Marshmellow Roast

10 Kids under age 6

9 people riding in the back of a truck to a park

8 adults to keep up with the 10 kids

7 Marshmellows eaten by Lydia (even more by Kiera)

6 Tin Foil dinners

5 Horses nearby that occasionally ran by to the kids' delight

4 squirt guns from the 99 cent store that were tons o' fun

3 Roasting sticks (very shared)

2 Rides in the back of a truck to a really fun park nearby

1 match to make a great campfire.

Missionary FHE

I'm trying to get a little more creative in my Family Home Evenings since we've been sort of dull for a while. So, being that we recently had 2 sister missionaries from our family go out, we decided to pretend to be missionaries. It *sort of* worked. I think we'll do it again in a month or so in order to get all of the concepts across.


Sister Karly Nelson Temple Square Mission

Sister Breanna Groneman Atlanta Georgia Mission

Mothering Goals

Someone this week gave me a compliment on being a good mom. It got me thinking about how all is not how it appears to others.

I'll admit that I do some mothering things well: I'm good with nap schedules, balenced meals, spending scheduled time playing with and teaching my children academic things. We do family prayer most of the time and I read them scripture stories every time I give them a morning snack (which is only about 3 out of 7 days or so--I could do better there).

But today I was thinking about the home in which I am employed as an RN for a medically-needy baby. The caregiver of my little patient does not do any of those things that I listed above that I "do well", however, she does 2 things well that I realize that I fail at:
1. She makes my little patient giggle every day.
2. She spends non-scheduled non-productive just-plain-old-quality-1-on-1 time with my little patient every day.

I realize this about myself: I'm way too type-A personality. I have to have a list of goals and every minute of my day must fit into meeting those goals. So I spend my scheduled 10 minutes of play with Kiera (trying to squeeze in academic moments)and then move on to the laundry or the dishes. I know, it is ridiculous. I'm hoping that by admitting this fault I'll be more aware and try to relax a bit and just enjoy my darling little girls.

I have great childhood memories of saturday mornings in my parents bed with my siblings. Not doing anything productive: just spending time together. Also, I would lay on my mom's lap on the couch and my mom would stroke my hair and we would talk. Productive? Not officially. Only productive for relationship-building.

Goals: 1. Spend non-scheduled non-productive time with my girls (and Steve) every day.
2. Do something to make them giggle every day.

I realize that the track I'm going on right now I'm more like a personal-trainer than a mother. Time to change.

Family pictures

My 2 princesses

All the girl cousins

Steve and his siblings/parents
The entire Nelson family
Look at all of those cousins!!
Lydia trying not to cooperate
The best we could do...I'll give it a 5/10...could be worse. I guess it will just get harder as we add more kiddos to the mix.

Lydia in a nutshell

Lydia refuses to wear anything but big dresses that spin out really far. Yes, she wears them for pajamas too. The throws the biggest tantrum you've ever seen if anyone tries to take it off of her. Her 3 dresses that meet her specifications are already getting lots of rips and stains. Oh well.

Lydia thinks she doesn't need to nap anymore. She'll sit in her bed for 2 hours without sleeping. Kiera will have finished her nap before Lydia even goes to sleep. What's up with that!!???

Lydia went "stinkies" in the potty the other day. I was sure it was a fluke. Today she told me she wanted to go potty so I pulled out her little potty. She sat on it about 10 seconds and announced "all done!" and stood up. I thought 'yep, she's all done playing potty time' But no, she actually went! No, I don't expect it to be this easy from here on on, but it is encouraging!

My Hottie and My Yittle Yadies

Spunky: Lydia

Groneman Family Races

The first annual Groneman Family Races were held this past weekend while visiting my family in Utah.

They consisted of all sorts of ways of racing across my sister's lawn: running backwards, skipping, partner runs, etc..

Tons of fun was to be had by both old and young alike. Even my little developmentally delayed nephew loved it (pictured to the left winning the race with Brett). What a great family activity.

just pictures

Pictures of life

We've got the stomach flu around here. Because of the nature of my job, I can't go to work if even 1 of my kids is sick because of the risk to my little patient. So, I'm automatically off work for at least a week. This is of course nice to spend more time with my family and get things done, but I'm also very frustrated because we really needed that money. I had Kiera and Lydia sharing sippy cups today in hopes that Lydia will get it sooner than later because I figure she is doomed to get it anyway. It might as well be sooner so that I don't miss more work and we don't give it to my family when we go and visit them in utah in the next little while. I felt so terrible trying to get her sick on purpose though!



Lydia was obviously bored. She is also trying to tell me I need things on this bookshelf. I packed up all of our books for long-term storage since we are moving again in a year. I don't really want to unpack them just so that my shelf doesn't look empty. Oh, and that box next to it is the LAST box to unpack. It has been sitting there for over a week. You'd think I'd just do it....

Lydia loves being "a tudie" lately (naked). Kiera likes to follow whatever Lydia does. The other night they were painting in the nude....I'm not sure how I feel about this.


Indian war paint?



Notice how when Lydia doesn't want to eat something she lines it up neatly on the table. She also enjoys finger painting.

Slacker

I have not exercised one bit in the past month.

I could probably count on 1 hand the amount of times I've used the blow-dryer in the past month. Sundays only.

Something about being a full time mom, full time nurse, moving to a new place, and going through 3 potential surrogates this month......

Hopefully things will be calming down soon and I'll re-introduce myself to my running shoes and the bathroom mirror. (Oh, and in case you are wondering why I have time to blog but not do my hair-- this blog posting was composed at work).

Where can a bunny find a home?

Eating chocolate icecream on the front porch.




the joy of popping popcorn to eat in a tent.

Camping in a tent in the backyard. We want to make it an annual family tradition. But we don't have a backyard in our new place so we had to squeeze it into our schedule during the middle of our move. It seemed crazy, but the girls LOVED it.


Here are tons of pictures for you family to make up for my lack of blogging for you family fans out there.

These last 3 weeks have been completely crazy for us. I admit it-- we were in way over hour heads. It is mostly overwith now and I'm glad! Glad to be moved to our new place.


Overall, I really like our new place. the kitchen is a little cramped but it has way more storage so I like it for that reason. I miss my yard, but we have some dude who is mowing our lawn (I don't think he is supposed to, but we're not going to complain if someone else is paying the bill!). I miss my attached garage, and my dishwasher, but I LOVE having 4 less rooms in my place to clean up!