Annual Nelson Family Campout

Every July my family puts together a camp out in our parent's front yard. We all pitch our tents, have dinner, s'mores, and fireworks. Some years we get a projector to watch a movie on the garage door, this was an off year. Other years we get toilet papered by aunt Erma and uncle Al, but we started that by getting them one year at their family camp out:)
Lydia, Audrey and MaKayla posing out side their tent.Grandma and Grandpa Nelson came for a little bit to have dinner with us but there was no convincing then to pitch their tent.
Spencer, James and McKenna decided to make their own tents this year and here they are trying to make their own fire. Sorry McKenna, you weren't around to be in the picture.
Landon, Savannah, Carson and Luke drinking their pop just waiting for dinner to be ready.
That night while everyone was roasting marshmallows and eating s'mores Richard and I went off to my 5 year high school reunion. But we were able to catch a few pics while they were getting started.

Abe, Spencer, and Matt put on our firework show this year after the kids had their fun with sparklers. This was our first year without Nick around to help run the show and still, they pulled it off.


Carson had so much fun with the glow sticks, we decided it was easier to keep track of him in the dark with them wrapped around his neck and ankles:)

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The Next Morning

After breakfast we all cleaned up "Camp" and played games until we were ready to bring out the water slide.
MaKayla and Katie setting up Crockett.
Landon, Savannah, Luke and Carson tossing beanbags.
Here's the water slid which by far was the best part of day. I wish I had more pictures, but, I was having too much fun to pull out the camera. Dad had the fire hose out spaying us all down as we slid down the slide or ran from slide to pool. Which leads to probably the funniest part of the water fun. Matt and Amber brought up their kiddie pool but it wasn't the kids who enjoyed it the most. At one point we had Dad, Richard and Pat all sitting there relaxing in this little pool just big enough for the water to reach them mid chest and leaving little room for them to stretch out the legs. I guess it's one you had to be there for:)

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Rodeo

It's also tradition to go the Spanish Fork Rodeo every year. We've never missed it as far as I can remember.
The boys were content as long as they had their balloons or something in their mouth. Carson's eating a hot dog that he wasn't going move from his mouth till it was gone.

YeeHaw!

Random

Saturday night our friends Matt and Nikki came over to play games. Carson was having a hard time going to sleep with Landon's rough play in his crib, (bloody nose) so he joined right in the fun.


Richard loves to pull the boys pants up as far as they can go just to make me laugh:) I think it looks so funny them running around with their pants so high. It's become one of our bedtime routines. These are just a couple on Landon's drawings this week. The one of the left is of Carson, you may have to zoom in to see it better, the one on the right is a fish and Landon being a fish.

One of my favorite times of day is when Landon and Carson will sit on the couch watching TV with a treat. Besides looking for ants, it's the only time Landon is nice to Carson. For these few minutes there is peace in little Carson's life.

Incentive Charts

My friend Claire showed me here new incentive chart for her little Anna and it was darling, she had princess' and crowns on it. She said it was working well with her, so I decided to make charts for my boys. She let me use her Cricut to cut out the dinosaurs, thanks Claire. Well, it's been working great. Carson just loves to play with the buttons, but Landon gets a button every time he goes potty and is dry, and when he helps out picking up his toys, eats dinner, is good at the store, or when he stays in bed he gets a button in the morning.
Really, he's most excited for what he gets when his button chart is full. This time he's working toward painting. These are the cards they get to chose between for their prizes. We've been using the button charts for about a week and they seem to help Landon mostly with his potty training. I hope it continues because everything new seems to help with his potty training for the first while, and then they wear off. We'll see what happens this time. It's been almost a year of potty training so my fingers are crossed.

Date Night

Some friends of ours from Wyview moved to Idaho Last month and left us with their coupons they wouldn't be able to use out of Utah, on of those coupons was a Deluxe Date Night Pass to Trafalga. We got 8 tokens, go cart passes, and batting cage passes all for free.
With our tokens we won enough tickets for 2 Batmen for the boys and a pair of Billy Bob teeth. As far as the batting cages, we both went at the same time so I couldn't tell you how well Richard did, but must have hit at least half of my pitches:) Thank you Travis and Ashley for the coupons and Jen and Jared for watching the boys, it was a night well needed.

Night out at Wingers

Maybe all kids are like this, but our boys love going out to eat. And it's so cute to see their reactions of excitement when their food comes out, and they get to sit in these cool booster seats, and of course, they also love the servers but their favorite part is the soda pop!



This is the night Carson first said the word Pop. And Landon loved giving it to him.

Sticky fingers are now our official favorite. I had been to Wingers many times, but never had their wings until about two months ago. Their amazing sauce is, well, Amazing. So amazing that we bought a bottle to take home so we can have sticky fingers whenever we want. As you can see, I couldn't even wait to take the picture before I took a bit, whoops.

Look at that Baldness

Just for kicks Richard decided to bic his head. The first night it was really smooth. But come morning it was already prickly. I never knew how fast hair grew until I saw it start from nothing. It's pretty amazing!

Cousin Tommy's 1st Birthday

Cousin Tommy had his first birthday party last week. But the poor kid broke out in a rash all over his face and had an awful time so we didn't even get any pictures of him. We went swimming at Thomas and Denise's apartment pool and then we had hot dogs for lunch. Grandma and Grandpa Russell were there and a bunch of their friends from the apartments. I think we all had fun but the birthday boy, he was miserable.

Carson loves the cupcakes. And they all had cute trucks on them. Landon's had a police car and mine had a tow truck:)
Landon spent about 10 minutes jumping in the air playing Superman, he later put his awesome cape on but this jump had the best footage:)
These are the dinosaurs the boys gave Tommy for his gift, but since tommy wasn't up to playing with them Landon and Carson took over.

Cute Girl

My friend Tess just had her new little baby girl this Monday. So I made her some handy burp cloths. Aren't they the cutest burp cloths you've ever seen. And to think, they're just going to be spit on:)
Baby Olivia Grace

Reaping the Benefits of Birthdays

Grandma Shell and Grandma Russell gave Landon some money to go buy what he wanted. Walking down the swimming isles at Walmart, he knew exactly what he wanted to spend his money on. He got this fish tube, the really big ball in the back, the dinosaur zoodle, and a bunch of water balls. Carson's playing with a couple of them here.
Landon did the cutes thing with his tube. He was talking to aunt Katie on the phone and wanted her to see his tube so he held the phone up close to the tube saying, see? can you see my fish? He did this three times before he could understand that Katie couldn't see it through the phone.
Grandma Nelson gave Landon these magnets. Honestly, I don't know what we did without them. They love them. They like to make this cool ball, and Landon can make some pretty awesome towers with them too.
Yes, I gave Landon markers for his birthday, he'll color for hours at a time, but normally on paper. Although, Carson has converted him to a new way of coloring, the walls benefit from this as well.



My sister Jodi gave Landon this amazing (Landon:"Fat man/Superman") cape for his birthday and he loves it. He gets a lot of fun comments from people at the grocery store, the park, Dr's apt.'s, and just out riding his bike because he wears it everywhere. His favorite thing is to fly down the stairs with it just outside of our apartment. Thank you everyone for making Landon's birthday so much fun.