Christmas 2008

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

Well, we had a very busy Christmas week. Christmas eve day Krista, Rebecca, Katherine, Leif and Cade baked Christmas cookies. The boys were really getting into decorating the cookies and eating them too! The parties started on Christmas eve when we went to Krista's cousins house in Edina, MN. There were about 40 of us in all, the boys had a lot of fun running around with all the kids. Leif is now known among the family as "the pinball wizard" since he spent about 45 minutes playing a real full size pinball game. He was really racking up the points too! There was so much good food we all came how with stomach aches! Christmas eve night Leif and Cade left out cookies and milk for Santa as well as special Reindeer food out in the snow for all the reindeer. Christmas morning was great fun. Leif came running in our bedroom and yelled out "Merry Christmas, Santa came last night!". He was very excited to go downstairs and rip open presents. Cade, was not much into opening up presents he preferred to just go and play with all his old toys. Although, Cade did open a couple of his own gifts, Leif tore through 90% of them. The boys got trucks, trucks and more trucks...which is just what they wanted! The boys got so much stuff, we may need to get a bigger house (just kidding!).

Later in the afternoon Krista's immediate family came to our house and we opened more presents, Leif was so excited he was opening everyone else's presents too! After Christmas dinner we were all playing board games...which eventually turned into stupid human tricks...did you know that Leif can role his stomach? On 12/27 we had yet another family party to attend, it was a couples wedding shower for Krista's cousin. On 12/28 Leif and Justin went downhill skiing. I think that Leif really liked going down the hill, however he did not like going up the "magic carpet" since he wiped out on it a couple of times. Justin plans to get Leif out skiing at least 2 more times this year.


We are not yet sure what we are doing for New Years Eve this year (even though it is only two days away). We have talked about either going up to the cabin or having some friends over.

Cade is Walking!

Cade has been "cruising" for months. But the other day he started walking! Now, after a couple of weeks, it is his primary mode of transportation. He really likes to practice walking around the kitchen island. He is very proud of himself and is usually giggling the whole time. The other day he had his snack cup, full of crackers, in the living room and would walk over to the porch to see what Dad and Leif where doing and then walk back over to the living and grab another cracker. This process repeated for about 15 minutes. And Cade just thought it was the coolest thing ever. Below is some video from some of the first couple of days of walking...




Leif has been fighting the potty training for about as long as Cade has been "cruising"...months...sometimes it seems like years. But I am happy to announce that he is now potty trained. All it is took was a leap of faith on our part to send him to day care with underwear on one day and pretty much after that he figured it out. It is really nice not having to change that diaper anymore!


The boys really enjoy each other. It is funny because it seems that if they are apart in a situation that they are usually together, you can tell they don't quite know what to do without their brother by their side. Leif is such a loving big brother, when they are at day care even when playing with the bigger kids, he always comes over to check on Cade every 10-15 minutes and give him a hug and kiss and to just make sure Cade is doing alright. Below is a classic picture of how Leif can get a little overzealous with his affection toward Cade.

Happy Halloween

Halloween with a 3 year old can be summed up in 1 word. Fun! A couple of months ago Krista had asked Leif what he wanted to be for Halloween and with no hesitation at all he responded "a tiger". Krista was lucky enough to find a very nice tiger costume for $6 at a local used kids clothing store. Cade, as little brothers always do, got one of his older brothers old costumes...a giraffe. But man did he make that hand-me-down look good! Halloween was a beautiful night, it was 55ºF. Cade only lasted about 5-6 house before he needed to go to bed. Leif on the other hand wanted to keep going and going. Dad and Leif when around the block with a couple of Leif's friends, Madalyn and Harper, and their parents. The other two kids were walking slow and Leif was making a b-line for the each new door...he would ring the doorbell, say trick-or-treat, get his candy before his two friends even got to the door. And after every house he was come back and say "Can we go to another house?". How can you say no to that?

Forgot some pics of Cade

Finally, the teeth are coming in like gangbusters!

Cade likes to go in reverse on the "motorcycle" (no, it's not a big wheel, it's a motorcycle...per Leif anyway).

Will life ever slow down?

Well, obviously I'm not keeping up with this blog as well as I had intended. Life just has a way of intervening! We're all doing well...finally! It's been a rough month of sickness - seems like just about every one in the book. I think we're on the tail end though, that is until the next round of sickness starts.

Leif and Cade continue to grow and amaze us every day (as well as challenge us). In case anyone's wondering, two is our number and we're going to stick with that...no more kids. These two boys are quite a lot to handle actually. If Leif isn't tackling the dog, he's tackling Cade or me! And Cade is busy pointing out anything and everything large that moves. He's starting to talk more though he hasn't quite reached the point of wanting to walk yet. The best is when Leif says "I love you Cade! You're my best friend!" If that doesn't melt your heart, I don't know what could. That's followed up by too many kisses on the cheek and a tight squeeze from Leif, which leads to Cade fussing. The outpouring of affection seems constant with Leif, which is so sweet, but Cade gets a little frustrated obviously. I can hardly wait until Cade is big enough to hold his own. They'll be wrestling all around, I'm sure of it!

We're spending as much time as possible outside to release some of that energy. Leif loves looking for bugs, though he's not so gentle with them so he usually ends of squashing them. He likes to carry them around in his bug kit (thanks to the Steele Family:)! Cade is happy just pushing himself backwards in his Cozy Coupe. He does go forward once in awhile, but his preferred direction is reverse! Leif also really likes to ram into his brother in the Cozy Coupe with his tractor. It's like bumper cars!!


Here's Leif with his first fish that he "caught" while fishing with Grandpa Butch, Justin, Tom and Clayton (I believe Clayton actually caught it and then put it on Leif's pole when he wasn't looking). He was very proud of his perch!


Leif turned 3 years old on 9/22! I made him a special cake (if any of you mom's out there want the recipe, just let me know - very easy and so fun)!

Catching Up

Well, August seemed to be a blur! We started off the month with a trip out to Cape Cod. We met up with Justin's parents at the airport and drove out to the house we rented in Chatham, MA. It was a great week with Ken and Judy. The boys had so much fun! Our house was right on a little lake so we had our own little beach area just outside the front door. It turned out to be much better than trying to go to the beach at the ocean. Leif had fun there, but Cade just kept crawling around in the sand and getting it in his mouth/eyes. The salt water isn't a good place to rinse off either!

We had lots of great food, including a wonderful dinner at Jim and Tobe Fine's house in Yarmouth (Thanks Jim and Tobe).

As I'm running out of time (have to go pick up the boys at daycare), above are some photos from our trip.

Also, Cade fell of the platform on the swing set a couple weeks ago and broke his arm. He's been such a trooper with the cast on and it will come off on Friday

- thank goodness! I think it bothers us more than him!

Kids say (and do) the darndest things....

We were on our way up to the cabin on our 2 1/2 hr drive and we were spelling things to pass the time. I asked Leif to spell his name, which he did (sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn't). A few minutes later, Leif said "Mom, spell poop". I said I wouldn't spell that. A few minutes after that I said, "Leif, spell your name!". He responded, "P-O-O-P"! Now just who is responsible for teaching this child of mine so obsessed with P-O-O-P, I do not know. Though I certainly wasn't happy to hear that as a response, it was really funny!

A few weeks ago at the cabin, my father was going on and on about his dill pickles, asking where they are, where they were moved to, etc, etc. Now Leif LOVES his Grandpa Butch and follows him just about everywhere! When we were getting ready to leave and I was changing Leif's diaper, Leif said, "Mary, put the pickles in the fridge!" This was completely out of nowhere and not actually during anytime when my dad had been talking about his pickles! Then, just last week, Leif was talking on the phone to Grandpa Butch who was planning to come over the following day. Leif said "Oh, we don't have any pickles, sorry!" Ha...silly boy!! (FYI - Mary is my mom.)

Another example of how well Leif pays attention to what his grandpa does happened a few weeks ago at the cabin (we're there a lot - can you tell!!). He met another little boy and said "Give me five". Robbie, the other little boy, gave Leif five and Leif proceeded to shake his hand and groan "ohhhh" like Robbie had hurt him. This is one of the things that Grandpa Butch likes to do with little kids (who all seem to love him for some strange reason). He also stuck his hand out to Robbie and said "Nice to meet you". Another Grandpa Butch-ism.

Summary...LBN now stands for Little Butch Nielsen!

Cade turns 1 and Justin turns 30

Cade turned 1 on 7/17 and Justin turned 30 on 7/19! We celebrated up at the cabin.

Cade is Crawling!!!

Well the exciting news of the day (7/8/08) is Cade is crawling! We captured this momentous occasion on video! There were about 5 outtakes when we were trying to get this video, where Cade just ended up crying. But then we got this one.








We had a great 4th of July celebration. We had the usually party on the beach, Leif had a great time and was dancing with all his cousins until 9pm (he usually goes to bed around 7:30pm). Needless to say he was a little tired the next day. Below is a picture of the family in front of Whitefish lake on the 4th.



Leif's favorite part of the morning at the cabin is when he gets to go with Grandpa Butch to get the fish out of the boat (I think it is Grandpa's favorite part as well). Maybe next year Leif can get up at 5am and actually go fishing with Grandpa and Katherine to catch his own fish. The face that Leif is making in this picture just cracks me up...he is quite a ball of energy!





The water has finally warmed up enough to swim and both boys were loving the water this weekend. Leif really liked jumping off the dock. Cade though it was quite funny every time Leif jumped in the water so that just made Leif want to jump in more. We always forgot to bring the camera down when we were jumping...so sorry no pictures. This picture is Leif swimming with his cousins in the middle of Trout lake.


One more picture of Cade...isn't he just so cute?




All in all we had a great mini-vacation at the cabin. Hope everyone had a great 4th!

We went to the Blaine's Blazin' 4th of July parade on Saturday. Leif was in awe of all the fire engines! We left shortly after the clown (with the big red noz as Leif says) came driving by in his little car throwing candy out. Leif wasn't such a fan!

We finally got Cade his own bike helmet so that Justin could take both the boys in the bike trailer. Though Leif has previously been fine with his helmet on, Cade wasn't such a fan and after he wanted his helmet off, Leif's came off shortly after. Justin finished off the bike ride with a stop at the park. For the first time, Cade actually went down the slide by himself!

We're off to the cabin on Thursday for the 4th of July!

The Supanich family joined us at the cabin last weekend. Leif and Amelia had a great time running around together and feeding the fishies on the boat. Cade watched John crawl circles around him (John is 7 months old...poor Cade...I may be a little rough on him sometimes)!

Today, Cade is 11 months old. It's so crazy to think that he will be a year old so soon! He finally did get his first tooth just last week.

So, last weekend I was supposed to be in NYC for a bachelorette party, however, the weather interfered. I was able to get a refund on my airline ticket though! Turned out to be a nice weekend at the cabin. Justin started off the weekend without me at the cabin. Fortunately, he did have some help as both of my parents were there too.

Justin actually let Leif drive the little 4-wheeler...he certainly thought that was very cool! He also really likes to wear the helmet around. Reminds me of Rick Moranis in the movie Space Balls!

Cade finally pulled himself up on the train table. He started cruising around a little more too. He's not crawling yet, but he'll tolerate being on his tummy for a little while. Cade will be 11 months on 6/17...almost one year...Wow!!

Leif reading to Cade

This is kind of an old video, it was taken on 4/25/08. But I thought it was pretty cute!

Welcome to the Nielsen Family Blog

Well, this whole blog thing keeps popping up and I'm finally jumping on the bandwagon. Today, we will be attending Leif's first friend birthday party. His friend Connor is having cake at his house at 3pm today to celebrate. I'm picking the boys up early from daycare to go. Should be a fun time!

Yesterday started off with a very exciting event...a visit to the dentist office. We went because Justin had an appointment and Leif will have his first appointment in October, so we wanted him to see a little bit of what it's all about. We got there right during the polishing, which was perfect timing...guess the cleaning can be a little scary!

Leif went to music class last night with Justin and he actually sang and danced! Usually he just sits there sucking his thumb. What a breakthrough...too bad it was the last class of the session!!

The picture above is from last weekend at the cabin. I'm sure they'll be many more pictures from the cabin to share this summer!