I knew I'd struggle with this....

Another few months go by, and of course I have yet to blog!!!! Sadly, one of my New Year's Resolutions was to journal and blog more often. It's been my goal to keep up to date on work, our Dental School journey, date nights, friends and of course our little lady growing and changing like a weed!!! Addyson is now four months old and such a joy in our lives! She is such a happy little girl, smiling, giggling and squealing with joy everyday. We just had her four month check up and although she is a bit on the light side, she is already 24 inches long and healthy as can be. (she was 18 inches when she was born) Poor little girl got three more immunizations though and was sick the day after, but daddy came to our rescue when he joined us for her appointment and provided some moral support for mommy, agreeing to hold Addy down while she got her shots. He was a good cuddler right after too! He's keeping busy with school and still working quite a bit here and there at the Dental Lab and I'm keeping plenty busy working at the clinic full-time (four days a week now though!).
We did find time in our crazy schedules however, to attend the #4 SDSU vs. #9 BYU basketball game on January 26th. It was a night to remember as we stood in line for almost one hour with thousands of other people waiting to get into the Mariott Center. They had handed out 4,000 wristbands (two of which we were the proud recipients of) ahead of time, all of which ensured you a spot in the student section. As the Mariott Center filled up quickly, everyone hoping to get a seat as close as possible, we ended up believe it or not, being able to sit with some good friends of ours! The energy inside the building was amazing, the noise intense! Needless to say, Addy stayed at the sitter's while mom and dad enjoyed the game to the max! BYU played great!!! Aside from some poor defensive rebounding I was quite impressed :) As the game came to an end, BYU up by 13, the fans stormed the court for the perfect ending to a perfect night! I'd say that night has definitely been the highlight of our new year thus far. As I type this I'm thinking to myself, "how can it possibly already be February"?!!
This month we are probably going to be pretty busy....I will share my birthday with super bowl Sunday, Valentine's Day is always a hit and President's Day gets Chris out of school and me out of work!!! We are looking forward to celebrating my birthday this Saturday and are also planning a possible trip to California over President's Day weekend. We hope to visit Chris' mission area and if we can swing some free Disney tickets, even take the little lady there for some fun and sight seeing :)
Grandma Inman will be visiting in March and then a fun gathering and celebration will be had with both sides of the family in April as Chris graduates from BYU!!!!
Life is fun and unexpected, Chris has been accepted into Midwestern University in Downer's Grove, IL and we look forward to begin planning for Dental school, hoping to have heard from a few other schools by graduation time. Decision time will come in April as we will need to start looking for housing and I'd like to look around for possible PTA jobs wherever we might end up!

I've said it once and I'll say it again.....I'm going to do my best to keep you all up to date on the happenings in the life of the Olsen's.

Just An Excuse To Post Some New Pictures

There's no real update to speak of, but I received one of the CDs of Addyson's photos today and couldn't wait to upload them to share. Included are a few of my favorites with many more posted on Facebook. We are enjoying a lazy Saturday watching BYU football on TV (49-3 in the fourth as I type this) after which some much needed errands will be run and I even hope to get Addy's Birth Announcement and Blessing Invites done today and sent out soon. If you'd like to receive one please respond with your address! Happy Weekend to all. Oh! And Addyson can now say she has been to 2 BYU football games, 1 women's volleyball game and a men's basketball game!! GO COUGARS :)

Halloween, Babysitters, Work & Great Great Grandparents!

It's hard to believe one, that it's already November and two, that Addyson is almost 7 weeks old now. We enjoyed one last hurrah celebrating her first Halloween before I started back to work, and to my dismay, Addy has to have a babysitter. No, actually her sitters are GREAT and we were very luck to find such kind and loving ladies with flexible schedules to help out! I will admit, some tears were shed the night before and that first day I left her with her first sitter; but it is nice to be back to work and back in a routine! My co-workers are GREAT and my boss has agreed to let me take one day off a week. The goal is to have Wednesdays off to spend some time with my baby girl and get things done around the apartment, because let's be honest, no one wants to spend their weekends doing dishes and laundry!!! Anyways, I've survived my first week and a half back and look forward to spending my evenings with Chris and Addy!!! :)




Addyson has experienced a lot of fun and exciting new adventures lately. Although they may not seem fun or exciting to her; Chris and I are having a BLAST being new parents! Above is a picture of myself, Addyson, Chris and Addy's Great Great Grandma Johansen ("Grandma Jo"). Grandma Jo will celebrate her 90th Birthday tomorrow 11/11/10 and it was so neat to be able to introduce them and get a picture of them together! Chris' parent's will be coming out to visit for Thanksgiving and we are going to have a 5-generation picture taken; talk about exciting and neat experiences :) And speaking of pictures; Addyson and I had a girls day today and met some neat ladies who took Addy's pictures!!! She did SO good and was content and happy for the majority of the shoot. After capturing LOTS of cute poses Addy decided she had had enough! We called it a day after several hours and I hope to get more photos taken again in the near future; we can't wait to see the ones taken today!!!

Long Overdue

Hello all. If we still have any followers out there that is! I apologize for the lack of posts and updates. My last post was news that we are expecting and now this post we have a 4 week old! Addyson Elaine Olsen was born at 3:21 on Saturday September 25th 2010. She was an itty bitty thing weighing only 6 pounds 5 ounces and was 18 inches long. I had been pretty miserable all day at work on Friday and just knew she would be making her debut soon! Sure enough, after a less than desirable night of tossing and turning I awoke at 7:00 a.m. to what I assumed were contractions, they lasted for nearly 5 hours (two of which I spent at work finishing my paperwork from Friday) and then I finally decided it was time to eat lunch (in case labor was longer than expected and I couldn't eat for several hours)and head to the hospital. We arrived at the hospital at 1:30 and Addyson made her debut one epidural and 2 hours later. I only pushed for 10 minutes!!! It was a BYU football game day and although we missed the game live in the stands, Addy arrived just in time for us to tune into it on the TV. It's hard to believe 9 months came and went and after such a whirlwind delivery we are both sooo happy to have her here! Grandma Stacie came to visit and help out for the first two weeks and then we also had a quick visit from a good friend of mine from home (Laura Menendez). We are pretty well adjusted to this new life at this time and are thoroughly enjoying all the joy Addy has brought to our lives. She's already met some extended family as well as mommy's co-workers, become quite the shopper; joining mommy and grandma in numerous outings, attended her first parade and football game, has started rolling onto her sides, holds her head up fairly controlled and most recently has discovered her fingers; sucking on her thumb and index fingers! It's amazing how much she has already changed and it's hard to believe she will be 4 weeks old tomorrow and officially one month old on Monday! Chris continues to keep busy with classes, dental school interviews and work. He has already interviewed at The University of Iowa, Indiana University and Case Western; with one more interview scheduled at a Chicago school. We are anxious for December 1st, the soonest he will hear back from any school and also cannot wait to head home to Iowa in December to introduce family and friends to Addyson. I've been enjoying maternity leave and all my one on one time with Addy but sadly will be heading back to work November 1st. We hope all is well in each of your lives and wish much health and happiness this time of year! So there you have it...the latest and greatest in the lives of the Olsen's.

Baby On Board

Yep! As the title of this post suggests, we are indeed expecting our very first baby!!! I am due October 1st and so far everything is going great. No morning sickness or crazy cravings...yet :) We are both very excited and were so anxious to share the news; we did however, wait until I was almost 12 weeks to tell our families. After Jim and Angie's surprise visit we decided to send OUR surprise home with them. We had made "Grandma to be" and "Grandpa to be" T-shirts for the grandparents and gave strict instructions for them to open the surprise package together. I'm still not sure who was the most surprised but my mother, and also my father-in-law both claim to have had at least an idea of what it was about! It was a fun day for a lot of people, we shared the news with parents first, then grandparents, and then finally friends and extended family!!! I have posted the first "baby bump" picture on facebook and once I figure out how to add pictures to my blogspot they will be accessible on here as well. We have already had our first doctor's visit and so far I really like the doctor we have chosen, she is not only an OBGYN but she is also a family doctor, so I am taken care of for anything and we can also follow-up with her after the baby is born. During the first visit we got to hear the baby's heart beat, but I also had to be brave and get my blood drawn (if any of you know me very well you know I HATE needles)!!! It was the most amazing thing though, and although it's still hard to fully comprehend, hearing the heart beat made it seem all the more real. I have another check up in a few weeks and I think we may get to see the baby via ultrasound. It's an exciting, nervous new time of our lives and we look forward to sharing this experience with all of you.
So there you have it, the latest and greatest in the lives of the Olsen's.

*Surprise*

What a Weekend!!!!
Going into the weekend we had planned to do dinner with Chris' grandparents Friday night and attend an 80th Birthday Party for his other grandfather on Saturday. Other than that we were thinking it'd be a pretty low key weekend, which either way we were fine with it! Well...everything changed quickly Friday evening. After a quick trip to the mall we were told our dinner dates would be to our place to pick us up within the hour, as we waited and watched some of the basketball games our doorbell rang. Chris opened the door only to find his PARENTS standing there!!! We were both SHOCKED! They quickly explained to us that they were our "dinner dates" and his grandparents were only a cover up to make sure we didn't have plans for that evening. They had made the 18 hour trek from Estherville, IA to attend the Birthday Party on Saturday making for a loooong drive and a short visit in Utah. We all headed to Red Lobster to eat, and lo-and behold, Chris' grandparents were there along with two uncles and an aunt. It was Jim's (Chris' dad) birthday Friday so they planned a Surprise party/dinner for him as well.
*THEY WERE FULL OF SURPRISES THIS WEEKEND*
After dinner we packed our bags and headed to Mt. Pleasant to stay with Angie's (Chris' mom) parents only to get up Saturday morning to get ready to surprise the Olsen's! Everyone at the party was shocked as well and we had a great afternoon of visiting, eating, and celebrating Grandpa Burke's 80th Birthday!!! We also enjoyed the exciting yet sad ending to BYU's season along with some other exciting and crazy basketball games before heading back to the Ames' for dinner. After eating lots of good food and watching the movie The Princess and The Frog, we headed to bed so the in-laws could get some good rest before their 12 hour drive Sunday. Sunday morning we got up bright and early, went back over to the Smith's for breakfast and then headed back to Provo. Jim and Angie were quickly on their way to North Platte Nebraska where they will be staying over night before heading the rest of the way home on Monday and Chris and I enjoyed some of the Sunday games with his friend Pat and later took advantage of the beautiful weather when we went for a walk!!! Dinner tonight was also a success!! We grilled delicious (but not as delicious as Iowa's) sweet corn and chicken and had a nice mix of potatoes and red and green peppers. The night and busy weekend is slowly coming to an end as we watch the passing of the Health Care Bill and wonder what the future will hold......I guess all we can do at this point is get mentally and physically prepared for what the WEEK holds! One day at a time right?!?! That's all for now....

Spring Has Sprung!

Spring Has Sprung...Well, Kind of! We've been teased with "spring" weather for a while now, and after a snowy/rainy Saturday,today was BEAUTIFUL by my standards :) Sometimes I wish I had a job that involved the outdoors a little more, but then again, I'd just be complaining for the entire Winter Season if that were the case. I guess you just can't win with me and my fair weathered preferences. I did sneak outside for some fresh air on my lunch break and then talked Chris into going on a walk with me after we both got home from work. We started before 6 in our jeans and t-shirts and after a good 2 and 1/2 mile jaunt we had a chilly trip home (still in just our jeans and t-shirts). Chilly or not, it was nice to get out and get some fresh air and aerobic exercise, however little it might have been; but we were both content sitting on the couch watching the Jazz play basketball and Jack Bauer play hero when our walk was over! We make it a priority on our Monday nights to catch each new episode of 24 and then spend the week in suspense waiting for the week to pass. Chris is being a good student and doing some homework as I type this, and I am facebooking it up while playing with fun backgrounds and posting some uninteresting news on here ;) It's hard to believe March is halfway over, and even harder to believe we've been married for almost 8 months. Time flies when you're having fun! Although we miss our families and friends we are keeping busy and enjoying our time in Utah. Looking forward to more "spring" weather, as the forecast for the week looks promising! More to come as the adventures of the Olsen's continue....That's all for now though!