Welcome to 2014

So -- yeah, I was meaning to start blogging faithfully at the beginning of the year.  It's still February right?  So -- just a few pics to get this up to date . . .

Oh -- I should probably mentioned we moved to Liberty, MO last November:)  Bryan accepted a new Worship Arts Pastor position at Pleasant Valley Baptist Church and overall the transition has gone very, very well.  We're super excited to see what God has in store for us here!

So, we've had lots of snow this year -- like the rest of the midwest:)  We recently had four snow days off from school and it was all good until we found out our new school system doesn't schedule any "freebies" into the school calendar.  Bummer.  It will probably feel like we're in school until July.   So, some of the "keep us busy" activities . . .

Sugar cookies . . .I must say Joshua is becoming my right hand man in the kitchen.  Super helpful!

 Kayla working on her next teaching lesson:)

Venturing into the world of counted cross stitch -- those $1.00 kits from JoAnne's came in handy:)

Putting together a puzzle that Bryan had growing up.  Kayla is definitely our most determined puzzle putter-together:)

Some friends from Topeka treated us to Lego Land with some free tickets they had acquired -- and it was a blast!  Fun to experience lego land, and fun to interact with them again.

Tyler and I testing the "earthquake table!"

That's a lot of big legos!

I thought the giraffe was cool -- the kids...not so much:)

The master builder -- well, it was nice while it lasted!

Who are those super cool kids?  Waiting for the 4D movie to start!  Thanks Blaire and Hunter for the refreshing time together -- it was great!

This was the first year we had THREE kids getting Valentines ready for preschool/school . . .and yes, this is where mama gets out the tissues:)

 It takes the 3rd grader CONSIDERABLY less time to write out the names than the preschooler!

One of our snow days, we made Valentines for family members -- and Kayla was the official labeler.  

Our Valentines Boxes -- Tyler made his at preschool, Kayla had a penguin box, and Joshua made a Monopoly box.  And once again, all of these were constructed during snow days:)

Happy Valentines Meal!

Kayla's crazy hair for Spirit Week!

So, the story for this winter has been SICKNESS for the Nelson's!  Joshua had a really bad asthma flare up due to respiratory junk, and it took LOTS of meds, and LOTS of time, and LOTS of "no recess/basketball/PE weeks" to recover.  I don't have a pic of him on the nebulizer but it has been Joshua's faithful companion the last several months.  

In the middle of all of that, Tyler was diagnosed with pneumonia -- but at least we didn't have to fight him on the nebulizer because he had seen Joshua using it a ton.  Our house rule . . . when you are getting breathing treatments, you get to play the DS, so Tyler REALLY didn't mind it:)  Thankfully, one round of antibiodics took care of that. 

This is Joshua's peak-flow meter.  When he blows into it, it measures how much air his lungs are able to push out -- high numbers mean that the lungs are working well; low numbers mean we have issues to address.  Well, up until this January, he has NEVER been above 250 . . . even when he was "healthy" last summer and honestly, I questioned the allergist here in KC when he said we should be hitting 300. Well, after working with him and really getting on top of this stuff, he ACTUALLY HIT 300 last week . . . we had a PAR-TAY around these parts!  It makes me wonder if he has been really "blah" for a long, long time and we didn't even realize it.  Regardless, we are praying that we don't another flare up this winter.

 We signed up for J and K to play Upward basketball through our church here -- and so far, it has been a good experience.  Joshua had to sit out the first four games, so I only have pics of Kayla so far.

 She takes her guarding very seriously -- watch out if Kayla is matched up with you!

There "might" have been a height difference????

More pics to come . . . but this is a start!