Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Ten Things

1. We had a good time in Texas. The kids were good on the flight. Olsen had a great time with his extended family, who all give him a lot of attention. Jovie has reached the stage where she cries whenever someone other than me or Adrian hold her, which is unfortunate for many reasons...

Grandkids picture 3
all of the cousins on the Welsh side. Jovie is about to cry...

2. Olsen had a good Christmas. It was his first Christmas where he understood more and anticipated it. He still didn't want to sit on Santa's lap but he did ask him for Legos, which he got a lot of.

200 duplos?!?

3. It has been a very mild, dry winter here in Logan. Olsen has gone to the park and has ridden his bike around many times this month! This has been kind of nice and since it hasn't been too cold, we have not had any red air days yet. But this isn't looking good for the water supply that relies on the spring runoff of snow pack.

4. Apparently, the lack of snow has also been hurting the ski industry. Vail has been unable to open the entire mountain for the first time in 30 years. There are some dry patches in Beaver Mountain, our local ski mountain. Olsen has gone once this year and seemed to enjoy it, though he has no control at this point.



5. Olsen likes to give people presents. Today he had a card to give to one of his teachers who is leaving soon to have a baby. Olsen told her, "I have something for you. Open it. There's paper inside." so cute.

6. Jovie turned six months old last Friday! She has almost rolled from her back to front when she's trying to get something but hasn't quite gotten it. She has been making a lot of different sounds lately, like "buh, fuh, vuh, and muh." I feel like she is making much more sounds than Olsen did at this point. I wonder if it's partly due to the differences between girls and boys.

6 month old pose
Six months old!

7. Speaking of the differences between boys and girls, I read an interesting article in the Huffington Post the other day. It discusses how boys and girls react to challenges differently. When given difficult material, boys enjoyed the challenge and worked harder. On the other hand, girls felt hopeless and discouraged. This is because girls believe that their abilities are innate while boys believe that they can develop their abilities through effort and practice. A lot of this is based on the messages we give boys and girls. Since boys tend to not listen as well as girls, we are often telling boys things like, "If you would pay attention, you can get this." Girls are better able to follow instructions and we end up telling them things like, "You are so good. You are so smart." I can already see with Olsen that sometimes he doesn't listen very well and we do tell him that he needs to try a little harder at times. We will need to be careful that we emphasize effort with Jovie as well as she gets older so that she also gets the message that "experience, effort, and persistence matter a lot."

8. I haven't really made any official New Year's resolutions, but I do want to get much more organized. Our house is a complete disaster. I really want to declutter and get rid of a lot of things we don't need or use. And then there's always the whole exercise and eat healthy ones that are always on the list...

9. We found out last week that we will get to use Adrian's dad's old company's cabin in Estes Park, CO for a week this summer. We are excited. We went back in 2009 when Olsen was just over a year old. He took his first steps there.

Digging around and walking
Olsen walking around exploring the cabin.

10. Whenever Olsen talks about something that happened in the past, he always says, "Yesterday, a long time ago..." I was thinking that now at about 3.5 years old, he will probably remember a lot that happens now in the future. I remember a few things from being three. I feel like most of my memories start at four, possibly because I started pre-K at four and have that as a benchmark. It will be interesting to see how much Olsen remembers from his time as a sweet preschooler.

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