Airplane Ride

My dad has always loved airplanes. He used to fly them, and at one time wanted to become a pilot, but after his mission, he decided on a different career that required lots of time in an airplane, but as the passenger instead of the pilot.

He also never had any boys, but that didn't stop him from passing on his love for boyish things. When my sisters and I were little, as part of our going to bed routine, the last thing we always wanted was for dad to give us an airplane ride into our beds. There was a specific order and routine that HAD to be followed in order to be able to take off, and while we would try to be very serious during the first part, we usually would start laughing and my dad would start over. I think he knew that sometimes we would laugh just so we would HAVE to start over and the fun could last just that little bit longer. I have tried to remember how it all goes so that I could either teach Tanner or do it with the kids, but have never been able to remember it quite right (do you twist the nose after you say CONTACT? or after you say CLEAR THE PROP?). When we were in Charlotte, I asked my dad if he would give Clark 'the proper' airplane ride. I of course had to film it, and it was great. My dad laughed so hard because Clark actually flapped his wings after take off, and my dad said that no one had ever done that before. While it is a small and simple tradition, it is one that I have always particularly cherished, and I just love that Papa now has boys to do it with too!!!

Clark's 3rd Birthday!

Clark's birthday was the day after Thanksgiving this year, so we actually got to two 3 days of celebrating in a row with Brianna's birthday on the 26th, Thanksgiving, and then Clark's. I had been practicing with Clark leading up to his birthday that when people ask him how old he is, he would soon be able to say 3 instead of 2. It took him a little while to get used to the idea, but I think he is good now. Tanner and I took off at one point to go pick up cupcakes for Clark since they are his favorite treats at the moment. When we got to the grocery store, I was hoping they would have cupcakes with some kind of decoration on them, but the best thing there was actually an Oreo cupcake cake, which was pretty awesome, but no decoration. We asked at the bakery if they had any Cars decoration that they could do, and they felt very bad because they had just sent their cake decorator home for the day. I mean, how many people was cakes decorated the day after Thanksgiving right? So, instead they gave us the Lightening McQueen car and the other fun fixings that the cake decorator would use and said we could just have them for free if we were fine to do the decorating ourselves. We thought it was great! We went home and I decorated the cupcake cake, and Clark loved it. Clark got a rocket ship and a bowling set from Tanner and I, a Cars puzzle, winter accessories including Lightening McQueen rain boots from Grammy and Grandpa, a John Deere tractor from Nana and Papa, and games from the Seguines. In fact, of all the awesome gifts he received, I think he liked the free Lightening McQueen car that was on the cake the best. Classic. I can't believe my little boy is 3. He still has his 'moments' and his 'days', but he is so fun, energetic, and yet so caring. My favorite thing he does right now is whenever he hears a loud noise (i.e. me banging pans around in the kitchen getting ready for dinner), Clark yells to me "MOM, ARE YOU OKAY?" I love my big boy! Happy Birthday Clark!

Turkey Day

I woke up on Thanksgiving kind of in my pre-school mode. It was Thursday after all, so I gathered all the kids up on the third floor and they each designed their own head of feathers. They were all so cute, and I made ones for Bella, Clark, and Andrew as well. Jonah insisted he use the one he made in school which was also very cute. Dinner was awesome...and Dan really is The Man in the kitchen...along with my Mom doing the rolls (even though I was sad I wasn't assigned to them this year) and Tricia with all of the fixings. Our family does a tradition where we go around the table and tell our BAG's for the year (Blessing, Accomplishment, and a Goal for the next year). Here was mine:

Blessing: Living so close to family in Florida and having really good friends here in the D.C. area.

Accomplishment: Staying relatively sane through the craziness that was Andrew's birth, Tanner's subsequent back surgery two weeks later, and moving back to Virginia 3 weeks after that.

Goal: Be more patient and do more fun things with my kids!

My two little turkeys

Pre-Turkey Fun...Or Not

For Thanksgiving this year, we decided to head down to Charlotte, NC, to my sister Tricia's house. Even though I had just been down there visiting with "the sisters", I was excited to head back there with my family. We headed out Tuesday night after Tanner got off of work, and we encountered some holiday traffic that put us back about an hour, but all in all it was a good trip down with the boys. We woke up Wednesday and we went and played tennis together...and of course the Nielson family DOMINATED! :-) However, Clark was pretty cranky while playing with his cousins. When he woke up from his nap that afternoon, he was BURNING hot. We took his temperature and it was 103 degrees. Yikers. So since it was Thanksgiving Eve, we decided not to chance things getting worse rather than possibly taking him to the ER on Thanksgiving to join the others who would be there with burns from deep frying their turkey's to just regular severed fingers from electric knives.
So...off we went. Tanner actually got to join me with Clark for his first kid trip to Urgent Care. It was pretty amusing for me as Tanner filled out the paperwork...wrong...and had to go up and ask for another page (he filled out the paperwork for himself rather than for Clark). He also thought we were there a REALLY long time. I think the quote was "What is taking so long?" While I was thinking it wasn't so bad. I've had worse that's for sure. But frankly, I just decided that instead of making too much fun of Tanner's first Urgent Care experience, I was just glad to have him there as company, but that doesn't stop me from blogging about it afterwards!!!
Anyway, it turns out, Clark had a double ear infection. Sweet. Antiobiotics for him, and we were home in under two hours. That evening I didn't feel that great, just achy, but that didn't stop me from staying up until all hours playing games with the fam. The next day I trudged through Thanksgiving, and then Friday was pretty bad even though it was Clark's birthday and I kinda had to suck it up. My throat was killing me, and I decided after hardly sleeping for 2 nights to go back to Urgent Care first thing on Saturday. The nurse AND the doctor both literally GASPED when they looked in my throat. I got a strep test done, but it came back negative. The doctor decided it was either a false negative or I had tonsilitis or something so she put me on a Z-pack. It seemed to help me a lot the first day, but in the end, I think it was something viral that I got from Andrew because did I mention that I was at the doctor with HIM on the very Tuesday that we left for Charlotte? They didn't put him on anything, but the doctor had said his throat was pretty nasty looking. So anyway...it seems like we have had sickness after sickness after sickness this season, but I am hopeful December will be good to us since we should be immune to everything by now!!! We still had a blast at Tricia's despite it all...more on that next.

Marshmallow Night

We are enjoying our 'for real' wood fireplace, and we decided one night we needed to roast some marshmallows from the comfort of our very own living room. Clark was very excited until he saw that the outside of the marshmallows turn brown and kinda crunchy. He wasn't a huge fan, until we crammed one down his throat and then he converted! After the three of us were full of marshmallows, we were getting Clark ready for bed, and didn't notice sly little Andrew. All of the sudden, I looked over at him standing next to the couch, and his cheeks were HUGE and some white dribble was coming out of his mouth. He had found the marshmallow bag on the couch and helped himself. It will suffice to say that he IS a fan.

Tuckered Clark: Part 2

So...remember this?

Well, this is again what happens when Clark doesn't get his afternoon nap in.  

We rallied him again for dinner, but then he just pushed it out in front of him and did this instead.

Autumn in Virginia

It has been wonderful living in Virginia this year and seeing all of the beautiful seasonal changes take place.  While Florida will always have a special place in my heart, I think I prefer living where there are seasons.  It makes me feel like things are changing around me so it helps me not get stuck into a same old routine day after day after day.  I love that I get to look out my front window and see the adorable white church across the street and look out my back window and see the beautiful color changes in the forest behind our house.  I love that we are visited by a family of deer in our yard frequently, and I love that our neighbors next door own two horses that are in a fenced pasture right next to our house.  I love that I feel like I live out in the country and then can get on the metro down the street or drive in my car and be in downtown DC in 25 minutes.  It is the best of both worlds.  My friend Allison took pictures of my boys a few weeks ago when the leaves were at their peak, and I just love them.  With the weather and wind from this last week, the last of the leaves are falling off the trees and the highs are not getting above the 30s this week.  Winter feels right around the corner, if not already here.  As I was picking Clark up at our friend's house today, it started to snow...for about 30 minutes, and then it was gone.  Change is in the air.