Calvin Charles Nelson

Our newest little one was born last friday, December 18th at 8:00am. He weighed 8lbs. 5 oz and 20 3/4 inches long. I waited to blog until we had named him, which took some time. In fact, we gave him one name and realized we were still referring to him as 'the baby', so spent a couple more days deciding. We had Calvin here at home and he was born underwater in a special birthing tub. It was a neat experience. For me much better than the hospital to be in the comforting environment of my own room with wonderful midwives assisting. Active labor started about 4:00 am and then 4 hours later he was born.

I was very happy to be finally holding my sweet little guy after going past my due date. It was all worth it to have him in my arms. Ü

And Kirt was a great labor coach. But, it took its toll on him as hours after the birth here he is taken a little rest time with his new son.

Taft and Brigham were the first of the siblings to meet their new brother. Taft said: "He's as cute as a puppy, but with not fur". Briggy just 'lubs him' and asks to pet him on the head all the time.

Elaine is a great big sister and can't hold her little brother enough. She was at school when he was born, but came right in to see him when she got home.

Dallin also was at school, but when he got home he peeked in the room to make sure it was a boy and not a girl and then took off to a friends house. (I guess, just making sure his life was unchanged) Later, though he was eager to hold him and get aquainted.

This was taken later, but Brigham is so sweet and loves to give Calvin kisses.

Right now, Mom is just enjoying spending time with little Calvin and getting used to a newborn around and recovering from delivery. Also, I am very thankful Kirt's parents are in town helping entertain the other kids and help around the house. I don't know how I'll do it all when they leave. But, it is a great blessing to have this new little one finally in our family. Ü

Happy Halloween

We had a fun Halloween this year. Even Kirt enjoyed dressing up with the kids to go trick-or-treating. They definitely raked in the loot as they went out twice. Our ward had a trunk-or-treat on thursday where they filled thier buckets. And then we gathered with some friends and neighbors to have chili and watch a movie on the garage while the Mom's chatted and passed out candy and the Dads took the kids around the neighborhood. As you can see or maybe not quite tell, Taft was a ghost,--he is not a fan of dressing up, but was told if he didn't pick something he was not collecting candy; obviously the sweet tooth won over his stubborness. Dallin was Capt. Jack Sparrow, Elaine was Alice in Wonderland, and Brigham was superman. Birggy's costume was just his p.j.'s, but they have a cool cape and then afterwards we put him right to bed :)

p.s. I am not pictured here as I think a photo of me 8 months pregnant is scarier than any costume I saw this Halloween Ü

Back to School

A couple of weeks ago the Dallin and Elaine headed off back to school. Dallin is in 4th grade this year and Elaine is in 2nd. They were both excited for the 1st day back as I think they were getting a bit bored with summer (too hot!). Dallin is going to a charter school which he is enjoying. A bit more challenging curriculum, which Mom and Dad like. Elaine is still on the waiting list to get in so is going to the local elementary, but has a great teacher and many friends in her class this year.

After walking Elaine to school Brigham and Taft and I headed over to the park so they could have a special 1st day, too. Taft is in preschool this year, which he attends twice a week. 6 of us Moms take turns teaching and hosting. Taft just loves it! He (and I) needed something to keep his active mind and body busy Ü

San Clemente Vacation

Beach Fun We spent last week soaking up some sun on the beach in San Clemente, CA. This was our second year going with friends from Arizona(pictured below) and it was such a blast! We spent hours on the beach. The kids had a great time with friends and various activities as you'll see . . .

Taft absolutely loved jumping the waves. I wish I could post all the pics I took with his varying faces as it was fun to watch him so enjoying himself. Playing with the seaweed and . . .

. . .digging were other favorite pastimes. Elaine and Taft spent hours digging up sand crabs and just filling buckets with water and sand. I think at one count Elaine had 24 sand crabs and her friend Eleanor an additional 25.

Elaine is buried up to her neck here in the sand with some other of our friends' kids. It was a funny site to see these heads lined up along the beach. Dave was quite speedy at it and I think only took about 2 minutes to bury a child. It took quite a bit longer to wash all the sand off Ü

Briggy wasn't the biggest fan of the sand and surf. This was the only time he actually ventured off the mats to get his toes wet. He spent a lot of time just napping under the umbrella. Maybe next year we'll get him on the boogie board.

And Boogie Boarding was Dallin's new favorite experience this year. He did quite well and enjoyed it until he started swallowing too much water.

Elaine and Dallin had fun in the surf with Daddy. Kirt spent quite a bit of time playing on the boogie board. I even ventured out a couple of times with my bulging belly--a little trickier, but not impossible and such fun!

It wouldn't be a day at the beach without a sandcastle. The kids didn't do this alone. Aaron Kahle was the main architect, but they all enjoyed 'helping' in some small way. We really had a fun group of kids and adults to play with on this trip.

Camping

And here they all are. We had six families, Us, Watts, Fishbecks, Petersens, Guffeys, and Wilkes(Lori-sister) with 24 kids total. We camped and played together for a week and all got a long with little drama. (We even had some other families from our ward who we hung out with on the beach, but camped at a neighboring campsite.) It was nice to have such neat friends to hang out with--thanks for planning it all Lori!

Here is a shot of our tent trailer, Brigham is at the door. It was definitely a nice upgrade from a tent. And another shot of our mini-tent city we created with all the families. We could see the ocean from our campground (and I even saw a skunk one night--eew). It was great getting the kids to bed and then chatting with the adults around the campfire. Not to mention some yummy dutch oven cobblers and s'mores enjoyed around that campfire, too.

Whale Watching Trip

We took a day with just our family to see some sites other than the beach. We went Whale/Dolphin watching on a boat out to sea for a few hours. It was an exciting little adventure.

We got very close with the dolphins. 'Schools' of them would just swim and splash around the boat, if the railing wasn't so high we could've petted them.

Here's some shots of the multitude of them just swimming around. It was neat to see the baby dolphins swim next to their moms underwater. Unfortunately, we didn't see any whales this trip.

At times the boat got going pretty fast making things quite choppy. All the boys ended up inside with a bit of seasickness. Elaine seemed unaffected and just loved watching the dolphins play.

Going Home

All good things must come to an end. Here we are all packed up and ready to head home. The drive was a bit longer towing a trailer and then made even longer as 50 miles from home we got stuck in a dust storm for over an hour. There was zero visibility at times. I had to wash off everything on the trailer when we returned. But, yes it was worth it for all the good times we had, not to mention cooler temps Ü Looking forward to going again next year!

Catchin' Up!

Now that I am no longer nauseated and exhausted all day long, I figured its time to catch up a bit on my blog. ((Plus, I will post tomorrow about our recent vacation to San Clemente). The following is only a small sampling of some of our family's activities over these past months-enjoy!

Happy 4th!--Bioshpere Adventure

We toured the Bioshpere near Tuscon for a little activity on the 4th. It is quite an exhibit. For those not familiar, scientists lived in this enclosed space for 2 years providing own air and food, etc. There's varying environments inside from rainforest to desert. It is now a research facility for ASU.

Afterwards, a couple of Kirt's friends from High School (Matt Kikuchi and Matt Hymas) and their families came over for a BBQ and swim and then we went to check out some fireworks. It was all sort of a last minute get together which turned out to be a great time.

Happy 9th Birthday Dallin! On June 11th we celebrated Dallin's 9th birthday. Where does the time go?! He is one terrific Dallin :) I really love his smile and relaxed attitude. He is very protective of his younger siblings--when he's not the one wrestling them to the ground. He likes riding his bike and scooter, creating lego scenes, candy, and reading. He has a 'fun' sense of humor that his friends, if not always his parents, enjoy.

We do parties everyother year and he had a big swim party last year so this was supposed to be a no friend party year. But, we let the kids have 1 friend over for dinner or something. Well, Dallin is quite social and we live on a street with a lot of 9 year old boys he plays with so it was hard to pick just one. So, I somewhat relented and we invited the neighbor kids over to have some ice cream sundaes to celebrate Dallin's special day.

Later we had a family party. Which consisted of us going to eat at Sweet Tomatos and then watching Dallin open a few presents. He is big into Legos this year and was excited in this picture to get the Indiana Jones Lego Star Wars wii game. It was a fun 'low key' b-day. And we were happy to see Dallin enjoy himself on his special day! We love him lots!!!

Happy Easter I have to get one nice Easter picture each year. I promised the kids if they would smile and not whine about the sun I'd only take one--so here it is.

In their baskets this year the bunny brought them all new balls with some other goodies. We also enjoyed an egg hunt with flashlights the night before at the park by our house with some families from our ward and neighborhood. Dallin found the 'gold' egg and earned a special prize,too. We ended the day by having the missionaries join us for dinner. It was a great Easter weekend.

Never Say Never!

I think I used that title for a post on becoming a Soccer Mom. I think I've learned my lesson and am going to delete the word 'never' from my vocabulary in discussing plans for my life. I recently joked with friends that I would love for the stork to just drop off a baby, I wouldn't say no to that. But, I could Never see myself pregnant again--mmmhmmm!!! I should've kept my mouth shut Ü

Seriously, I had started giving some baby items away. I walk by this picture of my four kiddos every morning and have thought--'They're great!--I am so Content with my little family". I've been taking some online classes--you know moving on with life. I've been working out at 5 am with a great group of girls and getting in my best shape ever--Go P90X! So, really a baby was not on my mind.

I was in denial for about a month. I have 21 day cycles with an occasional 28 day thrown in, so to be off a bit, no cause for concern. And then I just figured because I've been working out things are a bit off, etc. And then I took an over the counter pregnancy test and later thought--'Well, it was a cheap one, it could be wrong". And then a couple weeks ago the fatigue and nausea started--can't think of any other reason for that-aagh!

Really, I am very excited about a new little baby--boy or girl, it'll be great!! I'm still on the emotional roller coaster of ''How exciting" and Holy crap what have I got myself into?!" Tenative due date between December 9th and 14th. So, there you go, now all family, friends, and neighbors can know at the same time (or at least have the opportunity of doing so). This is the first Kirt and I have said a word about it to anyone. Yes, he's excited, but a bit shell shocked, too.

Spring Break Fun!

Wind Caves Hike Grandma and Grandpa Nelson came to visit us over Spring Break a couple weeks ago. One of our first excursions was a 3 mile hike up to the Wind Caves. The caves are almost to the top of the mountain behind us.

Here we are a little over an hour later at the top! And yes, it was windy, but felt nice to be cool after working up a sweat hiking in the sun.

We enjoyed the scenic views and fun little nooks along the way up and back down . Taft was a trooper and hiked unassisted all but the last 10 minutes. He stumbled a few times over the rocks on parts of the less blazed trail, but didn't complain and just got back up. We are looking forward to doing some more hiking as a family. It was a really fun day Ü

Tempe Town Lake

On another sunny spring break day we spent the afternoon at Tempe Town Lake. Kirt took Dallin and Elaine out on a paddle boat--although he did most of the paddling Ü Taft and Briggy played by the fountains.

Thanks for coming to play with us Grandma&Grandpa!

Happy 7th Birthday Elaine!

We are in birthday mode around here lately and just celebrated Elaine turning 7! She is pictured here with her new Build-a-Bear friend she bought with some birthday money. The outfit the bear is wearing is actually one Elaine used to wear as a baby--it's fun to see how she's grown Ü

Of course, her siblings were happy to share this special day with her. Well, Brigham just woke from a nap so is a bit less than enthusiastic here.

They were even more excited to see what presents Elaine recieved!

(Brigham still reigning in that enthusiasm here).

A special part of the day was when Grandma and Grandpa Nelson came to visit from Utah just in time for the party!

And we topped off the evening with some strawberry angel food parfaits. Not planned, but when Mommy's angel food cake came out of the oven only 2 inches tall we improvised Ü

Elaine is such a wonderful part of our family. She has such a lively personality and I love to hear her giggle. She has a bit of tomboy in her and loves to climb trees, dig in the sand and ride her bike. On the flip side she has her girly days where she's all pink and playing with ponies and Pet shop-she Loves animals. Elaine's a lot of fun and I'm so glad she's our little girl!

Happy Birthday Elaine Eve!!!