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!

Christmas Recapped

We were so blessed last Christmas to spend a week with my family. It was wonderful to have everyone gather together here in North Carolina even if we did have an icy snow storm to cope with instead of the balmy holiday I'd been betting on. But, if there's one thing I've learned this winter, it's don't bet on the weather!

Everyone enjoyed cuddling and playing with little Luana. She's a sweet baby and has the most beautiful eyes and smile! She was a wonderful traveller and did a great job sleeping for the most part. I think she adjusted faster than Mommy and Daddy did!


Sweet Jayden, Christina and Austin's baby, was always dressed to the nines. Who said shopping for baby boys isn't fun! Here he is sleeping through present opening Christmas morning. I think Mommy and Daddy were wishing they could catch a few zzzz's too!

We were so thankful that Ken made it down to spend Christmas with us. The weather didn't looks like it was going to cooperate, but God made a way! Anne was especially thankful to have her Hubby join her after a week spent with the crazy Armstrong sisters.

Kelly, Heidi, Jared, Maxwell, and Ruby... distributing gifts on Christmas morning. Max made a gift train!

The four sisters-- Christina, Heidi, Alyssa, and Bethany. None of us are twins-- just in case you were wondering!

Sisters and our kiddos. Heidi got to hold Ruby for me since I had my hands full with just squirmy Max!

Anne and the girls.

It was hard to say goodbye to Claudio, Alyssa, and Luana. The kids miss their cousins, but we sure do love seeing pictures and videos on Facebook to keep in touch. What a blessing family is!

Disney!

In my long absence from the blogosphere, we've done a few great things-- one of the greatest was a trip to Disney World in February! Here are just a few photos from our adventure. I'll apologize in advance that the photos are starting from the end of the trip--thank you, Blogger, for being difficult as usual!

The fireworks show at the Magic Kingdom was a great way to cap off our trip. Even though it was freezing outside, we really had a super time. It was fun seeing Tinkerbell whiz down from the castle like the frantic fairy she is and the fireworks were wonderful.

Okay, so maybe not everyone was thrilled to be there after the sun went down! Next time I'm going to bring winter parkas-- just in case!

Both Ruby and Maxwell had a great time playing at all the playgrounds. Jared wondered why we had to drive a zillion hours and pay oodles of money to play at the playground areas, but even I was glad to get some respite from the lines every now and again!

Phew! This buggy "ride" was quite a hoot! Max and Ruby weren't terribly thrilled with all the stuff that was sprayed at us over the course of the show, but Mom and Dad were impressed! There is so much variety in the quality of the rides throughout Disney--and this is one of the good ones. We also LOVED the Little Nemo show at Animal Kingdom. I wish we would have had time to see the Lion King show too because we heard it was wonderful. We'll have to save that for next time.

Ruby and Maxwell enjoyed the "zoo" aspect of Animal Kingdom, though Ruby's favorite part were the rides! She went on Everest with her Daddy and also the river rapids ride and thought both were great! Daddy's little daredevil...

Cheesy posin' in front of a waterfall with Susie while Daddy waits in line. Notice, Nana, that Ruby wore her zebra pants to Animal Kingdom--clever, huh?

It's a bird, it's a plane,... no it's my silly hubby posing at Hollywood Studios! We really got a kick out of this park and would have loved to see more if Ruby hadn't gotten sick. Instead we headed back to our condo mid-afternoon and had some much needed rest and Olympics watching. :)

Waiting in line for the Toy Story ride wasn't boring at all! We enjoyed seeing all the supersized toys, a talking Mr. Potato Head, and chatting with fellow line waiters. It's hard to get too grumpy at Disney World!

Our first day, we went to the Magic Kingdom. After arriving at 4am (due to an unforeseen snow storm) Jared and I were absolutely exhausted, but we still managed to spend a few hours at the park. Max's favorite rides were the Dumbo ride and the race cars! While Ruby and Daddy did Space Mountain we enjoyed the transit system in Tomorrowland. Max could have ridden that all day.

All in all, it was a great trip. The kids were great travelers and good sports... for the most part. Next time we hope Nana and Bobo or some of the kids' cousins will be able to enjoy the experience with us. And by next time I mean in five years or so!