Our newest niece!

Yay! I have a new niece and Shayla has a new girl cousin! Jon's sister Rachel had a beautiful baby girl on Friday! I was bummed I did not get to meet her until today as I was just getting over my cold! But I got to meet her today and she is so very precious!!! We love her already so much and can't wait until she is big enough to have tea parties with Shayla!


Stella Mae Finger
Born January 23, 2009
9:45 AM
9 lbs 10 ounce, 22 inches
(yep and all natural baby - go Rach!)


Here she is 5 days old...

Me with baby Stella!

Inauguration Follow up...

Okay, so for those who did not believe my inauguration story about our 8th row seats - I forgot that we made it in the inauguration day Time magazine (and a few newspaper photos as well), so anyway, my fellow accomplice, er, friend Traci reminded me of those photos so I stole them from her blog (I am the Larissa and the Lar not the "me" (: ) - here is her version of the story - she tells it much better -
http://tagunder.blogspot.com/2009/01/inauguration-day.html

Shayla is 20 Months Old Today!

Trying out my new scrapbook program for her 20 month old post today...It looks small here but click on the picture for an enlarged version - does anyone have a similar program and know how to get the page large on your blog?

She has been so much fun this past month - her personality is really blossoming and she is such a crack up and likes to be the center of attention once she gets over her initially shyness!

Also, she is still very obsessive over her belly button and plays with it constantly, it is her substitute for a snuggly blankie I guess! Can't get enough of it...

Friends, beach, parks, and adrenaline!

This past weekend my college roommate Trina came to visit from Arizona with her daughter Jessie! It was the first time I was able to meet Jessie and we had so much fun together with our little girls and the great California weather!
On the way home from the airport we could not resist the beautiful beach in Malibu as we drove to visit our old campus at Pepperdine. We had to pull over and play in the warm sand and waves (which were NOT warm) a bit!

This was Jessie's first time at the beach and as you can see - she loved it!
Shayla loved playing with Jessie and all her old baby toys we brought out for Jessie (what she is not my baby anymore!?)

Saturday we got to meet up with more of our college friends. Here we are with Kevin and his daughter Anabelle, me and Shayla, Tory and Trina and Jessie in Thousand Oaks. Anabelle and Shayla could not get enough of feeding the ducks at the park.


We also took the girls to their first amusement park trip to Magic Mountain. They both did so great and we had so much fun running around the park. There was a great kids area for Shayla to ride mini coasters, trains, etc.

All the girls at Magic Mountain.

Me getting ready to ride X2 - awesome ride!

Shayla absolutely loved Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, or Hop Hop and Quack Quack as she called them. It was the first time she had seen them on tv or "in person" and she bawled when they left after the little show they put on.

All in all it was a very fun weekend and I love catching up with past friends and meeting new ones!

Inauguration day...

DESPITE the fact that my candidate did not win the presidency, it was neat to see history in the making this morning. I do hope for the best for our nation and for our families and our future...only time will tell!

I also wanted to share a bit about my inauguration experience since I was not blogging at that time and it was a once in a life time experience for me. In January 2005 I attended President Bush's inauguration with my friend Traci and her friend Katie. It was an amazing experience and one that I will not forget (including how cold it was for this California girl!).

After going through massive security checks, somehow we were able to walk right up to the 7th row of seats in the inauguration. People didn't question 3 innocent looking ladies who were walking with a purpose to the front...Because of our confident walks we were able to get some of the best seats in the house (where our tickets had us backing in the standing room area) and watch President Bush's inauguration from the 7th (or maybe it was 8th) row (you can count the rows in front of us). What a view and an experience and a memory for history!

Here we are about an hour before the inauguration, the seats around us were empty because they were for the families of the senators, etc who were still at breakfast with the Bushes...when they got to their seats shortly before the ceremony was about to begin, a few people questioned who we were and how we got such great seats (since we were not elected officials or family of such) and I told them I worked for the Bush's California campaign (which I did) so they didn't report us to security...

Here is President Bush making his inauguration speech. I have some of it on video as well, he could have spit on us from his distance!

Here's me at one of the inauguration balls afterwards. We were able to bounce around to a few of the different Inauguration balls that night and had a lot of fun! The security lines were so long that day that we did not want to wait in the cold to watch the inauguration parade, but we enjoyed the many festivities including a concert with one of my favorite performers Andrea Bocelli.

A beautiful word...

REMISSION!
A beautiful word.
My dad who was diagnosed with Leukemia (CLL) at the end of 2006 was told today by his doctor that his body is free from cancer and he is now in remission! He started on a new experimental clinical trial at the beginning of 2008 to help rid his body of Leukemia. Today he was told his leukemia is gone, all his blood counts, bone marrow, etc are normal and healthy and he is in remission! I am so grateful for modern medicine, my dad’s strength in fighting cancer and God’s miracles! We love you DAD and are proud of the battle you fought!!!

Lemon Meltway Cookies

I decided as a fun New Years gesture and a fun learning experiment, I will make AT LEAST one new recipe a week from all my many great cookbooks - from cookies to meals to vegetarian specialties...and I will try to share my results with you when I remember (:


So I got the book Martha Stewart's Cookies for Christmas (thanks Sheelah) and here is my first new recipe I am trying! Today I wanted to utilize the lemons we have growing on a tree in our backyard, so I made the Lime Meltaways with lemon instead of lime. They turned out pretty tasty but not as tasty as they should be for having 1 1/2 cups butter - I rarely bake with that much butter - and I froze half the batter to have on hand for last minute cookies. I did not read the recipe close enough and added the whole cup of powdered sugar to the butter instead of just 1/3 cup, so if you try it make sure you read it all the way first (as you should do with every recipe). So here are the results and the recipe to share.

Lime Meltaways
http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/lime-meltaways
The dough for these icebox cookies can be frozen in logs for up to two months.

Ingredients
Makes about 10 dozen.
• 12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 cup confectioners' sugar
• Grated zest of 2 limes
• 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice
• 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 3/4 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions
1. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, cream butter and 1/3 cup sugar until fluffy. Add lime zest, juice, and vanilla; beat until fluffy.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cornstarch, and salt. Add to butter mixture, and beat on low speed until combined.
3. Between two 8-by-12-inch pieces of parchment paper, roll dough into two 1 1/4-inch-diameter logs. Chill at least 1 hour.
4. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment. Place remaining 2/3 cup sugar in a resealable plastic bag. Remove parchment from logs; slice dough into 1/8-inch-thick rounds. Place rounds on baking sheets, spaced 1 inch apart.
5. Bake cookies until barely golden, about 15 minutes. Transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool slightly, 8 to 10 minutes. While still warm, place cookies in the sugar-filled bag; toss to coat. Bake or freeze remaining dough. Store baked cookies in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks.

Too cute not to share!

This is from a few weeks ago when cousin Tony was hanging out with us at our place! They had so much fun together!

Happy 2009!

We hope you started your New Year with a bang and that it's the beginning of a wonderful year in all aspects of your life!
Here's to new beginnings and wonderful friends and family!


The Nelsons - New Year's Eve 2008


Shayla and Mom


Shayla with dad

Shayla ringing in the New Year (well it was midnight somewhere).

We celebrated with the kids at an International "It's Midnight Somewhere" party with some of our great parent friends and kids at an early evening party. The kids had a blast and we were able to say we went out for New Years Eve and had fun! We hope you did too!