What a Saint!

So, I just wanted to tell everyone how amazing my friend Lyssa is. Lyssa and I go to church together and we are visiting teaching companions in our ward.

(FYI for my non-Mormon readers out there- a ward is basically a relatively small and local group of members of about 300 to 400 people which have been divided into a congregation from out of out of the total membership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints which has about 13+ million members total. Also, if you don't know what exactly visiting teaching is, it is a divine system set up among the women in our church to watch over and take care of each other. The men have a program too called Home Teaching. With visiting teaching the women are set up in pairs and are then assigned and organized to "visit" two, three or four other women in the ward. It is set up in such a way that all the women in the ward who want to be visiting teachers can be but even if there are those who are not visiting teachers themselves, they still have their own visiting teachers who are there for them. At least monthly, the visiting teachers go to their homes and visit with them and share an uplifting message and basically make sure they are doing OK and see if there is anything they can do to help them out in anyway at anytime. And then they keep in touch throughout the month is case anything new comes up. Some of my greatest friendships at church have come because of visiting teaching and I know what a brilliant and inspired program it is.) Hope all that made sense. Sorry, this posting has a lot of "Mormonese." I'll try to avoid that in the future.

So, anyways, getting back to my original point... Lyssa and I visiting teach Ati, Katrina and Maelynn. Lyssa, being a good visiting teacher and a good friend, knew that Maelynn's anniversary was coming up this month- it was earlier this week in fact. She also knew that Maelynn needed some R&R alone with her hubby without the kids so they could unwind from the day to day craziness of life. Note, Maelynn has five kids under the age of 7 including twin two year old boys. Needless to say, her life can be hectic. So, while Lyssa was praying one day about a month ago, she felt inspired by the Spirit to offer to babysit Maelynn's kids for 4 days over her anniversary. Of course Maelynn was way excited and accepted her offer. Now, if that doesn't seem amazing enough, Lyssa has three little kids of her own. Can you imagine 8 little kids under 7?!? Good thing Lyssa's house is much bigger than mine because there is no way I could attempt that in my tiny house. I guess most people would think Lyssa is completely insane but I think she is awesome.

Now, if that doesn't all seem crazy enough, just three weeks ago Maelynn was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Sad, SAD, SAD! I am sure you will find me blogging about that a lot in the future since I find myself profoundly effected by the whole situation... And yet, as seemingly tragic as the circumstances are, I think it is wonderful to know that even before any of the people in this story knew just how badly Maelynn needed this help, God was mindful of her situation and inspired Lyssa to help her out in such an extraordinary way. I also know that as wonderful as Lyssa is and as much work as it was to watch over all those little kids, it was truly God's work that she was doing. Therefore from at least the time she received the inspiration to do it to at least the time it was over, she was also empowered and enabled to accomplish all that needed to be done. It's not like God would ask her to do something and then abandon her in her time of need. I know that most often that is how God accomplishes His work- through people doing things for other people. What a blessing it is for ordinary people to be trusted and entrusted with God's work, to be empowered to accomplish things they never thought they could. Pretty cool if you ask me. I know that to many people out there, such things may just seem like a coincidence or just a nice story but to me it was a simple example of how deeply God loves each of us and how despite the difficulties of life, He is always there to provide His tender mercies so the hard parts of life don't consume us. I think that if we are paying attention, we will see that God is completely involved in each of our lives and that He is always pouring out His blessings, whether we notice or not.

Dog Days of Summer

My kids LOVE my parent's dog Cutter. And he is such a good dog. He lets them climb all over him and couldn't care less. Every once in a while we get to babysit Cutter when my parents go out of town. Here they are last week when my parents went to California to scatter my Grandma Donna's ashes.

Look at our Garden Grow

My wonderful hubby Kole is so handy. He made me these beautiful planter boxes for Mother's Day. I am so proud of him. Now that I know he is a good builder I will have lots of new projects for him to do. He's psyched! This is the first year we have done any kind of garden and we are way too excited about every little thing that grows. We planted watermelon, strawberries, bell peppers, jalapenos, peas, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes and regular tomatoes. I took a picture of my tomatoes because I am so happy they are growing. I definitely do not have a green thumb and I thought our veggies would die just like all my house plants. We have already gotten some strawberries but we ate them before we got around to taking any pictures.

Jack loves to help daddy do guy stuff so if Kole is working in the garden Jack wants to be with him. Sometimes I find him covered in dirt from head to toe after he has decided to do his own gardening without daddy. After viewing the destruction I'm surprised we even have any plants left.

Rainy Days = Painful Play

It's been rainy almost every day for the last two weeks which means we have been trapped inside pretty much everyday lately so we all have been going stir crazy. The kids have been bouncing off the walls and furniture (literally). The proof is stamped all over Jack's head. Three bumps just this week. First he decided to challenge the TV stand, then he dove off the coffee table face first onto the stone floor and then he had a run in with the car door. He's 0 for 3. And then just yesterday, as were were all struggling to get out the door to take Eve to preschool, I see Jack drinking from the bottle of kid's cold medicine. I have no idea how he got to it since it was way up on the microwave and had the lid on. Anyways, I was totally panicked and I had to call poison control. But good news, he's fine... probably because most of it ended up everywhere but in him- all over the cupboards, the floor, the carpet, his clothes, even the back of his head. Strange. The kid is always up to something. Family members are beginning to take bets on when he'll get his first set of stitches. Once again I would like to remind all my readers, we are not neglectful or abusive parents.

Here is a picture of me and Eve snuggling on the couch. Definitely not the best picture of me but oh well. We are lucky to get any kind of picture where all people involved are looking at the camera. Smiling in sync is only a far out fantasy in our family pictures. In fact, we have yet to get a descent family pic of all of us together. My mom always says trying to get good shots of my kids together is "like herding cats." I can get them looking cute by themselves, sometimes. But there are way too many variables involved: is it close to nap time? or snack time? is there anything else the kids would rather be doing? has one of the kids done anything to disturb the other or even looked at the other one wrong in the last hour? If the answer to any of these questions happens to be "yes" then pics are a no go. So, I'm sure you will see that this is true as you look over my postings.

Nothing to fear but fear itself

Jack vs the dinosaur. Watch to see who wins.



OK, so right now you are probably thinking "Poor kid. What mean parents." Yea, he has a rough life. So tortured... who knew a kids meal toy could be so scary. Of course being the mean parents we are, we keep the toy around just to keep Jack in line. It is amazing how obedient he gets after a dinosaur encounter- that is after he is done cowering behind my legs. What can I say, we still think it's funny. I wonder if he'll have issues when he grows up. Hmmm. Maybe his fear stems from the fact that Eve's new favorite movie is Jurassic Park. I know, yet another reason to call us terrible. She kept begging to watch the "dinosaur movie" after she saw parts of it on TV. I thought by really showing her the movie, she would get scared and want to turn it off. But no, she loves it. I used to like that movie but like every other movie phase she has gone through, this is yet another movie that is now ruined for me for life.

OK, time to get back to being the oh so great mom I am.

Nothing new. Just some pics

My first day as a blogger

OK, this is my first day blogging. I am a total novice and we will all just have to see how this all goes in the future... but after numerous pleadings from friends and family to get on the bandwagon and start a blog, I finally broke down. And so now here I am. Our internet is unbareably slow but hopefully that will not cause issues with my future entries and picture posts. Of course, our life is so totally ordinary, I don't know why anyone would want to read about it and yet here you are reading along to whatever I want to say. I'm sure you will understand that my hubby Kole will be doing very little of the blogging so everyone involved will just have to deal with my side of the story.

So, let me tell you about us. We are Kole and Kristy Nielsen. We live in a "happy" little valley, in a common town, in a tiny house right near a university. And we love our life together- average and ordinary as it may be. We have been friends since we met in highschool nearly 12 years ago, have been blissfully in love for at least 9 years and happily married for almost 7 years (this August 29th). We have two cute, wonderful and amazing kids who are absolutely adored by everyone in the family. Eve is 3 and just started preschool and Jack is 1 and definitely keeps me on my toes. Both are the only grandchildren on both sides of the family- and both sets of grandparents live near by. I would say my kids are definitely spoiled- but not rotten, just ripe.

I thoroughly enjoy my work which is possibly the most important job in the world.... I am a mom. I stay at home which keeps me pretty busy and often just teetering on the brink of insanity. Perhaps it is the constant circle of things that it seems like nothing is ever done. In fact I am sure those who enter my house may assume I do nothing all day. But it is so not true! Despite the fact that I live with two little category five tornadoes, I still love what I do. And though I have many other passions and hobbies (which I am sure you will find out about in the future) I am very much content to spend my days with two of my greatest priorities. Kole, my wonderful and handsome hubby works very hard for us so I don't have to.

And so I suppose that is all that is important to know for now. Tune in again next time to read about the latest events and mayhem in the Nielsen family.