The New Year...

Our New Year started off just dandy. We took a quick family photo to document the start of the year. The boys played outside in the freezing cold and then came inside to play a new game Lucius got for Christmas. Couldn't ask for anything more.

Sometime early January we went to the dog show downtown St. Paul to see Auntie Dana show her dog Phish. It was pretty fun to see all the different breeds of dogs there and to cheer on Phish.

The boys and I ditched school one Friday mid January to go to the U of Mn for a "children of Twins" study. It's a part of the twin study that my twin sister and I have been a part of forever. They are studying how genes and environment interact to influence character, strengths, vulnerabilities, and values. Its an interesting topic and I loved that both boys fit into the window of Children of Twins age range to participate. They both got MRI scans and received some fun prizes for their time. I wasn't with them much of the time but we did have a pizza lunch together and see the fake MRI machine to practice what the real one would be like.

Oliver turns 10 years old...

This is my son whom I love to pieces. Oliver turned Ten years old. I never imagined the child I had a decade ago would teach me more than what I feel like I am teaching him.

This kid very outgoing and has more bravery in his little finger than I do in my whole introverted being. Taking an ounce of his courage I write this post because it has weighed on me of late.
O has his own unique sense of, well... everything. Though we tend to disagree about things from time to time, we always try to agree to learn from each other. There's so many words I could use to describe him and labels that would be appropriate but why box him in. There's no box big enough to contain him and he continues to break every idea people have of him anyways. 

his puppy eyes face

My amazing son has made it his personal mission to break down societies gender stereotypes. He gets very annoyed that the world feels it has to separate people into girls and boys. I feel his frustration. I grew up with the label “tomboy” because I loved all the boy things. Being a very gender non-conforming female, its was a very easy decision to allow him the same freedom to be gender creative. He is very confident and comfortable in his own skin. What’s more... His friends openly accept him for who he is, no matter what.

 (His Legolas hair after we watched the Hobbit movie. 

It took me about an hour cause I've never done a fishtail braid before.)

Happy Birthday to my amazing kiddo!! May you always find the courage to be who you want to be no matter what anyone else says. You will always be loved by me!

For Oliver's Birthday we went out to eat as a family with Mormor and Morfar to one of his favorite resturants, La Casita. Before we left he opened his gifts from his grandparents.

A few random photos of Oliver being himself:

This one his art teacher texted to me. He just finished making his torn paper landscape but he included the Eye of Sauron because it was right after watching the Hobbit movies. His art teacher said "the landscape looks too happy to be watched by Sauron." True- but who am I to argue with that happy face of his!

New Years Eve...

Winter Break pretty much came and went without much hullabaloo. The temperatures outside were VERY cold, like artic windchill cold. So the boys were indoors for most of their break. I thought about taking them out to do things around town but pretty much everyone we knew was sick or out of town. Not wanting to catch anything we stayed in the healthy bubble that is our house. Lots of movies were watched and all the new Christmas toys got played with.

One day the boys actually did brave the cold for about 40 minutes. It was SUPER cold though and I kept thinking I was a horrible person for letting them even try to be outside. No one got frost bite so it ended well in the end. They played on the small snow hill they created out front. Then they came inside to warm up.

On New Year's Eve we took a road trip down to my cousin Beth's house. I gave her the quilt I finished the night before for her new baby (well new-ish, she was born this fall). We ate lunch at her house, played games together, worked on a puzzle and snuggled with her baby. It was such a fun time to hang out. Very relaxing and we got to be out of the house for once!

My Elf Army year end videos...

Its the end of the year. Goodbye 2017, it's been quite the year for adventures and new discoveries. A Paris Trip for Jerimy and I. Lots of new information about Oliver and his sensory needs. Many sporting events for Lucius. Lots of friends, laughs, smiles, trials, challenges, and everything else in between. Here's our last quarterly video of 2017. The password is: myelfarmy

My Elf Army 4th quarterly 2017 from Margaret on Vimeo.

OR in case you'd like to see our whole year from start to finish, I've also made a video of that as well. (Each of the Quarterly videos are about 1.75 minutes, the whole year video is just over 6 minutes long.)

This is the third whole year I have documented our daily life with the One Second Everyday app and we still love watching our year in review videos. Those little small moments that get pushed from our minds are bought back into focus watching our whole year this way. We can't say we didn't do anything this year when put altogether like this is looks overwhelming. I continue to keep video logs in this new year. Excited to see what can happen.

Ear Piercing...

The day after Christmas, or as Oliver wants to say "ear piercing day!" we went to see Auntie Dana's friend at a tattoo shop. She pierces ears with a hollow needle and not an earring gun. I know next to nothing about piercing so I referred to Auntie Dana on everything. Oliver, Oma, Auntie Dana and Myself walked into the shop and filled out the paperwork. We waited a bit in the lobby then walked back to her area. She asked who was going first and without a moment of hesitation Oliver jumped on his chance to FINALLY get his ears pierced.  He has been asking for this for about 6 months and I told him when he turned 10 he could do it. Mostly because I wanted him to really think about it. So he's been collecting earrings since August or so while he impatiently waited to get his ears pierced. It was a few days before he officially turned ten years old but it close enough.

 

Auntie Dana's friend was amazingly patient, answered ALL of Oliver's questions and pierced his ears. I was impressed that he did both and he didn't seem to find it painful in the least. He doesn't really like washing them or cleaning them but they are healing nicely.

Oma and Auntie Dana got their ears pierced after Oliver. Since it was a big family affair I was starting to feel left out, so I pierced my upper ear too. Now we can say "remember that time we all got our ears pierced?" Also- I knew I would probably forget to clean his piercings so I figured if I did mine we could keep each other accountable for washing them.

Christmas Eve and Day...

Oh boy, this year was one of our least amounts of Christmases to go to but at the same time they were all right on top of each other. Usually they're over the course of a week or two which is kind of fun to space Christmas out and make it last longer. This year it seemed over in the blink of an eye and now it's the middle of January already.

On the evening before Christmas Eve (aka Lucius' Birthday) we left the boys with Mormor and went out to dinner with Jerimy's Dad, Julie and his siblings. It was fun to connect and eat a yummy dinner with everyone. 

On Christmas Eve Day we went to my younger sisters house and hung out most of the day with cousins. Well all the cousins who weren't sick that is. We had a delicious lunch, opened presents, took our annual cousins in front of the tree photo (and a family one too), and then let the kids go sledding. We served Hot cocoa after they came in and then put them in front of a movie (or two) to keep things calm while I made ebbleskivers and Eme made waffles for dinner. All in all it was a wonderful day.

(Notice the happy smile Oliver makes when he is hugging me and doesn't know a picture is being taken, now look at the face he has been making when he does know someone is snapping a photo.)

 

On Christmas Eve night we put the boys to bed and I throw their gifts under the tree. This year I bought two cloth Santa bags to put all their gifts inside of. I also "wrap" their gifts in fabric gift bags inside the big gift bag. I had those all done a week ago so it was super easy to put it all under the tree that night. Of course I started getting things out of their hiding places before the kids were completely asleep and Oliver got up to use the bathroom (something that never happens, so I suspect he was spying on me). If he saw anything he didn't make mention of it... so maybe he still believes in Santa?! Who knows really, he likes to tell us "I know more than you think I know" when we ask him about how he feels about the big guy in the red suit.

Christmas Morning we got up early with the boys so they could open their gifts from Santa and open their stockings. Lucius later commented that "usually you guys give us a present and this year you didn't... is there more presents?" So much for being prepared- I totally forgot to get them a present from good old Marmee and Daddy.

Later on Christmas Morning we traveled up to Cambridge to spend the day with Oma at Auntie Amy and Uncle Scott's house. It was a fun gathering with lots of fantastic food and gifts for all. I couldn't ask for a better family to be a part of.