First Snowfall

These were from earlier this winter. The kids were so excited to go out and make a snowman with daddy! There wasn't much snow yet, but they were determined.

The masterpiece! Tomato eyes, a carrot nose, and I don't know what for the mouth, those might be nuts! haha

Three happy kids!

Glam Girls

Natalie made this for me! This girl takes after me, she is obsessed with sticky things like stickers and tape. She created this masterpiece by taping all her coloring tools to the paper. haha She also cocooned a small pumpkin in tape, but took it all off before I could get a picture.

Playing dress up, with mommy's makeup on.  Natalie is such a girlie girl, Nicole is in trouble, she's forced into all of Natalie's feminine whims. Or maybe I'm the one in trouble...when they turn into teenage shopaholics!

Posing for the camera!

This was Nicole's Halloween hairdo, but I never posted pictures of it. I did it myself! Cute puffy twists and funky parts. Her hair is fun to do!

The kids dancing in the living room while I was practicing flute one day. I didn't even know what they were doing until Jeremy showed me the pictures. They were dancing to my music. Awe, how cute!

Natalie has been watching too many fairy tales, she needs a "partner dancer." : )

Christmas 2010

In an effort to be a better blogger this year, I will be posting lots of random pics from last year in a hurry to get me in the habit of posting more frequently. 

Decorating the small tree the kids picked out. This one just cracks me up, I have no idea what Kai is doing??

My dad and grandma came to visit us at Thanksgiving this year.

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.