The Rest of October

In mad blog catch up style, here is a random smattering of pictures from the month of October that I will try to remember their origin.  There will be a lot of inaccuracies and truth stretching, but that's mostly because my memory is worth about nothing these days.  And, like my father before me, I am very aware a little embellishment makes a story way better.

I took my kids to the pumpkin patch this year, as usual.  But this year I was feeling spendy and actually let them ride some rides.  

Scarlet and Rhode went in costume... pretty sure because they had dressed up for school.  But, no guarantees on that one.  Sydney tagged along too.  Or Jude has a twin I have not mentioned yet.  Duh duh duhhhh.

Jude didn't do a lot of wandering.  He just hung near my leg a lot.  He really likes to be held.  Like really.

I was feeling spendy until I got there and saw how much the tickets were.  Sheesh, are these carnies crazy!?  And why are there people walking around with handfuls of these tickets worth more than gold?

Asher spent some of his precious few tickets on the wagon ride.  I keep telling my kids they look more fun than they actually are.  They usually prove me wrong by loving it.

Babies!  Stop ruining the cut out pictures!  So the kids basically got to do two rides each with their tickets and they were out.  But right there at the end, some lady hands me another 15 tickets that they don't plan on using.  How many did you start with that you have this many extra?!  But I put that aside and stuck with grateful.  My kids did a few more slides and we called it a day.  See guys?  An example in record of me not being the cheapest mom in history.

Jon decided to coach the kid's soccer team this year.  So not only did we get to have two kids on the same team, but we also got to decide when all of the practices would be held.  It was brilliant on our part.  We had a cute little team and Jon did a great job with them.  Sometimes work would get in the way and I would have to step in, but luckily I am still better at soccer than 7 year olds.  Next year... well I may have to practice a little

The Henderson league photographer schedule was on a bad day for our team, so Jon just took the photos himself.  We gave them free to the players, pretty cute right?  Scarlet had a great soccer year.  She scored a goal almost every game.  She is not very fast, but she is really good at staying near the goal and finding her opportunity to shoot.  Rhode is still a little distracted while playing but he had some great in the game moments and definitely got a few goals.  

I finally decided it was time to drop the baby Jude pounds.  I signed up for a diet bet at dietbet.com.  You pay $35.  If you lose 4% of your body weight in 28 days, you get your money back and get to split the money of the people that didn't win. You have to submit photos to prove it. Here's my before.

To win I had to lose a little over 7 lbs.  I tried to keep my calories lower but I ate a lot of whole foods high in protein and I kept my treats to a bare minimum.  I also exercised every day.  In the end I lost 12 lbs!  The diet bet was major motivation for me.  I would walk into the kitchen and then think, no way am I losing 35 bucks.  Plus I made an extra $20 in the end.  Sweet deal.

Dress like a pirate day with free Krispy Kremes.  Best day ever.

In October, our cousin Owen arrived a little early to Brad and Jules.  His lungs needed a little more help so he spent a few days in the NICU.  We said some family prayers for Owen and Scarlet made this for him as well.  So glad he is a big healthy guy now!

I picked up matching shirts for my kids at the Disney Store and Scarlet wanted in on the matching action too.  The coordinating thing was more fun than I though it would be.

And a sad story.  We cleaned the church one Saturday and as we were wrapping up, the people in charge told my kids there was hot chocolate in the kitchen if they wanted some.  They rushed in there before I could get there.  Once I grabbed Jude and headed in there, I saw that they had put water into one of those old school coffee urns.  Then there were packets of hot chocolate nearby.  The water out of these suckers is so ridiculously hot and here are my kids filling cups to the precarious brim.  Asher was just about to get some when I set Jude down on the counter to reach out my hand to stop Asher.  At the same time, the water hit Rhode's hand and burned him, so he threw the cup... on the table where Jude was sitting.

I instantly threw him into the sink, clothes and all and started running cold water over him but the burn was big and nasty.  This happened through his jeans.

It was so brutal.  I had one sad baby.   But it has now cleared up and only the faintest of marks remains.

On a lighter note, this is how Asher decided to put on his flip flops one morning.

Scarlet loves a good pictures opportunity.  She has gotten so old looking this year.  It keeps freaking me out.

Whenever my kids climb to the top of anything, they call my name and say,  "I'm on top of the world, hey!" and sing the Imagine Dragons song to me.  I love it.

And this my crazy little Juder bug.

He LOVEs throwing the rocks in the front yeard.  Much to his dad's dismay.  But sometimes, if it will buy me ten minutes, I think its totally worth the sweep.

Everyone tells me he looks exactly like Asher.  I don't see it.  Probably too close to the situation to view it accurately.  He's just my Juders.

Halloween

It was going to be the year of no theme.  It has to end eventually right?  At some point they will be big enough that I can't physically shove them into my costume of choice.  Just kidding, I haven't done that.  Yet.

The funny thing is the one that really was knocking the theme for us was Asher.  I couldn't get the kid to agree on anything.  So I scrapped it.  Pick whatever you want from the costume bin.  Who needs an adorable, family filled theme?  Not us!

And then the idea started percolating.  And then I talked Asher into wearing his potential costume.  And before I knew it, I was spending the day of the school trunk or treat furiously sewing and throwing our theme together.

But the true Halloween miracle came with our trunk decorations.  If we were going to have  family theme, we needed a trunk to match.  But there just wasn't enough time.  Duh duh duh DAH!  Scarlet the creative to the rescue!  Give that girl a pile of construction paper and a roll of tape and there is nothing she can't create.   I would send her off to do a project and it would come back looking better than my highest expectations.

And here we are.   

This is where this post ended when I started it four months ago.  The plan was to hop onto Jon's work computer and get the pictures we had taken with our nice camera.  But, they just weren't there.  I kept hoping that in the back of my mind they would just be found someday and magically I would start blogging again and get all caught up and life would be daffodils and roses.

It's now March.  No Halloween pictures.  So I am going to call it.  The cell phone pics are all I have to offer.  But now I will move on and all will be well.

And here we are.

We have Dorothy


The Scarecrow


The reluctant Tin Man


The Cowardly candy fiend Lion


The Wicked Witch of the West


And the Wizard of Oz

And our land of Oz


I ended up having to go to Costco post getting all Halloween ready.  I got a lot of stares.

In October

I am so bummed that I did not blog sooner about October.  We had such a good October and I am going to do an extremely poor job of retelling it.  I also do not have nearly enough pictures.  The Nielsen crew is not great at documenting our good moments.  And since I constantly rely on others to capture my memories... I am blaming them.

Instead of doing a summer or holiday get together with the Nielsens, we got together in the middle of October.  It was random and all kinds of fun.  The kids skipped school and we took off for the Marriott in Newport Beach for a week.  The crowd included Grandma and Grandpa Nielsen, the Marshalls, Swen, and my crew.  Missed the Moores and the Drivers.

We were all in one condo so things were very friendly :)  I have nothing to complain about, Jude scored us the big room.  The facility is a lot of fun.  Great playgrounds for kids and great pools.  Our biggest challenge of the trip was keeping track of where kids had taken off to.  Asher has a great little cousin buddy in Barrett.  They are all kinds of adorable trouble.  Barrett got his first training wheel-less bike on the trip and instantly took off cruising.  And every time we turned around, Barrett and Asher were heading out the door on their own adventure.  Luckily they both survived somehow.

We got to see the Campbells while we were down there, which was a lot of fun.  We also ate a lot of good food.  Nielsens always eat well.

And we got to end a great trip with some more great people.  The Stouts joined us at Lego Land for a fun day.

I am an Aunt! Again

I have had the only children on my side of the family for seven years.  SEVEN YEARS PEOPLE!  So you can imagine my excitement when Courtney and Jules announced that they were pregnant.  Not only was Courtney going to have the first non-Nielsen grandbaby, but she was going to deliver in St. George, TWO HOURS FROM MY HOUSE!  Not even caps lock can express my excitement.

I just wanted to be there so bad.  I wanted to meet my nephew and help Courtney adjust to the crazy role that is motherhood.  But she was due like a week after school started.  And I have four kids.  And my husband runs his own company so there isn't really a lot of "time off".  It was seeming more and more like a pipe dream.

But then Courtney went overdue by a week.  And in my anxiousness, Jon told me that I was going to go.  He was going to handle the kids.  I knew that if I asked, Jon would have taken the kids, but it was really hard for me to put that burden on him, knowing how crazy his schedule was.  But he just made it work.

I left Sunday after church.  I planned rides and friends for my kids on Monday and Tuesday morning so Jon could work until lunch.  Then he could work from home during nap time.  Then after school things were up to him.

I didn't plan on being there for the actual birth but when I got to St. George, Courtney was in happy epidural land and everyone was just sitting around watching TV.  So I joined them.  A few hours later they finally got her set up to deliver.  The doctor asked her to give a light push.  He literally stopped her halfway through the light push because the baby was already out.  It was amazing.

And oh my goodness he is amazing.  He looks so much like Courtney to me.  I got to spend the next two days helping to share as much knowledge about little babies as I could.  He made my little baby at home seem like not so much a little baby anymore.

While I was gone, there was a huge rainstorm that washed out a big section of the freeway between Vegas and me.  I had to take the long way through the Valley of Fire to get home but it wasn't too crazy of a trip.  I am so glad I was there.  I am so glad to be an Aunt again!

Jude is One

Oh my sweet baby Jude.  You may not be overly impressed with the effort I put into celebrating your first birthday.  But what I lack in decor and time, I make up for in my obsession with you.

You didn't even use your birthday as an excuse to take a break from your daily chore of emptying dishes onto the floor.  That is the kind of dedicated baby you are.  

You love to play outside with your brothers and sister.  It sometimes ends in tears (they are kind of rough) and it always ends in a very dirty little guy but you look so awesome crawling after them.

You have become a little wary about food.  You are willing to give things a try but a lot of things end up spit back out into my hand.  But you love steamed baby carrots, almost all soups, yogurt, and almost everything eaten by other people.  There is nothing that gets you crawling faster than someone eating something.  You are always up for a bite.

 The second thing that gets you crawling is loud noises.  The vacuum sends you reeling at an unprecedented pace.  When you spent the morning with my friend Leslee, she said you crawled like a speed demon when her big Mastiff dogs came into the room.  Of course from your view they probably looked like small horses.

 You have big beautiful grey/brown eyes.  They are very expressive and very curious.

 You are extremely good at baby sign language and you know a lot of words.  But when frustrated, you would much rather just scream at us.  Your dolphin pitch, as it has come to be known is both adorable and ear splitting.

 And the way you scrunch your nose when you smile?  I can't get enough of it.

 Whenever you are expecting something, like mom to finally give you that milk bottle, you pant like a puppy and it is the best thing ever.

 You also play a mean game of fetch.

 You sleep through the night almost all of the time now.  It is amazing for everyone.  You also go down for naps and sleep with very little fanfare.

 You LOVE stories in the rocking chair.  You always squeal in joy when I sit you in there and go reaching through the books.  But, you don't love my entire board book selection.  When I pick a non-favorite, you bat it out of my hand and reach down to pull out one you really want.  We have read five little ladybugs many many times.

You are such a happy little guy, unless someone wants to change your diaper.  You were so unreasonable that you sat in a poopy diaper for a long old time when the poor babysitter couldn't get you to hold still long enough to get it off.  

Every lady in church is in love with you.  You stare at them behind us until they catch your eye.  Then you give them your killer scrunch nose smile.  I frequently turn around to find half the ladies in the back of the church making faces at you.  

 You are also a big fan of frosting. The cake you could do without.  But the frosting... mmmmm.

 Jude, I am so glad to be your mom.

 Asher, knock it off.

 But seriously Jude, so glad to be your mom.  I love you buddy.