My Boys

I have to say I think I have the cutest boys in the whole world! Everything is going well with our new addition. Scott was able to get two and a half weeks off, so he won't go back to work for another week. It has been great having him home. Hopefully I can figure out being a mother of two before he heads back. Anyway, here are some more pictures of Cade.

Brotherly love

Nathan just loves his new little brother. When he came to the hospital to see him he immediately pointed to me and Caden and said, "Baby?" He climbed up next to me and I asked him if he wanted to give him a kiss. Without hesitating he leaned over and kissed him. It has been like that since. The first thing he did when we got home was get his blanket and doggies and pile Caden high. I think Caden has officially been accepted into the family.

Caden James birth

He's finally here! After a very long 38 weeks, Caden finally decided to make his entrance into the world. My mom and I joke that I was actually in labor for six weeks. But, to make it shorter we will just start at 4:30am on 7-11-07. I woke up with really painful cramping contractions. At 5:30am they had been coming about every 6 minutes so I told Scott he wasn't going to work. At 6am we called my mom and made plans to meet at the hospital at 7am. My brother, David came and took Nathan back home where Jonny and him watched Nathan all day so my mom was able to be with us during the delivery. I had had some false labor before so when they checked me the first time and said I was at 4 centimeters, we were thrilled. I immediately asked for my epidural, and just like hospitals, it took them two hours to actually get the orders and get it for me. I love epidurals!!! I was 5 centimeters when they gave it to me. The epidural was very light and I was still able to feel and move my legs and I could feel Caden move through the birth canal all without much pain. Anyway, it only took me an hour and a half after the epidural to complete dilating to a ten. I pushed for a short 40 minutes and at 12:38pm Caden James was born! He didn't cry, only made these little puppy noises. He is so cute. I am sooo glad not to be prego anymore! Anyway, we got home last night, and yes, there was discussion about naming him Slurpee. We are all doing well, and are excited to start living our lives getting to know each other.

So, everything is going pretty well. Thanks to all of you for your concern and support. I've been bad about writing everyone back, but I really appreciate your notes. Dr. Cerney took me off bed rest on Wednesday this past week. I was so excited. It didn't take me long to realize that after being on bed rest for three weeks, gaining five pounds and just being 35 weeks along, my stamina was shot. So now I am struggling to get some momentum back and not stay in bed all day. I do about one chore a day, maybe next week it will be two!

Scott and Nathan have been so good about it all. I think Nathan would have preferred to continue to go to other people's homes to play. Now he is stuck back at home with boring ol' mom. Scott has endured lots of frozen dinners and left overs and hasn't complained... too much, anyway. His schedule at work was just changed to 7:30am to 4:30pm. He was working 9am to 6pm which only gave us a little time in the morning and then a little time in the evening. His new schedule is so nice. I love having him home in the evenings!

This is Nathan's latest thing, everything goes on the head!

Hospital

Just a cute pic of Nathan playing with the hose.

So, I haven't been able to post for a couple of weeks due to some prego complications. On May 29th I called my mom after having two hours of uncomfortable soreness in my abdomen. The doctors told me to come right in, so my mom picked me up and after dropping Nathan off at a friends, checked in at the hospital. The "soreness" turned out to be contractions. In my defense I have only ever had pitocin induced contractions, and these were much more mild, but still uncomfortable. I was 32 weeks along at the time. I had contractions for 12 hours, that got to two minutes or less apart before they finally started me on magnesium to stop them. They gave me the two steroid shots to help the baby's lungs develop and kept me on the mag for 12 hours. Let me tell ya, magnesium is horrible stuff! I know there are worse side affects, but it made me unbelievably hot for the 12 hours they had me hooked up. So, anyway, they let me go home on Thursday afternoon, not completely on bed rest, but I wasn't allowed to lift anything, take stairs, exercise, or do any housework (poor Scott!).

Friday I started getting a headache. I didn't think much of it until it became a full on migraine (which I have never had). At two in the morning on Saturday I told Scott to find someone to watch Nathan. I couldn't think of anything but getting to the hospital, where I knew they had to have some kind of relief. We got to the hospital at four am where I promptly started vomiting and found I had a fever. Fortunately the medical staff were able to give me medicine that knocked me out and for the next 24 hours I was essentially dead to the world. During that time I continued to have high fevers that did not leave with the migraine. It took them until Monday evening to get the fever to stay down, and they never figured out what was causing it. Tuesday afternoon they sent me home on full bed rest where I have been for the past week.

My doctor told me after I had the steroid shots that she would only stop labor for 48 hours to let it get to the baby and start maturing his lungs. So, the next time I go into labor I will have a baby. I am 34 weeks tomorrow, and my first goal is to make it two more weeks. I hate being on bed rest, and am not very good at it. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) my body reminds me with contractions. Last night was the first time since the hospital that I had a long set of close contractions (5 hours, every 5-10mins). So, today I know I will take it easy.

Anyway, if anyone has some good tips on surviving bed rest let me know.

Easy Recipes

A couple of weeks ago Scott's 1993 Isuzu Rodeo died completely (the engine block cracked). So, having just bought a house, the last thing our already stretched budget needed was another car payment. We were a one car family for our first two years of marriage, but this will be the first time with kids in the picture. At least I am stuck at home in a house, right? Anyway, so I have decided to try and be a better stay at home mom/wife.
I am not a very competent cook, and I have a limited number of recipes that I feel comfortable making. Besides the fact that I hate being in a hot kitchen over a hot stove. I am totally a casserole person. Mix it, throw it in the oven and no need for side dishes. Unfortunately my hubby is not a big fan of casseroles, so I have taken to watching the food network channel. Rachel Ray is a bit overly bubbly, but her 30 minute meals show is amazing! I actually tried making one of her complete dinners (cooking five things at once) I ended up adding the wrong ingredients to the wrong pots, and burning two things. Scott, being the wonderfully patient and loving husband he is, raved over it and has even asked me when I will make it next. Anyway, I was talking to another friend and telling her my story and we decided to swap a couple of recipes. She gave me this amazingly simple, mouth watering recipe, and I just can't keep it to myself. So, here it is, and I hope everyone enjoys it!
Crockpot BBQ Chicken
Boneless Skinless Chicken Thighs (as many as will feed your crew)
A bottle of Hot'n'Spicy BBQ Sauce (we love HEB's Texas Bold, but I know you can only get it locally)
Enough water to just cover the chicken in the crockpot
Add chicken, water and half the bottle of BBQ sauce to crockpot and cook on low for 5-6 hours. After it is done the chicken will just fall apart, my friend adds the rest of the BBQ sauce, but I didn't. I used the juice from the crockpot as a very liquity gravy. I also made mashed potatoes, corn, and rolls. The left over chicken is great for sandwiches as well. My mouth is watering just writing about it. I hope you love it as much as we did!

Toddler Fun

Nathan is such a funny kid. He is starting to get so independent. He loves to go to his room and try and put his clothes on by himself. He is also fascinated with shoes. He actually gets his sandals on sometimes. So, the other day he started doing the opposite. He has been able to get his pants off for a while, but last week he figured out how to get his diaper off. I am so proud he is learning, but why can't he just learn the good stuff?!

Words

So Nathan is really starting to talk. He is copying words and sometimes even sentences, or at least he tries. He is also remembering words after saying them only a of couple times. It is so fun. So, three of his latest words are shirt, clock, and fork. We are trying so hard to get him to say them correctly, but those L's and R's are just hard. Anyway, I always do a double take when he says one of them and have to hide as I laugh. I can't imagine what the nursery teachers think of us as parents!

Nathan's Birthday

That's right, Nathan turned the big 2. Unfortunately he has been acting like it for a few months already :) . We decided not to do anything big since we had just moved and were planning a BBQ for the next weekend with a bunch of our friends from Leon Valley Ward. I say we, but Scott usually just goes along with whatever I plan. Anyway, WE decided to invite two friends for Nathan since he was turning two. I don't know if we'll do that for every birthday, but it worked out great this time. We also had my mom and dad and brothers over. Scott grilled for us, and I got a Cars cake for Nathan. We also had a fun little photo shoot with Isabella, Bradley and Nathan. All in all it was a nice, low key little party.

Some things Nathan says:
No, Bye-Bye, Duck, Doggy, Stuck, Shoe, Foot, Head, Nose, Neck, Eye, Mama, Dada, Clock, Cuckoo-cuckoo, Quack-quack, Ruff, Oink, Cars, Flower, Night-night, Banana, Cracker, Ice (he loves ice!), Water, Poo-poo, Outside, Upstairs, Downstairs

I haven't been very good about singing to Nathan, mostly because of my own embarrassment. But one day while he was in the bath I started singing him the ABC song. He loved it and hasn't stopped singing since. He will be playing on his own and just start making up his own tune and words. I love it!

Blogging

So, I am very much a follower, and this seems to be the newest trend. I just couldn't be left behind. I love looking at my friend's blogs and see how they are all doing in life, so maybe, just maybe, someone will enjoy hearing about our little and growing family.

I will start with a little history of how this Nelson family came to be. Scott and I met in the single's ward in San Antonio, Texas, February 2002. Scott was on his mission when his parents moved from Phoenix, AZ where they had lived for about 10 years to Colorado. They were only in CO for a month after Scott came home when they moved again to San Antonio. Scott tagged along and moved with them.

It was the summer between my Sophomore and Junior year when my dad was transfered to San Antonio. He has been in the military for almost 30 years now, and this was yet another move. Except, I had found some of my closest friends I would ever have in San Diego, and it was the hardest move I have ever had to make. I did not do well in my last two years of high school, and after what I like to call my "stint of stupidness" that lasted until January of 2002 I found myself attending the singles ward.

Scott and I were actually introduced by his exgirlfriend, Katie, who a week after we met became my roommate. We had a two bed/two bath apartment with four girls. Katie and Scott had only broken up the month before, and had dated exclusively for four months (a lifetime for LDS singles), Ashley was Scott's next youngest sister, and Valerie decided she wanted to marry Scott within a couple of weeks of moving in together. I remember Ashley and Valerie dancing around the apartment singing, "Your going to be my sister-in-law, your going to be my sister-in-law."

About a month after moving in and attending the singles ward Scott left a message on my voice mail asking me out on a date for the next Saturday (he asked a week in advance!). I consulted my roommates, and they all said it was fine with them, which later we found out was not.

Scott took me to dinner at a little hole in the wall Italian place, that I hardly remember, I was so nervous. After that we went to his parents house where we met his good friend Ben Rohrer and his date Kathy Christensen (that's a funny story I will have to tell later). We played capture the flag- laser tag, Scott and I lost because we were too busy chatting and walking to look for the flag. After that we had Apple Cider and Hot chocolate and played games and Ping Pong until 4 in the morning. One of the games I remember was Compatibility. Scott and I won.

So I have to explain about my enrapture with Scott. He was way out of my league. Here I was this misguided struggling young 19 year old who was just trying to pick up the pieces of her life, and Scott was this steady, stable return missionary who was strong in the gospel, well liked, and not too mention gorgeous, and the pick of the ward. I had never expected him to ask me out on a date, or for us to have so much fun and click so immediately and completely. But we did, and I was hooked. The day after our first date I started praying about him as a potential husband. It wasn't long before I knew that I could marry him.

Anyway, so back to our whirlwind dates. I have never been a patient person, so I made the next move on Monday, two days after our first date. I asked him to go on a picnic with me and a friend, it was scheduled for the next day. We picked up Rudy's BBQ and went to Fredrick's Wilderness park where we hiked a mile loop and ate our lunch. It was my first Rudy's experience, and by far the best. The food is still good, but never as good as it was that day.

Over the next week and a half we were together everyday. We watched movies and went bike riding, star gazing and just sitting around getting to know each other. He kissed me for the first time eleven days after our first date, but I have to admit I pushed the issue and made sure he couldn't resist me.

Scott proposed on April 30th, 2002. He blindfolded me and took me to Fredrick's Wilderness park where we hoped the fence because it was closed and had mint chocolate chip ice cream by candle light. He explained to me how he had asked and received his answer and got down on one knee and proposed. I sat on his knee, which was shaking, and hugged and kissed him and said yes. I actually knew it was coming because I picked out my ring the day before. The ring was 49.95. He was shocked, but I knew he didn't have any money, and I didn't need anything fancy, just him. Later after talking about that evening, I mentioned his knee shaking and he said it was because rocks were digging into it with me sitting on him. I still think he was just making that part up.

Anyway, we were married in the Houston Temple on August 9, 2002 at 2pm. The next day was Saturday and we had a reception at his parents beautiful home. And that was just the beginning.