"I just love you mommy..."

I need to be better about remembering to record the sweet and funny things that Andrew says.  So...

This morning Andrew came into my room and told me that he had a bad in dream.  In his bad dream I apparently said "I love Grant, but I don't love you!"  How sad is that!  I hope that's not his subconscious manifesting a feeling that he has.

In school today Andrew said they learned about lions, and when I asked Andrew where lions were from (I had noticed a bunch of info about Africa written on the white board, so I was expecting his answer) he said "They're from Euro."  I asked him again, but he still insisted that lions are from "Euro."  Apparently one of us is confused...

When I put him down for a nap today (yes, he still naps...he wakes up early, and I figure if he'll still nap, well...why not?) he said: "I'll just never never never stop loving you mommy." :)  

Happy birthday Andrew!

Five years ago today, Andrew joined our family.  I remember the day so well, and sometimes it seems like it was just yesterday.  I can't believe that it's been five years already!  And then other times I'm surprised that it has only been five years; Andrew is such an integral part of my life, I can't remember what it was like before I became his mom.  

For some reason, this particular birthday has made me kind of emotional for the past few weeks.  I think it's because when I look at Grant, I feel like I can't remember what Andrew was like at that age and it upsets me.  How can I not remember?  It was only 2 1/2 years ago!  And yet...I'm scared that I'm not going to remember all of this time with them.  And Andrew is growing up so fast and getting ready to go to school in the fall, and I know things will never be the same.  I mourn the loss of the younger Andrew I knew, but I so much love the person he is now.  The other day I found a sound clip of Andrew from when he was about 2, and hearing that voice made me cry.  Being a mother can be emotional (or if you're already an emotional person like me, it's REALLY emotional).  I'm incapable of expressing how much I love Andrew, and how grateful I am that he is a part of our lives.  It would be a serious understatement to say that he has taught me a great deal about myself, my purpose, and my Savior's love for me.  Happy birthday Andrew!!

I'm done with my sappy tangent.  On to the birthday celebrations!

Andrew was served his most favorite breakfast, Swedish pancakes (dyed blue) and then we were able to all go bowling together (I love that his birthday fell on a holiday this year!).  Andrew bowled a 76, which isn't too shabby!  He was really upset though whenever he missed a few pins, so I think we need to work on his sportsmanship. :)  

So excited (and incapable of looking at the camera).

Pouting after not getting "all the pins".

Grant is excited too!  Still not sure why neither kid can smile normally for a picture...

After bowling, Andrew was lucky to be able to go play at his friend Jack's house.  When he got home, he was able to sit and play Wii with daddy (always exciting) and then we had beef tacos for dinner.  This kid LOVES his tacos and ate six of them.  We then moved on to presents; Andrew got some books, puzzles, a Polar Express remote control train set, playdough, Legos, and a new bike! Now, I realize that sounds like a lot, but that includes presents from both sets of grandparents (and most of the presents I got were on clearance).  Anyway, Andrew is VERY excited about his new toys, though poor Grant had a hard time understanding the concept that these were Andrew's toys. 

Legos!  He loves 'em!  Thanks Grandpa Dave and Grandma Becky.

Yeah, he *might* kind of like Star Wars.  

And the bike, courtesy of grandpa Jeff/grandma Chris and Mommy and Daddy:

After presents we feasted on cake and ice cream.  I made chocolate cake with cookies and cream filling (which is a fancy way of saying I mixed smashed Oreos into the Swiss meringue buttercream that I filled the cake with).  The outside of this cake was frosted in plain Swiss meringue buttercream.  Because I want to have a birthday party for Andrew in a couple of weeks (at which point I will be making a Star Wars cake) I just made a simple cake.  And what's up with the cowboy theme you ask?  Well, I got a Cricut Cake machine for Christmas, and at this point in time I only have 3 cartridges.  The birthday cartridge has lots of fun stuff (dinosaurs, robots, princesses, cowboys, etc.) and I picked the cowboy because I thought it had the most fun elements.  Since it was my first time using the machine, I didn't get much done, just a few embellishments.  I had trouble cutting happy birthday, so I had to pipe it on using leftover buttercream (which was the same blue as the frosted cake, so it really just blended in...oh well!).  Anyway, Andrew loved the cake and I had fun using my new toy.  I can't wait to make his Star Wars cake!

I love this boy!

It took several tries to blow out the candles...and then Grant cried because he didn't get a turn.  Ahhh, kids. :)

Kids say the darndest things...

As Andrew is getting older, he's becoming increasingly entertaining when it comes to the things he says.  I haven't done as good a job of keeping track of his comments as I would like, but here are a few of my favorites.

One day we went through the drive-thru at Wendy's.  I got them each their own chicken nuggets (I know, I know.  Chicken nuggets are scary.) and got one thing of fries for them to share.  Well, Andrew wanted to know why he had to share fries with Grant.  

Me: "Because I don't have enough money, and besides, fries are bad for you."
Andrew: "Why are they bad for you?"
Me: "Well, they make you fat and are bad for your heart."
Andrew: "Then why are you giving them to me?"

Ahhh, what a mom of the year moment.  I had to try to  explain to him that it was ok to eat fries sometimes, just not very often.  

When we were watching the World Series, Andrew told me: "Mom, we need to call the Rangers and tell them that we're watching them!"  He also said we should invite them over to dinner.

Andrew LOVES Star Wars right now (especially the Clone Wars cartoons) so one night he told me we should have Obi-Wan come over.  I told him if it was Ewan McGregor, I'd love to have Obi-Wan over.  Funny, I don't think he got what I was saying...

He calls marshmallows "smarfmallows" which I think is the cutest thing ever.

And every day he tells me that he loves me "way into the sky!"  I just adore that boy.

I love how much he's concentrating on what he's doing.

They really like to wear daddy's shoes.

Oh, just look at that face.  So cute!

You can always tell when Andrew gets a hold of the camera.

Love my boys!

Happy Halloween

We love Halloween here in the Nelsen household, so we've had a fun week.  We went to the pumpkin patch on Monday--it was hot, and I couldn't for the life of me get a good picture of the boys together.  Andrew had a Halloween party at school on Thursday and John had his work party on Friday.  His co-workers go all out, and I like to make something nice and creepy for their potluck.  We got to go to another fun party Friday night (ran out of time and didn't get to make a creepy dessert for that one) and then we had the church trunk or treat today.  Fun but tiring few days!  And now some pics.


Pumpkin patch:

 

John as a Blues Brother

John's office becomes an autopsy room.

 

Creepy cheesecake for John's office party

Cutest Mickey Mouse ever:

 

Studliest General Obi-Wan Kenobi:

 

 

What happens in Vegas...

Earlier this month, John and I were able to sneak away from the kids for a few days to go to Vegas for John to attend a conference for work.  The boys got to stay with John's family (they had so much fun, I don't think they even noticed we were gone) and while John was at his conference during the day, I got to sleep and be totally lazy.  It was awesome.

We arrived Tuesday afternoon...the conference was at the Venetian, so the hotel reservations were at the Palazzo, which is a sister hotel/casino and connected to the Venetian by lots of really expensive shops that I only wish I could shop at. :)  Anyway, we checked in and were happy with the room (though with all this bug bed stuff going on lately, I was paranoid and tried to check our room for signs of bed bugs). 

Sitting area

Sleeping area...obviously.

After getting settled, we went to explore.  The Palazzo and the Venetian are both beautiful casinos, and when we walked the shops between the two, we discovered a plaza with a canal and gondola rides.  It was pretty cool, and they did a good job with the feel of Italy.  I mean, obviously it's not the real deal, but it was still pretty cool. 

Lobby of the Venetian

Blurry picture of a gondola ride

I hope Andrew makes us lots of money with this shop. :)

We decided to walk the strip and find something for dinner.  We went to the Mirage and ate at B.B. King's Blues Club and Grill.  It was pretty tasty, and there was some live blues.  After dinner we went to check out the theater where they show Beatles Love.  

The Venetian

 

 

 

John had to snap this pic at B.B. King Blues Club...

Try not to be jealous of how cool I am.

We then walked down to the Bellagio to check out the fountain show.  I have to say, it was pretty cool.  We stayed and watched 3 or 4 different shows.
 

 On Wednesday, John had to be to his conference at 7am...haha.  I slept until 1:30pm though.  That's right, 1:30.  I didn't even know I was still capable of sleeping in that late, because I haven't done that in years.  But the room was dark and quiet, and I was recovering from a cold...so I slept well!  I then lounged around and read until John got back and we went to dinner and then a free cocktail hour put on by the conference.  Gotta love that free ginger ale.  We then wandered around the casino, won a few bucks and then lost it.  Good thing we don't really gamble.  We went back to the room and watched The Hangover (edited!) and it was pretty much what I expected.  Made me laugh a few times, but generally not my kind of movie.  John thought it was hilarious though.


On Thursday I only slept until 10am, and then went and had a nice breakfast and read.  Then went and sat by the pool and read...I basically didn't do any exploring, just lounged around the whole time. That night John's conference was putting on a free dinner at one of Wolfgang Puck's restaurants, and he was allowed to bring me.  The filet mignon was divine, and I finished off John's because it was "too rare".  Isn't that the opposite of how it should be?  Shouldn't he be finishing my steak?  Anyway, the dinner was really good.  After dinner, we headed over to the Mirage for Beatles Love by Cirque du Soleil.  We had the "cheap" seats, almost all the way in back, but it was still awesome.  Such a good show in general, but especially for Beatles fans like us.  I was just amazed at the acrobatics and dancing, all the stunts...I felt like the entire show I kept thinking "You've gotta be kidding me!" about all the things they were doing.  It was so good, I highly recommend it.


On Friday, John finished up the conference and I just waited around the lobby/casino for him to be done.  We decided to head over to the airport early, which was a fortuitous choice because our flight was delayed 2 hours, but since we were there early they were able to move us to the earlier flight.  At that point I was really excited to get back to the boys.  I was very proud of myself, I'd let myself be an adult and not think too much about the kids while we were gone.  I talked to them every night of course, and missed them, but it was nice for me to be able to flip the mom switch off.  When we got back to UT, Grant was especially happy to see us.  He wouldn't let me leave the room, and was very clingy (which I have to admit made me happy...yay, he loves me!  Hehe.)


All in all it was a very good trip, even if we didn't partake of many of Vegas' most popular opportunities. :)

Words of wisdom

As I've been working on organizing our office, I've come across a lot of interesting things that I forgot we had.  Today's favorite find was from our wedding...instead of a traditional guest book, we had people leave sign little cards with advice.  Then I was going to put the cards in a nice scrapbook...well, 6+ years later and that still hasn't happened.  Instead I found the pile of cards sitting rubber-banded in a box full of random stuff.  Anyway, I thought I'd share a few of my favorite words of advice:

• "Look out for John's landmine" - signed by "A Brother"
• "Always leave the toilet seat down" - Pam (if only John would listen to you, Pam!)
•  "Always get in the last word in an argument...say 'Sorry'!"
• "Just be happy, stay in love, and always remember how you feel today."
• "Drink caffeine in moderation!" - Thanks Nicole! :)
• "Laugh together often!"
• "Like I have ANY advice?! :)" - That one made me laugh (courtesy of Erin M.)
•  "Play lots of X-box!" - Eric and Lindsey
• "John - Whenever she's mad at you, do the dishes.  No woman has ever been able to stay angry at a guy who's cleaning."  SO TRUE! :)
• "Don't use fake tanner!  It streaks!" - Tabitha, I've most definitely followed your advice...I learned the hard way.
• "Laugh about things, forgive each other (and forget), and simply enjoy one another.  Choose to be happy :)"  Great advice Emily!
• "My word of advice - always take care of each other and listen to good music."  Thanks Tessa!
• "Congratulations!  I'm sorry, I have no good advice."  That one made me smile, Liz.
• "Always say 'That's my man' or 'That's my woman' for eternity."

It was really fun to read through all these and remember our wedding day.  And now that I've found the cards and have a nice little office set up, maybe I'll get around to putting these in a book...

Rock Mountain High

A couple weeks ago we took a quick trip up to Utah so see "Uncle Buddy's" farewell (or, I guess to be more correct, his last opportunity to speak in church before he leaves on his mission). It was a brief visit, but very enjoyable. Here's a few pics from the family's last mountain picnic (how I miss the mountains):

 The boys take a break from tearing up the mountainside

Grant loves fire-roasted hot dogs (Grandpa in background passing out the homemade brew (root beer))

Got your nose!

"Smarfmellows" bring out Andrew's diabolical side

Daddy teaching Drewbs the art of the perfect golden brown toasted mallow