I filmed this video days after finding out we were expecting and before the sickness kicked in! Unfortunately it didn't take long for the sickness to put me out for a few months during which time editing this video was the FURTHEST thing from my mind! I'm glad to say that I'm safely in the second trimester and feeling approximately 1000x better, so I finally got around to doing something with it! I really do hope to use video to document this pregnancy more so please hold me to it!

Watch the video for answers to questions like "Was this pregnancy planned?!" and "How many kids do you want?!" You just might learn a thing or two you didn't know ;)

_ _ _

han.

P.S. On a scale from 1 to vain how bad does it make me that all I can think about while watching this video back is how much I miss my eyelash extensions?! 😂🙈

*I started making this list before Elliott's birthday and Lydia's half birthday, so even though many of these no longer apply, I figured I better post them before everything has changed! It is seriously crazy how quickly their mannerisms change at the current stages they are in.

LYDIAISMS...

...Smothering Elliott with "cuddles" dozens of times daily.

...Responding to "O'Lydia" and "Lydia" interchangeably.

...Nearly constant nose picking 🙈.

...carrying around purses and "diaper bags."

...saying, "Watch this, mom!" and, "See mom! It's not dangerous!" every time she successfully does something I asked her not to do. 

...overemphasizing the "k" sound on the end of words ("parkk," "workk," "walkk," "backk," "awakkke," "milkk," ).

Lydia, "Ya, mom! I'm just gonna get Elliott's sippy cup!"

Me, "I already got his sippy cup!"

Lydia, "Oh you did?! GREAT!"

Walking home from the park she noticed my shoes, “Mommy you're cute for wearing Daddy's sandals.”

Me: "It looks like you're missing finger nail polish in some of your nails! Where did it go?!"

Lydia, "Uh, Maybe the wind."

"Our car is really dirty. I tried to clean it with sand, but it didn't work."

ELLIOTTISMS...

...dancing when he sees me peeling an banana.

...dancing to the sound of the blender and the water draining out of the bathtub.

...smiling at strangers.

...waving and almost blowing kisses.

...sleeping like a champ (both at night and for naps. BLESS HIM).

...climbing up the stairs. 😱

...being deeply offended when Stephen gets home from work and doesn't pick him up first thing.

I know I'm about a month late 😅 but it's never too late to post some adorable photos of a chubby one year old eating some cake AM I RIGHT(?!) so here we are! Elliott's first birthday was super low-key (even more low-key than Lydia's - which is saying something because I thought hers was about as bare-bones as they come, haha). We had some neighbors over to eat cake and ice cream and sing Happy Birthday. 

Funny story about the ice cream - when I opened our freezer the day before the party I noticed that there were a lot of things that were melting. Frantically I texted around to a few neighbors to see if anyone had some extra freezer-space for us to stash a few things before it spoiled. Thankfully a neighbor had a spare freezer in her garage that was practically empty so I hurried and moved it all over there. I put the gallon of ice cream I had purchased for the party and other things into her freezer and said I'd be in touch when I needed them. The next day a few minutes before the party started I texted to see if I could grab the ice cream and she said they would be out until late that evening! Oops! I panicked and made Stephen run to the store and get another gallon of ice cream...needless to say, we still have looooots of ice cream in our freezer from his birthday over a month ago. 😂

The month of May 2018 was a big deal in the Olson household. Two members of the family celebrated birthdays (Elliott and Stephen) AND we added two additional members that I'm 100% certain will make their mark (literally and figuratively) on our family forever. 

ADDITIONAL MEMBER #1: OUR VERY FIRST GRILL!

We knew this summer would be our year to finally have a grill. We looooove burgers, grilled chicken, and kabobs (who doesn't?!) and now that we have a backyard it seemed silly not to take advantage! When it came to actually purchasing the grill, however, we didn't have a clue what we were doing since neither of us know much of anything about grills and they can get pretty pricey. After a lot of searching and researching (and multiple phone calls to my dad) - we found this baby on facebook marketplace for $75 and we were sold! We've used it almost everyday since we bought it and we 👏🏻 love 👏🏻 it👏🏻. We're determined to be burger-making masters (like my dad) by the end of summer! He swears the key to a good burger is to cook them low and slow and give them a healthy (or not-so-healthy 😜) dose of Lawry's garlic salt, haha. We've still got work to do, but I'd say we're starting to get the hang of it!

ADDITIONAL MEMBER #2: A VERY WELL-LOVED [and panic-inducing 😜] SWING SET!

One evening Stephen was chatting with one of our neighbors who was getting ready to move to a new house. During the conversation they offered to give us their swingset before the move. Lydia loves swings and slides and without hesitating Stephen said we would absolutely take it. When Stephen excitedly told me about our recent acquisition he mentioned that it was a little old and broken but he was certain Lydia would be thrilled. When the beloved swingset showed up in our backyard a few days later, he was right! Lydia was THRILLED! ...her mom, not so much 😜

Needless to say, this swing-set has already made it's mark (or two 😳) and I often feel like I should probably have liability waivers for parents to fill out before they let their children play in our backyard 🙈 but Lydia and her little friends absolutely love it, and I try to keep my anxieties to myself for the most part (although I will say this is not a strong-suit of mine - especially while being pregnant) 😂.

Since moving to a new area of Utah in January, we haven’t done nearly as much exploring as we initially planned. (Poor weather/the first trimester of pregnancy + lots of puking are valid excuses for this though, no?!) Since I'm finally feeling much more like my usual-self and Stephen had the day off work, for Memorial Day we decided to head to the mountains for an adventure! Well, we mostly just set out for a fun afternoon in the mountains, but we maaaay have gotten a little more than we were looking for ;) 

Our plans were pretty simple: Meet our friends Bryce and Melissa at Silver Lake, build a campfire, and visit while roasting hotdogs, cooking *the world's best* tinfoil dinners, and indulging in s'mores. The perfect plan!

Perfect, perhaps, but not particularly adventurous...

Not long after loading up the car to embark on this afternoon in the mountains, it started raining. Mother nature loves to give you those little surprises! (In her defense, when Stephen checked the weather forecast earlier in the day, he accidentally checked the forecast for "silver lake" in exactly the opposite direction of where we were headed, hahaha, so the rain shouldn't have actually been a surprise at all...)

We weren't sure how this rain would affect our plans, but since our friends had gone up the canyon earlier in the day and didn't have cell reception, we decided to just head in their direction and make the most of it (all the while hoping the rain would dissipate). After getting lost multiple times, off-roading in the rain, and getting our car caked with mud, we found our friends, who had, unfortunately, gotten a flat tire! 😂🙈

Bryce, Melissa and Landon jumped into our car and after a bit of driving around we found the perfect spot to set up "camp" and start our fire (thankfully by the time we made it to this point the rain had stopped). After unloading the car and an intense search for kindling (which proved difficult due to the recent downpour) Stephen and Bryce successfully got our fire going!…just in time for a ranger to come inform us that -- despite the fact that the fire-pit we were using had been there long before us -- no fires were allowed in that part of the park. 🤦🏻‍♀️

15 minutes later the fire was doused, four adults + three children and a heckuva-lotta stuff were re-loaded into the car, and we resumed our search for a prime spot to *legally* start a fire. A spot was found and we again unloaded all the people and supplies. Starting a second fire (after using most of the trash we had in our car as kindling for the first one) proved to be even more difficult. An excruciating 20 minutes later we were in business with a campfire! (Did I mention that Stephen and I had spent all afternoon working on our masterpieces of tin-foil dinners and in all the excitement forgotten to eat lunch?!)

As you may have imagined, the whole getting-lost-dealing-with-a-flat-tire-moving-camps-and-lack-of-kindling situation set us back...a bit. At this point, as soon as there was a flame, we scarfed down the hotdogs, made some s'mores and then started packing everything up to go home 😂 (after Stephen took the drone out for a quick spin). 

With three curious children under the age of three, a free-flowing river just a few feet in one direction and open flames a few feet in the other, "visiting around the campfire" was, unfortunately, forgotten, along with the tin-foil dinners that we were certain would be unlike any the world had ever before seen (in the best way, of course ;)). 

Despite the craziness and things not exactly going to plan, we had a ton of fun and are surprisingly more motivated to do the whole thing again now that we have all the kinks worked out! haha 

_ _ _

han.

PS We ended up cooking our tinfoil dinners in our oven the next day and...they basically tasted like meatloaf?! hahaha Neither of us have ever made meatloaf before but turns out if you throw all of the "most delicious" things in your fridge into some hamburger that's basically what it is. Who knew!

PPS Although we didn't do much in the way of "Memorial Day" on Monday, later that week I took Lydia and Elliott on a walk to the nearby cemetery where we looked at all of the decorated headstones and talked about veterans and our country's flag. I realized how important that is to do after listening to this podcast episode and I hope to incorporate more education into patriotic holidays in the future!