What I've read lately....

So I started the year reading a really fun manuscript from a close friend that is trying to get her book published..I won't say more about the book, or friend...but I cannot wait until I see her book out, and then I will tell you all about it. I'm so impressed with this person, she is so smart, and funny, and she writes from what she knows, which makes her writing ever better, I love her, and her writing, I just can't say enough about how wonderful this person is, not only an enjoyable person to be around, but someone I truly admire.....so to my mystery book I give two thumbs up!!!



A Thousand Splendid Suns- I've tried reading this book in the past, for some reason the first time I just could not get into it. But this time, as I picked it up, I could not put it down. It is such a sad book, and with all the news reports about Afghanistan, it was interesting to read a real story, to bring the lives of the people in that country to a more personal level. For somme reason the sadness I felt while reading this book reminded me of The Book of Negroes by Laurence Hill, if you read that one, you might enjoy this book too.
It was for sure not an entertaining book, but it was a beautifully written, and well told story...so if any of you guys are looking for an intelligent book, give A Thousand Splendid Suns a chance.



Around the world in 80 days- This is one of my classics for the year, I wish I had read it in French, but I will try that later on. It was such a fun book to read, but not really the type of book I generally read, but it felt like I was sharing the adventure with the characters. It is an adventure, a love story, a book that teaches you a little bit about the world. Not a difficult read for a 'classic."



Everybody is Beautiful- This book actually make me laugh out loud. It is the story of a young mom as she moves to a new city, and learns to find a passion in life, while still giving her all to her young family. Mostly I enjoyed it, because it made me laugh.

Not sure what I will read next, this year, I want to read just for the pleasure of reading, and so far I'm loving it!

FHE and little M

For about a good year or so we have been getting together as a family, and having Family Home Evening, I'm very proud of this, and what made me think of this? Well tonight after FHE (we do it weekly...sometimes we miss Mondays ;) ), Maija said "can we do it again?!!" She LOVES family home evening, and I have the children's song book, and the new nursery manual to thank for that. Maija loves to sing, so as long as we have an opening song, and a closing song, she loves whatever we do. I'm sharing this, because for the longest time, we had no clue how to go about doing FHE with a little baby/toddler.
The nursery manual has REALLY simple lessons, that make gospel principles easy to teach, and you can download the coloring pages from the church's website, and print them to color during FHE. Maija is a Sunbeam now so tonight, we tried something new we read an article from the friend, and she really liked that.
The Church's songbook is pretty awesome, if you are like me, and don't know too many of the primary song, then you can go online, and listen to them, and learn them with your little ones.
By the way, by no means think that our FHEs are perfect, generally at least two out of three people are doing summersaults, and we are pretty much the most off key family EVER, but the fact that Maija loves that time, just makes me a little too happy for words...please if you guys have any FHE ideas that work for your family with little ones, please share them under comments, I will really like to try out new things
Peace out.

Happy 2011

So it is New Years Resolution time again....well there is a few things I will like to accomplish...I think I'm going to leave out the fitness goal out for a little bit of time...more on that later. But I think I will concentrate on mind, and spiritual fitness for now.
1. Read the Old Testament
2. Keep up with Sunday School lessons weekly (Read the New Testament)
4. Complete my Personal Progress goals.
3. Read 10 classics from the BBC list
4. Read the Book of Mormon..I know this doesn't seem like a lot, but I think I want to keep things VERY simple.

It is a heavy read oriented list, but I think this upcoming year will already bring many blessings, so I think I will keep it simple.

Good luck everyone with your New Years Resolutions!...and you, what are your goals for 2011???

Feliz Navidad!!!

Wishing you all a wonderful holiday season!!!!!

from THE OLSONS

A story and a grateful heart.

Today was "one of those days" sure I am blessed to have a beautiful, in most cases very well behaved little girl, but tonight, her little body was possessed by some whiny, crying little toddler. ;) Does that ever happen with your kids? It happens with my little Maija angel ;) Anyway, after finishing our bedtime routine (bath, teeth, books), and feeling like I could be a contestant in something called "Canada's worst mothers" (I sure hope that show doesn't actually exist!) I sat down, and started reading, and looking through lds.org and preparing an upcoming YW's lesson. As I was looking through the web site, I came across this video.

Motherhood Series: “My New Life” video with Stephanie Nielson (NieNie)

It made me cry, it made me think, and then it made me realize how lucky I am, to have the life that I have. I'm lucky to have my sweetheart, my family, my faith, my Relief Society group, my mother, good friends, my health, and although when Maija is screaming her head off, and I'm covered in bath bubbles, tears, and buggies, even in those times, I am still incredibly blessed, even if for a moment I forget it, I'm also thankful for these reminders.

If any of you guys are interested I found a link to Stephanie's blog, it looks funny, and fun to read.

A pocket full of kisses

When we take Maija to the library we give her one of those purple bags, and tell her to have fun, and pick whatever she wants (this works great, unless we take her to Chapters...hehehe). Anyway, Maija found this really cute book at the library, and I just LOVE it!!! I think it is one of the sweetest children's books I've read in a long time. A pocket full of kisses by Audrey Penn, this is the first book we read by her, but we will certainly look for more at the library. I don't want to give away the story, but it is adorable! Happy reading.

My family

I was looking back on my latest posts, and I have hardly mentioned anything about my family. So here it goes...

Maija



Always a lot happening with her. Maija loves to play "School" we take a big piece of paper, tape it to the table, and she practices letters, painting, gluing, cutting, whatever she feels like doing, and in the last few days she has already learn how to write a few of her letters. This activity she either calls "school" or "crafts"... I have a friend who does this with her little boy (teach him his letters this way), and so I am trying to learn from her example. I know every mother thinks this,but she truly is very clever ;) Maija knows the names of all the pieces in a chess board, and she often practices this at the library with her Daddy, in the large chess board there.
She loves to sing, and can find all her favorite song in the children's hymn book.
She loves to read, she can easily sit on my lap, and read for a good hour, or two. She has a great attention span, and she is asking a lot more questions like "Mommy, how to do you say _____ in Spanish?" and then she repeats it, and says to Wyatt.."Daddy, this is how you say _____ in Spanish"
She loves the movie Cars, perhaps a little too much, and has memorized the characters, and story very well considering she has not been allowed to watch it often, her mommy is a bit of a movie control freak.
She is awesome in the pool, she can jump in, put her head under water...in other words MAIJA IS AWESOME!!!! Sorry I meant to just write about my family, but I should rephrase that, I'm bragging about them. Maija and Wyatt are pretty awesome.

Wyatt



This summer we took a road trip to BC, and it was a great opportunity to hang out with Wyatt, minus his computer. We camped for about 15 days, and it just made me realized how lucky I am. He knows and loves the outdoors so much. He knew a lot about marine biology, so it was specially neat to go to the coast with him.
At home, I hardly see his cooking skills, BUT he does really well if we are dealing with a camping stove. Not only does he have bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills, we can add camping cooking skills to his list.
He was teaching Maija about all kinds of animals, when we visited the Vancouver Aquarium he knew a TON of information, it was cool.
He took some beautiful pictures, he has a great talent for composition. He shot over 1400 pictures, but it is not about the number of shots, but the end quality, and the time he dedicates to his photography, it is cool to see how much he enjoys it. We went exploring a lot during our vacation, while Wyatt took photos, it was fun.
I was never an outdoors person, but now I love it, and the more time I get outdoors with Wyatt, the more I think that these are the best vacations ever, and more importantly our best times together. I'm glad he is patient enough to teach me about the things he loves.

Me



I'm reading lots...lately I had yet another hiccup, and read a few fun books, but I am back to reading Jane Austen. I'll post about that later. Good night.