Uncategorized | The Mango Memoirs

Caleb's Cookies

Posted on January 20, 2011 by Angela @ The Mango Memoirs • 1 Comment

Nearly every Friday for the past few months, Caleb & Owen have spent the day at our house. Their mom, Jenny, and I were swapping child care. Ella was spending Thursdays with them while I was at school. When the boys are here, we find all kinds of fun things to do. We’ve baked cupcakes and cookies, played games, and even sewed a purse for their older sister, Sophia. Caleb & I save the more intense projects for nap time so Owen & Ella don’t distract us from the details. It’s been a huge shift for me to get used to having a 5 year-old boy around. His energy is far different from Ella’s! We’ve had a great time finding fun projects, though. Here’s a glimpse…

Caleb was ready to bake with one of my old aprons and the step stool.

We pretended he was a French baker with that apron.

Rolling out the sugar cookie dough.

We were all excited for the cookies to be ready.

This was Caleb’s special cookie for Pete. Can you tell what it is? Take a sideways glance. It’s a motorcycle!

Sadly, we have only one more month of Fridays with the boys. Then they will be moving to Colorado. Their dad will be the new lead pastor of a Vineyard church out there. Ella is losing her boyfriend! (Remember the kissing photo?) Happily, Ella & I are planning to visit them in August when we trek out that way on a trip with my parents. We’ll miss them a whole lot!

I feel like I should explain why I haven’t been posting much lately. First, we were all quite sick last week. Pete had strep like you wouldn’t believe and missed a good number of days of work. I wasn’t on top of my game, but I was still somewhat functional. Good thing, since Ella had no intention of slowing down, sick or not. Following the sickness, Pete was busy busy busy studying for his third board test, which is today and tomorrow. He’s needed the computer for that. On top of that, I’ve been filling my time with play dates, projects, and lots of sewing. School starts this weekend (yeehaw!) so my time won’t exactly be opening up, but I will try to post more often. I love having all of our adventures documented so that I can someday have them for Ella.

So that’s that! If you’re in Minnesota…stay warm! It’s -4 at the moment and that doesn’t factor in windchill. Yikes. See? Perfect time for sewing.

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Photo Ketchup … Make that Catch Up

Posted on January 12, 2011 by Angela @ The Mango Memoirs • 0 Comments

I could sit and make each of these photos into their own little post, but that might hinder the creation of further posts that would actually be up-to-date, so here are blips of all those posts rolled into one. And…go!

We bundled up just before Thanksgiving for the annual Christmas City of the North parade in downtown Duluth. We didn’t quite make it long enough to see the big guy in red make his way into town.

The Mini Mama loves playing with her baby.

And reading her books.

Plush Pooh is not meant for the bath, but these things happen faster than a mama can react.

Since little Pooh was soaked through & through, we decided to get him all squeaky clean.

Ella helped me whip up a few batches of Scandinavian krumkake for Christmas gatherings.

My taste tester gave the official okay…by eating three!

Ella’s first bike ride at a friend’s house.

Stirring up our own bubble recipe.

Apparently they tasted yummy too!

A winter visit to Betty’s Pies, an incredibly popular summer destination for locals & tourists alike, was a quiet way to spend an afternoon.

The perfect winter treat – a warm pasty at Betty’s Pies.

We enjoyed the company of a few truckers while we had our pie.

Oh, that Dr. Seuss.

Daddy, I’m so glad you’re home from work! Mmmmwah!

Mama Bex, Malena, Ella & I hangin’ out at Uncle Jake’s place on a sunny afternoon. Malena shared her Goldfish with her cuz.

The girls are in love with Uncle Jake’s guitar.

And that is that! Now we can move on to the last of the Christmas pictures, including the Scott family Christmas and Christmas Day festivities. Then it’s on to 2011!

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A Letter From Ella

Posted on January 11, 2011 by Angela @ The Mango Memoirs • 1 Comment

gHVvvv assjkJKZnn,jhsjdhdsjjhdasdhjssfffaa cma nsjjnnmmz nddd,,lff,lflfl, gß

FD/’/jjfdhghggfsdredfgygggggg,mmam,mm

hy g 8okkkl . bg hg; l l jh jhcfh jn mo j

Love,
Ella

I’m unable to translate, but Ella seemed to think you’d understand.
-the mama

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Hand Print Art

Posted on January 8, 2011 by Angela @ The Mango Memoirs • 1 Comment

This is one of the gifts that Ella & I made for the grandparents & godparents for Christmas. I bought unfinished frames and paint at Michaels and used heavy scrapbook paper for the black background. We had to do about twice as many hand prints as we had frames since e kept curling her fingers. Today we might make another one for her bedroom. If I don’t do it today, I’ll have to get a different shape frame since Ella’s hand definitely won’t fit in that little square window for more than another week!

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Back to It

Posted on January 7, 2011 by Angela @ The Mango Memoirs • 0 Comments

The holiday season has passed, the decorations are being packed away for another year, and things are getting back to the regular routine in the Olsen house. I loved all the hustle and bustle of the season, but I’ll readily admit that I’m glad it only lasts about six weeks. With all the hosting and baking and traveling and gifting, it can be quite exhilarating while being just as exhausting. I’ve been surprised with how easily I neglected piles of laundry and mail in order to have more time to finish making Christmas presents and bake mounds of cookies. Would I have done it any differently? Not at all. Isn’t that what January is for? Getting life back in order? After all, what’s the fun of keeping things in order if we can’t throw it all off every now and then?

So here we are, sitting at the beginning of a new year. We’ve all had a week to reconsider our New Year’s resolutions, dive into them, tweak them a little or drop them entirely. Through the past few years I’ve leaned more toward goals than resolutions. They seem more achievable. In my late-20s, I’ve gotten better at making realistic goals and actually figuring out how to go about reaching them. I owe a lot of that to Pete. If you know him, you know that he’s huge into setting goals – big goals – and doing anything necessary to reach them. It’s helped me dream bigger and that’s pretty exciting.

This year I had no idea what my biggest goal would be until sometime on New Year’s Day. I hadn’t really thought about it until then. It took a few days to completely evolve and become something more than just surfacy. (I may have just made up that word.) Through lots of prayer and thought, it simply boiled down to love people. I think I could spend an entire year just learning what that means, but I also want to learn to live it out. Definitely a challenge I feel I’m ready to take on.

Besides that, we’ve had a great week. Pete’s back at work and is also studying for the third step of the boards. He’ll take the exam at the end of the month. As previously mentioned, we’re catching up on laundry and the like. Ella is a great help. (My whole idea of “great help” has changed over the last year, as I’m sure it does for every parent.) Yesterday she even helped me paint my office! I can’t wait to finish it and post pictures. I’m loving it even though I’ve still got lots of work to do before my classes start January 22.

(I am often inspired by art or great photos. I feel like I can see things around me in a fresh way. Today I was inspired by these prints by Sascalia out of the UK.)