Nelson Family Adventures

Jack eats ribs

2009-11-10T17:39:00.001-05:00

Trick or Treat

2009-11-03T21:13:00.004-05:00

The kids thoroughly enjoyed this year's candy fest. We stayed out almost an hour before Ella announced that she was tired and ready to go home and "eat some candy."

New pictures are up, so enjoy!

Jack sings his ABC's

2009-11-02T19:58:00.001-05:00

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Ella painting her own face at the Children's Museum

2009-10-29T18:52:00.001-04:00

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Where are we?

2009-10-28T21:49:00.002-04:00

I've been (obviously) a little absent from blogging lately. I could say I'm busy (which is true) but so is everyone else, so my apologies for my absence from the blogosphere. I'll try to catch you up on what we've been up to.

Ella - she's been a very busy little 3 and a half year old. Ella is really enjoying going to preschool two mornings a week. She's a big fan of art time, circle time (songs, stories, etc) and pretend play in the housekeeping area. And it's fun to hear her stories when she comes home. One of my recent favs was a trip to the moon she took in her rocketship, with the emphasis being on all the "blasting off" her and her friends did. We just attended her open house at school and enjoyed watching her play with all her friends and see her artwork. It's been a pretty smooth transition for her at school, which is best summed up by this recent scenario: Bill was putting Ella to bed and she asked what she was going to be doing in the morning. Bill told her that she would be going to school and she threw her first up in the air and exclaimed "YES!"

In addition to preschool Ella has also started attending AWANA once a week. Think of it as sort of like Christian Cub Scouts (a rough definition). Follow the link for more info. Ella is a "Cubbie" and she spends her time having fun, playing games, and learning and reciting bible verses to get special patches for her vest. She came home with her vest and first patch this evening and was beyond excited. The other nice part about this program is that since it's at Bill's parent's church (and since his Mom volunteers with the program), Ella and Grandma get to ride to and from each week and enjoy AWANA together.

Jack - the Jack-man manages to keep very busy, despite the lack of structured activities that he has on his schedule (which is good! I'm tired just making sure Ella gets where she needs to be!). Jack is a little bit lost when Ella is away at school and AWANA - he repeatedly asks for her. It is very sweet. But Jack and I are enjoying our one-on-one time together. Jack's words (and sentences) are getting really good, so he's great company for me when Ella's away. "Play ball wit me, momma" "outside play?" "hock-a-loogie" (from Finding Nemo, mount wanna-hock-a-loogie) "momma, I wuv you too" are just a few of the many phrases that come out of Jack's mouth daily (and repeatedly). Jack is most happy when we're/he (1) outside (2) running away from me ("mommy, run away!" - then he dashes the opposite direction of me) (3) doing whatever Ella's doing (4) reading books (5) eating dessert. This kid is downright funny - he knows when to smile and when to be cute to get what he wants. I confess, he does get the best of me at times!

Bill - Bill is busy at work, as usual. We just enjoyed a week of his vacation at home (we like to call it our "staycation") taking the kids out to eat, out to play and Bill took advantage of his free time to play the Wii. and we managed to get out on a date :) We also had lots of opportunity to get together with friends and just relax. It was truly nice to be normal for once!

Me - In addition to the aforementioned activities I'm busy with a twice a month bible study these days. We're also busy attending playdates with a Mom's group at church. And just occasionally I make plans for myself and get out sans kids once and awhile. Oh yeah, and sometimes (if I'm lucky!) I even get to see Bill :P

The only downside about being busy has been colds - poor Jack has had it the worst of us with a fairly consistent runny nose since the beginning of September. Ella's had her fair share too. Bill and I have suffered a bit, although him more than me. But no flu stuff so far, and I'm hoping it stays that way. We'll take the everyday cold over that for sure.

I'm hoping to get some new pictures up after Halloween. Jack is a fireman (with plastic axe!) and Ella is a "pink" Snow White (complete with wand and tiara). They are very excited about receiving lots of candy. (Many thanks to Bill's mom for the wonderful hand-made costumes). We've been enjoying a few of the halloween events around town as well as looking forward to the neighborhood trick or treating. So stay tuned for pictures next week!

2009-10-08T16:57:00.000-04:00

Pretend picnic

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Ella reading to Jack - video

2009-09-25T10:08:00.002-04:00

I finally caught Ella reading on video. Here's a few clips for your viewing pleasure.

Ella reads to Jack

2009-09-24T08:25:00.002-04:00

Although she can't really read yet, she does have this particular book mostly memorized and did a fantastic job sharing it with Jack.

First Day of Preschool

2009-09-11T13:57:00.003-04:00

Ella started preschool this week (see the slideshow for more pictures). Ella was able to sport her new Steelers Cheerleader outfit since the Steelers home opener coincided with the first day of school (in case you didn't know/were wondering, they won!). Her school has a very slow introduction to the year, so her first day was only 1 hour long and parents stayed for the duration of the class. Bill had the day off so the four of us enjoyed Ella's first day of school together. I think she was a bit overwhelmed with all of the toys - she couldn't decide what to do first! She seemed very pleased to be there (as did Jack - he enjoyed the toys also) but was disappointed that she didn't get to practice writing. Apparently she is very concerned with the academic side of school? We reassured her that it was ok to just play and that perhaps next week she would get to do some writing. Too funny.

I'm putting up some photos from a second trip to Idlewild also. We took the trip in August, but I'm just getting around to uploading the pictures now. See if you can tell which pictures Ella took with the camera :)

Our Flower Girl

2009-09-03T14:50:00.003-04:00

At the end of last week we traveled to Lititz for my brother's wedding. Ella had the privilege and honor of being the flower girl. I was anxious to see how things would go after many conversations and books about being a flower girl. To say that Ella did well would be an understatement - she was a big hit! Ella was very excited about her rose petals and dress and shoes - so excited in fact that she was very disappointed that the wedding rehearsal did not include wearing her dress and shoes. In typical Ella style she walked down the aisle, totally focused on putting one petal down at a time, never looking up for fear of forgetting a petal. Fortunately Bill was at the front of the church to greet her - when she did look up she wasn't quite sure where to go. A quick gesture towards Daddy from Grammy and Ella ran off into his arms. Another precious moment followed the end of the ceremony while rows were being dismissed to greet the couple - Ella decided this would be the perfect time to clean up her petals. And that's just what she did.

Let me back up to the rehearsal for a minute. Ella has met Aunt Kerri (my brother's wife) many times before but was particularly glued to her during the wedding weekend. At the rehearsal she wanted to be "right next to Aunt Kerri" as much as possible. The funniest moment came at dinner when I asked her if she wanted to sit next to Daddy (who had arrived literally minutes beforehand from Pittsburgh) - Ella said "No, I want to sit next to Aunt Kerri" and that's just what she did for about 20-30 minutes.

The kids had a blast during the wedding day although Ella looked as though she might fall apart about 15 minutes before the ceremony started. So I did just what any good mother would do and pulled at all the bribes I could think of to get her to perk up (and it worked). We were very fortunate to have Bill's parents travel with us for the weekend and help with the kids (who weren't interested in sitting for the ceremony - the reception was more their cup of tea). The kids made it all the way til 8pm and a few dances and then we sent the sleepyheads home with Grandma and Grandpa while we made fools of ourselves on the dance floor.

Now that the wedding's over we are looking forward to the start of fall - this year we'll be adding preschool to our schedule. Ella's school had a special story time yesterday that functioned as a bit of a meet and greet/warm up for the new year. Ella had so much fun that I had to drag her out of the room to leave. I'm thrilled that she's so excited to start preschool and I'm hoping this will lead to easy drop offs! She officially starts next week. I'm sure I'll hear a lot of "Where's Ella?" from Jack when she's at school.

And last but not least, a few kid snippets....

-Jack has a knack for melting my heart when he's naughty. He's another headstrong one - when he makes his mind up he wants to do it. That being said, I would still classify him as more mellow on the whole than Ella.
-Words words words - Bill and I are convinced that Jack does more non-stop talking than Ella did at this age
-Ella's imaginary play is becoming more complicated and filled with stories. It's great to invite her friends over and know that they can play for an hour or two without needing too much help.
-early risers - I have no idea what happened, but the kids like to get up between 6:30 and 7am. I'm not sure what I'm going to do when daylight savings comes around!
-Jack loves vehicles. "Mawnmower" and "weed-wah-er" are his favorite. He also loves looking for trucks and buses and often says "ooooooooo!!!!!" when he sees them.
-Ella and Jack really enjoy playing together (most of the time). Earlier in the day they were they were playing some kind of follow the leader/chase game that Ella made up...they were running around in circles on the first floor and walking rather silly and giggling

A Daddy-Daughter Concert

2009-08-11T14:34:00.002-04:00

One of Bill and Ella's favorite things to do is sing/play the piano together. To say it is adorably cute is an understatement. In this video they're singing "Swinging on a Star" (if you google the title and "lyrics" you'll be able to find the words if you care to follow along). Jack makes a few appearances in this video also.

We've obviously been a bit busy - hence the lack of posting. In addition to our typical outings to the zoo and children's museum we recently took a trip to Lancaster to see my family. The kids were (as usual) the main attraction. We had a nice visit, and Grammy was able to travel back to Pittsburgh with us for a few days. The kids were tickled. My favorite memory from this trip was Jack talking about "Grandpa Ray" (Neil's dad). The kids really enjoyed seeing him this time and it was cute to watch them interact.

Check out the pictures if you're interested in keeping track of what we've been up to. We're looking forward to enjoying a few more weeks of summer before our next adventure starts - preschool for Ella!

2009-08-06T16:20:00.001-04:00

siblings having fun

2009-08-05T18:37:00.001-04:00

milkshake goodness

2009-07-16T19:57:00.000-04:00

face painting fun at the local church festival

Idlewild

2009-07-12T14:32:00.002-04:00

On Friday, we visited Idlewild, which is an amusement park aimed at younger kids. We had been told by several people that Ella was the perfect age to start enjoying this park and boy were they right! We started our day by riding on the Trolley from Mr. Rogers neighborhood. Then we headed over to "Racoon Lagoon" (the area aimed at kids Ella's age) and we knew Ella was hooked after the first ride. Our favorite family ride in Racoon Lagoon was the Turtles (which Jack got to ride also) and when I asked Ella which ride was her favorite she pretty much listed everything in the park. We were pleasantly surprised that she liked the fast moving, up and down rides. Next we took a break for lunch - a picnic in one of the many pavilions. After lunch we enjoyed "Jumpin' Jungle" which included lots of climbing and sliding. Ella even managed to ride a rope on a zip line! She also enjoyed a giant sack cloth sliding adventure. The sleeper surprise for the kids was placing balls on top of pipes that had forced air coming out of them - they would've stayed all day if we let them! Next, we took a stroll through "Story Book Forest" where you could enjoy walking past the recreations of many popular nursery rhymes. To cool off, we then headed to the water park section, "Soak Zone." We mostly hung out in the kiddie section which seem to suit the kids just fine. Ella decided to be very brave and tried 2 water slides! She really enjoyed the slide she rode with Bill. We were shocked! After our water play we headed back to Racoon Lagoon to repeat a few rides and our way out Ella really wanted to ride the Ferris Wheel with Bill - we thought she would chicken out but she loved it!

We wound up staying at the park for about 8hrs and the kids did fantastic - no major meltdowns and plenty of smiles and giggles to go around. We stopped for a quick dinner at Chick-fil-a and didn't get home til after 9pm with two sleepy kids. We can't wait to do this amusement park again!

A few other highlights of recent days - on the 3rd we headed downtown to check out the Regatta and the kids enjoyed watching the boats run practice laps. Ella and Bill even managed to get interviewed for the 5 o'clock news where Ella exclaimed "I saw a really fast boat!" We hope to take the kids back again next year to enjoy the races instead of the practice laps.

Since we had a busy 3rd we enjoyed the 4th of July at home this year. Did a little yard work and Bill put on a small fireworks display for the kids. They loved it, although their reactions were very different from one another - Ella held her ears but managed to smile, Jack laughed and clapped and desperately wanted to be right next to exploding fireworks.

Kid snippets:
-Jack can string some phrase together now. "I unt(want) that Mommy!" "Cereal please" "Downstairs play" and my favorite "Are you Mommy? or Ella are you?" (as in where are you mommy? etc)
-Jack likes to be a stinker. If I pull him/or his hand away from something he'll go back to it and go "funny!"
-Ella likes to read books from memory. Although she doesn't have them memorized word for word she likes to tell the general idea as she reads along.
-Ella loves to sing while Bill plays the piano - she has a few (non-typical) songs almost memorized.
-When I ask Bill a question (and he's in another room) Ella will say "What did Daddy say? (even though she heard him) - if I don't say exactly what he said she will say "No, mommy! Daddy said _______ not ______"
-Jack has figured out that Daddy=Bill and Mommy=Jill. We frequently here our names from him throughout the day.

2009-07-10T12:33:00.001-04:00

Ella on the scampers at Idlewild.

Ella's new smile

2009-06-29T13:29:00.002-04:00

Today was the day when Ella's abscessed tooth met the dentist and her tools. As you can see, the dentist won. This is how it all unfolded...

Rewind about 2 years - Ella tripped and fell on a hard floor and managed to chip her tooth severely enough to warrant a trip to the Children's Hospital dental clinic. The end result? A strip crown on her tooth. At that point, we felt fortunate that the tooth was able to be saved. Once Ella recovered from that procedure her mouth happily talked (and talked and talked...) on, all the way up until March '09. At her regular dental check up we discovered that the tooth with the strip crown was in fact abscessed and needed to come out...which bring us to today (yes, it actually took 2 months for us to get an appointment, which is better than the 4 months out it was originally scheduled for).

The dental clinic had moved since our last visit (they built a new Children's Hospital - the small part we saw was very nice) so I allowed extra time to reach our destination. After various check-ins and toy gazing, we made our way to the appointment. Ella underwent a conscious sedation and then they began the procedure (typical stuff involving novocaine) - it didn't take very long at all but it was all very hard to watch your 3 year old undergo painful things for her benefit. Unfortunately Bill wasn't able to take the time off work to take her so I managed the best I could not to lose it while there - although I didn't fall apart completely I did manage to cry along with Ella at several points. But the end result was a tooth was pulled and an abscess went away; it looks like Ella is recovering just fine. She's on a soft diet for the next day or two so lots of chocolate pudding and ice cream, along with lots of movie watching today. She's looks pretty happy right now...

And where was Jack when all of this occurred? With one of his favorites, Iva Mae. When I picked him up it was obvious he had enjoyed his morning - he was covered in dirt and chocolate from M&M's :)

I'm very thankful the procedure is done and we are home and resting now! The tooth fairy will be visiting tonight...I'm trying to figure out how much inflation will be costing the tooth fairy this evening...

Ella dancing to Greek music

2009-06-22T09:31:00.001-04:00

Ella just couldn't stop dancing to the music at the Greek food festival we attended last week.

Another trip to Lancaster

2009-06-18T15:36:00.002-04:00

This trip to Lancaster was necessitated by an A/C repair in the van. We were sure glad to have an excuse to visit all the grandparents again.

Thursday - this was my first attempt driving solo with the kids. Other than it taking 6hrs, the kids did well. I'm sure it didn't hurt that we stopped 4 times :) We spent the remainder of Thursday at Nana and Pop's. The kids can never get enough of the dogs and cats there.

Friday - we took a trip to Hands on House (a children's museum) with the kids. The kids loved it - it was much more "farm" oriented than the children's museum in Pittsburgh so I enjoyed getting photos of the kids picking corn. We ended the day by playing over at Nana and Pop's. And or course I had the kids in bed in time to watch the Pens win the Stanley Cup :)

Saturday - we took a quick trip to the farmer's market in Lititz and then after a nap for Jack we picked up Bill at the train station. It was great to have him join us since we've missed a bunch of weekends together lately. We then headed over to a family reunion and the kids had a blast - Jack enjoyed playing in the buckets of water (set up for various games) and Ella really enjoyed fishing with Bill. After the reunion we headed back to Grammy's for the Aunt's visit. Jack successfully said Aunt Nancy and Aunt Ethyl's names and was quite proud of himself.

Sunday - we said our goodbyes to Grammy and Pap and visited Nana and Pop for a bit before heading out. Somehow with Bill along we managed to only make one stop on the way back...

A few kid snippets:
-while selecting the pictures for the blog slide show, Ella said "cool pictures Mom"
-Jack is giving me glimpses of the terrible twos...he has a terrible little temper.
-we watched Toy Story with Ella last night; she was able to follow along very well (we could tell by the questions she was asking)
-Jack is destroying a tissue box as I type

...and on that note the short list will have to do for now! Enjoy the pictures.

Ella and the bathroom towel

2009-06-16T14:45:00.002-04:00

Instead of throwing the towel in a clump on the floor, Ella prefers to fold it after washing up.

Hanging out

2009-06-13T08:35:00.001-04:00

Check out this link

2009-06-08T14:48:00.000-04:00

Can you find me in photo #18?

Two fun filled days

2009-06-08T14:15:00.004-04:00

We took the kids to the Children's Museum on Saturday to check out the Bob the Builder exhibit. They loved it - I had a hard time getting them away from the "water pump" (blue plastic balls going up a pipe). Bill met us around lunchtime when he got off work and I was grateful - it was my first solo trip to the museum and even though the kids were well behaved I was exhausted taking care of them after an hour and a half! Since the weather was nice we had a chance to explore the outside grounds of the museum. The biggest excitement was the sandbox/pit - Ella was hard at work putting sand in a bucket and Jack loved digging with all of the over sized shovels.

Today we took a tour of PNC park. (I guess I should clarify - we're talking baseball for all my non-sporting readers) It was a really neat tour and the kids did a great job considering it lasted almost 2 hours. We checked out all the different views of the stadium - club seats, special suites and the press box. The kids favorite part of the tour was the dugout and field. We couldn't go on the grass but that didn't bother Jack - he plopped himself right down in the dirt and started playing. Ella thought the playing field was cool and loved getting her picture taken in the dugout. I would recommend this tour to all ages; it's also very handicap/stroller friendly...and it was inexpensive and they run tours 2 or 3 times a day during the week and 1 Saturday a month.

It has definitely been a fun couple of days - but I sure am tired!

Enjoying the sandbox at the Children's Museum

2009-06-06T12:08:00.001-04:00

Stanley Cup Finals Game 3

2009-06-04T12:23:00.003-04:00

On Tuesday night I had the incredible opportunity to attend the Stanley Cup Finals game 3 with Jenn. Not only did we get to go but we had absolutely amazing seats 3 rows from the ice, just behind and off to the side of the net that the Pens shot at twice. Our vantage point was great, the game was intense and the best part was a victory for the Pens.

In case you missed it, I had my one second of fame on television - after the Red Wings scored, the camera panned to my section and caught me looking really depressed. Kudos to Kurt and Sean for catching that one.

Jenn, thanks again!

Let's Go Pens!