Video: Rough Housing with David in St.Louis

A few videos from our St Louis trip - wish I got more of the kids but had Mitchell in one arm half the time!

Peter, St.Louis, Nauvoo and Family Time!

Last week I took Shayla and Mitchell (his first airplane trip) to St.Louis to visit my sister Molly and her family, to meet up with my brother David and his wife Amber, and to meet my newest nephew - Peter! He is so adorable and such a precious little guy - even Mitchell was enthralled with him and so gentle with him.

Despite a rocky plane ride with Mitchell wanting to push every button in sight (including the flight attendants call button over and over), lack of sleep, the 95 degree heat and 80+ degree humidity (whew), and the invasion of Cicadas, we had an awesome time and I would go again in a heart beat! It was so great to spend time with my family and it was so precious to see the kids together. Shayla had so much fun playing with her cousins and rough housing with her uncle and aunt! We visited many of the St. Louis sites - the Arch, Zoo, Botanical Gardens, Ted Drews Custard, City Museum. The City museum was the neatest museum I have ever been to with three stories of tunnels, caves, slides for the kids to run and play in and random things like a room full of sponges for the kids to play with and the worlds largest pencil.

We also took a little trip to Nauvoo Illinois, a restored historical town with significance to Mormons, and lots of neat history! Despite the humidity there too, it was so neat to see a piece of history and see where the saints lived and built the temple. If you are ever in the area you should go there! Everything is free and there are so many wonderful performances and pieces of history lived out for you to learn from. It was such a great experience. But the best part was spending time with all my adorable nephews and nieces and sister and brother! Here are some of my favorite photos of the trip and a slideshow of may more!

Shayla and Peter Anna, Paul, Christian and Shayla
Shayla at City Museum

Celebrating Memorial Day!

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU TO ALL WHO SERVE AND HAVE SERVED to allow us to live in the land of the free and the home of the brave...including my grandpas and my grandpa who was at Iwo Jima and watched them raise the flag we honor so much!

What a better way to honor those who have given time and life for our country - than to enjoy our freedoms! We kicked off the summer season with a fun church picnic including watermelon, hot dogs, sack races, and even stilts! Fun times for all!

Mitchell and his watermelon

Shayla loving the sack races

Mitchell and Mom

Shayla trying to learn stilts

Shayla's Birthday Weekend!

Shayla's fourth birthday weekend was lots of fun! I loved being able to celebrate the anniversary of the birth of my first born! She is so special and we had a blast celebrating her with friends and family!

We started with a celebration at her preschool - we got to bring in treats for her class and she got to wear her birthday hat and feel special! We had a family birthday party for her on Sunday!
We played musical chairs and daddy seemed to always win (:
Shayla in her annual birthday hat with mom The Nelson Family with our FOUR year old! The we celebrated on her actual birthday with a few friends! She got to choose her FOUR favorite friends to join us at the Ventura Harbor for Carousel rides, arcade games, lunch and cupcakes!
Mitchell loved the carousel too!
Shayla with her blue frosting mouth (thats all she eats of cupcakes)

Shayla received many fun gifts from all - here is an electronic drum set from us (which of course comes with headphones!) Many more photos of birthday fun and loved ones in the slideshow below or at: https://picasaweb.google.com/Larissamay123/Shaylas4thBday#

Shayla's 4th Birthday Interview

Last year I started the tradition of conducting an annual birthday interview with my kids. Basically I ask them questions to get a sense of who they are at the age of their birthday. It is hard to ask open ended questions and get more than a one word response, and my favorite parts are when she goes on about something vs answering the question, so I probably should have let her do that more often in the interview, but it still went well! So here is Shayla in her 4th Birthday Interview!



It is fun to watch last years too and see how she has grown!
http://niftynelsonnews.blogspot.com/2010/05/shaylas-birthday-interview.html

Happy 4th Birthday Shayla!!!

Shayla turns FOUR today! Even though 4 is still so young it seems like such a world away from three and I definitely see her growing up so fast! I am constantly amazed at her zeal for life, her excitement about learning new things and her wonder of the world. This is such a precious stage of life where children seem to enjoy all of life's adventures, have little worries, love unconditionally and openly, and feel that they are the center of the universe! Shayla embodies all of this and more. She is such a joyful, spirited child. She really enjoys being a big sister to Mitchell and is very loving and sharing towards him - always playing with him, reading him books, making him laugh (sometimes but pulling him across the floor by his feet until his pants come off!), and loving on him! She is a sweet friend to her buddies and cares for all of them. She loves her mom and dad and lights up every day when we first greet her in the morning! She is very into the color blue and anything dog or super hero related (especially loves to watch Krypto the Super Dog on Youtube). She loves to work on art projects, coloring, cutting, painting and doing stamps are among her favorite crafts. She loves riding her balance bike or scooter and pulling Mitchell in the wagon. She likes to "exercise" with me and help me cook! She has a little kids cook book where she likes to turn the pages until she finds a recipe she wants to try and then helps me make it. She still loves her junk food - pizza, mac n cheese, candy - but also loves spinach, lettuce and any fruit, so she tends to balance herself out. She likes reading books and listening to audio books while she follows along in her book. She enjoys going to preschool and goes three days a week (this week is our last week until fall!) and she adores her teachers and her classmates! She loves church and can tell you stories about Jesus and why he died for us and more. She is learning more and more and knows several sight words and can sound out many words but not really reading yet. She is so independent and loves to do everything herself. She also exhibits strong leadership skills already (read: bossy at this age) and will tell kids to stay in line if they are doing something they should not be doing. She is very outgoing and friendly although once in awhile if too much attention is on her she will be shy and want to hide behind me, but overall is very open and "loud mouthed" (a term of endearment I use with her sometimes!). She brings a ray of sunshine into every aspect of our lives and we are so blessed to be able to call her our daughter!

Shayla, we love you to the moon... and back!!!

Happy FOURTH Birthday!

She wanted to have a lollipop themed birthday so here are photos we took last week for her birthday party!

Greg, Steve, Shayla, & Larissa

Last week we had an outing for Shayla's preschool and I was looking forward to taking her without Mitchell to the special show. Of course she kept asking for baby Mitchell and why he was not with us - so sweet! Anyway we went to a Greg & Steve concert and the kids had so much fun dancing to the Peanut Butter Jelly song and more!

Shayla with friends Will and Brooke

Greg & Steve

Shayla and Mommy!

Strawberries and Mud!

Okay I am about a week behind or so in my blogging and so I better start catching up! Last weekend was a very exciting weekend for me!

STRAWBERRIES
First I was a finalist in the Strawberry Recipe contest that is conducted by the Strawberry Festival in Oxnard. In 2006 I competed and was the winner! That year you could bake (I won with a Strawberry Bread recipe) and the prize was a gift certificate to a dinner out and festival tickets. The following year they upped the ante but did not allow baking and the winning prize was a cruise! You can imagine I felt ripped off and said I would try to win again some year. Well the last few years I have either been pregnant or with a newborn, so this year when I saw the deadline pop up on an email I entered a recipe that sounded good to me without actually making it first! So when I got the call that I was a top 5 finalist out of 80 plus entries, my first thought was "well I hope it actually is a recipe that tastes good" and I can it a trial run! Luckily my tastebud thoughts were right on with my Strawberry Couscous and it was yummy! So last friday the 5 of us competed in an iron chef like cook off. It was fun and they featured us in local newspaper here and just yesterday here and news, but unfortunately my plans to win the cruise did not happen as I came it third (to two chefs mind you!). I had fun competing though.

Me with my recipe

Photo of me presenting to the judges

The recipe

Strawberry, Avocado and Toasted Almond Couscous Salad
Ingredients
Salad
1 Box 8 ounce Couscous (Israeli Couscous works best)
1 Tablespoon Butter
1 ¾ cup water
2 cups fresh strawberries, diced
1 cup toasted sliced almonds
2 avocados, diced
2 green onions, sliced
1/2 cup crumbled goat cheese

Dressing
¼ cup red wine vinegar
¼ cup vegetable or canola oil
¼ cup orange juice
½ cup sugar
1 teaspoon mustard
½ teaspoon onion salt (or 1/2 teaspoon regular salt if no onion salt available)

1. Mix together dressing ingredients in one bowl and set aside for flavors to meld.
2. Fry couscous in pan with 1 Tablespoon butter for 5 minutes.
3. Add water slowly to couscous and simmer for 10-12 minutes until all water is absorbed.
4. While couscous is cooking, prepares other salad components. Wash and dice strawberries. Dice avocados. Slice green onions.
5. When couscous is done, mix with strawberries, avocado, onions, almonds, and goat cheese in one large bowl. Add dressing and mix gently right before serving. Season with salt and pepper as needed and enjoy the burst of flavors in your mouth!
Serves 6-8

MUD
Last Saturday I competed in my first mud run! I normally am not a fan of running but since this was only 2 miles of running with 2 miles of obstacles following the run I figured I could do the run without having to train (: I have always wanted to get dirty with a mud run so I signed up with a friend who ended up being sick that day so I was on my own. Jon came to the run with the kids too - which was nearby at Port Hueneme - and they cheered me on although I think Shayla could not figure out why I was running through the mud. I did not know what to expect with the obstacles but there were A LOT of them - several mud pits that I ended up swimming through vs trying to run through and everything from crossing a mud pit by hanging upside down on ropes to crawling through water filled tunnels! It was a lot more intense than I thought but I had fun and pushed through and ended up 13th out of 250 girls and 4th in my age group! So not bad for not training! Jon took some pics with his iphone but I have yet tsee them so you will have to just make do with the photo from the paper.

A Mothers Joy!

Motherhood is the greatest gift I have ever been blessed with!!! I have the best mom ever, the best mother in law ever, and the best kids ever! My children bring joy beyond measure into my life and I celebrate that today as well as the influence and love my mom has given me throughout my life!

I had a wonderful mothers day weekend! I was able to have some me time yesterday by going on a race (more on that in future blog post) and then girls night out with a friend to see the comedy show 3 Blonde Moms (so funny!) and dessert fondue at The Melting Pot - yum! Then today started with a yummy homemade breakfast and flowers from my hubby! We went to church and it was the first time Shayla was in Primary (the group of older kids in Sunday School) so she joined in as all the kids sang to the moms for Mothers day. On the way off of the stage, as she passed the microphone, she leaned over and spoke into the mic loudly saying: "I love you mom". That was so precious and spontaneous. To top it off Jon gave a beautiful talk on church about mothers and I realized not all my motherly duties go unnoticed by him! Then off to Jons mom's house where the kids played and the guys did all the cooking and dishes for the moms! I would say it was relaxing but it wasn't since I was monitoring Mitchell the whole time as he kept climbing onto the couches trying to traverse across them via coffee tables. But he did give me his first two steps as a mothers day present (: so that was nice!

Me, Jons mom, and Jons sister Rachel with our kiddos! I also had a lovely mother's day tea with Shayla at her preschool this week where they sang to us and gave us treats and presents (cute calendars with photos of them from class on each month) and placemats where their teachers had written things they said about their mommies on it like 'What is your moms favorite TV Show?" Shayla said Clifford. "What is your moms favorite thing to do?" "Go to Church". What is your moms favorite food? "Raspberries", etc. It was very cute!

Mitchell ready to go!

Shayla hamming it up before Mothers Day Tea One of the class songs for the moms that Shayla sang at preschool- I tried to link it here but it kept giving me errors

http://youtu.be/NRdLO_R4Gfw

Snakes, Lizards and Turtles Oh My!

Sorry I am a bit behind on my blog! Often I post photos in my facebook albums and forget that I have yet to share them on my blog so if you are on facebook and I have not befriended you yet- look me up! Last weekend Shayla was able to go to some fun birthday parties!

Her first Build A Bear experience for her friend Brodys 4th Birthday!

She picked and stuffed a puppy and dressed it in a bathing suit (funny how their personalities come through their animals! See all other girls with bears and froo froo dresses and of course Cole with bear and light saber)

Then we celebrated our friend Evans first birthday with a Reptile party! Shayla was the first volunteer jumping up to hold every animal. She has no fear. Here she is with a frog. Snake time! Mitchell with the tortoise.Wearing her jungle mask!