Thanksgiving and horse back riding...

We had a great time with family on Thursday. The boys were VERY excited to ride Grandma Sandy's horses. Grandpa Dan took Joshua on a long ride (he loved every minute). It was wonderful to see my extended family. We are now looking forward to time with them at Christmas. We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!!

Here are some pictures of our wonderful day...

Elliana and Joshua admiring the horses...

Joshua riding...

Joshua sittingon Grandma Sandy's horse..

Molly and Esie :)

A BIG update...

We had a blast putting up the Christmas tree. The kids LOVE trimming the tree. When we were done Asher said “Can we take the tree down?” I was like “Hugh??” His response to my questioning look was “I want to put it up again.” Here are some pictures of my little ones getting into the Christmas spirit. I just love Asher's smile. He puts his whole body into it!Joshua and Asher both picked out Nascar ornaments this year. This is Joshua with his"24" ornament. (Aaron and his mini me!)

The boys are doing great in school. Everyday Joshua reads from his bible (a section chosen by Sonlight). The cool thing is he doesn’t want to just read those verses. He wants keep going. So each morning he does his required bible reading and then spends time just reading the bible. How awesome is that! I have to say it again; I know I am a broken record but I LOVE homeschooling.

Asher is such a great writer and reader. He is learning about insects this week and is anxiously awaiting the arrival of his ants (for his ant farm).

Elliana is just growing up so fast. I can’t believe that she is running around and talking. Wasn’t I just on bed rest with this little one? She says new words almost everyday. My favorite is of course “mommy”. But I also love it when she says “Yeah!” Joshua told me yesterday that she is the second mommy of the house. He is so right and I just adore that about her. She loves to cook and clean with me. And I have even seen her chasing the boys with diapers in an attempt to change their pants. She is awesome. Here are some pictures of my mini me.. When I vacuum Elliana gets her vacuum out and helps.

Putting grapes in a measuring cup. She is silly but so cute!

I have an awesome recipe to share. All three of my beauties love homemade waffles. So I came up with an extra healthy version. And in my fight against high fructose corn syrup, artificial flavors and colors and last but not least preservatives, these fit the bill perfectly! They are Whole Wheat Waffles! I add in mashed bananas or homemade applesauce and my kids go crazy for them (seriously they ask for them ALL the time).

So here is my homemade waffle recipe with homemade applesauce or bananas…

Whole Wheat Waffles

Ingredients:
2 Cups Whole Wheat flour
½ Teaspoon salt
4 Teaspoons baking powder
2 Tablespoons sugar
2 Eggs
1 ½ Cups warm milk
1/3 Cup butter, melted
2 Teaspoons vanilla
three mashed bananas or about 1 ½ cups homemade applesauce

Mix together flour, salt, baking powder and sugar. In a separate bowl combine eggs, milk, butter and vanilla. Add to the flour mixture, mix well. Add fruit and mix well. Ladle the batter into preheated waffle iron. Cook until golden and crisp. (about three minutes) Note: You can freeze them in Ziploc freezer bags, just pop them in the toaster and they are ready to eat (just like Eggo’s, only healthier!!).

I am off to start the school day at the “Nelson School for Gifted Youngsters”…..

We are healthy!!!

Last Monday our horrible week began. All three kids ended up getting the "throw ups". One right after the other. So I was cleaning up vomit all week (the grossest part of motherhood). But I am very happy to say that we are now all healthy!!! Hopefully we can stay that way until Thanksgiving. The boys are really excited to ride horses at Grandma Sandy's.

Here is a beautiful picture of my sleeping beauty!!

School time !!!

And Elliana is all about helping :) Asher loved having his little visiter. This is a great thing about homeschooling. The kids get to spend so much time together.

Thanksgiving...sort of....

It has been a great weekend! On Saturday we had our own Thanksgiving dinner. This is our favorite part of Thanksgiving. I cook a big turkey and all of our favorite dishes and we pig out as a family (broccoli and cheese casserole, homemade rolls, real mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing and homemade brownies!!). Joshua couldn’t wait to eat “mom’s famous turkey”. He was especially looking forward to the drumstick.
Elliana watched the Wizard of Oz for the first time this weekend. I was blessed to be able to have her sit with me for this “first”. Aaron snapped a picture of the girls.

I accomplished a “first” yesterday. I went for a run thinking I would go my normal distance of 3 or so miles. I ended up running 5 and a half miles!! That is so fun!!!

This morning our awesome weekend officially ended. Elliana started throwing up at about 4:30 am. Should be an interesting day…

How I cope

Yeah my guy lost. So how do I get past through to the next election cycle? Well to be serious I would refer to my prior post here. But it is also fun to pick a new team to follow. So while four years is a long way away, for now Bobby Jindal is my guy. No offense to Sarah Palin, but for a host of reasons I think Bobby would make a better candidate and president. Bobby Jindal 2012!!

Isn't she sweet

I have told her a million times "no feet on the table". But she just grins, puts them both on the table and giggles.....I just adore her!

For Aaron...

...because he hates to rake :)

WOOHOO!!! Time to PARTY!!!

I ran a 5k in June and my time was 36 minutes. This was a good time for me. Today I am jumping up and down for joy because I completed the Jingle Bell Run. It was about 35 degrees outside and as a result it was a hard run. I was so proud when I finished and I was very happy to get in my warm van and head for home. I thought I had finished in about 33 minutes. But I didn’t check my watch for the time when I started so I was not positive about my time. Well, I checked later and I did so much better than I thought I did!! I ran the entire 5 K in 29 minutes and 12 seconds!!! I was number 31 out of 82 for my age group. I beat 51 people!!! WOOOOHOOO!

Family Fun!

The kids love to play in the leaves. Here are some picture of my beauties!!!

The location...

...was Hudson Baptist Church. It is over 150 years old. Now it has about 10 to 20 people in attendance on any given Sunday. One day they will boast that Joshua Nelson had his first recital there.

Piano Recital!!

Joshua did awesome at his recital yesterday. He was VERY excited and a tad nervous. He played "This Old Man". We are very proud him :) Here are some pictures from his big day. Thanks to everyone who could make it. There will be another recital in the spring.

Trick or Treat!!

This morning the boys declared last night the best Halloween ever. And I have to agree it was awesome. The weather was so nice. The kids were able to trick or treat without wearing their winter coats (a first for us!).

Joshua was a hobbit, Asher a character from Star Trek (Q) and Elliana was our fierce lion.

Elliana is a bit under the weather. She has two ear infections and a runny nose. But even with her sickies she was wonderful last night. She walked around in her lion costume and got plenty of oohs and aahs. She was the prettiest lion in town :)

After visiting friends and grandparent's we headed over to Aunt Leah and Uncle Eric's. The boys were very excited to see their cousins.

We ended up trick or treating with them for quite some time. It was a great family event :)

Elliana and Josiah were so cute sitting together!

We now have a gigantic bucket full of candy. I am thinking it will last the kids until next Halloween.

Joshua is extremely excited because today is his first piano recital. He is so ready to put on his suit and play for a big crowd :) Now I just need to finish about 4 dozen cookies for the party after the recital...