Z-dog and G-ma

Recently we had two special visitors - our nephew Zach and my mom. We kept ourselves very busy and the boys were super excited to spend time with them. We went to the new SeaLife Aquarium - the boys had recently been watching "Finding Nemo" so they were super excited to see so many familiar water creatures. Mason kept shouting out "STINGRAY!" in a really low voice....almost like a chant...like you might hear football players shouting out before they went onto the field if their mascot was a stingray....yeah, just like that actually. Anyhow, we had a great time and can't wait for another visit.

Grandma, Spence & Zach at Rainforest Cafe

Movie time!

Superstar Shout-out

This is a big, huge, gigantic shout-out to my dear friend Kavita (bodaat) and her family: Congratulations!!! Kavita's sister, Aarti has been one of the contestants on the TV series The Next Food Network Star....and tonight SHE WON!!!! YAY! Seriously, if you've been following the show - there was never any doubt, right? She is super fabulous (clearly, she won) and she is now going to be hosting her own show - Aarti Paarti! It's so exciting! Lots of love to you and yours Kavita!

Bone-Appetit!

The other day we were in the pet store admiring all of the cute puppies they have. Or should I say most of us were admiring the puppies - the littlest Odahlen was admiring all of the goodies they have on display. So much so that when the rest of us had our backs turned he decided to LICK A DOGGIE TREAT! What?! To give him some credit it did look quite appetizing - it was in the shape of a bone and had what looked like chocolate on half of it with sprinkles (it looked very similar to a donut he had just had a few days prior). And for some reason the tasty treats aren't wrapped in anything. Oh my, it was soooo funny. At first we weren't sure if he actually made contact with it - until we left the store and he had blackish lips and opened his mouth to show us a sprinkle he had gotten!

Fast forward two days later - the boys and I are at the grocery store. As we are walking through the fruits and veggies Mase wants me to identify every item. I am trying to chose a nice tomato - next thing I know Mason has taken a BITE out of one of the tomatoes! What?! At this point I had to have a sidebar and remind him that we don't eat random things. (And just in case you were thinking it - we do feed him - and often!)

Spencer loves to repeat these stories, while laughing uncontrollably and never forgetting to mention that he was 'embarrassed.'

Thank the Lord for the little things :)

*Lucky*

Somehow I got lucky enough to have a best friend - Beth. Not just a best friend - a trueblue, superstar, always there when I need her, knows everything about me, shares a million inside jokes, lifelong (26 years and counting) best friend.  I know this is very rare and I appreciate her so much! Both of us got lucky enough to have four little boys between us - who are also friends. Moving away from them was really difficult for us, but we so thankful for the three years our boys got to spend together. We realize how fortunate we are to have them in our lives - we miss you Eli, Fin and BB! Before we left we took a few photos of our last playdate together...

Eli and Beth

Eli and Spence

Fin and Mase

The boyz

Belated Birthday

Did I forget to mention our little worker boy turned 2 in June?! Somehow we (I) forgot to post Mason's birthday photos...ooops. Somehow the pause button I pressed to put a hold on life while we were preparing to move didn't work.

Here is a quick recap: we had a fabulous celebration. Mase is really into "worker trucks" so the party was complete with a wrecking ball game and dump truck pinata....and of course, his very own worker guy pickup as one of his gifts.

We're Baaaack

The Dakota O's are once again Southwestern O's. We gave the Midwest a good shot - and even though it was our desire to remain there, it was apparently not in the stars for us. So after our fabulous mini-reunion, Micah took off....and 10 days later (after I packed like a tornado was coming - eh, that means FAST) the boys and I followed (including Milo). 2 days, 1300 miles and 5 states later - we were back. An interesting fact for all of you - the boys and I arrived the exact same date that Micah and I had 9 years ago...weird, huh?

A week and a half later we are pretty much settled into our new (albeit) temporary home. Micah has been working for a few weeks and (gasp!) I will be returning to work next month. My hiatus is over :( Although I am going to miss my time with the boys TERRIBLY (that's the understatement of the year) a mom's gotta do what a mom's gotta do....and it really is in the best interest of our family. Luckily we were able to work out our schedules so the boys will only be without us two days a week - they will be in 'school' those days which will be super exciting for them and they will have all kinds of little friends. Let's be honest, I am going to be the one who has the most difficulty adjusting!

Anyhow, that's a quick update from here...I'll try to post pics soon.