Christmas Tree Hunting

We get a real tree every year, I know it's bad for the environment, but that is one thing I give in on and feel ok about. haha This year the kids had a huge fight about which tree would coming home with us. Kai wanted a really small tree, and Natalie wanted a really big tree. We didn't really care, we usually get a big one, but it's not a big deal to us. So, we worked out a compromise, we picked one in between, one not too small and one not too big. This is it, the winner! : )

And now it is already out on the curb. I hate to throw it out so soon, but the cat keeps knocking it down and I'm tired of cleaning up spilled water.

More Summer Fun

Every year we go to a picnic put on by the adoption agency we used: Heart and Soul Adoptions. It is so fun to see all the families they have helped and to see all the kids.  They provide dinner and a bunch of blow up toys to jump and slide on. The kids loved them, but it's hard to get a good picture on them. So we played on the playground, too.

This year I had made a bunch of fabric flowers and was proud of myself that I made the girls wear them, probably more flowers than they needed at any given time, but, like I said, I was so proud that I actually made them! haha

Kai learned how to do monkey bars this year!

So of course Natalie wanted to try, but she got stuck. She can hang for a long time though.

Nicole loved the slide.

And one random image from my cousin's wedding we attended. My mom came out for the weekend to come too.

Family Reunion Fun

Jeremy and I were in charge of planning the Nelson reunion this year. We decided to go up into the woods for a day and eat lots of good food, go for a hike, and do a craft with the kids. We collected rocks on a walk and then painted them.

Here are our finished happy rock people. Natalie's is the skinny blue one, Nicole's is next to hers with lots of color spots (maybe he has chicken pox), Kai's is above hers with a chin piercing. Mine is the black woman. I don't know if Jeremy's ended up in this picture?

We had a visitor.

The kids get a sweet trailer ride at Grandpa's house!

 They also got to go out and pick out their own pumpkins this year!

Kai - AKA Captain Underpants!

These are a few months old from a test shoot I did with Kai. I had this great concept in my head, but this was one that didn't turn out quite as great as planned. Mostly because Kai didn't have any plain white undies, so we improvised and used Natalie's panties instead, not so manly. I should have just thrown on his super hero ones, would have "made" the picture into a classic. But we still had fun and Kai is cute no matter what, so it's all good.

Picture Overload!

I realized the other day that I am committing a sin I tell everyone else not to do... storing too many images on the hard drive. I had almost 6000 pictures in my lightroom program waiting for me to finish editing. So, it's time to clear the computer and post some of these pictures I've had sitting around forever!

These are from Valentine's day last year, just playing with some re-edits.

These are pretty recent, but I needed to wrap them up for the preschool waiting to see all the images.

Next up..Kai and family adventures. : )

A Colorado 4th of July

We went to Colorado for the 4th of July and got to spend time with my mom, step dad, and my brother. The kids love to go to grandma's house and get spoiled, and we love being there, too, but sometimes the drive can seem never- ending. We had so many potty stops on this trip that we were all anxious to get there, especially after some hydroplaning in the mountains.  We were minutes away from our last main exit when we got pulled over for speeding! The kids thought is was great, they wanted to look at the flashing lights and kept asking if we were going to jail. Jeremy and I weren't as enthusiastic. 

Kai and Natalie enjoyed playing legos with uncle Kael and building a robot.

(all these pictures are from my mom's camera. I was too sick and tired to pull mine out. and we forgot to bring our point and shoot.)

We also celebrated Natalie, Kai, Jeremy, and my mom's birthdays with cake, presents, and a trip to a fun center. The roller derby was fun!

Kael found the most relaxing place to sit there.

We went swimming, too. This picture was taken a while after Nicole was rescued by a lifeguard (yes, I was a bad mother for a minute and didn't notice that she tipped over). Afterwards she was scared to death to be in the water without a floaty.

The kids decorated grandma's front porch and driveway, a few times.

Kai made some amazing shape figures with grandma's school chips. He's got skills!

And this is how we watched fireworks, in my mom's van because it was POURING rain! But in Colorado, nothing stops the show, we're tough and can handle any weather! haha

It was a great trip, we look forward to our summer Colorado trip every year. 

Natalie is 4!

Natalie told us that she wanted a Barbie party this year, all of a sudden she is into Barbies. But she wanted a cake with butterflies that was purple and green. Kari did a great job as usual with this one, Natalie was so excited about it.

I tried to get a few shots of her, but she was not interested, this was the best one I got.

We played nail polish spin the bottle for the activity. Can you tell how excited Kai was to play?!

They had to pick a color and spin the bottle, then go pain one nail on the person it pointed to.

The end result (after the boys had enough and went off to play):

Pretty fingers!

We are a little sneaky, the kids have so many toys that we keep a bunch in the crawl space and rotate them. Natalie had forgotten about this gem, so she got it again! haha Kai remembered though and almost ruined the surprise. 

The party guests singing happy birthday!

Hamster Funeral

I am playing catch - up on pictures. These were taken during Jeremy's last trip to India. One of the hamsters died and the kids wanted to do a funeral. The only thing was, we weren't sure which hamster died and both kids were fighting about whose had actually died. So we made two headstones. 

And this is what I found sunday morning when trying to hurry and get all the kids ready for church! Little stinker.

Here is Kai in his dancing superheroes class he took at the youth arts festival this year. I love the foam light sabers the teacher made.

Kai to Work with Dad

Novell had Kids to Work day a few weeks back and so Kai came to spend half a day with me at work. We had a great time with all of the activities. He got to watch a play and a puppeteer and pet snakes and lizards. They had classes on engineering, marketing, security, and many others that they made pretty fun for the kids too. The girls came and met us for lunch at the end and watched the puppet show. We had a great time...... probably because none of what we did had anything to do with what I actually do at work :)

Easter Egg Hunt- AKA Parent Brawl

I took Kai and Natalie to the city Easter egg hunt for the first time this year, and we may never do it again. They both had fun and got a small prize, but I was blown away by the "adult" behavior! 

I was there by myself, Kai and Natalie were on two different fields, so I stuck with Natalie, camera in hand. Over the load speakers were warnings every minute, "parents, please stay off the field. Only 4 eggs per child." So I put on my long lens expecting to get some good shots of Natalie, drilled her on 4 eggs, and only 4 eggs.

Then the buzzer sounded, I was the only parent left standing on the sidelines!! SO much for my great pictures. I had to move out a little to try and get a shot. After Natalie had her eggs, I sat by her and helped her toss the extras back (She had about 7) when I noticed grown adults sweeping as many eggs as they could into their kid's baskets! 

I went and found Kai, opened their eggs. Kai had a prize slip so we headed over to the beastly crowd waiting for their prizes. I saw kids holding bags of eggs, parents with 10 prize slips in their hands, with one child standing with them! So I asked one such family for an extra ticket so I could just get Kai and Natalie a gift. 

I'll re-evaluate next year, maybe we'll hold our own neighborhood hunt. How are our kids supposed to learn respect if so many adults can't follow a few simple requests?!

Anyway, Here's Natalie running off (In the pink coat).

Natalie again, checking her eggs and searching for me in the crowd.

I missed all of Kai's chase, so I got a picture of him afterward. I don't know where he put his basket. Kai was one lucky egg picker, he scored $3.00 and a prize ticket!