Birthday Run-down!

Since the  only Nelson birthday I managed to post about last year was Max turning four, I thought I'd give a run-down of the rest of the birthdays in 2011!  Please keep in mind that I am not a very good cake decorator.  I do my best and so far the kids don't seem to notice my shortcomings.  Once they do, we'll be going with the bakery cakes!  Here goes nothing...

Happy 6th Birthday Ruby!  Her poor princess castle cake drooped considerably before we were able to eat it!  We almost had cake before dinner that night! 

Ruby's 6 year old gifts were all about bugs.  She played with her bug net,  and critter cage all summer long.  Now the net is mostly used as a hat/mask by Cornelia! Ha!

And then, Cornelia turned ONE!  We totally forgot to take a picture until after we had gobbled up half of her pineapple cake.  It was SOOOOO good!

I'm pretty sure that Cornelia agreed!  She is our little family clown.  As I was going through photos there were probably a dozen with her making goofy faces with her spoon!  

On my birthday, we spent the day outside.  Cornelia played in the water, while Jared and the kids started the playset project!

Ruby, Maxwell, and Jared hard at work.

For Jared's birthday, cousin Kristin Babcock made some amazing cookies.  I decided not to bother with cake once I knew these beauties were on the way!

Instead we splurged with banana splits and cookies!  Yum! 

The kids sure grew and changed a lot between May 2nd and November 14th (especially Cornelia!).  I hope you enjoyed our skip down memory lane as much as I did!

Happy 4th Birthday, Maxwell!

It's a little bit hard to believe that four years have passed since that long ago Thursday in Denmark when Isabelle Schmidt drove Jared and I to the hospital in Hellerup for Maxwell to be born. He was a stubborn little guy, just as cozy as could be in my belly-- all ten and a half pounds of him! When he barreled his way into the world his Daddy and I were struck with his beauty and by the wonder of his Creator-- we still are! Here are a few pics from his day.

Thank you, God, for our sweet boy. He is a blessing and a pleasure! We love him more each day and we are so thankful for the work you are doing in his little heart. We love you, Jesus!

Five and Fabulous!

Miss Ruby turned FIVE yesterday!! We have been so busy celebrating birthdays around here that I just haven't had a spare moment to do a blog post. Here are a few shots and memories from our weekend!

The fun actually began on Saturday when we had a joint birthday party for Ruby and Maxwell with several of their good friends. I don't have any photos of the party, just videos, which I may share later in the week. A fun time was had by all with games (Pin the Fish on the Hook and Magnetic Fishing), two pinatas (that were apparently reinforced for all-star hitters!), dirt pie complete with gummy worms, and oodles of presents. I think the parents even had a good time-- I know Jared and I did anyway!

On Sunday, we woke up bright and early to open gifts before church. One of Ruby's favorite gifts were her "fake fingernails"! Here she is checking them out! She realized pretty quick that while they are pretty they are far from practical.

After church, we headed out to Ruby's choice for lunch-- Cracker Barrel, of course! She cannot resist the shopping experience... Mommy even found a few good buys out on the porch sale-- 70% off, yeah!! We squeezed in a little bit of car shopping (still no luck) before heading home to frost her birthday cake and make ice cream cone cupcakes for preschool today. The combination of America's Funniest Home Videos and birthday cake made for a pretty fabulous evening!

Today, Ruby celebrated for the third day in a row with a party at school! She had a great time and told me that her smile was SO BIG the whole time they were singing to her.

You're pretty fabulous, Ruby! We love you more every day and couldn't be more thankful that God blessed our family with you! You are a smart and sweet girl. Beautiful as can be. A wonderful big sister and friend. I can't wait to see what wild and wonderful things God has in plan for you in the coming year!

Happy 3rd Birthday, Maxwell!

We had a wonderful day yesterday celebrating Max's 3rd birthday. It's hard to believe that three years have passed so quickly-- remember this post? It was a long wait for Maxwell to arrive (11 days past his April Fools Day due date!), but it was worth it! Here are a few photos from our day...
This is at about 7am-- both kids were dressed and ready to tear into the birthday loot! So, while I hurriedly prepared some banana pancakes, scrambled eggs, and bacon for the birthday boy, they got going with the festivities! Ruby was a pretty insistent "helper", but Max didn't seem to mind. In fact, he spent the whole day wishing others a "Happy Birthday!" even though he was the birthday boy!

Max posing with some of his birthday presents and attempting to show that he's three-- two fingers and a thumb! Apparently we should have worked on that a bit before the big day!

While Ruby was at school Max and I hit the bike trail with some of our friends. This was Max's first time riding his bike on the trail (I usually push him in the stroller) and he had a great time. I was shocked at how fast he was and how long his energy lasted-- probably a good 2 miles!

After Max's favorite dinner: corndogs, edamame, baked beans, and fruit salad, we lit up his rocket ship cake. You'll have to take my word for it that that's what it is since it looks a bit non-descript in this photo! Nevertheless, with the peachy cake inside and white chocolate frosting outside it was yummy and we all enjoyed it.

We love you more every day, Maxwell, and thank God daily for the blessing you are to our family! We can't wait to see what the new year brings you!

Happy 4th Birthday, Ruby!!

We had the pleasure of celebrating Ruby's 4th birthday with our good friends, the Danfords, at their home in Charlotte for the weekend! Here are a very few pictures from our weekend together.

We left home early enough to make it to Carter's T-Ball game Saturday morning. The kids enjoyed watching Carter when he was up to bat and ran around in the grass the rest of the time.It was amusing watching all those little 4/5 year old boys play their little hearts out!

After the ball game we headed out to a family fun park for a pizza lunch and lots of fun with rides, games, bumper boats, mini golf, and go karts. The only down side is that the place was really pricey--especially considering how understaffed it was!

Max's favorite rides were the airplane and the choo choo train--big surprise! He was pretty bummed out that he wasn't big enough for the go karts.

Carter and Ruby posing with her princess cake. That cake was a 5 layer pain in my behind, but it finally came together okay in the end and Ruby was thrilled.

We were able to walk around downtown a bit after church on Sunday. The kids looked so sharp in their Sunday best we had to attempt an annoying (to them) photo session. Max was totally unimpressed, as you can see!

Our big four year old impresses us everyday with her huge vocabulary, her caring, and her inquisitiveness. Ruby is an amazing little girl and we thank God every day for blessing our family with her.

Happy Birthday, Sweetie! We love you!

Happy Easter and Happy Birthday!

Happy Easter from the Nelsons!  We are having a wonderful Easter weekend and thought we'd let you in on some of the cheer.  Enjoy!

I think you get the message!  This was after egg hunt #2-- at our house this time (the first was Saturday at a neighbor's house).  Let's just be clear that we have enough sugar in our house right now (and in the kids' systems) to keep sugar junkies happy for a good long time.

Max and Ruby and actually went shopping together for all of his gifts.  It wasn't a pretty trip, but we got 'er done.  It really baffled me, though, that Max seemed to have totally forgotted about his new bike.  I have a feeling we won't be so lucky next year!

I could not stop laughing because Ruby and I were singing in totally different keys and she just would not give it up.  She's adamently off key at times, but we still love her to pieces.  Aww and admiration for the racetrack cake should be directed to Jared.  Without his insistance Max would have had a store bought cake this year.  Mama's tired.