True Blue through and through...

My best friend Cassie gave us this adorable BYU football jersey before Tanner was born. (She knew the importance of starting them young!) We took a bunch of pictures of Tanner wearing it when he was little, but I realized the other day we hadn't taken any pictures of Landon in it yet. Sooo, here's my two little future Cougars(or else! Just kidding...kind of)...

I guess Tanner's destined to play football...

...and Landon's gonna be a b-baller. Ha! Really those were just the props we had around at the time of each picture. We may choose the school they go to, but they can choose their own sports! (As long as it's soccer!)

Weird that Tanner used to be this little. How time flies!

Landon's definitely a little heartbreaker!

And their pictures are going to look great in the clearance frames I found for $1.98 at Target yesterday...

And of course they'll hang next to the "Cougar" sign that's already hanging in their room...

Yep, now you can all rest easy knowing that we're raising our kids right! ;)

Tanner's Chore Chart

Tanner's actually been super excited to get a chore chart, so we talked about some things we should put on there and I put this together for him...

I just printed out some pictures of the things he needs to do and the things he can help with around the house since he can't read yet. Then I stuck it in a frame so he can check off each chore with a dry erase marker throughout the day. The next day we wipe it off and start over again!

It's amazing what a little chart, and the chance to check things off with a marker will do for a kids motivation to help out around here! ;)

Corner House Blog

My Sis-in-Law has a really awesome craft blog that she recently started, and the other day one of her posts was dedicated to Mr. Spit-up himself...Tanner! This month is all things baby and there's some pretty great stuff! So what are you waiting for? Go check it out!

Landon's secret talent...

The other day at lunch Landon was a wee bit tired. He fell asleep eating his food but he managed to keep eating in his sleep! Every time I went to pick him up out of his high chair his little arm would reach out and grab more food with his eyes still closed! Tanner and I got a good laugh out of it...

See his little hand still out looking for food!?

What a cutie!

Eating in his sleep! And he was SERIOUSLY asleep. As in he stayed asleep as I talked loudly to Dean on the phone while picking him up out of his high chair and then carried him to his bed and he NEVER woke up!

And of course Tanner didn't want to be left out so we had to snap a picture of him eating lunch too. Got to love a good PB&J!

Dean's Baby

No, it's not me! I wish I could compete with his new favorite thing! ;) But I think I've taken a back seat to his new toy.....the IPAD! He's been drooling over it since it came out and has been trying to convince me of all the reasons he "NEEDS" one. Well, when the new version came out the original Ipads went on sale, and he got a refurbished one on top of that, so he got it for quite a good deal. Since he's working on his masters he gets a LOT of use out of it, but we tease him a lot because he's rarely without it. He even takes it to the grocery store or the home improvement store. He is seriously attached! This is what he ALWAYS looks like these days...

My Favorite Boys...

I realize this is a bit of a picture overload, but we had a fun little photo session the other day when the weather was nice. I've been wanting some cute CURRENT pictures to hang in the boys room and although neither of them wanted to cooperate to much we got a few decent shots...

Landon wouldn't give me much of a smile because he was too scared of the grass! Ha! You should have seen his face when he first touched it! Priceless!

And Tanner's far better at running away or throwing grass at me than standing still and smiling for the camera!

I LOVE that top left picture because it shows how much Landon adores Tanner. Now if we could only get Tanner to feel the same way! ;) Really though, now that Landon's more interactive, they are starting to play more together which is SO fun to watch!

And we squeezed in a walk with Dad when he got home! Time with him is few and far between these days, so we relish the time we do get. Can't wait till he's done with his Master's and we can see a little more of him!

And we'll throw in a picture with Mom for good measure! We are getting SO excited for nicer weather! Since we took these pictures we got a small dusting of snow and it's been chilly again. Ug!

Flowers

This weekend I told Tanner how his cousin Hyrum gives his Mom flowers all the time. In fact, he even braved a bumble bee for them. Tanner apparently took this to heart because ever since I've been getting flowers with a big, "I love you Mom! Here's a flower for your hair!" Here's the two he gave me today...And speaking of flowers, the flowers we planted in Nursery Sunday are already starting to sprout! Tanner actually picked me one of these today too! Ha! What a sweetheart! ;)

"Jesus made seeds for me!"

On Sunday our nursery lesson was on "Jesus Christ Created the World for Me." One of the activities the manual suggested was that we could help the kids plant some kind of seeds and emphasize that Jesus made the seeds, the rain, the sunshine, and everything those seeds need to grow. I'll admit I'm a sucker for cute little handouts or object lessons so I jumped on it. I found little pots at the dollar store 4/$1.00 and a box of wild flower seeds for, you guessed it, a $1.00 too! ;) So I enlisted my own little nursery boy to help, and we made these on Saturday...

Pots all filled with dirt just waiting for some little flower seeds.

Tanner helped pour out the seeds...now we're just praying they actually sprout and grow.

And of course they need a little water.

And some cute packaging is a must! ;)

Tanner was the CUTEST when we started the lesson. He was SO excited to show the other kids how to plant the flowers and be my little helper. The kids LOVED it and hopefully their flower pots all made it home safely and will be sprouting soon!

The Cat Door

Our house came with a cat door in the door at the top of the stairs. Dean had to screw it shut so that Landon didn't climb through and fall down the stairs, but this is what I always find when I come back from doing laundry or grabbing something downstairs....
Ultimately we plan on replacing the door, but for now this sure brightens my day to be greeted by these funny boys! ;)

Called to Serve...

Well we may be across the country, but that didn't stop us from participating in a very big moment for the future Elder Kevin Hugh Hilton on Tuesday night. We were able to watch via Skype as he opened his mission call too..................Kiev, Ukraine!!! He'll be speaking Russian and will be entering the MTC the end of June. We couldn't be more excited for him. He's gonna be AWESOME!

And a few little stinkers even got out of bed to join in on the excitement!

And just to prove we were a part of it...

See the ity-bity Nelson clan down there in the corner of the screen?? Ha! Congrats Kevin! We sure love you!

Happy St. Patty's!

Well we had a few little leprechauns that stopped by our place last night, cause this morning we woke up to this....

They left a few footprints around the house and then they must have dropped a few gold coins on their way out as well! (Don't mind Tanner's bed head...lets face it, it's not much worse than his usual hair anyway. This kid's got hair issues! But we love him anyway!)

They dyed our milk green too, which wasn't nearly as big a hit as I thought it would be. There may have even been a little meltdown when a certain 3 year old refused to eat his cereal with green milk on it. Oh well, you win some you lose some right!? Maybe we'll tell the Easter Bunny that these kids don't really like to celebrate holidays. ;)

And then tonight we finished the celebrations up with this tasty treat...

A giant green cupcake with green sprinkles on top! Aren't we festive!? Ha! Some of us more than others. Dean didn't even bother to wear green, but don't worry Tanner took care of it and gave him a big pinch!

Our 5th Anniversary...

Well today it's been 5 whole years since this wonderful day...

Of course the temple was amazing!

And then at our luncheon we laughed until we cried. So many people came to support us and said so many kind (and apparently funny!) things about us. We'll never forget it.

We topped off the night with an equally perfect reception...except that we didn't eat near enough cheesecake or wedding cake!

And now five years later we've moved across the country, bought our first house, and have two, adorable, little boys. I think it's definitely been worth the hard times and the ups and downs. I'm still madly in love with Dean and I'm still just as excited to spend eternity with him! Happy Anniversary Babe!

A moment of spontaneity...

So my bathroom looked a little bit like this....
But it was totally worth it because now I look like this....
On a whim today I decided to hack off my hair. I didn't know for sure if I could pull this off on my own head, but it turned out amazing! I seriously LOVE it! I've had it cut like this before but I paid someone to do it. This time I think it looks every bit as good, and I saved my self nearly $40!! Here's a few shots of the sides and back too. And I guess I should give Dean a little credit. It was pretty difficult to cut the back of my hair, as you can imagine, so he helped cut the A-line in back and then I added the layers and stacking...

It feels so good and it will be the perfect new do for Spring!

For those of you who don't live near me or see me that often this is what I looked like before...

I'd say I chopped a good 4-5, maybe even 6 inches off!

I'm in love...

After HOURS and HOURS of work putting them together (when you have three years of blog to turn into a book, and deadlines to meet, it get's a bit much) we finally got our Blog Books on Saturday and I absolutely LOVE them! Seriously, they are worth EVERY penny and EVERY minute we spent putting them together. And when I say "we" I mean "me" cause lets face it, Dean's not exactly a big contributor to our blog. Anyway, I ordered them through Blurb.com and I actually got some awesome Groupon deals back at Christmas time that made them really economical too. I was really pleased with Blurb's services. They have the option of just "slurping" your blog into a book automatically or allowing you to completely customize things yourself as well. I went the harder route and basically built the whole book myself, but I think they turned out nicer and now that we're caught up it should be much more manageable in the future. I was able to print multiple copies of each year so the boys can have their own copy too and I think I've just found my perfect replacement for scrap booking. So now I will blog a little differently with our blog book in mind and it should be an awesome way to keep a record of our lives. Oh and Blurb's customer service was great too. I contacted them more than once and they responded quickly and answered all of my questions! Anyway, I'm really not being paid to say all this, but I loved working through Blurb.com and I LOVE our books even more...

And we kinda feel like celebrities having whole books dedicated to us! Ha!

Notice how I put '08 and then wrote out 2009 and 2010. I'm trying really hard to not let that bother me too much! ;)