Some Random Thoughts and Links to General Conference Ideas

 

  Catchy title right?  It's funny that when I don't have pictures of things it is so easy for me to think that their isn't a ton going on around here, but there are so many things that I want to remember that are only pictures that I take throughout the day with my memory.  To be honest, that isn't very reassuring because the memory definitely isn't that good anymore.

  We are all loving spring around here.  It is so hard for the boys to come in from the lovely weather outdoors to get anything done around here, and to be honest I feel like an ogre making them.  What is homework compared to fresh air and running around with the neighborhood right?  We have definitely been loving the weather.  We are even pretty forgiving when it is cloudy and grey because we know that we have turned the corner of spring, and grey weather doesn't last forever.

  I finally got to get a small glimpse of City Creek Center.  Josh and I have been watching it go up for so long and think it would never be done.  The fact that it is done now and we haven't seen it seems so crazy.  I have to say we peeked through the construction slats a few times when all there was was a big hole they were going to build the parking garage in. 
  I had a meeting for primary down at temple square on Wednesday night and after we look a little jaunt through City Creek.  It was so much bigger and more amazing that I ever imagined.  I didn't even get to see that much because I had to rush the kids (who were being babysat by my lovely parents as Josh was out of town) home to bed.  If this weekend weren't General Conference (and it will be totally nuts), I would head down this weekend.  Looks like it might still take us a bit longer to see it.  Can't wait!

  McKay has picked up a love of coloring.  I have never had a child color like this.  I give him the bin of crayons and some paper and his will color forever.  We are talking an hour people, that is so not a 2 year old (or maybe it is and my other 3 were the abnormal ones :)  I just am always amazed and he is a good color-er.  You might be lucky and I will auction some of his pictures off on here.  They are a little abstract, but good non the less.

  He has also been learning so many cute words.  His little voice just melts my heart.  He always says "yes" so cute and proper that I try and think of questions that he can answer yes to so that I can hear it again.  He has also learn a few less choice words from his older brothers.  Not my favorite.

  Josh and I are hoping to go on a little vacay for our anniversary that is coming up at the beginning of May.  10 years people!!!!   We can't go for too long because Josh is a workaholic (don't tell him you know :), I mean he is needed at work...so we are trying to find somewhere to go.  Josh has a conference that week in Chicago so I may be meeting him there and we will have a little trip.  We thought about a cruise, but it would be very short and probably not worth it...anyone have any thoughts on a good trip that is in the United States (with the exception of Hawaii and Alaska) because we have to use frequent flyer miles and Southwest doesn't go there.  Any states that are total fun? We thought of Boston...but would love any thoughts you have.

I am starting to think of what I want to do with the boys to make General Conference special this weekend.  If you want to see any of the things we have done in the past they are here, here, here, here and here.  

Okay this was random, and I am probably missing a while bunch of other things that are going on around here, but those are a few for now. 

"Palmer Did it"

My kids are so funny (funny as in goofy...but goofy isn't as nice of a word, so pretend I just said funny :)  I am learning to be patient with the whole idea of their thoughts being "what will happen if I do this."  Usually what happens is something being broken, ruined or a brother crying, but the what will happen thought I am finding to happen millions of times a day in my boys brains.  I really don't think kids should be punished for being curious, but at the same time it is important to teach them to try and think things through BEFORE they do them.  

Palmer's job every day is the boys' bathroom.  I try very hard to give him ownership of that job.  To teach him the correct way to clean it instead of coming in a cleaning after him every day.  He gets a little frustrated when he has to do it again because it didn't get very clean the first time.  One day after he had to go and re-do some of it I came back to find this message.  If you can't tell what it says, it says "Palmer did it."  It was written in toothpaste.  Josh and I laughed so hard about it because a-he totally told us who it was that did it (and who was going to clean it up) and b) the bathroom is his job, so he still had to clean it up.  He is such a silly and we let him see us get a good laugh over it and tell him it was funny...and then he had to clean it up :)

Spring, Spring, Spring

 If you were wondering where the title of this post came from it is that Spring song from "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers."  I love that show!  Especially the music and the spring song always gets in my head around this time of year.  We are in full spring mode around here, and even got out our fire pit (fun little yard sale find from last year).  I can't wait to use it!!!!

 On Saturday we even got out the shorts (usually we get them out on the first day of General Conference, but this year we couldn't wait, it was too nice).  It was warm and windy, perfect kite flying weather.  The boys got some really great kites from Josh's company for Christmas and we were so excited to use them! 

 Hunter's was so easy to get up in the air.  It really is a fun kite.  I was running around trying to get the kites up with all of the neighborhood kids and was wearing a maxi dress, so I am sure it looked funny to have me running up and down the street, but the kites were just so fun.

 Lincoln's kite was a little bit more difficult to get in the air and it had some pretty colossal crashes.  The shape of it, however fun, was just awkward to get in the air.  Lincoln however abandoned us to his friends right about the time we had put it together, so Josh and McKay flew it.

That night we had our first BBQ of the year with some friends in our neighborhood.  We all had been outside the whole day and most of the Nelson family had sunburns. 

 I have to mention that I got a new bike!  It is so much fun and is very cute.  When Josh took me to the bike store to pick it out, they asked me some specifications of what I was looking for and I just said it had to be cute.  I was hoping for a beach cruiser, but the more I found out about them, the more I was convinced that I would be left in the dust on family bike rides, especially when pulling our bike trailer with McKay in it.  So i got a hybrid of a road bike and mountain bike and it is still cute (black with a bit of pink). 

 We went on a family bike ride for our Friday Night Activity and I had so much fun.  Josh was teaching the boys all of the hand signals to that cars know what you were doing.  It was so cute to see their little arms signaling to turn right.  We all had so much fun and I have high hopes for lots of family bike rides this summer.

 Sunday Josh took some pictures for my Creamy blog (are you a follower yet? :) and while we were out there McKay kept saying "picture!"  It was so cute!  I love that he still likes to have his picture taken.   He is seriously in the most adorable stage right now.  He loves to tell me where his eyes, nose and mouth are, and we have even moved onto eyebrows!  He is always telling me what certain animals say and it just melts me every time.  He is so cute!  He loves to sing "AB" with me (that is the ABC song) and even is learning his colors.  For a while he would tell me everything was "pink".  Oh my goodness I am head over heels for this little boy (although his habit of throwing toilet paper in the sink and turning on the water isn't my favorite...)

Hunter is pretty good to let me take pictures too, the other boys disappear when the camera gets pulled out :)

So far we are loving the warmer weather, and it is fun to see our neighbors again!  We have all been hibernating for the winter!

St. Patrick's Day 2012

St. Patrick's Day is such a fun holiday and our family always looks forward to it.  Last year we built individual traps, but this year we stayed up watching "Darby O'gill and the Little People," (which totally freaked the kids out by the way...) and didn't havea too much time for our trap.  We talked the kids into doing one as a family and ended up with this laundry basket ditty.  Oh well, it totally satisfied them. 

We always put out the kids shoes for the leprechauns to fill with candy, which is really funny because I think this idea came form St. Nicholas' Day, but it is fun anyway. 

Lincoln wrote a cute note to the leprechauns about how he wanted to be their friend.  It was so cute.  They wrote him a little not back. It is interesting to note that our kids are really skeptical of Santa, but thus far have not questioned the reality of leprechauns at all.

In the morning the trap was sprung, but we did not get a leprechaun, which the boys were totally disappointed about and told me all of the flaws of our trap so we could do better next year. 

But they were excited about the treats and the notes that the leprechaun wrote to them. 

Palmer had brought home a penny from school that looked like gold.  He thought the trap would definitely trick the leprechaun...it didn't and the leprechaun gave back the penny with a "nice try" on a paper. 

We gave the boys St. Patrick's Day shirt so they didn't get pinched.  Dad however didn't wear green and he got some pinching throughout the day.  We headed up to Logan to a going away party for my nephew Alex and visited Josh's cute grandma.  It was a fun day and we loved seeing Josh's side of the family.  I didn't bring my camera, so no pictures. 

When we got home we had our traditional dinner of Irish Stew, Irish Soda bread (that is SO SO good) and Kristen brought guacamole (from Cafe Rio!) and some fun shamrock pies for dessert.

These were so cute and good.  Kristen and I have been celebrating St. Patrick's Day together since Palmer was one.

After dinner we did a little 4 leaf clover craft that he boys loved. McKaydiscovered his love of coloring. He colored for about 45 minutes and has colored for hours since. I have never had a child color for long periods of time when they were this young (coloring on walls doesn't count)

It was a full and fun St. Patrick's Day!

Lincoln's Report-Seattle

 Lincoln had an assignment to do a report on anything he wanted.  He decided to do it on Seattle since we were going there. I think the trip was extra fun for Lincoln since he knew that he was going to do a report on it.  He worked so hard on his report and made a great poster for it.  McKay always loves to go visit Lincoln's classroom because his teacher has a little bucket of cars that he can play with. 

 Josh was such a cute daddy to come and listen to Lincoln's report.  He has been crazy busy at work and still took a little time to come.  It meant a lot to Lincoln.  Josh was even the poster holder. 

 Lincoln also got to use his teacher's microphone.  That was a fun thing for him too.

 This was the cute poster Lincoln had made.  I let him use my Cricket for the letters and he had the idea to make an ocean on the bottom.  He painted the water with sparkley blue paint and then put stickers of fish and shells on it. 

 I was so proud of him!

when he was done, Josh took us to dinner to celebrate at Red Robin!  It was a fun day.

National Pi Day and a Caucus Experience

 I knew it was National Pi Day last Thursday and I have celebrated it in the past, but I wasn't really planning on doing anything this year. It was a fun surprise when my cute Josh bought us a pie from Marie Calendars to celebrate. 

 Can I tell you it was positively SHAMEFUL how excited I was when each of my boys either left the table early without finishing most of their pie (I am not proud, I totally eat their leftovers if they are good...) or proclaimed they didn't really like pie.  I really really like pie.

 And I ate the last two pieces the next day for lunch, because you can't really save one piece can you??

 So here is my caucus story (sorry for those of you who read my other blog...it is kind of repetitive).  Josh and I decided the year had come for us to go to our local caucus and become grownups by participating in the whole process...doesn't that just feel very grown up to caucus?  Despite the fact that I got my degree in Political Science, I have never caucused before...is that what it is called?  That just feels weird.  Well, we went and the line was wrapped around the building.  It was a mad house!

 We had to move to a new room and it was all very interesting to me.  Well, there were some heated things being voted on and as chill as I went into the process, I started getting more and more worked up over things.  Josh was the initial one that was passionate and I guess I just took on the cause. 

 I don't want to go into details, because it would be very long and boring, but my passionate nature (that has overall lay dormant for a few years), got the best of me and I think I ended the last vote of the meeting with the shout of "Ya Brinkerhoff" (someone who had just been voted in as a delegate) followed by a big "wahoo".  Josh grabbed me by the hand a pulled me out of there.  We laughed about it all the way to the car and figured that I was the first person ever to cheer on a state delegate like that.  What a nerd I am!

Well, it is one for the grand kids I guess.  And National Pi day was awesome.  There ya go.

Palmer Amazingly Memorizes and Recites The Gettysburg Address

Palmer's 2nd grade class gave a presentation called "Heroes".  Palmer was asked by his teacher to memorize the Gettysburg Address.  He worked on it faithfully for a month and a half and this was his performance in front of the 2nd grade class and all their parents.  Emily and I (this is Josh) were so proud of him for how hard he worked at it and the amazing job he did.  Total parent payoff moment. (Be sure to watch Palmer's face once he finishes - priceless)

Flour Footsteps

Our sweet little McKay had a hay day in the flour the other day...

It is never good to find flour footsteps.

They led to this little present.

But we had to laugh as he had a flour unibrow as a result of his mess.  He really gives us a run for our money lately.  His favorite activity is to take toilet paper/paper towels and throw them in the sink and turn the water on.  We have gone through about 10 rolls of toilet paper in the last 2 weeks.  Good thing he is cute!