Nelson Fam Update

Still doing good in Spokane. Lance is enjoying his job working on finishing up his research project, and looking forward to a trip out to Purdue to present his project and enjoy some time with friends during his Birthday at the end of Sept and he's been getting some good use out of our Gym Membership at the Y since it's right near his office.

Mia has been having a blast doing swim lessons and doing some preschool stuff at home with Mommy. She has had fun working on a little bit of reading and making her own books, painting, and writing any word she can find. She has been very passionate lately about her dancing ballet and ESPECIALLY Hip Hop! :) We'll have to try and post a video sometime with a demo of her Hip Hop Free Style! She has been making friends here and having fun with playdates. She got her eyes tested this month and in keeping with her Daddy's tradition she will be getting glasses. Her right eye is a little worse then her left and they are hoping wearing the glasses for a couple of months will help correct things but if not (again like her Daddy) she will have to wear a patch and glasses for a little while. She doesn't seem to mind the idea of wearing glasses but she keeps telling us, "I don't want to wear the 'hatch' though". So we're crossing our fingers for her that glasses will be enough.

Maddi cracks us up daily with her 2 year-old-ness. She is growing up too fast in some ways (thanks to her older sister). Her newest lines these days are, "But my heart will be broken" "You're being mean" and "I want to wear my balalina" and "I'm SO angry". She gets attached to things very easily from her blankie to the nursery leaders at church etc. And lately her attachments include an old cut up credit card, an old set of keys, a tiny book of mormon (her 'scriptures') and a 'ballalina' skirt that she wants to wear EVERY day. She is getting her 2 year old molars that adds lots of excitement to our day and she is becoming quite a little fish at her Mom and Me swim class she has been taking. She is absolutely fearless. To illustrate we signed up for a membership at the Y and took the girls to the pool as a family. I stayed (fully clothed) out of the pool and Lance got in the pool with the girls. After watching for a minute I decided I should get a little closer to remind Maddi that 1. She does not know how to swim yet and 2. That she needed to wait until Daddy was READY to catch her before she jumped in the pool. While doing this Lance had moved to the other side of the pool with Mia and I was sitting near the edge by Maddi. I was in the middle of telling her to wait for her turn when she looked at me and then turned around and jumped RIGHT in the pool which meant that I in turn had to jump partway in the pool (in all my clothes) to pull her out by the ankle. It was quite exciting and shortly ended our pool stay that day however I think she learned her lesson because she has yet to do that again!


You can see Ella's Update Below.

And as for me, I am just enjoying being the Mom (most days!) and starting to get adjusted (in most ways) to having 3 little girls. I have been trying to start running again (averaging one day a week!) and have been having fun doing some couponing and trying to see how much money I can save us on Groceries each week. And most of all I am just glad that I actually got this update written! I think I've been averaging once a month blog updates but I guess it's better then nothing.

We are really enjoying Spokane despite the fact that we still miss Indiana and all our friends there but thank goodness for email, phone calls and blogs to stay in touch. And we are looking forward to some fun little trips to see family this fall and winter.

Maddi has a BIG GIRL BED! We finally moved Maddi out of her crib and into a Big Girl Bed. I was dreading this day because Maddi is such a good sleeper and I didn't want to rock the boat but so far so good. Our only little quirks were one night when I woke up numerous times to find a little girl in my bed touching my face and staring at me (slightly frightening but thankfully only happened one night) and a few falls OUT of the bed (not so fun when you have wood floors but Maddi's a tough little cookie so she handled it well).

Some days it's more of a love hate relationship, but overall it's so fun to see the little bond our girls have. It totally reminds me of me and my sisters.