Compost!

Nicole is awesome! She decided that we should try composting this year. So far it has been a sucsess. Next year we are going to have a lot of compost for our garden. The picture isn't that great, that big pile is from our kitchen waste and yard waste through out the year. It has been kind of tricky to turn at times. I have had some problems with the grass clippings turning into big hard clumps, but I am finding out if I mix the grass in, it turns out better that if I just throw it on top.

Old Halloween!

These are pictures from Halloween 2009. Kennedy had a ton of fun decorating the yard. You can see she did a very good job! Mandy and Katy came over and we went trick or treating. It was all good fun. Happy first Halloween Malaki!

Malaki's Potty!

I have to admit, a couple months ago when Nicole was looking for little potties online to buy for Malaki, I thought she had gone off the deep end. At the time he could barely hold his head up, let alone use a potty! Well, I was greatly mistaken.

Malaki has been usuing his potty for about a month now. Everyday he uses it. He loves to use it in the morning. Nicole will set him on it and say, "go potty", and he goes! I was amazed. Nicole tells him, "good boy!", after he goes and Malaki gets so excited. He is very proud of himself. He doesn't use only the potty, he still goes in his diaper, and he is NOT potty trained, but it does save us a lot of diapers and keeps his little bum from getting rashes. And besides, we think it is cute.

Take that cat out for a walk!

Such a lovely night for a walk. Scott and I sure thought so. Well appearently, we weren't the only ones! Nicole put the sleepywrap on and got Malaki all snuggled up and hunkered down. As we started on our walk, we noticed that both Zero and Toby were following us. This wasn't too surprising because they usually will follow us for the first 100 yards or so. Well today they just kept on trooting along on the side walk right behind us. We got to the point where we kept coaxing them on so they would come back home with us. They seemed pretty happy to be coming along for the most part, but by the time we were just past the half way point they started to get a little spooked. They were walking up closer to the yards and sniffing bushes. Anytime a car would drive by or a stick would snap they'd get all low to the ground and look around. Zero even made the crying noise cats tend to make in cars at one point. But that did not last long, because they soon recognized where they were and started leading the way home! We were so proud of them trusting us, that we gave them a can of tuna as a reward! We don't know how much they enjoy the walk, they were extremely exhausted once we got in the yard, but we had a great time! We hope they join us more often!

Just Right Already!

Here I am sitting here with SO many things in my head wanting to come out. There are so many stories to tell, so many things to share. So I open up a new post, and start typing. I write two or three sentances, stop, go back and read over everything and decide that it's all wrong. That it doesn't convay what I want it to say. I erase it all and try again. No, still not right. I sit there. Think awhile. And then there it is. I am stuck. Well, looks like I am done for today! And thats it. What is stopping me from writing? My overwhelming need for perfection? Possibly. But I know I will never be perfect. And really, is there such a thing as perfect? Do I want to believe in perfect?
No.

...So what is imporant to me?
I want a record of my family's life. I want to document all of the burnt muffins, basketball injuries, kid quotes and animal stories. I want to be able to look back at the pictures and have the REAL story that goes with them. I want to remember how bueatiful and perfect my life is. I want to see how blessed I am and share that with others. I want to laugh at my mistakes and learn from them. I want to be write about being right in my imperfections. So when times like this come around I can remind myself of how insane it is to not get what I really want because I am too busying being right.

So here's where I am. I am going to take time each week to create a new post. Share pictures and stories, or even just nonsence. But I am going to write. And it is NOT going to be perfect. And there are going to be errors and it is not going to flow. It is going to be messy.
And it will be perfect.

Malaki's Birthday!

Now that Malaki is a month old, we decided to write about the day of his birth. Or maybe, now we just have time!

As you may have read in an earlier post, we had been waiting "patiently" for Malaki for what felt like quite some time. The day before his birth, we got to the point where we figured he was going to come when he was ready, no matter what we did. So that night we figured he wasn't coming anytime soon. Scott went to play basketball and Nicole watched a movie at the church and had a lovely walk.

Scott got home from basketball at like 11:30. Usually Nicole and Scott go straight to bed, but for some reason this night they decided to stay up late and ended up watching a movie about compost. At 1 am, they finally wondered what on earth they were doing, turned the movie off and went to bed.

After a long rest of 1 hour and 30 minutes, Nicole woke up in labor. However, she was tired enough that she was confused went to the bathroom and went back to bed. At 3:20 am Nicole woke up again when she couldn't quite get comfortable in bed. She thought that maybe she needed to go to the bathroom again. After 20 minutes of first confusion, then pacing and timing she had finally realized that it was go time. During this time, she discovered that her contractions were less than 3 minutes apart lasting about 1 minute. Malaki was finally ready!

After a phone call to the doula and midwife and 20 minutes of Nicole grabbing random fruits and and things to take with them they headed out to the birth and family center. Running red lights (not because they were in a hurry, but because it was 4 am!) and telling the hypnobabies lady on the ipod to shut up along the way.

We arrived at the birth center at 4:45 with Nicole dialated to a 5. Nicole spent time in lots of different positions. The whole time Nicole had an amazing attitude. She was loving every bit of labor. She was very focused and breathed like a pro! She refused to get frustrated and did a fabulous job of allowing the midwives and doula to give suggestions.

When Nicole was in transition, she commented after a contraction that it didn't even hurt and that it was just intense. She kept telling everyone how grateful she was and how she loved everyone! She told us how labor was beautiful. This is much better than the cussing that Nicole's mom had assured us would come. However, Nicole never cussed, never said anything negative, and enjoyed her birth! It was a truly amazing experience.

At 9:37 am., after about a half an hour of real pushing and some rope pullling, Malaki was born. He was pink and healthy. He had lots of long hair, and it looked really curly. Nicole's mom was pleased to announce that she thought that his hair looked African American.

Nicole says that Scott did really well during the birth as well. She says he was incredibly supportive and made all the difference. I think she is just being nice to him. How can Scott not be supportive when Nicole had such a great attitude? What should he say, No Nicole, this isn't beautiful, birth is hard! Ok. So, Scott did hold the barf bowl. That was a little traumatizing. Scott's favorite thing he did to help was pressurizing Nicole's hips when she was on the birth ball. He enjoyed that because in between contractions, he was asleep on Nicole's back. He always woke up when the next contraction came and Nicole said, "pressure!"

Malakis birth was a splendid event. It was terrific. YES SIR REE!!

Malaki is now 1 month old!

Cloth Diapering!

When Nicole was pregnant, she looked into cloth diapering. Honestly, I was scared. I was didn't quite know how it would turn out. However, it has been great! The diapers were a little more soggy than the disposable ones, but the more you use them the more absorbant they get. With the right cover (we use Thirsties) we have had NO problems with leaks or blowouts! We like them a ton better than disposables, and they are better for the landfills. He looks way cute in his cloth diapers, too! So, if you are thinking about going cloth, do it. Nicole can help.

Waiting For Malaki

Nicole's due date was May 23. We know that a due date is actually just a guess of about when the baby will be born, and very unlikely that that would be his birthday. But, none the less, we became quite excited and restless as that day approached.

May 23 was a Saturday. The Saturday before that, Nicole had been very content and patient. People would always ask her if she was ready to pop, and she would say, "no, I can wait tell he is ready. I am enjoying being pregnant." The next day, Sunday, Nicole, Kennedy, and Scott went to the park to get organized for the birth. We put together a hypnobirthing folder worked on Nicole's "special place." A special place is a hypnobirthing tactic to have the mother think about and visualize a special place during labor to help them relax. Nicole's special place is the park. The park that day was so beautiful. We had a great time as a family. Scott tried to find a bird that had the most beautiful song. We think it is a little gray bird with a red head. Kennedy played in the sand and on the swings. Kennedy loved the park. Scott baked chicken and made mashed potatos to eat while there. It was just a great day at the park. It was a start to a wonderful week out in nature as a family. After the trip to the park, Nicole decided, "Ok, I'm ready for Malaki to come."

On Wednesday, we payed a visit to the midwife for a check up. Nicole was really swollen. Her ankles had completely disappeared. Her toes even had fat rolls on them. Nicole had also been having lots of braxton hicks contractions. The midwife was very pleased with Nicole and thought the baby would be coming very soon. She then did a check up only to discover that Nicole was dialated to a 3, almost 4. Honey, our midwife, told us she would be surprised if Nicole made it through the week without having the baby. We were very excited. We thought for sure Malaki would come during the weekend.

Nicole continued to go to work through out the week. On Thursday, during the Youth City celebration Nicole began to have regular contractions and was certain she was going into labor. After she got home, at about 9, the contractions went away. Nicole is very proud about the fact that during the contractions at the end of the Youth City celebration the kids had a dodge ball game. Kids vs. Parents. Nicole of course played for the kids team, and did awesome. She stayed in for a long time and got several of the parents out, and ultimately helped the kids gain victory!

About this time, Kennedy began to become very excited. Scott and Nicole were thrilled that she was so interested. Up until that time, Kennedy kind of seemed a bit nervous, and at other times apathetic. Kennedy did not want to leave Nicole or Scott's side. It was as if she thought that the second she left, the baby might come.

Nicole woke up Saturday morning, the 23(her due date), more swollen then ever, and puked. Nicole felt very different. Even her face was swollen. She was continuing to have braxton hicks contractions every 6 minuets. She was certain that today was going to be the day. While she was shopping at Toys'R'us she thought she was in labor. Because Scott figured that this would be the last Saturday before Malaki came, Scott took Kennedy up to Neffs Canyon in the late afternoon for some good time together. Just the two of them. Neffs Canyon was absolutly beautiful and Scott and Kennedy had some great bonding time. On the way home from Neffs Canyon, Scott and Kennedy stopped at Little World Chinese Food and picked up some fried rice and picked up Nicole to go to the park. Kennedy wanted to know when ever Nicole had a contraction. She kept asking how long her contraction was, and how long it had been since the last one. Scott and Kennedy laughed and played on the swings while Nicole enjoyed her fried rice. We all had a great time at the park

After the park we decided to go for a walk to help the contractions continue. Kennedy was very excited to go for a walk. She was willing to do anything to help Malaki come. She kept asking about the contractions. "Tell me when you have another one. What time is it? How long has it been since the last one?" She was just glowing she was so excited. The braxton hicks contractions continued to be about 5 minuets apart. Nicole was unsure of what a labor contraction would feel like, but she had never had one so she thought that the braxton hicks might be real contractions, and they might get stronger and come closer together. As we walked, we ran into neighbors who seemed to certain that we were going to have the baby tonight.

After the walk we put Kennedy to bed. Kennedy would only go to bed on the condition that if the contractions got to be 4 minuets apart, that we would wake her up and let her know. Before Nicole and Scott went to bed, they packed everything and got all ready to go to the Birth Center thinking that they would be heading in that night.

Nicole woke up at 7 am on Sunday. No contractions. No baby. Kennedy was a bit frustrated. Scott and Nicole were surprised, but Nicole knew that Malaki would come when he was ready. Scott was kind of glad that the baby didn't come on Saturday, because Sunday, the 24 was Grandma Barbra's 90th birthday. He thought that it would be really neat.

After church, Kennedy went to her moms to watch a movie, and Nicole and Scott thought they would go out to nature again and enjoy some time together. Scott decieded to return to Neffs Canyon. It was gourgous again. We hiked around a bit. Took some pictures and found a nice place to relax in the woods. Eventually a thunderstorm chased us back home. Later on Sunday, we sat down to dinner. Nicole decided to eat dinner while rocking on the birth ball. The contractions had started back up. Kennedy was so excited now that she had gotten out pencil and graph paper so she could graph the contractions. With Dads help she graphed the contractions for almost 2 hours. She ran to Nicole and said, "according to this graph you are going to have the baby tonight!" We told her he might not come today, but Kennedy had confidence he was coming. We had a really hard time getting her to bed again. We finally got her to go to bed telling her that she needed to be well rested for the birth and that we would wake her up if we were going to head in to the birth and family center.

Monday came, and no baby, and again, the contractions had gone away during the night. Ok. We were going to get serious about having this baby. We knew that he would come when he was ready, but we decided it wouldn't hurt if we helped a bit. So we (Scott, Nicole, and Kennedy) decided to climb Ensign Peak. Nicole was dialated to a four and having regular contractions (braxton hicks) and we decided to climb a mountain. Ok, it's more of a hill, but still, it was great. We started our hiked close to sundown and it was absolutly beautiful. Kennedy had never been before up there before. Both Nicole and Kennedy did really great climbing. We got to the top just as the sun was setting over the lake. We took some pictures of us at the bottom after the hike.

Pictures from Mandy

Tom and Lorna were sealed in the Logan Temple.
Mandy came up and took tons of pictures.

Kennedy helping "the round one" down the hill.



Mandy and Katy!


2t! Sweet!

Miss Kennedy! I don't know what that look is for. Maybe I asked her if she wanted to help me take the chicken to the vet

Nesting! Ole!

Lots to be done at the Olsen home! Nicole is nesting, and it is tons o fun! Some how, she convinced Scott to start dry walling the living room. It is looking very nice. Even the plain sheet rock looks better than that hideous panelling! After the sheet rocking, we will try to put the new wood floor down. It is going to look so much better!

Nicole also went crazy yesterday and completely re-organized the kitchen and back closet.

Also, Nicole bought this solid wood dresser! We are going to use it as a changing table. We desperately need more storage space in our house, so the dresser will provide a much needed place to put Malaki's clothes.

The babies room is almost totally ready. We got the crib, now the dresser/changing table, and Nicole's glider rocker chair. We have also painted the room and cleaned the carpet!

Pie Time!

Nicole has never ever made an apple pie, and she always has been a little bit afraid of crust. This weekend, she has over come her fears and created a wonderful apple pie from scratch! The crust has a moon, a star, and a bat. I will be the first to say it was a success!

Scott loves the pie and keeps eating out of the dish with the knife.

EEG! Super fun with neurology!

Nicole got to have and EEG! It's kind of like an EKG, but for your brain. When Nicole was little, she used to have seizures, and they were never quite figured out although the doctors said it wasn't epilepsy.
Because we are expecting a new baby boy in May, the doctors wanted to assess the possibilities of Nicole having a seizure during labor. The good news is that the EEG turned out normal and that chance of having a seizure is very very small!
In order to perform the eeg, Nicole had to stay awake all night. Oh, fun. She went and played at a friends house and then came home at like 5 am and got in bed. Luckily, she woke Scott up enough that he would not let her go to sleep. After some arguing, Nicole reluctantly got out of bed. We ate McDonald's breakfast and shopped at the grocery store to pass the remaining time before the eeg.
By the time we got to the hospital and started the eeg, Scott and Nicole were so tired that they were a bit crazy. We laughed and laughed while the technician drew on her head with a red pen and attached little suction cups and wires to her head. At some point Nicole told the technician that she would like to own a robot.

Back to Nicole's health... The baby and Nicole are doing great!! It turns out that Nicole's pregnancy is not labeled high risk. The High Risk OB that we saw even said that her midwife and the Birth and Family Place would be perfect for Nicole and the baby.

Birth and Family Place

On Wednesday, Nicole had an appointment at the birth and family place to check up on the baby! Kennedy and Scott went along for the fun. We heard the baby's heart beat and the baby kicked a lot! Very active baby! Nicole is excited to have the baby at the Birth and Family Place. Kennedy even exlaimed, "This is the perfect place to have a baby!"

Above is a picture of one of the three birthing rooms to choose from. Nicole hasn't chosen a favorite yet. They all have big wonderful tubs to use and queen size beds. Here is a picture of Kennedy and Nicole having fun with the blood pressure machine. Below is a picture of Kennedy playing in the "forest" just outside the birthing center. Please go to http://www.birthandfamilyplace.com/ to learn more about this amazing place to give birth!

We will find out if we are having a boy or a girl right before Christmas! Nicole is very excited so she can buy clothes and things for the baby. We have tons of things to get. We are a bit overwhelmed. Nicole has been looking for a bassinet and a stroller and a car seat and a crib and clothes and blankets and toys.... lots of stuff. If anyone has advice and/or hand me down baby stuff, it would be very much appreciated!

Nicole can predict the future!

We were looking at our blog today and noticed that we have been blogging for almost a year. Since February. I don't know if you can remember, but when we first made our blog, we had a put baby widget on our blog. We were kind of just making fun of how weird the fetus's looked floating around on peoples blogs. When Nicole made the baby widget, she put that she was due in 15 months. May of 09! and lo and behold, she is due in May of 09. She knew 6 months before she was pregnant that we would be having a baby next May.

Due date May 22

Nicole and I went to the University Hospital yesterday and had an ultrasound done. Nicole is not as far along as we thought she was. They estimate her to be 6 weeks and 5 days. Her due date is May 22.

The ultra sound was really quite neat. We got a short video and a picture. In the video you can't see much, but you can see the heart beating.

After the ultrasound, Nicole's mom treated us to lunch at the Point, at the Huntsman Cancer Hospital. If you have never eaten there, you should! It is the highest building at the University up on the hill, and the restaurant is on the top floor. When you are eating you have a 180 degree panorama of the Salt Lake Valley. Very impressive. Also the food is really good, and it costs as much as a regular hospital cafeteria.

Maple Canyon

Kennedy had wanted to go camping lately really bad. I don't have school on Monday and I'm all caught up on my homework, so I decided that this weekend we could go on an overnighter. I told Kennedy and Nicole more than a week ago that we should go and everyone seemed to enjoy the idea. But when the day came, Kennedy decided that she was going to stay home because her mother was having a baby shower for her new baby boy Ethan. Cole and I went any way.

We were going to go to the San Rafael Swell, but as we were climbing Fairview Canyon to cross over the mountains between Ephraim and Castledale, the Subaru over heated and the radiator broke. We turned around and cooled the car down as we coasted down the canyon back to Fairview.

Once in town, I got some radiator stop leak and bought some more coolant. (all the local mechanic shops were closed) Surprisingly, the radiator stop leak worked, so we headed back up Fairview Canyon, but about 1 mile up we started overheating again, but now the radiator wasn't leaking. We drove back down and asked one of the locals if there was a place to camp that was close by that didn't require us to climb up over the mountain. They said there was a really cool place just west of Moroni called Maple Canyon that was only a small climb.

We head off and sure enough Maple Canyon was awesome! The fall colors were amazing. The Subaru stayed within temp range just long enough to make it to the first campsite and than overheated.

The canyon walls were really neat. It almost looked like someone had cemented these giant cliffs with cobble stones. I don't know how well you can see in the pictures, but the cliff walls were made of small stones with the biggest stones being about a foot in diameter.

Another interesting thing was

these HUGE nests of caterpillars that looked like big spider webs. The were everywhere. While we were making breakfast, the caterpillars kept falling from the trees on to us. They were really fuzzy and cute and because Nicole missed Toby, she took a liking to them. Nicole found one caterpillar, I guess they are called Wholly Bears, that was black and orange and really fuzzy. She really liked that one.

Even though we missed Kennedy dearly, we still had a great time. It is nice to go and enjoy being outdoors from time to time.

There is a bun in the oven

About week ago, Nicole decided at 12:30 a.m., to take a pregnancy test. Bad Idea. Nicole had already taken several pregnancy tests that week, and all of them had come up negative. She was so disappointed, but we didn't really expect that she would get pregnant on the first try either. So, she told me, "the test will come up negative, but I want to take one anyway." I told her to go ahead. That was a mistake, because we ended up getting very little sleep that night.

The test came up positive. We are expecting in May. It took awhile for the test to come up positive, and she said that she hadn't been waiting that long on the previous tests before she threw them away. We took a couple of the old tests out of the trash, and sure enough, they were all positive.

Nicole has been acting pregnant as well. All of a sudden, she hates garlic and she can smell things from a mile away(I now have to shower more often). She was craving ground beef so I baked her a meatloaf and she was very excited. That is not at all like Nicole to crave ground beef. She has also been craving bell peppers which is good because I love them.

We have plenty of boy names, but currently no girl names. So anyone who would be so nice as to suggest girl names would be very much appreciated. So far Nicole doesn't want to use a girls name that is really popular. She like M and A names, but your suggestion doesn't have to be one of those. Leave your suggestions by leaving a comment.

The best yogurt

We haven't posted for a while, and there is lots to post about. Kennedy is in gymnastics, we remodeled the kitchen and I spent last weekend out of town having fun.

So, I will post about those other things latter when I get pictures. For now I will post about my love for yogurt! Mountain High yogurt is my new favorite food. It is up there with peanut butter and waffles. This yogurt is seriously way better than yoplait or generic brands. It is real yogurt! It has this splendid tart taste. It doesn't have tons of sugar and gelatin in it.
Almost every night I eat it with multi grain Cheerios.

Nicole loves it too because it is healthy for you. It is made with crystaline fructuse and natural flavors. It is totally natural. Not artificial anything. Oh yea, she also is happy about it not have rBST.

Father's Day

Happy Father's Day!! This morning Scott woke up and Cole and Kennedy had cooked him the most amazing breakfast! We ate ginger bread waffles!!! YES!!! They were so good!! Nicole also go Scott an incredible gift basket. She made the gift basket of all sorts of intersting things Scott would love. Scott just finished his rum cake and real brewed ginger ale before posting.