Joshua is 3 now! Our big boy had a fabulous birthday! Thanks to Bethany for hosting an awesome party us! She made a yummy dinner and decorated for our big 3 year old. Joshua was so excited all day! He wore his super cool "cake hat" that he has had for a few months.

We had a train cake that Joshua loved! He got lots of trains, chocolate, and gum for his birthday...everything he asked for! (He even got a train carrying chocolate...yippee!!)
Happy Birthday, Joshua! We sure do love you!

We had about a weeks worth of hot weather and the kids made full use of it with their new swimming pool, (we have to get a new one every year, thanks to our friendly raccoon!!) water toys, and popsicles.
Aaron put the super lens on the camera and was able to take pictures of Larkin from really far away without her knowing it. This is my favorite picture ever! I LOVE her eyes, and concentration it really takes to eat her tasty treat!
Uh oh, she spied Daddy here!

Okay. I'm a slacker. Like you didn't already know that. I have had lots of requests for an update on my blog. In my defense, I tried to do some posts yesterday...I have lots of pictures and fun stories to share, but all my pictures are not in jpg format and I forgot how to change them. (Read...Aaron if you want posts anytime soon, please just fix them for me, because like earlier stated, I'm a slacker!)
Here is what has been happening at the Nielsen house as of late. (Trust me, you wouldn't want pictures of this anyway!) My sis in law, Bethany and I drove all 6 of our kidlets down to Cali to visit Grandma and Grandpa Nielsen. We had lots of fun by the pool! But the real excitement was our 11 hour journey home. It all started the night before with Arwen throwing up all over me and the universe. She was sick in the morning right before we left. I grabbed 6 gallon sized ziplocs just in case. Well, long story short, good thing I did. Not only that, but we had to stop and buy more baggies. 4 of the 6 kids in the car vomitted numerous times! We caught it all!! Well...except for stinking Larkin. The naughty girl just didn't tell me she was going to be sick! Bethany and I made it home and were sick for the better part of a week, but we made it home! It was definitley the most memorable car trip I have ever been on!!

Now the kids are finally off their anitbiotics for strep throat, (yup...we figured that out just days after the crazu flu) only to wake up today with sore throats and snotty noses! Gotta love it! We're all good and happy though, just snotty! Hopefully I'll have pictures to post soon!

I'm excited about our garden. We've got peas, carrots, cucumbers (for pickles), corn, tomatoes, and various peppers. We're giving a small garden a try this year and will expand next year to another bed or two.

We let the kids water the garden and they enjoy it. Weeding is a little beyond them right now (luckily there is not much weeding needed yet) as they can't tell a good plant from a weed. We've lost some bleeding heart flowers out front to the helpfulness of the kids while we were weeding. Though we've lost even more flowers out front just because the naughty little kids like to pick them. (by naughty kids, Aaron means just Noah!) The fact that they pick them for their mother usually keeps them out of trouble though. (I'm pretty sure they weren't picked for me...and he did get in trouble...lol!!)

Noah found a stick on a walk a few Sunday's ago and got all excited about an idea of what to do with it. I have this box of electronics junk out in the garage, led's, little motors, capacitors, and so forth, that he loves to play with. His idea for his stick was to put a button on it that would allow him to run super fast. He was very insistent that it must say speed. He was so excited to build it I started on it right away. I'd ask him if it looked like it was going well, and he'd say it was as he
tried not to wiggle out of his chair. He was so anxious to try it he could hardly contain himself. When it was done I handed it to him and he flipped the switch and the light when right out of his little face and he looked up at me with utter disappointment. It didn't work.

It just about broke my heart. I let him watch me use the speed stick a few times acting crazy enough to get him laughing and excited again. He got the idea and speed around the house for the rest of the day. Though I had to tune it now and again because sometimes it was just too fast.

Happy Mothers Day Sarah,

Thanks for being such a great Wife and Mother. I love you and appreciate all you do. The kids do to and will realize it some day.

I tried to document a few minutes in the life of a mother today (with a photo) as I stayed home with sick kids (coughs and gallons of snot). It ended up being just Noah and Joshua in the picture, as Arwen was feeling well enough to go to church, and Larkin was taking a nap. So multiply the wildness by a few more kids. Though to be realistic adding kids probably increases wildness exponentially not additively.

So go figure Noah does spend more time off of the time out chair than on it.

Love,

Aaron

Happy 8th Anniversary, Aaron.
I love you the most!

Happy Springtime!  

I have been working on potty training Joshua for the last month. Don't ask how he's doing...let's just say that he'll hopefully be a pro by the time his birthday rolls around.

 Joshua just told me he had to go pee pee so I told him to go and sit on his potty chair. He then went and played trains instead. I walked in to check on him and saw that he peed his pants. I pulled off his wet clothes and noticed he was wearing his Thomas the Train underpants...his FAVORITES!! I told him it makes Thomas sad when he pee pees on him. He told me, "Uh, I think Thomas pee peed on me." When I brought him a dry pair of Thomas unders he pointed to them and said, "Thomas, don't pee on me and I won't poo poo on you." Fair enough, I guess.

Do you see these eyes? Notice anything different about them?? Look closer...these are my very own, real eyes seeing everything without the aid of glasses or contacts! Amazing!! I got Lasik done a month ago and have been seeing clearly ever since! It was the neatest experience ever! It took under 3 minutes and I was able to see fine right afterwards. By the next day, I was seeing 20/20 all on my own. Cool, huh?