Our Baby Girl!!

Braelyn Danine Olsen

March 15, 2010

8 lbs 1.9 oz, 19 3/4 inches

I cannot believe she is already here, but it has been so much fun to have a little girl. Zachary even likes her now which we are very grateful for.

We could not be happier with our little family!!! I am so grateful for my husband and my kids. They are the world to me.

CaLiFoRnIa!!! (lots of pictures)

So, we went to California almost six months ago, but it is never too late to blog about a good time, right? Anyway, for Christmas 2008, Curtis' parents gave us sky miles; however, they said if anyone wanted to trade skymiles for a condo, which they have time share in, we could do that. Curtis' brother happens to be a pilot for Skywest, and said he could get us stand-by round trip tickets for $90.00 a person, so we decided to buy our plane tickets, and stay in the super nice condo for free.

Zachary insisted on pulling his own suitcase through the airport.

So many people stopped and told us how cute he was.

Overall, it was a really fun vacation! We went to Disneyland and California Adventure for three days. We took Zachary to an Aquarium which he loved because that kid is obsessed with fish, and we went to a pretty lame Children's museum. I don't remember what it was called, but I would never recommend it to anyone. More than half of the exhibits they had were closed and it was really dirty. Gross, but here are a few pictures anyway.

Disneyland and California Adventure were awesome!!! I think Zachary liked most of the rides we went on, but he was a little bit unsure of the characters. I really don't think there was one that he liked and would go near without crying unless Curtis or I was with him.

Like I said, Zachary's favorite part was the aquarium, and I have to admit I thought it was pretty cool too. Every two seconds it was, "daddy, mommy, fishy." It was really cute!

While we were there, a worker went into one of the tanks to

clean it out. Zachary just sat there and watched him in awe.

Anyway, there are lots of pictures to look at, but I hope you enjoyed them. I am excited to take Zachary back when he is a little bit older and able to enjoy it more, but we had a great time, and were glad we went.

I Love Him!

So, I know I haven't blogged in a while, and I should probably blog about Christmas and our hosue, and our trip to California, but I am going to say a little something about my husband instead. I lOvE hIm!!! There are times I don't ever think I can love him more, and then he does something that just makes more love come pouring out. I am not going to go into details about what he did, but Curtis, I want you to know that I love you so much, and could not have asked for anyone better to spend eternity with!!!

We're having a.......

GIRL!!! And we are super excited. Zachary has been saying for a while that he was going to have a little sister, and he proved to be right.

We are already very prepared in the clothing department. Whenever we would go shopping for Zachary, I would find myself more drawn to the baby girl's clothes, so I would of course buy some. I think we would always come home with more girl clothes, than clothes for Zachary. Curtis would always laugh at me and say, "what if we don't have a girl?" Well, fortunately we are, so I didn't waste all the money I have spent on girl clothes.

We are due March 21st, but my doctor said if everything goes well, he will induce me so I don't have another nine pound baby. Thank goodness!!! I do not want to live through that again.

I am so grateful that we are blessed to have another baby, and I cannot wait for her to be here!!!

Zachary's Adventures

We went camping a few times this summer with our families, and I am way behind in posting pictures. Over the 24th of July we went to Tony Grove with Curtis' family. We do this trip every year, and I would have to say that this year was fun but also not fun at the same time.

Here is a picture of Zachary sweeping the dirt. I think this was his favorite thing to do while we were there. Last year was easier for me because he couldn't walk yet, but this year he got SSSSOOOO DiRtY!!! and I hate him being dirty. It was quite disgusting.

The night that everyone is up there together, the boys hike up to a place called White Pines. The next morning the girls who want to, hike up and enjoy a few hours up there with the guys, and then they all hike back down and we eat lunch together.

This picture is of Curtis, Zachary and me right before the guys left to go on the hike. You will notice the bandage on Zachary's hand. You may be asking "why does he have that on his hand?" Well, I will tell you.

Curtis brother Brandon had gone fishing and caught some fish that he of course decided to cook over the fire on one of those metal grate things. (I have no idea what they are called). Anyway, we were sitting by the fire and Curtis got up to do something and didn't know Zachary decided to follow him. Zachary tripped and fell over the fire and put his hand on the grate. Here are a couple pictures of the result:

I was scared to death and Zachary was screaming like I have never heard before. A man from another campsite came over with some burn spray and we had ice on it trying to cool it down. I felt like such a horrible mother and could not stop crying. We gave Zachary some IbUprofen and Curtis, his dad and his brothers gave Zachary a blessing. Zachary continued to cry so Curtis and I took him on a walk down to the lake and we threw rocks in the lake and that helped Zachary calm down a lot.

I am so thankful for the power of the priesthood. I am grateful that Curtis, his dad and his brother's were worthy to give my baby a blessing.

Zachary now knows what the word "hot" means and whenever someone asked him to show them his "owie", he would look at his hand and say "ow". It was kind of cute.

We were really afraid that he would have scars from where he got burned, but his hand is perfect again. You cannot tell that anything ever happened, and I know that is because of the blessing Curtis gave to him.

I love this gospel and my family and feel so lucky to be so blessed.

Tarra's Wedding

Wow! I cannot believe it has been two months since I posted anything. What a slacker. I definitely have a lot to post about, but I will start with Tarra's Wedding.

Tarra married Dane Strader on July 18th in the Draper temple. It is really hard to believe that my little sister is married. Seven out of the eight of us kids are now married, and it's really cool because we have all been sealed in different temples. Imagine that!!!

It was a beautiful day for a wedding, and things couldn't have gone better. Here are a few pictures I thought I would share. Curtis' brother Daniel was the photographer and he did an amazing job.

These first two pictures are of my Zachary and I couldn't help but post them because he is so CuTe!!

The picture above is Tarra and Dane with my parents and

my Grandma (mom's mom).

All eight of us kids. My sister and her family were able to drive up from Nevada

for the wedding, so that was really special.

The above picture is of both families who were at the temple.

This picture is one of our favorites. This is all of the grandkids.

Aren't they cute?

This is the picture that meant the most to my mom. This is the first family

picture we have had in who knows how many years where all of

our family is together. Mom has wanted one of these for a long time.

We are so happy that Dane is part of our family!! We couldn't have found anyone better for Tarra.

HaPpY 4th of JuLy

I know that the 4th of July was almost two and a half weeks ago, but what can I say? I am a slacker. This year we spent the 4th with my family. Curtis, Zachary and I started the morning off by going to Denny's for breakfast. It was YuMmY!!!

That afternoon my family came over to go swimming in the pool at our apartment. We have not taken Zachary swimming since last summer when he was about five months old so we didn't really know what to expect. He LoVeD the water!!! We have a turtle tube that we bought for him last summer, and we tried to put him in it again this time, but he was having none of that. He wanted to be out of the tube............jumping into the pool. It was so cute. We would put him up on the edge, and he would jump to us without any hestitation. It was so fun!!!

This is Zachary trying to get out of the pool by himself.

That night we went to my brother's house for dinner and fireworks. Zachary loved the fireworks too!!! It is definitely a lot more fun to do these kind of things when your kids are older. I loved seeing his face when he watched the fireworks. This is him doing sparklers. The only problem was, he wanted to do it himself, and he kept trying to touch the fire.

These last two pictures are of the fireworks that we did. We had some pretty SwEeT fireworks!!!

I am so grateful that I am able to live in this country! We are so blessed to live here and have the freedoms we have. I hope we never take for granted the blessing we have of living in our country.