Traditions Book

So I'm officially done doing normal scrapbooking. I'm moving to the 100% digital way of preserving memories. But I have lots of random scrapbooking supply leftovers. I figured out the perfect thing to do with it all.

I've started a "Nelson Family Traditions" Book. I printed off lots of pictures of things we do regularly (or annually) as a family and I'm slapping glue on the back of them and putting them in collage-type-fashion in a book in designated areas. I've divided the book into sections and leaving room to add to it every year. I'm using up the few stickers that I have, but I'm not doing ANYTHING elaborate. Basically it is just a collage of each tradition. It only took me like 2 hours total to make and the girls already LOVE it. Some of our traditions:

1. Easter (painting eggs, rolling eggs, egg hunts)
2. Christmas (pinatas, seeing the lights)
3. Halloween (pumpkin carving, making sugar cookies, trick-or-treating)
4. Summer (Popsicles outside, swimming)
5. Autumn leave traditions
6. winter snow traditions
7. Rite Aide ice cream tradition
8. Girls waiting outside for daddy to come home on his bike and going for bike rides
9. General Conference scones breakfast
10. Birthday traditions
11. Thanksgiving dinner
12. Independence day BBQ, fireworks, parades
13. Camping (in the back yard and for real)
14. Movie night (with popcorn and lots of bedding on the floor)

The girls love looking at the book and always want to know which tradition we are going to be doing next. I'm looking forward to the book having 18 years+ of collages or our traditions.

Opinion: LDS moms CAN'T do it all

I think we as LDS mothers of young children have a problem of trying to out-do each other. We try to pretend that our lives a beautiful and clean all of the time. We've all done it: when someone is coming over for a play day we clean our house perfectly and pretend like our houses are always in perfect order.

The truth of the matter is, there are only so many hours in a day. If you are choosing to do some things with your time it means you are making cuts elsewhere. You can't exercise for an hour, make 100% homemade food, do 30 minutes of scripture study, write in your journal, spend an hour of 1 on 1 time with each child...etc.

Yes, I can have people over for dinner and have my hair done, my make-up on, my house perfectly clean, and a delicious home-cooked meal, but just think about where I had to make cuts: most likely to my quality time with my children since that is where it doesn't show publicly as much.

This week I was talking to a friend who has a teenager, a special needs daughter, a newly adopted daughter, a toddler, and a newborn. She told me of the troubles of trying to take care of such a huge arrange of psychological needs. I have a deep respect for this friend since she is very well educated and could have done anything with her life. At this point and in this stage however, she tells me that she doesn't bother with her hair or makeup except for on Sundays. The house is a mess most of the time, but she just has higher priorities. That fact that she prioritizes her children over other things shows strongly in her family.

Does that mean that I think we should never do our hair or make-up again? No, but maybe focusing less on how we and our homes appear to others and more on our relationships with our family and children would make us better people.
There will be a time in my life when I can have a clutter-free house. But now is not that time.

Goldilocks and the 2 bears

I can't believe Lydia is 2! I still find myself calling her "baby". When Kiera was 2 I already had Lydia so I didn't consider Kiera a baby at all. But I guess we women like to cling to the idea of having a "baby".
Lydia would NOT cooperate for these pictures without holding these 2 bears. Ok-- fine with me! At least she smiled!

Sunscreen

In high school I would lay out in the sun and take a nap. I never burned and it was so relaxing in the sunshine. I also enjoyed the tan I got. People told me that I would regret it someday. They were right. I do. I now faithfully wear sunscreen everyday (on my face) and sometimes put it one more than once. I also wear big ugly hats. I guess those old people were right. I'm no longer worried about my tan....I'm worried about aging!

Lydia must be worried about aging too because she sure used a lot of it yesterday. On herself, the chair, the carpet, the wall.....

Angel Lullaby

I used to love My Turn On Earth as a little girl. I always thought I would sing the Angel Lullaby song to my kids someday. I've sang little snippets of it to them in the past and thought about looking up the lyrics, but I never did until now. I found them on some random chic from Utah's blog. So, I thought I'd do anybody else who may be looking for them a favor. I've been singing this to my girls for 3 days now and I've had it requested at least 20 times because they LOVE IT.



You came from a land where all is light
to a world half day and a world half night.
To guide you by day, you have my love,
To guard you by night, your friends above.
(Chorus)
So sleep, sleep, till the darkness ends,
guarded by your angel friends.
So sleep, sleep, till the darkness ends,
guarded by your angel friends.

There's one stands softly by your bed
and another sits close with a hand on your head.
There's one at the window watching for the dawn,
and one waits to wake you when the night is gone.

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.