34/52 - Olympic Baby

One of the benefits of Oskar arriving when he did is that we had an excuse to just sit and watch the Olympics! Starting about 5 years ago, we became "cord cutters" when we dropped all TV service in favor of Netflix on a Roku. So it took a little investigation to figure out how we could even watch the Olympics online. We subscribed to a streaming service (SlingTV) for the sole purpose of watching the Olympics, but none of the online-only options include the main NBC network. So we could only watch the "off brand" events that didn't make the cut for primetime NBC viewing: team handball, water polo, badminton, table tennis, soccer, etc. Nevertheless, it was pretty engaging and impressive to watch athletes at the top of their sport.

Anders was enraptured by the Olympics in general, regardless of the sport. For each event he watched, he had to choose which "side" he would root for, then he would act as if he had been rooting for that person/team all of his life. One day he looked at the event schedule and saw kayaking and canoeing for 5am the following day. He immediately decided that he would get up to watch it! And to our great surprise, he actually did. (This is the kid who has slept until 11am on Christmas morning and who struggles to get up by 7am to catch the school bus.) On that day, he watched the Olympics for 13 hours straight. Hey - it's the Olympics!

Anders and Grandma Donna made cheese crackers, since everyone knows that watching sports on TV is better with salty snacks.

I think this was the first time that Anders was exposed to television commercials. Since most of what he has watched previously was educational programming of some sort, he interpreted them all as public service announcements. "We should get a Pizza Hut Big Flavor Dipper pizza. It comes with 4 sauces!" "Did you know that ExxonMobil makes cars go further with less?"

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We had another full week of doctor appointments, including the 2 week checkups for both Oskar and Corinne. Both passed with flying colors. Oskar made it back up to his birth weight at just about the two week mark.

Oskar and his "life-size" sock monkey, courtesy of Aunt 'Nita

While in Portland, we couldn't pass up another stop at Salt & Straw. I guess it's not every day that a newborn waits in the S&S line, so Oskar garnered quite a bit of attention. One boy asked if he was real. (We sometimes wondered that ourselves.)

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After a week of Anders being able to spend time with Oskar, he is more excited about his little brother than he was before he was born.

Anytime he is around, he tries to give his brother kisses and tells him how cute he is. If we had any doubts about how Anders would handle no longer being the only child, they have now been thoroughly dispelled.

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Since Oskar was born early, we had a bonus 0th birthday party for him on his official due date! Anders insisted. And since Anders also had a 0th birthday party, it seemed only fair. Plus, cake.

Anders made the decorations. Unfortunately for Oskar, he can only appreciate the cake second-hand.

Happy 0th Birthday, Oskar!

- Mike, Corinne, Anders, and Oskar

2/52 - Happy Birthday, Mom!

The Anders quote of the week came when he saw Corinne's new sunglasses. She misplaced her previous pair about a month earlier and finally broke down to buy a new pair. When she showed her new sunglasses to Anders for the first time, he told her that the new glasses:

1. make her look cool,
   
2. are giant, and
   
3. make her look like a bug
   

So I guess looking like a bug is cool. (And 3 days after the purchase, she found her old sunglasses.)

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This year, my mom turns 70! My brother Drew and I planned a surprise birthday luncheon for her with some family and friends, and part of the surprise would be that I was flying in from the west coast to be there.

The party was on Saturday afternoon, so I found a flight to arrive in NJ on Friday evening. But when I arrived at the airport Friday morning, my connection through Denver was at risk due to bad weather. While waiting in line in Newark to receive instructions on my alternatives, I was unexpectedly whisked away to a neighboring gate to board a non-stop flight! Not only did they have a seat available for me, but it was an exit row aisle seat! About 5 hours later, I landed in NJ - 2.5 hours ahead of my original itinerary. It was truly a birthday miracle. (And it wasn't even my birthday.)

In order to preserve the surprise until the party, I stayed with my cousin Bev and her family on Friday night. All of the guests arrived and setup at the party 30 minutes before the guest of honor. When she arrived, she was suitably surprised.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Unfortunately, Corinne and Anders couldn't make the trip with me this time. I did have to torment Corinne with several photos of the delicious pizza that I ate while I was there, though. (Sorry!)

It was a short visit for me, in NJ for less than a week. But when it was time to head home I wasn't going alone. My mom had already planned a trip to visit us in Trout Lake, so I surreptitiously booked a seat next to her on the return flight. :)

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders

40/52 - Cake, School Bus, Gummies

After making/carving Anders's birthday cake, we had some leftover cake pieces and excess frosting that we had put aside for later. We decided to give Anders a chance to do some cake decorating on his own.

Nice job, Anders! Tasted delicious.

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Here is a "day in the life" at the school bus stop.

In the morning, the whole family walks down the driveway to meet the bus.

In the afternoon, Corinne and I walk back down to meet him when he gets off the bus.

He says hi (sometimes) then walks past us toward the house. Rarely is he wearing his coat/sweatshirt from the morning. Thankfully, it is usually in his backpack (and not in the lost-and-found at school).

Most of the time, he runs away from us toward the house. He finds this hilarious. (Us, less so.)

On rare occasions, we manage to convince him to walk with us.

On days when we join him for lunch at the school, we get a glimpse of his lunch routine. On one of these days, we discovered his favorite concoction from the salad bar:

Peas, olives, cheddar cheese, and peaches

Nutritionally speaking, it's not too bad. The flavor profile, however, ... well, as long as he likes it.

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For his birthday, Anders received a small RC quad-coptor from Grandpa Reidar. Anders calls it the "Extreme F-Two-Two".

Watch this video on YouTube
or in the original post

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Another item on Anders's birthday wish list was a kit to make gummies. Rather than buy a pre-made kit (with its paltry and overpriced collection of ingredients), Corinne found gummy-making instructions and made her own kit. It doesn't take much more than flavored gelatin, corn syrup, and some silicone molds.

...and voila! Who doesn't love gummy LEGO minifigs?

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders

39/52 - Reading Fiend

Anders loves his non-fiction books. Whenever he goes to the library, whether at school, at the bookmobile, or the local branch in White Salmon, he goes straight for the kids non-fiction section. At bedtime, we have even had to insist on reading some fiction just to get some variety. (Also to preserve our sanity. How many times can you read a kids book on Trucks or Tractors before going crazy? 8. The answer is 8.)

But this past week, I think we may have turned a corner. Anders has started reading chapter books on his own. Magic Tree House books are a particular favorite now. In fact, he has bookmarks in two different Tree House books now.

It can be hard to keep Anders focused on a particular task, and now we can add reading to the list of distractions. If there aren't any LEGO bricks around, it is likely that he can be found reading a book.

Soccer practice

Library after a soccer game

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Do you ever get the feeling that you're being watched? Well, we do... and for good reason.

Every once in a while we'll have a deer around who is particularly interested in "the people who live inside." Corinne noticed these two laying in the yard, then soon after they were watching her as much as she was watching them. At one point his antlers knocked against the glass. We had condensation on the window from his breathing.

Ten minutes later, Corinne looked up from the computer to notice that he had circled around for a better view and they were now eye to eye. He stayed here for a while and then moved back to his previous post at the big window.

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We took a quick trip to Tacoma to celebrate Reidar's 75th birthday. And by quick... we had dinner and drove 434 miles within 8 hours.

Happy Birthday, Reidar!

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders

38/52 - Soccer and Friends

Anders is playing on one of the Trout Lake soccer teams this season. It's a K-2nd team of 8 kids, though not everyone is able to attend each practice or game. They play 5 kids on a team at a time, which doesn't leave much opportunity for substitution. By the end of the game the kids are pretty tired. But they have a good time running around chasing the ball.

At the beginning of the season, we joked that Anders would make a great soccer referee: he's always near the ball but has a strict code of non-interference. Now that we're a few weeks in, his skills are improving. But I think he'd still rather watch to see what happens.

Now, if we can just get him to keep his tongue in his mouth when he plays.

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As a continuation of Anders's birthday celebration, he wanted to have an overnight with Lauren and Bridger. We took it as an opportunity to have the families over for dinner, then release the parents kid-free until the following day.

And we obviously needed more cake, right?

The kids all slept together on a futon mattress on the floor. But when we checked on them an hour or so after bedtime, Anders was the only one not yet asleep, and it didn't seem like he had much room left on the bed. He happily retreated to his own bed back in his bedroom. But by the morning when we got up, ALL of the kids had migrated to Anders's bed sometime during the night.

Fun!

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders

37/52 - Anders's Birthday

Happy Birthday, Anders! It's hard to believe, but we now have a 7-year old first grader in our household.

Anders hadn't mentioned a big party or a list of friends he wanted to invite for his birthday this year, so we decided to keep it small and simple. It seems likely that in future years he will have more definite ideas in that area, so why rush it? The weather was perfect, so we sat outside and enjoyed ourselves while Anders opened some gifts.

Most of his birthday wish list consisted of LEGO models, all of which he loves. We have to ration them; each day, he gets to build one of the models from a single set. He gets so excited that he would try to build them all on the first day!

Grandma Lee knits some crazy socks for Anders, and he LOVES them. The crazier, the better!

A few weeks ago, Grandma Donna brought her leaky iron over to take apart with Anders, and they both had a great time doing it. So for his birthday, she had the idea to buy an old-fashioned alarm clock for him, with the primary goal for him to take it apart and see how it works. Great idea!

While we didn't have a large party, we were thankful to have some family with us to celebrate.

Grandpa Reidar helped with the Erector set.

But now to what everyone is waiting for: the cake. Since he has been old enough to express an opinion, Anders always seems to request a vehicle design for his cake. This year, he wanted a Hess Flatbed Truck, fashioned after one of his model Hess trucks. Sure, why not?

Anders requested the same flavor as last year: carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. It's his favorite!

This year's new addition to the cake design palette: sugar glass. Leif made in the toaster oven and used it for the grille of the truck.

After all that effort designing and assembling the cake, though, it always ends the same. Delicious.

Nice work, Corinne! And Happy Birthday, Anders!

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders