What a crazy week!

Handwashing Dishes....as a family.  Good times.

 So, we had some power and tree issues this last week.  Ice and snow storms came through and caused some problems.  Our power went off Wednesday morning until Saturday night at about 8pm.  Luckily we learned our lesson about 4 years ago when a similar storm took our power out for 4 days, and got a power generator.  So, we did okay. 

 We worked most of the time on replacing doors and trim, but at night we played games with the kids.

 I ventured outside after a full night of hearing scary tree crashes, and took some pictures.  this is the street outside my house.

Scott and  I finished

all the doors and trim of the house.  It looks much better then before.

This is a picture of what our doors and our cheep-consistantly-falling-off-the-wall trim looked like before.

 The kids loved taking the old baseboards out.  They also were really good at removing nails.

Snow!!!

We went to Birch Bay, which is up by the boarder of Canada, and it started to snow!  My kids were so excited, and so anxious to get out and play in it.  Unfortunately I didn't bring their snow clothes with us, so they only lasted about an hour or so outside.  

This is my favorite picture.  As you can see the snow wasn't very deep, and you can see the snowball track.  The snowman is at the bottom of the picture, and the kids are at the top.

My Harry Potter Lego Obsession

Rachel is turning 12 soon, and she loves the Harry Potter Lego sets.  Eric used to like them when he was young, so I bought him 2 sets that are now tripple in price.  Well that was years ago, and all the lego parts have been mixed with the rest of our legos, and used for other imaginative creations.  So, because we have already spent our budget money on a fun surprise for the night of Rachel's birthday, we didn't know what we were going to do about a present.  So, being the frugal mom I am, I decided I would download the Harry Potter building instructions to these two sets and try to hunt down every little lego and rebuild the sets that are now worth a few hundred dollars. 

 This is an idea of the magnitude of legos I had to go through...Andrew's box of Legos...

 Eric's box of Bionicle Lego parts...And the 5 pound box of Lego peices we own.

 After three days,  I did it.  And I did a pretty decent job.  Quite a few peices were m.i.a., (you can order missing peices from the Lego company online) but I ended up making do with what I had.  It turned out so good!  I of course don't want to give them to my kids anymore, but I will...

Eric is a little put out...mostly because there are so many peices he likes to build with.  But in the end he decided this would be a gift from him as well. At least,they will be "on lone", he says.

 This is Dumbledors Office

This one is Slytherin House

Eric's Ceramic Class

I have to admit, I think Eric's ceramic talents are getting better. These are his most recent peices. The demon black cup is so cool! It is my favorite. But his snowman is a close second. He has let me put them in my kitchen. 

 He made a spoon, and eats cereal with it each and every morning.

 He made a jack-o-lantern

 Here are some of his earlier things.  He loves that flying piggy bank he made.  He went through a candy making faze.  We have apple and peach rings, a white gummy bear, and a candy corn.  There is also the Nelson sign and cup.

 He loves our pizza night so here is pizza, with grapes and a cookie for dessert.

This is also a favorite of mine.  This was one of his first peices.  This is Hugo from the books Fablehaven.  Cool!!!

Andrew's Heart is...

...doing GREAT!  We went to his yearly echo-cardiogram checkup, and his heart seems to be doing really great.  After his surgery in 2008, for his mitral valve cleft there was some narrowing around the valve they had to repair.  Well, his heart has seemed to grow and make up that difference and it looks better than it did last year.  He doesn't need to go back to the cardiologist for another 3 years!  I am so happy and feel so blessed.

Thank you Dr. Woods! 

(surgeon)

Thank you Dr. Stefanelli!

(cardiologist)

Thank you Dr. Nelson!

(the amazing, and might I say alarmingly attractive, anesthesiologist who found Andrew's heart murmur)

May you all be blessed beyond belief for what you do!

Eric's Debut

Funny little story, I was going through my iTunes a while back as I was preparing to change computers when I ran across some songs that really had no title, artist or album.  Curious, I took a quick listen to see if I wanted to keep them or clear some more hard drive space.  I struck gold!  My curious ears found one of the most precious moments that we as a family have recorded on digital media.  Upon discovery of this sound file, I had to pull Wendy in and have her take a listen.  She thought about how adorable the sound byte was and wished "It would be so fun if one of our children would do something like this."  My reply, "This is Eric."  She didn't believe me and it took a lot of convincing before she would even entertain the idea.  After more investigating, I realized that the iTunes had pulled some of Eric's voice recordings and stored them onto our main frame at the time.  We laughed a giggled for a little and then soon forgot about it until recently when Rachel and Andrew got ipod/mp3 players for Christmas and we ran into it again while loading up there music.  This song has now become the family theme song.  We wanted to load it here on our blog for everyone to hear but you can't load music, so we made it into a slideshow of Eric.  While it may be something that only Wendy and I get a real kick out of, Andrew and Brian are always singing it.  Eric is a little hesitant about us publishing a private file of him singing, but we can't resist.  We have to share it with others, just be gentle on him if  you want to mention it.  When we first approached Eric about it calling it a variety of names, he declared it was titled "I ate cheese on Sunday"  Enjoy, and please leave a comment.  We want to know who has seen our little gem.

Happy New Year

We were invited to spend New Years Eve with a couple of great friends, and play games, and consume sugar!

We had a blast. We played Forbidden Island, Tripoley, and Pass the Pigs.

We drank sparkling apple cidar, egg nog, and had a killer moose cake!

Scott is on the phone trying to involve Eric and Rachel in the New Year celebration.

New Years from the Seattle Space Needle.

Pass the Pigs was our last game. My friend Megan won that game.

I just think these pigs are so cute!!!

Elizabeth's "30th" Birthday Bash

 So, we were invited to a fun New Years Eve Eve celebration and Surprise Birthday party for our great friend Elizabeth.

 Stephanie, Elizabeth and Kim, the party throwers

This is where the party gets a little interesting...

We all played Do You Love Your Neighbor

Some people (Scott, and a few other men) were being really competitive,

let's just say it ended in a bloody mess.

Scott and Alan went for the same chair, but when they got to the chair, it had moved and Scott was falling, grabbed onto whatever he could to break his fall, which happened to be Alan's arm, so Alan couldn't catch his fall, and landed, skidding on his face.

This was not good.

A busted nose, goose eggs, and cuts and bruises later, Alan wasn't looking too good.

Even worse, Scott has a reputation now, and I don't think anyone is going to play that game with us ever again.

Scott and I came home feeling awful, and then Eric started throwing up all over his bed!!!

What a night.  We checked up on Alan, and found him to be doing okay, but still had a restless night.

Eric got better quickly, bed got laundered, and Alan looked great on Sunday!  Better than we were imagining. 

So, Life Happens...and blessings do come.

 



Christmas at the Nelsons

 Rachel love the Harry Potter Legos. 

This year she got Dobby's Release, and The Forbidden Forest.

 Andrew received an MP3 player.  He is loving music now!!

 Brian got a Zumbuddy from Andrew.  He was so excited!

 Rachel just opened her Ipod from Santa.  She was so excited about this because 2 years ago, she lost her other Ipod, and has been trying to save for a used one.

Andrew got a cool Star Wars lego set.  It is the Ewok village.

Andrew and Brian go a slot car race set!

Eric got what he has always wanted.  An automatic Nerf gun!

Christmas Eve Night

 We always have fondue for Christmas Eve dinner. 

This was a tradition in my family growing up.

My kids like it. 

 They always get to open one gift Christmas Eve night. 

Always Pajamas. 

 This year was the Angry Bird PJ year.  I really can't believe we pulled this off. 

The Angry Bird PJs were turning out to be hard to find, but in the end one store had

everything.  Thank goodness for Kohls!

We also do a present run...my kids favorite.  They go get all the presents that were in our room and they bring them down and put them under the tree.  Scott puts on crazy Christmas music and the kids run wildly through the house. 

Before all this crazyness, we always have a lesson on baby Jesus.  The spirit was very strong this night.  It was my favorite part of the night.