Maddi Turns 3

1 year

2 years

3 Years

Maddi and Blankie still best buds... It actually looks white in this picture but it's getting shredded to pieces and most days looks more gray than white

Maddi had the best reactions when opening her gifts. This is her opening Grandma and Grandpa Nelson's gift. As background...a few weeks before this she enviously watched Mia get a necklace from them and would ask every day to try it on. When she saw that her package looked the same as Mia's she started getting excited....and...

This was her face when she got the necklace! Thank you Grandma and Grandpa. You made her day!

So excited about getting the Eloise Wilkin Treasury (all the golden book classics....Baby Dear was one my favorites as a little little girl) from Grandma Tresa. In this picture she was SO excited because "Now I'm twins with Aunt Jen!" Aunt Jen has the same book at her house. :)

Maddi and her "Bag O' Mommy Stuff". We made a bag for her and filled it with old newborn clothes and other baby items and she was thrilled!

Happy Birthday Maddi! 3 years old.

It's always fun to look back at the old pictures and see how much they've grown. As I was searching through these pictures I realized that Maddi is starting to lose some of her baby cheeks and looking like a little girl more than a toddler! So Sad. :( But she is growing into such a sweet little girl learning lots of fun things and thankfully taking less trips to the emergency room, while still hanging onto her sassy little personality. We love Maddi!

Easter

Our Easter: Creamed Eggs and Spinnach Smoothies, Jammies, Watching Conference, Just hanging out...great day! :)

Happy Easter

Here is a fun idea we got from the Children's Friend (I love the ideas and stories from this magazine) instead of dying easter eggs. If you can't tell...you just let the kids paint an egg carton, cut out the cups, put pipe cleaners through them and you have nice little easter bouquet.

We had a wonderful quiet Easter Here at home with our little Family Eating Yummy Food, Reading Stories and Watching Conference. On Saturday we braved the cold and took the girls to a community Easter Egg Hunt.

Hope your's Was Great!

Reader's Digest Version of our Blog Update

Well we are still here and doing great. And for those who don't feel like scrolling through the millions of posts and pictures, here is (somewhat) brief update on the Nelson Fam. this month. We have enjoyed a few more visits from Kathleen's family and one last trip to Seattle, along with a flood in our Bathroom! We are now right in the middle of Nelson Girls Birthday Extravaganza with a Birthday every weekend for 3 weeks in a row. We're now 2 down....1 to go!

Mia has had fun with Stitches, Ear Tubes, taking the training wheels off her bike, joining a fun little Soccer Team (a really nice girl in our ward who used to play soccer for BYU is doing a free soccer program for her little girl and other kids their age practices once a week and games on Saturdays...very fun), and Turning 5 years old.

Maddi is enjoying taking on the role of big sister while also maintaining her rights to be "Baby Maddi" whenever she so desires. She will be turning 3 in a week and is acting very grownup these days.

Ella turned 1 years old on Friday and it's hard to believe! She is enjoying the freedom of mobility but works hard for it while she slides around our house all day long.

Lance and I have been starting the moving process with Purging all the unneeded STUFF and starting SOME packing. (We keep finding ourselves saying....Wait didn't we just do this LAST YEAR?!!!) :) We are starting to look at rentals so we can figure out where we will live in California, and are looking forward to seeing most of Lance's Family on the drive out there and to have Grandma and Grandpa Nelson along for the ride. (They were very kind to offer to help us drive out there...and the girls are SO excited...hopefully Grandma and Grandpa will feel the same after enduring a week with us all!)

Lance is excited to be officially Graduated and got a really nice surprise graduation gift from his Coworkers when they gave him tickets to one of the NCAA tournament games held here at Gonzaga when Purdue was playing, gave him money for lunch, and sent him away from work at 11:00am and he got to spend the rest of the day attending two of the games! To make things better it was a really close game AND Purdue won. SO nice! And now he is spending free time seeing how he can fit a Surfboard into our budget!

I have decided that I am going to start up my Preschool program again once we get to California and am getting excited about getting things together for it.

We are sad to leave Spokane (there's nothing like leaving some place to make you realize all the things you like about it) but are also very excited to get to California.

We love you all and love to hear how things are going with everyone, love the phone calls, seeing the pictures and blog updates and knowing that we have you in our life!

Ella Turns 1

It's hard to believe that a year has already gone by with our little Ella. She is a such a light in our family and brings a lot of happiness to everyone in it. We love her cuddles and she gives the best hugs (even if it does involve a fair amount of hair pulling/eating...we still can't figure out why she LOVE hair so much...but it's still a passion for her!)

Ella continues to seem almost exactly on target for her adjusted age which would be 10 1/2 months

She has the most amazingly fast scooting/sliding action we've ever seen on wood floors before and has developed quite the technique for it. While she can get back up onto her knees and then to sitting position we're not sure if she'll ever opt for official "crawling". She is starting to pull up on things here and there, Saying Mama and Dada (don't know how much meaning is attached to it...but we like to think so!), Waving, and she has 2 almost 3 teeth and the beginnings of one more on the way....we love teething! :) It will be fun to see more of her little personality emerge these next few months. As we think back to where we were a year ago with this little one, it makes us appreciate even more the blessing of having her with us, of Great Doctors and Hospitals, and I think I will forever have a special place in my heart for NICU Nurses especially the ones that work all night long.

Ella's Birthday!

Ella's never lacking for other people to do things for her...in this case...present opening.

Hmmm...what I did I get guys???

Okay...just go ahead and open them all....this is fun!

The Cake eating Begins...this is always my favorite part of a 1 year old's Birthday. We did cupcakes with the other girls so this was a whole new adventure.

Starting off Slow

Taking after Maddi she's gotta get a good hair rub.

And Going.....Going.......

GONE!

And the verdict is in that while Ella was a close second Maddi still wins the prize for getting the messiest on her 1st Birthday!

And here's a look back to prove my point. :)

And of course a good bath is a nice way to end the evening.

Maddi's Article of Faith

For awhile anytime I tried to post a video it wouldn't do it....so I thought I'd try it again today and yeah!!! It worked! :)

As part of the girls bedtime routine we are always working on learning an Article of Faith (scriptures that state our beliefs). They all have songs that go with them, and we often use the song as a way to help them memorize them, and they just learned the 10th one. Maddi was so cute the other night singing the song all by herself that I asked her if I could video tape her little performance and she said that would be okay...so here you go! I love hearing her try to say..."Paradisaical" haha. :)

Mia's 5th Birthday

1 month

1 year

2 years

3 years

4 years

5 years

It's hard to believe that we have a 5 year old! Especially when you look back at these old pictures.

FANCY NANCY PARTY

For those who haven't heard of the Fancy Nancy Books they are really fun especially for little girls. Fancy Nancy is a little girl who just loves dressing up and "being fancy" she really likes using big words and she always explains what they mean. (ie. Posh is a fancy word for Fancy). My sister recommended them to us when Maddi was really really into changing her outfits 10 times a day and they have been a hit with my girls ever since.

So the picture you see above is Mia's version of "Fancy" I let her pick everything she wore (thank you Isabel for the wardrobe) and how she did her hair and I think she felt very "Fancy". It was fun to let her be a part of the planning process from making the invitations to deciding what kind of decorations she wanted, what activities we would do etc etc. She had an opinion about everything and we had a blast.

Playing with Birthday Gifts after all the festivities.

So Grown Up

Thanking one of her little friends for a gift

Sitting in the "Fanciest" Chair in our house, Grandma Chris's Chair to open her presents

Going on a Fancy Treasure Hunt

Showing off their Fancy Purses

We found a cute idea and template online for Fancy Nancy New Sew Purses. Very easy and cheap and the girls had a lot of fun decorating them.

After watching Mommy decorate Cupcakes the girls thought they needed a turn.

Our Welcome Sign in French. Fancy Nancy loves to speak in French because she thinks "Everything sounds fancier in French!"

Mia's Cake Design. She was very specific about wanting a square cake with cupcakes all around it and as I decorated cupcakes she decided what should be on each one.

We try and celebrate as a Family at home on their Birthday and rather then do cake twice we like to make a fun treat and then stick a candle in it! So as pathetic as this looks it's actually one of our favorite family treats. Pretzel Rods, dipped in Carmel and then Chocolote. Yummmy!

Excitedly opening the necklace from Grandma and Grandpa Nelson.

Daddy let her pick any breakfast she would like him to make on her birthday and she chose a omelette.

Mia and her invites. I wish I had a picture after she made them REALLY fancy. After we did the basic stuff here she embellished the invitations with all sorts of ribbons and scrapbook odds and ends. Again...so fun to see what a little girl's IDEA of Fancy is. :)