlelight dinner – yummy pink chicken alfredo.  During dinner Mike texted me, and I texted him back.  Preston looked at me and his eyes got big, and he said, “Mom, I thought you weren’t supposed to text on a date!  I thought it was bad manners.”  I told him he was right – it was very bad manners, and I apologized.  He’ll make a great date someday!

Once Mike got home we had a fun mini at home date (with Olivia along of course), and called it a night!  It was a perfectly fun, simple day!  I love all 5 of my Valentines!

I finally got birth announcements designed, but couldn’t decide between these two:

I think I’m going with the last one, but I love them both.  You can’t go wrong with such a cute girl on them!

These 3 cute boys are our “February Boys!”  Their birthdays are all within 4 days of each other, so we have so much fun celebrating together every year!

This year we had their birthday dinner at Grandma and Grandpa Wittke’s house so that Uncle Jon could be there (he had an ankle monitor and couldn’t leave), and it was so fun to see everyone!  There were a lot of people who hadn’t seen Olivia yet, and everyone had a great time snuggling her!

Aunt Sinda made these awesome cupcakes:

And we had a great time!  Both boys left with a ton of lego sets, and couldn’t have asked for more!

This is just the beginning of “Birthday Mania!”