What did you do tonight?

Evan and I were busy building a train city...

Happy Birthday DJ!

Evan would like to wish his best friend DJ a

Happy THIRD Birthday!

We had so much fun today at DJ's party - it was at the local YMCA. We played in the kids gym, bounced in an air castle, ate the most awesome cake I have ever seen, and went swimming! Below is a short video of the obstacle course I made the boys while Beth was getting the party ready. They made me go through it first (sorry, I didn't get a video of that part.)

I think the boys had as much fun playing in the bouncy castle when it was deflated as they did when it had air in it!
Beth and her handsome birthday boy.The. Most. Awesome. Cake. EVER. This picture does not do it justice. Beth hand carved and frosted a train cake - complete with black licorice train track! So cool. I think I may have to steal this idea."Happy Birthday, dear DJ...!" DJ sung Happy Birthday along with the rest of us. Blowing out the candles. Opening a gift from Evan.
And we had one more first today - Evan's first water slide! The slide was open at the rec pool today when we went swimming. It would have made for some awesome pictures but I didn't want to chance bringing my camera to the pool. We will definitely be going back on Tuesday for some more sliding fun!

Christmas morning video

Nelson Christmas 2009 @ Yahoo! Video

Merry Christmas!

CHRISTMAS EVE at the Novek's:

Jeremy's new fishing pole

Hooray! Edward the train!

Bear got a brand new bag of tennis balls for Christmas - can you tell he is excited? He's staring at them hoping someone will throw one for him.

Grandpa taught Evan how to swashbuckle with the wrapping paper tubes.

CHRISTMAS MORNING:

Evan got a wooden train set from Mommy and Daddy (although he thought it was from Santa, we'll let the big guy take credit for it this year.)

Evan concentrating on "cutting" some wooden fruit.

His favorite thing of all? The box of raisins he found in his stocking.

"I can't believe Mommy is letting me eat chocolate before breakfast!" (For the record he only got to have one piece.)

Jeremy trying out his AirHog helicopter from Santa. The cats LOVED this, by the way, and I've never heard Evan laugh so hard in my life!

CHRISTMAS AFTERNOON at Great-Grandma Nelson's:

Evan is always amazed (and a little frightened) by Grandma's life-sized Santa. Bonus: he sings.

Harlan showing Evan the woodpecker toy that he made long ago.

CHRISTMAS at the Irvin's:

Evan and Grandma playing with Evan's new table and dishes set. It will go nicely with his new wooden fruit set. Evan loves to make "soup" and "pour" things.

Alex gave Jeremy my Grandpa's old tackle box. Alex isn't much of a fisherman so he passed it on to Jeremy. It hasn't been opened in at least 10 years, but it was filled with all sorts of neat stuff. My Grandpa Grant was an amazing fisherman so hopefully it will bring Jeremy some good luck!

Merry Christmas early...and late

Yeah, so, our Christmas Cards are going to be coming out late this year...again. I think everyone should just expect this from us by now. I ordered our cards late and they haven't been delivered to our house as of yet, which means by the time I fill them out and mail them it will most likely be Christmas Eve. Sorry about that everyone...Merry Christmas!

Hanging with the ladies

A few friends and I got together tonight at Becky's house for a little mini high-school reunion. A few of us couldn't make it so it was small party, but we had loads of fun! I forget how much fun hanging out with my girlfriends is. Especially one's I haven't seen in a while. Thanks for a great evening ladies!

Last week we received a considerable amount of snow - enough that Jeremy could actually build Evan a snow fort in the back yard! The snow was a bit dry and it didn't stick together very well, but they sure had fun building it (and I had fun watching them from the nice warm living room.) It was fun until Evan accidentally got a face full of snow. They came in for some hot chocolate after this...And poor Baxter got tossed in a snow drift.

On Saturday night we went bumper bowling. Evan's favorite part of the night was the hand-dryer, of course. That's right, I won! I beat a 2 year old and my husband with a whopping 111...in bumper bowling. After bowling we went for a drive to look at Christmas lights. To whoever owns this house: You. Are. Awesome. (p.s. how much is your electric bill!?)On Sunday we went to the St. James with Beth and Dj to see the Christmas Train exhibit. The boys were super excited, and they even had a Thomas train! Very cool.

Dress Up

Evan's ingredients for Friday Night Dress-Up:

• Buzz Lightyear PJ's, check.
• Mom's Halloween sock, check.
• My red snow hat, check.
• Dad's baseball cap, check.
• Dad's size 13 shoes, check.
• A guaranteed good time - double check.

Merry Christmas to...

YOU!

This weekend was busy but loads of fun. I partook in the Black Friday festivities, which for me began at 4:30 am. We ended up in Rochester and purchased our family Christmas gift for this year: a 52" flat screen. Evan and I went to the Holiday Stroll downtown while Jeremy and Justin hung the new TV on the wall.

On Saturday Jeremy, Justin, Noah and Evan went fishing at Pottery Pond. Justin caught a nice trout (catch and release, of course.) I picked Evan up from fishing to go swimming with Beth and DJ, and after that we went to Emma's 3rd Birthday Party. I can't believe she is already THREE!

It was fun shopping for a girl for a change - I loved playing dress-up when I was Emma's age, so I thought we would get her a princess get-up for her 3rd Birthday present.

Little did we know that she would prefer to dress Evan up instead. He was a good sport and even let her put on the clip-on earrings. He put a stop to it after she tried to make him wear her princess shoes.

Today Jeremy went to the Vikings Game with his Mom, Aunt, and Uncle, so Evan and I spent the day with DJ and Beth. We went to see Santa and got our pictures taken (at Walmart - hence the photos of the boys playing Rock Band and riding on Tigger's boat) and then went bowling. Jeremy is a little sad that he didn't bring the camera with him to the game - he was in row 14 and had great seats!

After we got home all Evan would talk about was "bowling" and how he wanted to go again. For $2 I think this may be a regular winter time activity from now on...!

Evan's favorite phrases this week:

• "No way!"
• "Oh, MAN!" (still his favorite way to show exasperation)
• "No, Momma, YOU pick it up."

And for those of you who didn't get a chance to hear the "dozen eggs story," I'll sum it up for you:

Evan now knows how to unlock and open the bedroom door. We know this because he woke up last Friday while Jeremy was still sleeping and decided to make himself some eggs for breakfast. He broke half of them on the stove and the other half in the living room. He also opened up all of his Christmas presents (under the tree and in the closet), colored the couch like a rainbow with his Crayola markers and drew some cave paintings upstairs on the walls with his crayons. Its days like that we are truly thankful that we don't have twins...!