Photo Shoot

The latest photos of our brood. Cuties!!!!

Have you met Miss Amy?

Allow me to introduce you to our son...Miss Amy. You may be wondering, why the feminine nickname? We are too. But I think if we have learned anything over the past five years, it is that there is no explaining how these children's minds work. Anyway, Joshua picked this nickname (I don't know how he even knows the name Amy) and likes to refer to himself this way when the mood strikes him. I'm thinking he doesn't understand that "miss" is a girl because they also have this game they play where Joshua is "Miss Bakery" (because he puts his little snuggy blanket on his head and then splats the "dough" onto the floor. They think it is quite hilarious.).

While we're on the subject of Joshua, he is one pistol of a brother lately. !!!!!! He is the biggest tease! My mom says I was the same way when I was little so I'm sure she's laughing the loudest about this. He is just constantly tormenting Hannah. She came to me the other day upset because Joshua was teasing: Hannah is a recipe! Hannah is a recipe! Is that even an insult? Apparently it is in our house. The other day he took one of Hannah's toys and threw it out the front door -- you can probably tell where this is going -- and when she ran out to get it he shut the door and locked her out! She was traumatized of course (she came in crying, I was worried about you, Mommy!) He has been so naughty at bedtime lately we finally ordered a crib tent to keep him locked up...he stays in bed now, and sometimes goes to sleep...if Hannah happens to be asleep and he's not, he'll scream at her to wake up. It's nigh unto impossible to put the baby down for a nap because as soon as I leave the two of them alone together he starts pestering and she starts screaming and baby wakes up. Over and over and over again. It's a good thing that Miss Amy is so cute because his behavior is driving me up the wall.
We have had a very busy summer since Eli's birth...starting the week after he was born we had a wonderful Crandall family reunion, and blessed Eli at the end of that week (see adorable picture above), went to Disneyland with my family, had a fabulous Nielsen/Wright family reunion (luckily both reunions were here in SD), and I can't even remember what else. Except our series of disasters in between the reunions...we locked the baby in the car at the library, got staples in Hannah's head when she whacked it on the headboard of her bed (see nasty picture below), had a weevil infestation in our food storage, I got an infection, and we started potty-training Joshua for real this time. We have been busy!
And Eli is just the cutest little man. He is a super good, happy, sweet and lovey baby. I am beyond thankful for his wonderful personality. He has been such a smiley little baby ever since he was born and he is just SO CUTE! He sleeps pretty well and is just happy to lie around and watch us when he's awake, and it makes his day when one of the kids stops to talk to him and play with him. Joshua in particular loves to "babysit" him when I am busy, and Hannah has lately taken to helping to change diapers. It's pretty cute.

See what I mean? Mister Cute Dimple-chin. Love this face!!!!!

Introducing "The Latest Model"

We are proud to present this perfect new edition of Nielsen babies! Eli James was born (finally) on June 30 at 5:46 a.m. He arrived just as the sun came up after a very long night! We are absolutely enchanted by this delightful little baby doll. Eli weighed 7 lbs 5 oz and was 20 inches.

He is so cute and good. He has a beautiful round head covered with just enough hair to be super silky, and a cute little man face with a tiny cleft chin. He has been a deep thinker, a good eater and a tremendous smiler! All of our babies have smiled within the first 24 hours of life but he smiles more than anyone. The kids adore their brother and we are all so happy to finally have him OUT! Welcome home, Little Tiny!

Out of the Mouths of Babes

Hannah has said some of the funniest things in her prayers lately that I just have to record (while I am still waiting for other things to post about...). She is so cute and thoughtful and serious about these, I love it.

So here's a list of things she has asked Heavenly Father to bless lately (in her own words):

-people who put gum in their hair

-the Chinese people

-people who are wicked to become righteous

-children to get their body parts unstuck (She got her arm stuck in a toy a few weeks ago and was pretty traumatized when we had to oil it to get it out and then toss the toy)

-our baby to be cool when he grows up

-Joshua to not say "stupid"

-others who are sick or ill or don't have any money that they will get some

-our food (she names what specifically we are eating at the time) and drinks and other stuff that we eat

Oh, the sweet spirits of children!

Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday, Happy Summer!

I would like to say thank you to you all for your advice on membrane stripping! Turns out it's not even an option for me because at 40+ weeks I am still not dilated (well, at a 1), not effaced, and I'm GBS positive so they hesitate to do it anyway. I'm hoping things will kick into gear on their own sometime very soon (tonight would be nice, if someone's taking requests...).

In the meantime, the baby has missed out on sharing Joshua's birthday (19), Seth's birthday (20), and the first day of summer (his actual EDD). So we went ahead and celebrated without him. Joshua decided that he wanted to go to Chuck E Cheese for his birthday this year. He had never been before, but Hannah went for a birthday party last month and came home with star glasses, and he has been dying for some ever since. So we packed up his cute piggy cake and headed down for a very small family party. The kids had a great time and are dying to go back. Seth and I played several rounds of the basketball arcade game, which gave me some really good contractions but also (sadly enough) made my arms so sore I couldn't take my own shirt off for two days afterwards! Pathetic.

What is there to say about Joshua at 3? He is so cute and so extremely smart. He counts like crazy, knows all of his letters and what words start with each letter. He can tell time on a clock with hands (at least the hours and most of the half hours, and can tell when it is approaching the next hour). He absolutely adores his sister and will do anything to get a laugh out of her. I've never heard a barely-3-year-old that could make up jokes and puns as well as he can. He also adores babies and it is so funny to see the almost spiritual experience it is for him to be near a baby or see a picture of a baby -- it definitely brings out the best in him and I'm hoping it holds when ours comes. I love him to pieces and it has been very special to watch him lately and look forward to having another little boy.

So here are some pictures from our lovely weekend. We were fortunate enough to have Seth's mom here for a visit. We were able to go out on some dates while she was here, so we celebrated Seth's birthday that way. I didn't even make him the dessert I've been promising him for a year! Am I a terrible wife or what? It was even his 30th bday, so an important one! I just get too overwhelmed at this time of year -- two birthdays and Father's Day and soon another birthday and then our anniversary coming up on the 28th! I think I will move his birthday to July 20 and make his dessert then. Even though I don't have the strength to celebrate all of his special events separately, I love him and appreciate him so much in all of his roles -- as a wonderful person, father, and husband -- and I'm so glad we have all of these occasions to celebrate together...even if we have to spread them out a little!

A Million Years Later

(This post is a super-mess, sorry about all the random pictures in random places -- I just can't figure this out!) Anyway, here's what we've been up to lately:

Happy Birthday Hannah! We celebrated Hannah's fifth birthday in April. We had a great celebration. I am not big into birthday parties so we went bowling as a family (Tiffany and Robbie came out to join us, which was great fun!) and then we let Hannah invite some friends over to have cake and presents and birthday games. Her favorite movie is Robin Hood so she drew her own version of "Pin the Tail on the Donkey" and had a "Pin the Arrow on the Target" game. Her drawings are so cute. We are so thankful to have Hannah in our family. She is absolutely the sweetest, most sensitive girl ever -- really the greatest kid in the world. So good and helpful and self-entertaining and imaginative and intelligent. She's a cutie. We're all excited to have another baby brother for her to mother in the next few weeks.

Above you can see pictures of Hannah at her birthday. There's also a random picture of me at about 35 weeks pregnant for those of you who asked :) . And the cake is a demonstration of how incompetent I have been in the kitchen lately. It took me two tries to make a simple round cake for hannah's birthday -- from a mix! The first one just totally fell apart, as you can see. I have also blown up potatoes in the oven (it really can happen! and yes, I even remembered to poke them), left the gas burner on on the stove for four hours (we are all still alive, thank goodness) and overcooked almost everything I have tried to make. I am usually a pretty good cook so it has been really frustrating to be such an idiot. One of the many joys of pregnancy :)

We also had great Mother's Day. Seth helped the kids make a little book for me called "We Know Mommy Loves Us Because..." They presented it to me in the morning -- they would each bring over a page along with a pink rose and tell me what the page said until I had a whole book and a whole bouquet. It was the cutest thing ever.

Some friends in our ward threw us a great baby shower -- thanks so much Monica and Marissa! We had a great time and received some very thoughtful and helpful gifts. I always thought by the time you had a third kid you pretty much had everything you would ever need, but I was amazed at how much we had to replace, so the shower was really helpful :)

IMPORTANT: I have one question to ask you experienced mothers out there. Have any of you ever had your membranes stripped to "encourage" the onset of labor? I have been induced twice (breaking water, Pitocin) and I never ever want to do it again. But I hate being pregnant and I really want him to come out...soon...and the midwives have offered to strip my membranes at 38-39 weeks. I would love it but I want to make sure that 1) It's not going to give me pain and cramping before labor even begins, making it hard to use my hypnobirthing and 2)could it accidentally break my water and cause me to have to be induced? I don't know. What do you guys think? Please give me the benefit of your experiences!!!!

On Questions

So, I knew the day would come when Hannah would reach the phase of Questions. I always dreaded it because I am the kind of person who doesn't like to learn things, I just like to know things. When Seth tries to explain things to me (such as how a microwave or computer works), I can't even listen because I just don't care -- as long as it does work I'm happy. Hannah, on the other hand, is always curious about technological things like that, so I think Seth is really happy that he has someone who is sincerely interested in what he does all day at work (even though a lot of it he can't explain because it is classified information).

Anyway, I expected those kids of questions to come along -- aren't they supposed to ask questions like "Why is the sky blue?" or "Where does rain come from?" and "How does this work and how does that work?" But I have to say I am constantly blown away at the things that come out of Hannah's mouth. Here are some of my "favorite" questions lately:

-"What if a butterfly poops on my hand and I eat it?"
-"What does it look like inside my uterus?"
-"What does it look like inside a chicken's mouth?"
-"What if I catch a squirrel and throw it?"

and here's the best one:
-"What if you have your hand on my bum and I toot in your hand?"

I, on the other hand, only have one question to ask: Am I actually expected to answer questions like this???