Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to the #1 man in my children's lives. . .

 

 

 

  

 

 

  

  

 

. . .although these guys are a close second:

 

  

 

 "It's only when you grow up, and step back from him, or leave him for your own career and your own home—it's only then that you can measure his greatness and fully appreciate it. Pride reinforces love." -- Margaret Truman

Summer, So Far

Backyard, Then and Now

We did it!  We have a YARD!

Well, we've always had a "yard".  But now it's starting to look like a YARD.  Allow me to explain.  First, cast your mind back about five years. . .

2007:  Jared comes home one night and excitedly tells me about the house he drove past on his way home from work.  He shows me the MLS listing and I agree to go look at it, along with a few other houses in the neighborhood.  When we stop at the house Jared was raving about, I suddenly understand his excitement:  it has a second garage in the backyard.  Long story short, we buy the house and Jared eagerly waits for the snow to melt so he can get to work.  It quickly becomes apparent that the garage is not salvageable.  So, with a little help from Jocke and Dan, down it goes.

 

2008:  The garage has been leveled, and now we get to work removing the overgrown shrubs along the west and south.

(Pay no attention to me looking goofy in the foreground--check out that tired little fence behind me. . .)

Along the south, as we remove the shrubs we realize this fence is going to need to be replaced soon.  As we pull out the bushes along the west fenceline, we realize that a) our yard is several feet higher than our dear neighbor's, and b) now that we've removed those shrubs, there's nothing to keep our yard from sliding right into hers. We need a retaining wall.  So we buy a tractor:

(Or, wait, did we buy the tractor earlier, and use it to pull out the shrubs?  I can't remember anymore. . .)

Jared finishes building the retaining wall *just* in time--the cement truck comes on a cold and rainy November morning, and with some more help from Jocke and Dan, the wall is completed.

2009:  Jared buys a backhoe attachment for the tractor and the real work begins:  digging out the western half of our yard and putting in a rock retaining wall.  It takes all of this summer and part of the next.  At this point I admit that the tractor/backhoe really was a good purchase--how else do you move tons (literally, tons) of dirt and boulders the size of small appliances?

2010:  At some point Jared takes a closer look at the foundation from the second garage and has the sad realization that the foundation just isn't fixable.  So he builds a new one.  It also makes a really hand repository for the extra dirt and rocks we have to move around.

Future home of the Man Lair

 2011:  Our goal for this year is to install sprinklers and hydroseed to restore the lawn that has been pretty much massacred by the past 3 years of work;  however, those plans are waylaid when a winter windstorm knocks down the fence along the south side.  Sure, we could have just fixed the section that fell over. . .but we might as well take advantage of the complete lack of lawn and replace the whole thing. 

 

 

In fact, while we're at it, we figure we ought to install the raised patio we were talking about, too.  No sense in putting in a nice new lawn and then tearing it up the next year with trailers and wheelbarrows, right?

 Road base for the patio foundation

  Our redneck "dump truck"

I insist on laying some of the pavers, explaining that it's a nice change for me to work on a job that, unlike laundry and dishes and mopping floors, will stay "done" for longer than a day. 

The patio takes longer than anticipated (oh, but isn't it beautiful?) and before we can finish the sprinklers, it's late fall.  Still no lawn, but I get a consolation prize of some nice raised beds for next year's vegetable garden.

2012:  Facing the prospect of another yardless summer as we wait for a seeded lawn to grow, I look into sod--and wouldn't you know it, it's not nearly as pricey as we'd feared.  After some final grading and finishing touches to the sprinklers, we're ready.  With some help from Jocke (again!), Jay, and Aaron, the grass is down in just a few hours.

Ben watches the work from his perch

And voila, our backyard is transformed from the neighborhood's best dirt bike course to our kids' new favorite place to play.  We even had enough sod to patch up the front lawn, which was looking pretty sorry after we had to dig out and replace the water main in February when it broke during some basement renovations.  (But don't get me started on all that.  The front yard is a story for another post.  The basement. . .well, that deserves its very own blog.)  

More Stuff My Kids Say

pop-on earrings: Elizabeth's word for clip-on earrings. I'm sure if I told her the correct term she'd quickly pick it up and start using it. . .so I intentionally don't correct her.

Nano: Anna's nickname for Elizabeth. She's been using it less and less lately. . .which makes me a little sad!

Nano

wiper towels: Elizabeth's word for paper towels. . .although now everyone in the family calls them "wiper towels".

Yikes! Someone get me a wiper towel for this dirty little face

One chilly day I asked Anna to go out to the car to get something. She replied, "I can't. I don't have shoes on, and I don't want to 'brr' my feet."

At City Creek mall, you have to ride two escalators to get to the upper level. On a recent visit we got off the first escalator, and as we turned the corner and Anna saw the second escalator, she exclaimed, "Now we have to go even UPPER!"

Rapunzel had to go up and up. . .and then even UPPER to get to the top of that tower.

My favorite parenting tool is to offer kids choices to entice them to agree to something--for example, I'll tell them it's bath time and then ask if they want hot, cold, or warm water. The other night, Anna proclaimed that she wanted a bath with "heaty" water.

And then there's Anna's dairy lexicon. I think I've mentioned before what a little cheese hound Anna is; she loves cheese in any form, even if she doesn't get the names exactly right. . .

caught-of cheese (also cucky cheese): cottage cheese

strange cheese: string cheese

sprinkle cheese: shredded cheese

snacking cheese: slices of brick cheese. We had to make this distinction when she kept raiding the bags of "sprinkle cheese" when she was hungry, making a huge mess in the process. I finally told her THAT kind of cheese was NOT for snacking, and that if she wanted a snack of cheese I would slice her some.

I can't wait till Ben starts to talk and add his own words to our growing family lexicon!

March + April

A random sampling of what's been going on at La Casa del Olson this spring:

A special cake for a special birthday boy.  Happy #33, Jared!  

 

Despite limited success in the past, I have high hopes for this year's veggie garden.  I even bought a grow light!  The girls are excited, too;  every time we go to the hardware store or garden center, they want to pick out seeds for the garden.  Elizabeth wants to grow corn;  Anna wants to grow watermelon.  I'm hoping to grow enough tomatoes to do some canning.  Keep your fingers crossed for us!  

 

The kiddos weren't too enthusiastic about modeling their Easter finery.  (I'm a sucker for matchy outfits for the kids, but this was truly serendipitous:  I'd bought that shirt for Ben nearly a year ago, in a clearance sale, and then just a few weeks before Easter I found those dresses for the girls at the JBF sale.  Voila:  coordinating outfits for all three of them, for less than the original retail price of just one.)

 

Easter Eggs, 2012

I can't remember why Anna was upset, but she perked up as soon as we let them loose in the front yard for the Easter egg hunt.  Speaking of Anna. . .

 

Kids seem to have something in their genetic code that compels them to put anything remotely hat-like on their heads.  In this case, it's a milk jug with the bottom cut off (to be used as a "hot cap" to protect frost-tender plants in the garden, if you must know.) 

We got a special visitor in the mail:  Elizabeth's cousin in New Jersey sent us a paper doll version of herself, as part of a school project.  (Elizabeth was particularly excited because, as luck would have it, she's been reading Flat Stanley at school as well!)  We took "Flat Brooklyn" for a visit to the state capitol and then mailed her back home, along with a letter and some photos of Utah. 

Soccer season is here!  We went ahead and signed Anna up along with Elizabeth--and it's been pretty entertaining to watch her team of 3- and 4-year-olds.  I love how the shorts hit them below their knees. 

Ben usually spends the second half of the night with us.  He gets really restless around 4, but then around 6 he settles back down into a deep sleep until 8 or so.  I love waking up to see him utterly sacked out like this. 

Whenever Anna finds an ant outside, she runs in asking for some food so she can feed them, and I'll give her a piece of a cracker or something similar.  One day she decided to bypass me and just grabbed a box of Triscuits from the pantry.  I opened the door later that day and discovered this: 

Ahhh, spring--we're glad you're here!