Offering help

Yesterday while I was at work Steve was taking loads of our stuff to our new house in a borrowed SUV. To complicate things a bit he had both of our kiddlets with him at the time. The new place is on a pretty busy road. Imagine him trying to haul stuff into the house and the girls running outside the open door of the house trying to be helpful (carrying 1 bottle of shampoo at a time). Steve was trying to work and corral 2 toddlers away from the road at the same time. One of our new neighbors came out and talked to him for a few minutes. In parting he said "Well, let me know if you need any help" and went inside. Steve could see him watching TV through the window.

I hope I have never done that. I'm making it my new goal to not ever do that.

About a 10 of my friends here in Loma Linda have had babies lately. Timing could not be worse for me since I'm working full-time, planning a surrogacy (which is VERY time consuming), and currently moving. I would love to be able to help them out but I can't really right now. But once this busy spell in my life is over I intend on getting back to my regular way of being there for my friends when they need help.....and not just offering help "if you need anything" and then walking away.

Why we need the illegals

May 1st was the wrong day to have a yard sale. All of the illegals were off protesting and not doing their normal yard-sale shopping. But despite the protests happening in my state, I still got to utilize my spanish-speaking stills as some Mexicans parked in front of my house at 6:30 AM and watched us bring out stuff to put on the lawn. We sold about $100 worth of stuff an hour before the official sale even started. That is the way it is here in So Cal. But as the morning got later there was a lack of our spanish-speaking-only clientel. Wrong day for a yard sale.

I was going to get a babysitter for the yard sale. But my girls were having so much fun that I let them stay and play. The picture below are them eating their cereal in their PJ's. They were so darn cute I had to take a picture.





Lastly, these are 2 of about 8 china dolls that I've owned as long as I can remember. Growing up I was never allowed to play with them. And I've never allowed my girls to play with them. I was going to donate them (we're getting rid of lots of stuff) but then I got a better idea. My girls were so excited when I pulled them off of the shelf in their room and let them play with them. Yes, they will be ruined shortly, but those dolls have never been so loved or used.

Moving sale

The Nelson family is going to be moving shortly. We are relocating so we can save a little $ on rent. We are going from a 4 bed 2 bath house to a 2 bed/1 bath house. For those who are in our area, we are moving 2 houses down from where Ali and Scott used to live. In order to fit into this new place we are having to get rid of a TON of stuff. Some of it is stuff we probably should have got rid of before, and some of it I hate to part with, but it is worth it for the saving in rent. We'll be having a yard sale on saturday. This is the pile in our garage of stuff to sell/get rid of. Also for sale: Sit N' Stand stoller, china hutch, fridge, 2 cribs, 1 toddler bed, end tables, coffee table, patio furniture, outdoor plastic chairs, piano.....

....DIET(?)!!!!

I think the last "diet" I was on was back in 9th grade or so. It was about that time that I discoverd that if I just exercised regularly (running) I could pretty much eat what I wanted. The great part is that when I exercise I don't even really crave much junk food.

With my new recent schedule I've chosen to almost eliminate exercise from my life (which is SOOO not me, but it has fallen down the priority list). That fact, and the fact that I'm working late nights and eating late trying to stay awake is making me gain weight. I'm discovering that you can't eat like a runner when you are not a runner! who would have known!?

So, out of necessity I'm going on my first "diet" in years. I don't know how we'll I'll do with it, but I'll try...

ps I love blogging while at work!

Roatan, Honduras Mission Trip

for those that have 5 minutes to see the Honduras Mission trip, here it goes:

Late Easter

Anyone who has never had the joy of rolling Easter eggs down a large hill at Easter time is missing out. I grew up doing it every year and it was very much looked forward to. All sorts of fun can be had on a hill and both young and old can be involved. We'd have races to see who could roll their egg the furthest without it breaking. Then we'd roll ourselves down the hill, or have races to see who could run down the fastest (which can be difficult since you may fall if going too fast). We had our First Annual Nelson Easter-Egg Roll yesterday and it was a huge success.

Reading at age 3

My sister Christa recommended this book to me. She used it to teach her son to read at age 3. I was worried it would be complicated, difficult to teach (and to learn) and that Kiera would hate it. Not so. Kiera is 3 and 5 months and she is reading stories such as "a little man sat in the sand. That man is sad. Will the sun go down?" We are only half way through the book. We have a 7-10 minute "reading lesson" almost every day since the book recommends keeping the lessons brief and fun at this age. It has been easy all of the way along. There are no difficult steps at all. Oh, and you can start a child doing it who doesn't even know their letter sounds. (The book only introduces 1 letter at a time-- we are currently only using about half of the letters in our lessons). As a reward after our lesson each day we have "Happy Kiera special time" and I give her my full 100% focused attention on any game she wants to play. Anyway, I recommend the book.

Full Time

Yesterday I changed my employment status to full time. I'm going to be working mostly evenings and weekends (when Steve is home) and anticipate only needing a babysitter about 3 hours/week.
I am determined that my children will not feel get the short end of the stick from this new full time job status. With 40 hours less in my week I'll have to re-arrage the way I do things. There are so many things that a person does-- both necessary things and things for their own entertainment. I think that sometimes it would be easy for a person in my situation to make cuts from quality time with their kids. Not me. So, be it known that I plan on making the following cut from my life so as NOT to have to make cuts from quality time with my children:

1. Less time social networking. Limiting myself to only saturday mornings.
2. Goodbye baking. Baked breads are not a necessity right now
3. Cleaning while my girls are awake (I'll have to do it after they are asleep).
4. Exercising regularly : (
5. Volunteering for service things.
6. Time spent with friends and family.
7. Goodbye personal time.

We plan on this being a bit of a stretch on our family. But the fact that Steve gets done at noon 3 days a week will make it easer. Oh, and the way I see it-- my working 40 hours a weeks is going to be a TON easier on my family than my being pregnant 168 hours a week. Hopefully, I'll have 2 cute bundles of joy in about a year to show for it : )

Daddy's home

My little girls got there daddy back after a little more than a week. He was missed terribly. Lydia spent a lot of time searching the houses for her daddy. The funny thing is: the #1 place she would go to look for him was our bed. Probably because that is where she normally finds him in the morning : )
I feel bad for all of the women out there who have to deal with husbands who are gone a LOT more than mine is. Hats off to you. I don't know how you do it.

New Easter Tradition

I'm a big fan of tradiations. Thanks to my sister-in-law Erika I think we have a new one. She came over and we made fun little easter egg cake-pops and decorataed them. She got the idea from WWW.BAKERELLA.COM (we must give credit where credit is due). The pops are really cute (as pictured above) and she has all sorts of fun ideas for every holiday (I'm going to do the turkeys at thanksgiving). They are surprisingly easy to make too. The girls loved them.

Triathalon

This blog is to brag about Steve's triathlon he did on Saturday. He's now done a few of them (3?). He did it with his brother Drew and Sister-in-law Erika. I'm impressed-- I couldn't do it. I'll stick with running thanks. I would surely drown while trying to doggie-paddle 30 feet. But I do a "triathlon" every morning: My morning run, swimming through a sink full of dishes, and then a never-ending chase up and down the halls trying to get a diaper back on Lydia.

Punishment for doing the right thing.

When I started my new job I discovered a lot of very important rules that were being broken by both the family that I was assigned to, and the other nurses working for that family. I debated on whether or not I should inform my supervisor. I had been informed that one of these rules (which another nurse was breaking) was grounds for being immediately fired. So, after much debate I decided to inform my supervisor.
At the time I informed her, we discussed the fact that I still needed to have a good relationship with the family that I was working for-- so my supervisor said she would take care of the problem without letting anybody know that I had informed her of the situation.
Today I got a phone call from my employer. My patient's mom doesn't want me to come back again ever (just 3 days ago she told me that I was her and her son's favorite nurse). The person who called me acknowledged that is was because she found out that I had turned her and the other nurses in.
So where does that leave me? Without a job. They are working on finding me another patient, but the hours would be during the day instead of at night so I'd need to get a babysitter and I'd be away from my girls, and I'll also have less hours. Meanwhile, the nurses who broke the rules still has their jobs.
If you can't tell, I'm a little frustrated.

Easy Egg-free Eggnog

I love eggnog. Too bad you can only get it during the holidays. I learned to make homemade eggnog this past holiday season. It was good but it was a PAIN to make.
So, I came up with his recipe that it easy, egg-free, much lower in fat, and tastes great too (although not exactly like eggnog it is still very good)

Cambrie's Eggnog:
8 cups milk (I use have vitamin D milk and half reconstituted powdered milk--you can't tell!)
1 3-oz vanilla pudding mix (instant)
1/2 cup sugar
2 t vanilla
1/2 t nutmeg
Rum extract to taste
Sprinkle of cinnamon

Mix pudding and 1 cup milk in blender. Then add all other ingredients and mix.

Zoo pictures

Yesterday we went with some friends and got in free to the San Diego Zoo. We definitely had fun with our friends (and umbrellas) but I'm not sure my girls appriciated the animals at all. They were far more excited about the stairs and the leaves than they were about elephants or tigers.
Oh, I love sleeping children on the way home : )

Goodbye Disneyland

My season pass to Disneyland expires next week and Steve's is the week afterwards. Both of our season passes were gifts (from 2 different people) and we've had a blast. But honestly, I'm sort of glad that we're done-- it takes a lot of work to get 2 little ladies and all of their stuff to and from Disneyland once every 2 weeks! I think I've also been on teacups one to many times. Kiera's pass doesn't end until november so maybe we'll just drop her off at the gate.....

This is Kiera's rediculous hair-do, which was my attempt to get her tall enough for Soarin' Over California. Too bad the disneyland worker pushed her hair down. I was sorely disappointed-- I really wanted her to go on it! She wore huge shoes and huge ugly hair at disneyland and it did us no good!