Another catch up

This last month seems to have flown by, just ask any visiting teacher! We've had a lot of fun so I'll just do a quick re-cap:

Jaxon's Birthday

That's right, my cute boy turned one year old the first week of November. Since I didn't have a blog last year, I thought I'd quickly tell you about the day he was born. About 3am Saturday morning on November 8th last year, I woke to back labor. After 3 hours of timing, including a bath to see if they'd stop, I told Jer we'd better call his parents to come watch the girls. They live almost 25 minutes away and it didn't take us long to realize we needed something much faster so we called Kristel, a dear friend of mine who lives a block away, and asked if we could bring the girls over. She of course agreed and after dropping them off we drove the 5 minutes it takes to get to the hospital. By this time I could tell things were going pretty quickly but I was shocked when we checked in at the hospital at 7am and they told me I was dilated to a 7. There weren't any rooms available so at the time I was on a gurney in the broom closet with machines brought in to monitor the baby and me. I knew with all 3 of the girls from the time my body hit an 8 the babies were born within 10-20 minutes so I was coming to the shocking realization I would be having this baby completely natural. I've got to give credit to Mountain View Hospital, because from the moment they saw me they worked like crazy to get me into a room. The doctor shift change is also at 7am so at the time there were no doctors on hand, so they called the doctor who had just left and told her she needed to come back. They got me into a room at about 7:25, the doctor walked into my room at 7:35, scrubbed up, broke my water, and Jaxon Le was born at 7:37am.

We love him so much, I can't believe he's already a year old. His birthday party was so much fun, we just had a small party with our own little family.

We started with the presents, and I would call it a success because there were actually some things he seemed to like better than the gift wrap!


Then we had the birthday song and cake:




As you can see, Jax was pretty excited to get a hold of that cake but once his hands were messy he didn't know what to do next! It didn't take him long to get the hang of it, though!

Such a fun day! Jax finally cut his first tooth last week, and is starting to talk a lot more. He consistently says "Mama", "Dada", "baf" (bath), "da" (down), "ba" (ball), "Turt" (Turk, our dog), "nana" (banana), "mo" (more), "Mmmm" (yum), and "no no". Sometimes, however, he'll just casually throw out a word he's never used before, and pretty much won't say again until he feels like it, like "Kamin" (Kamrin), "ish" (fish), "ocks" (rocks) and "oggie" (doggie). We all adore Jaxon and are so grateful to Heavenly Father for letting him come to our family.

Thanksgiving

This year we would normally have spent Thanksgiving with the Nelson family, but since Chris and Tina were in Australia, all Jer's siblings went to the "in-laws" houses and because I don't have that luxury quite so easily, we decided to have our very first Thanksgiving in our own house with just our family. As much as we missed seeing everybody over the holiday, we had a blast! It was so relaxing, we just ate all day, listened to Christmas music, worked puzzles as a family, and of course watched football. What a great day to spend with the people you love and reflect on the many blessings of our lives.

Christmas Break-down

This year when we decorated for Christmas I had a break-down: a barrier break-down, that is. I finally decided to get a fake tree this year. As much as I love going out as a family every year and getting a real tree, after putting up our new tree and moving straight to decorating without bothering with a tree stand, water, or lights, I decided this had to be one of our greatest purchases. Plus, I can now keep my tree up until February without it becoming an extreme fire hazard! This is the final result:

I do love Christmas time, I'm so excited this time of year has come. I hope you all enjoy the holiday season!

Happy Halloween!

I hope everyone had a fantastic Halloween, I know we did! It of course started much earlier than today, but on Monday when we carved pumpkins for Family Home Evening. We laid out the newspaper, turned up the Christmas tunes and had a blast cleaning and carving.

I took pictures of all the kids with their pumpkins the next morning, which also happened to be Weird Hair Day for the girls' school.


Their school also had two Halloween parades, but their parades were on different days, and Wednesday was Kamrin's day to dress up! She planned all month to be a Chinese princess for Halloween; we ordered her a fan over the internet and everything. However, she didn't want to wear her dress to school because she was afraid it would get dirty so she dressed up like a kitty, which Savannah was last year. After seeing herself as a cat she changed her mind and decided she wanted to be a cat for all the other days of dress up for Halloween as well! I must admit I'm glad; she made such a cute kitty!

For Kamrin's Halloween parade, Jillie dressed up as well and walked with Kamrin around the school. Later, when I asked her if she had fun, she told me, "Scawy... Kamwin held my hand." :)



The next day was Savannah's parade & party, and she was such a cute cheerleader for it!

She loved to wave her pompoms around and cheer for everyone as they walked by her.

After the parade was her class party which I helped with. It was fun to see Nan there with all her classmates, she seemed like such a big girl!

Yesterday was the Melaleuca Trick-or-Treat day. For those of you who don't know, whenever Melaleuca celebrates an event they go all out, and Halloween is no different. Each department of Melaleuca chooses a theme and decks their cubicles and hallways out to represent that theme. Most of the people that work there dress up and there's candy being handed out every way you turn. The route for the trick-or-treaters to follow is pretty long and covers 2 floors so when you enter in the door there's a line of blue tape and monster feet that shows the kids where to go. They just need to follow that line and it will lead them from spot to spot. The kids and I had a blast going through it, and we were so glad that Kortnee and her kids, Kortnee's sisters-in-law, and Dave & Emily Z. and their kids were able to join us!


So this year the department Jeremiah works in chose to do Dr. Seuss and it was so cool. When you entered their department you entered WhoVille and were welcomed by a gorgeous Christmas tree and a house-lined hallway.

You followed the "street" into the cave of the Grinch, which had green moss hanging from the ceiling, green lights, and more Christmas trees and presents.

You left the Grinch's cave to enter into a jungle where you met Horton, played by my awesome hubby. Jer got the elephant head from a friend and created the rest of the costume himself, using mostly safety pins and spray paint!

Finally, you entered into a little "house" where the Cat in the Hat was waiting. He looked really great.


There were some other pretty cool departments, but in my opinion Jer's was the best (I promise I'm not being bias!)

That brings us to today. We had such a great day as a family, just enjoying the fall weather and taking it easy all morning. In the early afternoon we dressed the kids up and headed over to Grandma and Grandpa Nelson's house.

There were several aunts and uncles there as well and it was so great to see everybody. Then we headed out trick-or-treating. This was the first year the girls really had a chance to go door to door and they had so much fun. Our neighborhood is pretty great for trick-or-treating because about every 1/3 house belongs to our church so we recognized most of the other trick-0r-treaters that were walking around. The girls came away with full buckets and empty stomachs. After trick-or-treating we headed back home for a spooky dinner: bat wings (BBQ wings), mummies (idea from Kambria: crescent wrapped hot dogs...I cut my crescent dough into long strips and the girls helped me wrap the dogs...fun and cool!), eyeballs (peeled grapes), and rotten egg witch's brew (root beer with a little eggnog added...quit gagging, it really is pretty good!).

Jaxon seemed unaware of anything different going on, he was just excited to keep finding candy on the floor thanks to Jillian! I didn't get a good chance to take pictures of him in his off-season football costume until he fell asleep but he sure looked adorable!

Such a great time of year, I hope everyone else had a blast!

Halloween Eve

I just wanted to wish everyone a happy and safe Halloween!

Macy

Last year when I first found out I was pregnant with Jaxon, we decided to add to the upcoming craziness in our lives by getting a puppy. We ended up with a beautiful male boxer puppy that we named Turk.

He's grown like crazy, probably because of the extensive exercise he gets while digging holes in our yard, plus the balanced diet he eats including barbie dolls, flip-flops, and garden hose.

Well, as my love/hate relationship with our dog grew, I came to the realization that maybe he was bored to death since I hardly gave him the time of day beyond feeding him, scooping his poop, and an occasional pat on the head. OK, so I'll admit it, I'm not nearly as much of a "dog person" as I thought I was before we actually got a dog! So what do we do? We get another puppy!

That's right, introducing Macy: an 8 week old female chocolate lab with green eyes who has won the heart of our family right over, including Turk's.

She is an extremely sweet little thing, and it's been much easier having a puppy this time around because Turk is like a built-in baby sitter. Anywhere she goes, he is following behind, licking her to death and standing protectively over her. I'm sure he's driving her crazy but she actually will go to him sometimes and instigate play time.

You should see these two together, they're so cute! Constantly cuddling each other; we're already so happy with how things are going, keep your fingers crossed it will continue!

Jillie-ism

So today Jillian and I were out running errands together and she kept saying, "My name is Jillian. My name is Jillian." After awhile she switched and said, "Mommy's name is Kwenja" (her cute way of pronouncing my name). Realizing this might be a good teaching moment I asked her, "And what's Daddy's name?"

Jillie paused for a minute, obviously contemplating. "J...J....J...." I hinted.

"Jewemiah!" Jillie exclaimed, triumphantly.

"Very good! And what's your brother's name?" I questioned.

Without even a pause she promptly answered, "P....P....P....Jaxon!"

Chance of Rain/Snow Showers

That is our weather forecast on Wednesday! Can you believe it? Here we are, sitting at a very comofortable high of 82 degrees today, reminiscent of the last couple of weeks. Well, I made an appointment for the girls to get their pictures taken outside on Wednesday evening. Luckily, I decided to look up the weather forecast last night and what do I find? Monday: High of 82; Tuesday: High of 72; Wednesday: High of 45....WHAT THE HECK? And then the crazy words of "a chance of rain/snow showers"! From there on out the weather warms up a little, with highs of mid to high 50's the rest of the week. Fall is finally here and we in Idaho are all keeping our fingers crossed that winter isn't following too closely on its heels!

By the way, I changed their picture appointment to tonight...

Big-time Update!

OK, I'll admit it, I've been the biggest slacker when it comes to my blog (as if you don't already know that!). A lot has happened since I last posted so I'm going to do a quick update:

4th of July:

My parents came over for 10 days and were able to spend the 4th with us! We had a great time as usual, our tradition being to go to the Idaho Falls Parade in the morning, then to a family reunion for a potluck, came home for some down/nap time, then off to the Melaleuca Freedom Celebration which has the largest fireworks show in the nation west of the Mississippi.

Our trip to Washington:

Jer wasn't able to come with us for our annual trip to WA to visit our family...we missed him so much! However, my dad made the drive easier for me by flying to Boise from Portland, where I picked him up and he rode with us back to Portland where he picked his car up from the airport. It made it so instead of driving 13 hours by myself with 4 kids including a nursing baby, I only ended up driving 6 hours by myself. I've got to tell you, the kids were great! Driving to Washington, we decided not to stop at a hotel so, with all the other little stops included, it was a straight 15 hour trip and they did awesome! However, we decided to stop at a hotel on the drive back to Idaho and it really did make it so much nicer for everyone.

While in Washington the kids and I had such a great time hanging out with our family there on the farm. We were plagued, however, with the flu and it kept hitting one or two people at a time so we weren't able to visit as much with outside family members as we wanted to. Still, we were able to get a lot of stuff done, including:

The Grays Harbor County Fair

Berry picking

Chuck E. Cheese (my girls see the commercials for it all the time but our closest one is in Boise, 4 hours away, so we made it a point to go to the one in Olympia...Kelly and her kids joined us, so much fun!)

The beach (Whit and her boys joined us, it was pretty cold but still a great time)




Valentine Family Reunion (Thanks Annie for putting together such a wonderful time for all of us, I'm so glad this tradition has been started! It was great to see everyone, many people I met for the first time and several others I hadn't seen since I got married). My camera was dead by this point so sorry for the lack of pictures!

We also spent a great day with Carson, Brooke and their family. We wished we could've seen you guys more (darn flu!) but we still are thankful for the day we got to hang out!

After Washington we got home with just one week to spare before school started. Unbelievably, I have 2 kids in school this year- a 2nd grader and a kindergartener. Nan and Kam were both so excited for school to start, and so far it's been great for both of them. It's amazing how quickly they learn!

Jillian finally got tired of waiting for me to potty train her and potty-trained herself a week and a half ago. She just refused to put on a diaper so we moved on and haven't looked back! Even at night, now, she's out of diapers and she's doing so well! Good job, Jillie (no pictures available!)

Jaxon started walking last week....can you believe it? He was just barely over 10 months old when he decided to take the plunge and now he's trying to walk everywhere. Every day he walks so much more than the day before, it won't be long before he's hardly crawling at all! Kind of sad for Mommy, my baby is growing up too quickly!

Jer and I are doing great, we're loving the fall weather that's moving in to our area. Jer's parents have been asked by Melaleuca to move to Australia and help the company over there for three months and they are leaving today! We of course will miss them a ton, but we're so happy for that opportunity; what a great experience. Our house is still up for sale but we're not worried whether it sells or not, we're just going with the flow, knowing that things will work out when they're supposed to.

Well, that's about it! You're updated on the Nelsons....for now!