Flashback to February

Yes we are CLEAR BACK to February!!  I will get this blog caught up.

Matt and I came home from a date and saw our sleeping beauties and I couldn't help but take a picture of how beautiful they are!!

At Carter's preschool they did a donut with Dad's time and Matt took the morning off of work to go. He said how awesome it was and how much his love grew even more for Carter.

 My two girls - side by side.

Hayden looks like she is going to eat her face! Abbie is so cute that sometimes you just want to eat her up.

One of my favorite pics of her!

I love this little out fit she has own.  The shirt was given as a baby shower gift, it says, "Miss November" because I was so hopeful that even though I was due in December, I would have Abbie in November.  Abigail cooperated and she came in November. The skirt and headband is from my friend Heidi.  Her cute girls wore those adorable little things and Heidi was sweet enough to pass them down to us.

This was us all ready to go to Matt's Dr. Prom.  Whoo Whoo!!

Carter being the good big brother that he is!! I think he is singing the song to one of his favorite IPAD games "Dragonvale." Abbie checkin herself out:

Abigail Bonnie Nielsen's Baby Blessing

Abigail Bonnie Nielsen

Blessed April 15, 2012 by her Father Matthew Dean Nielsen

Back in April, when we were out in Utah visiting my family we decided to bless our little girl Abigail in my Brother Chris's home.  Chris and his wife Kari are the sweetest and warmest couple.  I love them very much and they have created a beautiful home but more importantly a beautiful family. Chris was kind enough to take all these picture to document this special day.

This picture is of the four generations of ladies. My Grandma Yvonne, my Mom Karen, myself, and little Abbie.

Four generations on my Dad's side: my Grandma Ione, my Dad Craig, myself and little Abigail.

 Our Family that I love!!

 Four Generations of Yvonnes and it's all middle names though Grandma goes by Yvonne: Grandma Darlene Yvonne, Karen Yvonne, Amber Yvonne and Hayden Yvonne.  I kinda hope Hayden carries on the tradition, but she gets to make that choice.

 The lovely ladies on Matt's side Aunt Whitney and Grandma Bonnie - Abbie's namesake.

Now we add in our handsome men and we are about complete except Grandpa Jay. Whitney's new husband Ryan and my hubba hubby Matt.

Our precious angel Abigail.

Carter's Last Day of Preschool EVER!!

Carter had his last day of preschool EVER last Wednesday!!  I got pretty teary-eyed at the thought of this big chapter we are closing.  Of his 5 years he has spent 3 of them in preschool. It's been a big part of his life thus far!!
  

 At the end of each year, each student is given an award.  This one was very fitting for my little man. He received the Future Engineer award.  My Carter is OBESSED with building with legos and blocks, etc.  During free time at preschool Carter would almost always gravitate over to the big bin of Legos that they have and he would build one of his elaborate creations.  When it came time to clean up, Carter would get very upset if anyone dared to destroy one of his masterpieces so the class learned to tear apart and put away everyone elses Legos and leave Carter's work of art on top. Then the teachers after class and all the kids were gone would nicely take Carter's Legos apart and put them away.  Now those are some loving teachers to see the need for an exception here.

I always love "before" and "after" type of shots and here was Carter above on his first day of preschool and in the top picture you obviously see him with his teacher Mrs. Courtney on his last day.  Last year the first and last pictures were surprisingly different.  This year, not so much.  Last year Carter, unbeknownst to me had the same outfit on for his first and last day.  And once again, I unknowingly tried to put him in this very outfit again but couldn't find that polo so instead he has a tshirt on with those same shorts.  So funny!!

Carter's preschool always puts on fantastic programs that get me all teared up!  This end of the year one was no different.  They first sang some of their bible songs (he goes to a Baptist preschool) and then Spanish since they have Spanish class, and ended with songs they learned during singing time.  I will add some videos of a couple of the songs they sang below.




This song below is one that I LOVE!! I hear Carter sing this song around the house and it is always done reverently, as it should. I love to see him sign so sweetly and sincerely.

Easter Egg Hunt aka Running of the Bulls

Today was Carter's Easter Egg hunt with his preschool. It's always a good time.

Both years that we have participated in this egg hunt, I have had a good laugh. All the kids line up on the edge of the side walk, one of the teachers rings the bell and the kids are off!! Both years my thought has been: it's like the running of the bulls.

Perfect Sunday Afternoon

We are LOVING having 9:00 church these days!! It allows for Sunday afternoons like this. We got home, had lunch, Hayden took a little nap, Matt went home teaching, then we spent almost 2 hours at a local state park and still was able to go to a family dinner at Jay and Bonnie's. AWESOME!!

Here's our crew.

Carter is now very skilled on his two wheels so we started our afternoon off by riding on a trail around this lake.

Then we skipped rocks - a favorite pass time of ours.

We got a GREAT surprise when Dad found a tiny frog and caught it for the kids to look at and hold. Carter loved holding it. Hayden was all about acting brave and wanting to hold it until Matt would go to put it in her hand and then she would quickly change her mind - see video below.
And what would be a nature outing with out some play time with sticks.
Hayden got in on the stick fun as well.

Here is the video with the frog:



It's relaxing quality times like this that make having a family the best choice ever. Family life can be oh so challenging and to the onlooker we probably look like we made the craziest choice ever to have kids, but these good moments and having an eternal perspective on it all, makes all the challenges worth it!!

Jumping back to January

Over the Christmas break, Whitney perfected this position that put Abbie into a peaceful trance. I tried to do it myself but was unsuccessful. Perhaps I need a little more cushion in the chest area.

Bonnie brought this outfit home from San Francisco - Precious!

In January, Hayden finally convinced me to try and potty train her since she was relentless in asking to go potty. I was not ready since I just had a baby, but I decided to give in. I guess she wasn't quite ready either. She has all the desire in the world, but cognitively she just wasn't connecting the dots that when she felt like she needed to go to tell me that she needed to go so we could get her on the toilet. We gave it a solid 3 days and after talking to her Dr at Abbie's wellness checkup, we decided to give it a break for a couple months. He thought that Abbie was too young and new to introduce something so big to Hayden and that he also recommends the average age for potty training is 2 1/2 years. So we are waiting. She is now starting to push for it again (it's march 20th) so we might try again soon. Anyway, the picture above was taken on her first day of trying. I thought for the first bit when usually the most accidents happen, we would paint in the bath tub where there would be little clean up needed for an accident.

She thoroughly enjoyed painting with the shaving cream/ food coloring mixture. And it was great for me because as soon as she was done, I just had to rinse it off.

Abbie at about 2 months.

Carter's December art work and our Christmas cards.

Our cute new family.

This was Abbie's first day in the Bumbo. She thought it was pretty great!!

Video of Hayden painting:



Video of Abigail when she first started to talk and smile:

Friday, March 2, 2012

Weekend Warriors

This last weekend we had a lot on our plates. Friday I started painting Abbie's room. It was quite an undertaking with 3 small children demanding attention and one little girl who kept trying to sneak the paint brushes and paint. Oh that Hayden!! On Saturday things went much better with both Matt and I at work.

After much browsing on the internet, asking friend's opinions, and lots of time on pinterest I decided I needed to stay true to us and go with a simple yet very sweet and delicate pink and white stripe.

Since it was Abbie's room we were painting I decided she needed to get to work, too. I know I have said this a million times, but I LOVE MY moby!!!

The just about finished product. We still have to get furniture in and touch up a few spots. So glad to have most of it done. I am NOT a fan of painting!!
We did two walls in the stripe and one wall solid.
In addition, Saturday night we had a dinner for all the doctors on staff at our near by hospital. We've nicknamed it "Dr. Prom." Thanks to my sweet friend and visiting teacher Sandy for doing my hair and makeup.
I really didn't know what to do for a dress, but luckily Shabby Apple had a few great choices. I LOVE that website!!
This was our first night leaving all 3 kids with a babysitter other than family. I knew that we left them in capable hands so I wasn't worried. When we got home I got to see these beautiful sleeiping faces.

There are a couple funny things here: Hayden has about 3 binkies with her - she's obsessed. Abbie and Hayden both have their arm(s) out to the same side. And when I got home I couldn't find Abbie for a couple minutes and got really freaked out. We were painting in her room and her pack n play was in there but it was a total mess and had no door on the room. I first checked there. I had laid a blanket on my bed and thought that they had maybe placed her on my bed to sleep. Nope not in there. Where could she be? My heart started beating fast...I went in to check on Hayden and... duh! of course she was there in the baby crib. Hayden had moved to the toddler bed a couple weeks ago and we just left the crib in her room since Abbie's room wasn't ready yet. So there were my two girls sleeping peacefully in the same room together. Ahhhh! Then at 4:30 am Hayden woke us up because we had forgotten to tell the babysitter that Hayden now MUST have her pink and brown blanket (no wonder she had to read Hayden "like 100 books" according to Carter before she fell asleep). So Matt went hunting at 4:30am for about 30 minutes for a stinkin blanket. He searched and searched until finally he said a quick prayer and found it about 30 seconds later. Why do we wait so long before we turn to God?

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)