Allie's 3rd Birthday

Allie had her 3rd birthday on December 26. Since it is so close to Christmas we always go out and do something special for her. This year we went out to Gold Butte.

Birthday Trip

We even found some snow!

Allie hit daddy with this huge snow ball!

The birthday girl!

Bud and Allie loved riding in the back in the campershell

Cookin' hotdogs and marshmellows

Dad, Mark and Allie

Birthday Party

More toys!!!

Blowin' out the candles

I made Allie this bug cake. Its my first "fancy cake" so I thought it turned out pretty good. Before I put Allie down that night I asked her what her favorite part of her birthday was and she said her bug cake! So I guess she liked it too.

I can't believe she's 3!!!

Happy Birthday Baby Girl!

Christmas

Here are some of our Christmas highlights...

Christmas Eve

Mom and Allie in their Tinker Bell jamies

Mark, Dad and Bud in their BATMAN jamies
(complete with CAPES!!)


Christmas Morning

Santa must be magic because he was able to fit a trampoline down the chimney and into our living room. Yes, you read correctly... a trampoline in our living room!!!

The kids loved it!

Bouncy bouncy! Watch out for the fan!!!

We had a great Christmas. The kids got lots of fun stuff and Dustin and I got pretty spoiled too.
I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas

From Me and My Crazy Family

Christmas Blessings

The other night Dustin thought he could smell something burning but I hadn't noticed. I brushed it off and we got some presents together to deliver to our nieces and nephews. When I went to grab one of the presents from under our tree it was stuck to the extension cord!

I had our little space heater plugged in to the same extension cord as the lights for the Christmas tree and the heat from the space heater melted the plug and burned the carpet and a present. If we hadn't moved the present when we did our tree, or worse our house would've caught on fire!

Dustin tried to unplug everything before it got worse but the plastic just stretched like taffy. I've never seen anything like it. It was so scary. We are lucky to have caught it when we did. It made me think how often I am saved before really bad things happen. Like how I turn around for two seconds to help one of my kids in the backseat of the truck and when I look up I have just enough time to get back on the road before hitting a sign. Or how by the end of the month some how or another all our bills are paid.

I'm so grateful to Heavenly Father for protecting and watching over me and my family. I'm grateful for his guidance, for helping us to live in such a way that we are aware and are protected. I'm especially grateful to Heavenly Father at Christmas time. For his sacrifice in giving us his only begotten son, that we may be saved and live with him once again.

May the true meaning of Christmas be with you this holiday season.

Christmas Dresses

Aunt Jill made Allie this beautiful Christmas dress. She gave it to her Tuesday and as of this morning she still has it on! I don't know if it'll be clean enough to wear to church!!

Christmas Dress #1

Princess Allie

Do you see, she even has her glass slippers on?
Thanks Aunt Jill for the beautiful Christmas dress.
I guess you are Princess Allie's Fairy Godmother!

Christmas Dress #2

Yesterday, Heather informed me that I needed to sew her a dress for "Elf Dress Up Day" at school. I made three of these little skirts. One for Heather and two of her friends. I think they turned out pretty good. There was even a little left over for Allie to have a dress too and even a little Rambo-Elf head band!

Kid Quotes

Yesterday Allie had an accident and I asked her...
"Did you poop in you underwear?"
"Ahhhh.... yeah I did"
I didn't really feel like cleaning up poop so I said, "Will you go clean it up?"
"I can't do it, I'm not a Mama!"

While I was changing her...
"You really need to go in the toilet."
"But I don't want too Mommy!"
"Well if you don't like me changing you, you need to go in the potty."
"I won't do it any more."
"Ok good deal. So you'll go poop in the toilet?"
"No, I just won't poop anymore!"

This morning when she woke up...
"Good morning baby. Did you have good dreams?"
"Yes, I had princess dreams."
"What princess were you in your dream?"
"I was Jazmin. Aladdin was getting his magic carpet and was gonna take me to see the world."

At breakfast...
"Mom you can be Cinderella and you can marry daddy, the prince, and kiss him."
"Yeah"
"But you need little mouses. Who are gonna be your little mouses?"
"How 'bout you and Bud and Markie?"
"No.. Bud is Aladdin and Markie is Rajah.. I guess you can't have mouses."

Another breakfast conversation...
Allie, "Hey Bambi is on my shirt!"
Estefan, "That wimpy deer?!"
Allie, "What did you just say to me?"
Estefan, "You play ball like a girl!!"

Jingle Bell Rock

Saturday night the Nelson Family Band played at Jill and Kristi's ward party.

That may sound like a usual thing but Saturday night was special because...

the GRANDKIDS played too!!!

Allie and Elise played the jingle bells/were backup dancers

Estefan played the auto harp

Caleb played the ukulele

Isaac played his tiny violin

and Will played the stand up bass

They rocked Jingle Bells like never before. None of the grandkids got stage fright and everyone did great. I'm sure this is the first of many performances with the grandkids!!

Silly Moments

We live in my Great-grandparents house and well some things are in desperate need of replacement... like carpet. We had brown "casino carpet" as I called it. It was probably way nice, say in 1970. But I was in need for a new look. We found these vinyl tile squares for a great deal at Lowe's! Now instead of "casino carpet" we have this nice tile in our hallways and panty/laundry room! I love it!!

Is this how all daddies have to work?

Allie and Mark were just helping, right?!

My new floor!

Aunt Kristi gave Mark this fun push toy so he can practice walking

Mark loves it.. except when he runs into the Christmas tree!

Look at those teeth!

Dear Santa

Dustin and I are going Christmas shopping tomorrow so I had the kids come up with a wish list. It cracked me up so I thought I'd better share it!

Estefan wants:

• lizards
• transformers
• NO CLOTHES
• shoes with no laces
• cool race cars
• wild bull (but pretend)
• scary bear (like a teddy bear but scary)
• trampoline
• tractor, a green one
• rooster and a little yellow chick
• and a card board box

Allie wants:

• a turkey (two of em)
• make up
• a banjo
• a beard (Estefan thought that was cool.. so add a beard to his list!)
• a dress, a pink one
• oh and pink shoes
• pink toys
• books too
• and pink tools (like daddy's but pink)

Then they thought they needed to come up with things for Mark because he can't talk

Allie and Estefan think Mark wants:

• a play duck to squeeze
• a little fun dog
• a bottle
• and a little turkey

Then they thought they'd better think of things to get me and Dus so..

Things Allie and Estefan will get us:

For Dad:

• a nice picture
• work tools
• a big turkey

For Mom:

• nice make up
• a surprise

Christmas should be an adventure this year. Kids have such crazy imaginations!!

*8 MONTHS*

Yesterday was my baby's 8 month birthday!!!

I can't believe he used to be this little...

Crazy 8 months ago I was in the hospital with him. Time has really gone by fast.


My big boy!
Mark's new Milestones:
He has 2 bottom teeth
and 4 top teeth
crawls everywhere
pulls himself up
pulls books of the shelves (not really a milestone, but he does it!)
walks with support
eats table food

AND

Today is Uncle Mark's Birthday!
Happy Birthday big Mark!

Saturday Fun

Last Saturday Dustin took Allie and his friend Rudy, from work out to the Gold Butte area to take landscape photographs. Rudy took lots of neat pictures but I haven't got them saved to the computer yet. Here are some of Dustin's...

The infamous sign

Allie

Peek-a-Boo

Nay Ranch

Allie at the Nay's pool

Nay Ranch

And while they were out Mark and I went to St. George to Gina's baby shower. She got lots of fun stuff! Here is a picture of a lot of us Nelson girls. Thanks to Alesha for letting us crash your house!

SCARY Santa!!

Last night was our ward Christmas party. We went early to talk to Santa! Allie was too scared to talk to him, so she and Hans cried and ran away. Knox was scared too but he couldn't run away! And Markie just sat there. Oh, well.. silly kids.

Oh and I forgot my camera and diapers. You'd think I'd be better at the whole mommy-thing by now, not so much! But I did remember the bottle, which I spilt on Don.. whoops! (I think pretty much everything got spilt on Don last night.) Anyway, thanks for the picture Raegan! Next time I'll remember my camera, I hope!

I thought I'd better include this picture too since I didn't get one of Allie this year. This is Allie her first time meeting Santa... last night he pretty much got the same reaction.

I hope the real Santa isn't as scary as these two!

Trimmin' the Tree

The cold must've really got to us desert rats because Friday night Allie and Dustin got sick. Then Saturday Mark decided to get sick too. Just me and Estefan are holding strong! So we had to wait til Saturday night to decorate our tree. But we got it up!

Mom and the boys trimmin the tree

Dad and the kids

Mark and Bud

We thought for sure that Mark would tear the tree up! He got a hold of the lights and shook em a little. But then he got poked by one of the branches and hasn't touched it again. The big kids on the other hand are the one's who can't stop touching it. They like to take they ornaments off and rearrange them. Oh well! At least they are having fun!

Mark shakin the lights! He's excited for Christmas!

We got some of our other decorations out. Its been a slow sickly weekend.. so more pictures later!

HAPPY DECORATING!!!!

Oh Christmas Tree

The day after Thanksgiving is our Christmas tree cutting day! We went to Cedar moutain and found three great trees!

Estefan with his huge snowball. He thought it was funny to hit dad with snow!

Mark didn't know what to think about the snow. He was all bundled up tight and didn't move!

The tree cutters! Estefan and dad did most.. ok all the work!

Silly kids

Sleepy kids

It was SO cold!

Cedar Breaks

Snow on the mountains

Our future vehicle! We borrowed Jack's truck. It was so much nicer travelling in his truck than our little red car. We've gotta get us one of these!!