Turkey Day

First of all, I didn't take any pictures yesterday. Neither did Travis. Not really sure why, but it was a pretty low-key, quiet day for the most part. Travis's mom came over (his dad wasn't feeling well, but asked for a liberal plate of dinner to be sent home to him) (o: The kids watched the parade and I fixed the turkey and stuffing and all that good stuff. The night before Joseph helped make the pumpkin pie. It was yummy!! Connor helped with the homemade rolls. They were okay too. We ate dinner and spent some time together talking. Then, Travis and his mom took the boys out on a drive to Seattle and I got to stay home and take a nap. Can't remember the last time I had a nap. But, the doctor told me I needed to start taking it more easy to keep my blood pressure down (funny joke, eh?), so a nap is what I took. It was nice. The kids had a lot of fun out driving with Grandma. When they came home we had our dessert and talked to each other some more and played with the guinea pigs. Then Grandma had to get home to Grandpa. We ended the day by watching the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving movie. Connor has never seen it and he laughed so hard. I had more fun watching him than watching Snoopy fight the lawn chair.

That's about all I have to report. We have a lot to be grateful for this year. Things have been tight for us lately, but I look at my family, especially my sweet little boys, and can't believe how lucky I am. Not to mention every time I feel the baby girl squirming around. She can be pretty active. (I keep asking if we can just skip Christmas this year and go straight to the end of January!) Thank you to all who love and care about our family. We are very lucky to have so many people to love in our lives. Hope you all had a great day.

Aaarrrgh!!!!!

No, I'm not impersonating a pirate! That is me being kind of mad! I said I didn't like change, didn't I? But, I thought I would be adventurous and try out a new blog background. Although the snowmen are cute, I hate it! They took away all my pictures and widgets. They made the text part all skinny. Now, I'm sure that if I were married to, I don't know, a computer whiz like Shauna is, this would not have happened, but since my nerdy husband (I love nerds, I think they are hot!) is more of a bookish type of nerd instead of a computer type, I did this all on my own. So, for all of you sweet people that used to be on my little sidebar thingy with your addresses, sorry. You got WIPED OUT! But not by me. I swear. I still love you all.

Okay, gonna go and clean out my fridge cause that's a change that I WANT to have happen. I'm sure the blog thing will grow on me. Just in time for me to have to change it when snowmen are no longer the correct season

A Week?

Wow, time does fly! I didn't realize it's been a week since I wanted to murder the guinea pig. He still lives and we still love him by the way.

Saturday we took hamburgers and hotdogs over to Travis's parents house and watched the Apple Cup. What a sad, sad game to have to watch. Let's see, Washington lost so they are 0-11 for the year and WSU won, so they are 2-9 I think. Whoopee! Barn burner! But, it gave us an excuse to go to Grandma's and play with her legos and eat bad food. (o:

Also this weekend we heard there was a little snow up in the mountains, so we took the boys up to Snoqualmie to play in the snow for a bit and just have a nice drive. We had to go all the way up to the summit to find the snow, but we had some fun for a bit. Well, Joseph and Travis had lots of fun. Connor enjoyed it for a while, but then started to get cold and Spencer loved it for 5 minutes. Then he got hit with a snowball (thanks Daddy!) and he hated the rest of the time there. He wanted to read his SIM City 4 instruction manual instead, so that's what he did in the car. First thing Travis did was take a family picture, though, so here it is.

This is when we first got there. Spencer enjoyed it at first.
Connor had Travis make him snowballs to throw. He was very proud of them all. Then he threw them at us. (o:I couldn't get a single clear picture of Joseph because he was running like a crazy person having a blast, so here are all of them having a good time. (glad we got the family picture at the beginning.)

Bert, Pictures, and Shots

Bert the guinea pig is not my friend! At least not today! We went out to the doctor and when we came home, he had this picture and the little homemade picture frame that I had made, in his cage and this is what my picture looked like!

Notice the bite marks at the top. The scratch marks on Travis, and the lovely water dots!!! I loved this picture. I'm not sure how it got into his cage. It was on the bookshelf above his cage earlier and probably just accidentally got knocked down into his cage, but couldn't he have just left it alone? Didn't he realize that this was a picture of a very important event in my life? This was our second date. We were at Ricks. We went to the Caberet formal dance thing. That's the night (we'd been dating a week), when I realized that Travis was the love of my life and I didn't want to be with anyone else...ever! It took 3 more long weeks before he proposed, but this night was it for me. Weren't we so cute? And young? And skinny?

Okay, I feel better. Now, on to doctor news. Joseph and Connor had their physicals today. Spencer went along so that he could enjoy a flu shot along with his brothers. Connor is very healthy and looks pretty perfect. He's in the 92% for height and weight. He's the size of a 5 1/2 year old and he's just 4, but that is pretty normal for our kids. The kidney doctor he has gone to for his whole life just retired, so our doctor gave us a recommendation of a new doctor we could go to, but they think that he is doing just fine. So, we will schedule one last ultrasound (we hope) for his kidneys and then call him 100% perfect! (except that he can be a turd once in a while)

Joseph was in the 55% for both height and weight. He's evened out a lot the last couple of years. He's more in the normal size range instead of being at the top of the curve. He was also quite healthy. The doctor wants to do x-rays on his back next year to see just exactly what is missing. They say he's missing one vertebrae, but the gap seems big, so we will have him checked. Doctor reiterated that sports needed to be limited to running and swimming. I also asked about Joseph's feet. They kind of turn in a bit. He said some people just have feet like that. Oddly enough, fast runners have feet that turn in. So, maybe this will be of benefit to him, since running is going to probably be his sport. (o:

All three boys got flu shots (thanks a lot mommy!), and Connor got 4 others. They were all brave and got treats from the treasure box when they were done.

Mostly For Me!

You know I am going to go crazy before July gets here...I have to post some of the new Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince trailers. Just found them. I don't believe that I am having to wait for something I thought would be here this month! My baby girl will be 6 months old when this thing is released!!! Okay, I feel a tad better. Watch and enjoy. Sigh.

This Weekend

We had a kinda busy weekend. For us anyway. Saturday Travis got called in to work for 4 extra hours. Yahoo! (Not overtime by the way, but still..) He went and did that and then when he came home we loaded the kids up and went to Seattle. Joseph has been asking to go inside the King Street Train Station for a while. They are fixing it up and seeing them do the fixing piqued his curiosity. So, we paid a dollar to park at a meter and took them inside the station.

It is in serious need for repair. There is some gorgeous work inside. Like the picture below, but it's all falling apart.

Anyway, we went in there and the boys got to see some trains. Then, since we had time left on our meter, we just walked around a couple of the city blocks, looking into windows of the shops. It was so funny to watch people watch us. Here in Liberal Wacko Seattle, the people acted totally shocked at our "gigantic" family. Three boys and a pregnant mom! We are going to burn! (at least that's what the Seattle people think) Then we got in the car and drove around, looking at the city in the dark. (cause by this time it was 4:30pm and the sun had gone down.) The city is so pretty at night!

Oh, and we took a family picture in front of our beloved (but sucky this year) Seahawks Stadium. (It's called Qwest Field)

After our trip to Seattle, we came home for a nice relaxing evening together.

Sunday was Travis's mom's birthday. It was also the Primary Program at church. Travis's folks came to watch the boys sing and say their parts. It was a really nice program. The boys did great. Connor was the first little one to speak. His teacher told him what to say and he got right up there and said he line, holding onto the microphone and speaking as clear as mud. (Travis said he was speaking in tongues) But, he got up in front of, what? 200 people? and didn't hesitate at all. Spencer got up, read his line loudly, and then added a nice loud "really!" to the end. He's the only kid that got a laugh from the congregation. (don't know if that's good or not) Joseph was towards the end. He walked up by himself because he was the only one in his class that spoke. He read his part, paused, looked at his dad and grandparents, gave them a grin and a thumbs up and then went back to his seat. It was pretty cute.

Speaking of cute...Connor, instead of singing the songs that he knows and loves, was busy most of the time trying to conduct the music to the congregation. We said it's a good thing he's cute cause otherwise, he's just a little turd!

After church we had dinner at our house to celebrate Mom Nelson's birthday. They stayed for a while and we had a great time visiting.

So far this morning I have already gone up to one of our local Elementary Schools and judged some art that is in the Reflections contest. One of our friends is on the PTA for that school and she called and asked if I could help judge. It was actually kind of hard, because I could see the effort that the kids all put into each piece. But it was a fun little thing to do.

I am now getting ready to go and teach the boys all about Squanto and do some spelling. Tomorrow Joseph and Connor have their annual checkups, so I'll fill you all in on how they came out tomorrow.

Baby Check-up

For those of you who ask...I went to the doctor today. Things are going well. This is the best my blood pressure has behaved ever in a pregnancy. I am going to go in for an ultrasound in 3 weeks to just check and make sure that she is getting enough blood and is growing normally, because people with history of high blood pressure can have small babies. Go figure that one. Joseph and Spencer were over 8 and they were my two worst blood pressure pregnancies, but Connor was only 7 and I had not near the bp problems. We'll see. He said that he figures it will go up my last month or so and then it will be a race to see if we can get her here before it goes up too much. Shucks, you might have to induce her a tad early??? Okay, if you insist. (o: But, he's very pleased with how it is all going. I haven't even gained very much weight. (she's feeding off all the extra that I already had) This surprises me since I have been a baking fool the past few months.

He determines that she will be more of a 7 pounder, which makes me happy cause Connor was lots easier to have than the other two. A pound makes a difference.

Anyway, there is the most recent update. I'm gonna go and fix the kids some dinner and do laundry now cause if I pause for more than a day on laundry...I'm sunk!

Homemaker

I know, I know, I've been really lame with posting lately. What can I say...I had nothing to say. I will say that I really love being a full time stay at home mom again. I forgot how nice it is. They money end isn't funny, but I love not being so tired and being able to do things around the house without having to worry about going to work. I love especially how often my boys, especially Joseph, comes up to me, hugs me, and then states that he is glad that I don't have to go to work. Makes it all worth it.

So, what am I doing with my new found time? Well, since I'm pregnant and don't have to weigh in at Weight Watchers (o; I have been baking and making lots of yummy homemade goodness for my family. Last night I made a homemade gooey yummy delicious lasagna! Then for dessert I made apple crisp. Divine. When my whole family gathers around the table (that is clean because I'm now home to keep it clean), and they all are raving about the delicious dinner and dessert I made for them, well, that is what life is all about, right?

We have also gotten back to a much more structured and formal schooling. Last month we did a lot of unschooling. The boys learned and we had fun together, but I am more of an eclectic type and though some unschooling is okay, I like to have a bit of structure in there too. Kids need it. I need it and like it. I will be posting some cool stuff we did about bats in the next couple of days for you to see.

Also, the boys and I moved their bunkbeds into the back room to start making room for baby Elizabeth. She will be sharing a room with Connor and Joseph and Spencer are now in the "old playroom". They did all the heavy lifting for me while I used my awesome power screwdriver to take it apart and put it together again. Travis was a bit mad when he came home and saw I had it all done. He was planning on helping me put it together when he got home because that's where the heavy lifting is involved, but the boys did a great job helping out and I didn't strain myself a bit. Their bed is from IKEA, so there were a lot of parts to the thing, but I love putting furniture together and actually enjoyed it. Here is a picture of it. Actually, this is not our bed, my boys don't believe in sheets and blankets like normal people. I stole this pic from IKEA's siteThey were thrilled to sleep in their new room last night. Plus, I let them do their own decorating so they were hanging pictures that they had drawn and drawing new ones. It was great. I felt so accomplished last night.

Anyway, that's all I have to share for now. I'm starting to get more and more excited to have our baby girl be born and join the family. I go in tomorrow for my 7 month check up. Hello! Already 7 months along. (which I feel like~Travis calls me "The Waddler". Nice, eh? Gonna go pick a room and start organizing for a while. Later!

I thought of something funny

Yesterday Connor drew a line on the top of his foot. Then he put a pink rubber glove on his foot, over the drawn line. Then, he hopped around the apartment for half an hour while he played. After the half hour, he sat down beside me, pulled the glove off and exclaimed, "Look Mommy, my cracked foot is all healed!" He had been watching the Curious George dvd where George breaks his leg and has to wear a cast. I couldn't get him to put the glove back on his foot (it was HEALED) so I didn't get a picture, but it was pretty cute and kinda funny. Connor can be my biggest challenge, but also my greatest form of entertainment.

Today we did a dry run for the Primary program that the kids will be doing next Sunday in Sacrament meeting. Saturday they are going to have a dress rehearsal of sorts in the chapel, but today it was in the Primary room. The kids didn't like having to sit still and sing the same songs over and over for two hours, but they did a pretty good job. I was so proud of Joseph and Spencer for getting up and reading their parts. They read very well. Connor did a good job repeating his lines as his teacher gave them to him. I can't wait to see how they are when they have the microphone and an audience. I know they will be okay, because my boys are very rarely shy. Plus, I am hoping that Grandma and Grandpa Nelson will be there. I'm more worried about them showing off than being shy. (o: So, anyone who wants to come is invited. I know you are all buying your plane tickets right now.

Not Much~Again

Just to let everyone know that we are okay and not dead. (o: Just haven't had much to write about lately. I love not having to go to work and I was a bit depressed about the outcome of the election, but it's like Travis says...we still have to get up every morning and go to work and live our lives.

I'll fill you all in when something exciting happens. (o:

Mr. Rogers and Halloween

First I have to start off with a picture I took of Connor the other day. He brought me one of his dad's ties and asked me to tie it for him. (yes, I know, I suck at tying ties) Then he put on his shoes and announced to everyone that he was ready to go. When asked where exactly he thought he was going in his underwear, tie and shoes that were on the wrong feet he replied, very matter of factly, "To Mr. Rogers Neighborhood!" When asked why he said, "Because I want to." Okay Connor, if you want to go there, be our guest. It's funny that he's my only child that took to Mr. Rogers. When I was in college one of my professors went to a conference and heard Mr. Rogers speak. She said he was the most kind, genuine person she had ever met. He was a rare one that's for sure. I always loved him, despite my mother's eye rolling. The best was my sister Jamie being in love with him. She would check out his records (as in vinyl) from the library and listen to him sing. Good times. (Jamie, remember "I really wanna marry my mom!"?) Anyway, I thought it was really cute and of course, we didn't let him go because, one, Mr. Rogers is dead, and two, he would have caught cold in his underwear. (o:Next, just a couple of pictures from the Trunk or Treat. Travis had to work Friday so we didn't quite make it to the chili part, but did make it for the dessert and candy part. (o: The boys had a cookie and ran around the gym with the kids for a while, then paraded around the gym showing off their highly original costumes. After the kid parade we went outside and loaded up on goodies. Then, we drove home, I dropped off Travis, three little boys, and three buckets of candy, and went to work. They did very well. We decided they could choose 5 pieces of candy and then Daddy put their buckets away. Didn't want anyone puking and the kids actually agreed to it. So, it all worked out in the end except I wasn't home with them.

Here they are at the church. Connor didn't like wearing the hat, but wore it outside cause he wanted candy and thought he had to be dressed up to get it.

Joseph and Spencer.

This was just a really funny picture. The missionaries were there and dressed up like the Blues Brothers. Travis told them they were his favorite. He said they never did anything like that when he was on his mission.

That's all I have to report. We had a good time, the kids got some junk food and time to play with other kids, and we can put another Halloween under our belt. I'm excited for next Halloween cause I will have a little girl to dress up. What will she be? A princess, a fairy, a witch? I can't wait!