My Little Red Blob

For Carter's 2nd Birthday he got a sled from Grandma Karen and Grandpa Craig. So when we finally got enough snow to go sledding we bundled up and headed out for Carter's first real sledding trip. He cracked me up decked out in his big ol snow suit. But I tell you what it is AWESOME for keeping a little guy all warm and cozy.

Another Nielsen Rock Band Junkie

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Our little family of three had such a nice Holiday break. We spent Christmas here in Pittsburgh since Matt was working the week of Christmas and had to go into the hospital for a bit on Christmas Day. So here is a journaling of our Christmas Events:

Christmas Eve we did Matt's family's traditional Chinese take out. Then we went with our friends Heather and Oliver to their church's Christmas Eve service. It was really nice and a great way to start our Christmas Celebration. My favorite part was when they turned out the lights and lit everyone's candle and we sang Silent Night. Then we came home and opened Grandma Bonnie's traditional pajama Christmas Eve presents.

I loved putting all the presents underneath the tree. This was our first time being in our own home for Christmas and it was kind of nice and fun. I loved organizing the presents and just seeing how pretty everything looked.

Christmas morning was really nice. Carter for one of the rare times in his life slept in late, along with Daddy. So while my boys slept I got up and finished getting things ready for our traditional breakfast from my family's side: sausage souffle, grapefruit, hot chocolate, and then Heather brought over a coffee U that is I think she said a Norwegian type of pastry (it was really delicious!) And to all you Mormons out there, don't worry it didn't have coffee in it. :) Once the boys woke up we opened presents. I didn't get a lot of pictures of us opening presents, but I did get some video for the sake of Carter's grandparents. I didn't think that everyone would want to see every video so I won't post all of them here, but if you are interested you can go to www.youtube.com/aynielsen and see all the videos I downloaded. I did want to share one of the videos though. What I love about this video is this captures the first day of which Carter started using "Yes Momma/Daddy" and "Thank You Momma/Daddy". Of all mornings Christmas morning is a great one to learn how to be polite. Since Christmas Carter has been using please and thank you like crazy and it has been so awesome as his Momma to hear it!!

Later that day, we went over to our friend's house for dinner (Richy, Marie, and Linus). Dinner was extremely delicious. Richy just got a smoker so he smoked a Turkey, we brought ham, the Hecks brought yummy sides, and the Nunnery's brought a huge spread of dessert. We all gained a few extra pounds that night on top of our already gains.

A couple weeks before Christmas when we were planning this dinner get together I was so excited because I thought we would have enough children to put on a Nativity Scene...not my brightest idea. It turned out to be somewhat of a disaster. We all brought items to contribute for the nativity and someone brought the cutest little duck bathrobe. Carter being obsessed with the show Little Bear that has a duck in it immediately was drawn to the duck robe and so instantly we had a very loud quacking duck in our nativity.

We also had a shepard-to-be decide he wanted nothing to do with our nativity. But my favorite mishap was adorable Linus who is obsessed with trucks and building things. He wanted nothing to do with being a shepard or wise man, he wanted to be a builder man in his builder man uniform. Marie (his mother) tried to explain to him that there weren't builder men back then that dressed like that, and he turned to his mother and said, "Then who built the stable?!?" So with that logic we decided to add a builder man to our nativity scene except at that point he decided that this pagent shouldn't even be happening so through at least half of Richy's scripture reading we had a little boy pleading for his daddy to stop reading. But in the midst of all the choas, our Joseph and sweet Mary remained stalwart and carried on as did some of the adult actors:

Oh yes, and I forgot that balls were flying at us from all directions.

This candy train was just one of our many delicious desserts! Isn't that so creative?!?

Kansas City, MO

The Saturday after Christmas Matt's work week ended and we got up at 2:30am and were off to Kansas City (a 13 hour drive). Our biggest concern with the drive was of course our 2 year old and to our pleasant surprise, he was a champ!! He either slept, watched Little Bear, sang songs, or read books. He never cried unless we weren't fast enough starting over his Little Bear movie. Well, I guess to be totally honest on our way home he did start to cry to get out of his seat when we were just 20 minutes away from our house!

We had a BLAST in Kansas City, I didn't take a lot of pictures or videos to document it. Here were some of my favorite things (in no particular order):

1. The train displays at Union Station and Crown Center.

I know you can't really see the trains here, but I just thought this was a sweet picture of me and my boy.

2. Watching the relationships grow stronger with his Aunt Whitney and Uncle Cory. Sometimes I think Carter is one of the luckiest kids in the world because he is surrounded by so many people who love him so much.

3. Arthur Bryant's, mine and Matt's favorite KC BBQ. (GT we got a few laughs remembering you with your big ole Arthur Bryant's cup.)


4. Carter realizing that he had Grandma wrapped around his little finger. One morning he was wanting me to go play down in the basement with him and I didn't want to so I said no and he automatically turned to Grandma and in his sweet pleading voice he said, "Grama!" And of course her heart melted.

5. Carter being so sweet and polite. Just about everytime someone did something for him he would say, "Thank you Grama" or whoever it was who helped him.

6. Watching Carter thrive being around his Aunt and Uncle and Grama and Pampa.

7. Farming it up several times (aka this means we played The Farming Game).

8. The Nielsen Family Band: (Matt, Cory, and Whit playing Rockband on the Wii)

This Wheezer video is a great one to check out just for Cory alone. He cracks me up, and really does pull off a great rock star. And yes ladies he is single!






9. The Fun Run, this was a fun place with blow up toys right by my in-laws house.


Uncle Big Timmay you would be so proud to see your little C Man climbing like a champ!

One of the many things I love about my husband, is if you wnat to have fun all you need is him. He is one awesome playmate.