Caroline's Castle

This afternoon, we got out the castle that Caroline got for her birthday. It only took me 24 minutes to blow the whole thing up! (whew) Caroline thought it was lots of fun. She started climbing in it before I was even finished blowing it up.


Nathan thought it was lots of fun as well. They even had enough room to play together.


Take a look at the effect it had on the hair, though!! Isn't it great!

Caroline's First Year

Just over a year ago, Caroline Elizabeth Moseley joined our family. So many changes have happened in the last year. She has learned to roll and crawl and walk. She has learned to eat and feed herself. She has learned to talk. It's amazing how different she is than she was just one year ago. In order to celebrate a year of change, I have put together a set of pictures from the last year. I hope you will enjoy them!

Caroline's Party

We had a good time on Saturday at Caroline's party. We had a few glitches, but it was just family and close friends, so nobody really cared. I am including several pictures from the party, but there were (of course) many more. I'll put more up on Dropshots.

We started the day with hamburgers and then let Caroline open her presents. She actually got started before the adults were ready (with some encouragement from her brother), but we let her continue.

Before the party, Nathan and Jay (a friend) decorated one of Caroline's presents.


She had lots of helpers to begin with. We were able to move them on to other things, though. I really don't think she would have minded anyway.


She enjoyed tearing off paper and pulling tissue paper out of bags.


Daddy put her new helmet on her head and she thought that was funny.


At the end of the party, Caroline tried on her new tutu. I'm not sure she actually took much notice, but the adults certainly enjoyed it! She was having a good ol' time with her borrowed baby doll.


After presents came the cake. Caroline liked the candle! She wasn't so sure that she wanted to dig in with her fingers, so she was given a spoon.


Then, she decided that maybe her hands would work good, too.


But then...she found the one answer she liked the best...just use her mouth and dig in!


It was definitely a picture taking frenzy. Everyone there was very amused!


Afterwards, Caroline was in need of some major clean up and new clothes. So...we headed for the bathroom and gave Grandma's shampoo a good coating of icing. :)


I think everyone had a great time. We definitely appreciate everyone that could be there and all the gifts! Thank you for celebrating Caroline's birthday with us!

First Birthday

Today was Caroline's first birthday. Daddy came home for lunch today and Caroline opened a few presents. She really liked when we sang "Happy Birthday" to her. She even asked me to sing it again in her own Caroline way. We also took her to Sears to have some pictures made and tried to get some of our own at home. On Saturday, we will have her party. Yay! So, here are a few pictures of our one year old.

down below

There's a post down below that was started but didn't get posted (waiting on videos). Check it out.

new clothes

New clothes are always a good reason to take pictures. This outfit came from Nana.


This is Caroline's favorite spot. She loves to climb up into this "chair" and hang out. Even better if she has an animal or doll and her blanket with her.

Ice Capades

On Saturday, Matt and I took Nathan ice skating. I started typing out the long version of this story, but let's just leave it at - we didn't think we were going to get to skate, but it all worked out. So, Nathan did lots of slipping and sliding. He wasn't so thrilled. Matt did a lot of skating with him and ended up having a pretty sore back.



I really wanted him to keep trying, though. I didn't want him to give up just because it was hard (life lesson here). At some point, he spotted the slushy drinks that some of the kids had and wanted one. I told him that he could have one if he could figure out how to skate by himself. Well, I wouldn't exactly call it skating, but he did figure out how to move around on the ice by himself. I hope you enjoy the video.

walking, talking, and reading

Caroline is walking almost all the time these days. It's so neat how quickly she has gone from only walking when prompted to walking as the first choice. They grow up so fast! Here's a quick video of her walking. It's not the best, but it's the best I've been able to catch so far.



Nathan's vocabulary increases daily. He knows so many words and learns new ones all the time. As soon as he knows a word, he finds a way to use it. Of course, he also uses some words that he doesn't completely understand. Most of the time he uses them correctly, though. One word that he doesn't use correctly is "bored." I'm not sure what he thinks it means, but he generally says he's bored when we're at the end of a walk around the neighborhood - almost like he thinks it's the same as "tired."

He is also reading really well. He would generally rather me read the book, but I get him to do some of them. In the last couple weeks, he has read two books almost completely on his own. Unintentionally, they were both Dr. Seuss books - Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now and Hop on Pop. Sometimes he surprises me with how many words he knows.

a trip to the park

We have a park that isn't too far from our house. Probably a quarter of a mile or so from the house is a paved path that goes to the park. It follows a big drainage ditch. It's a nice little walk through the trees. On Tuesday, the kids and I took a walk to the park because it was such a nice afternoon. I actually got Nathan out of his room early so that we could go ahead and go. I have a TON of pictures, but I have decided to only post two of them. You'll have to check out Dropshots to see more.

real life

Here are some very REAL life pictures.

Caroline is sitting in the old carseat that can't be used anymore. She really enjoys sitting in it. Nathan also uses it sometimes when he watches tv in the computer room. Don't you just love Nathan's hair? He looked like this all day! I never fixed it. Nobody cared. :)


This day, Nathan called me to come look at the belt that he had put on Caroline. If you look closely, he has used an elastic belt with a clip to hook a Christmas bell (well worn) onto Caroline's waist. It was really very funny! I'll put a few more pictures from this episode on Dropshots soon.


There's nothing overly interesting about this picture by itself. It's just Nathan hanging out watching tv. However, I was sitting in the computer chair with Caroline hanging on one arm. I stuck the camera down near the floor with my other arm and attempted to get him (all of him) in the picture. This was like the 8th picture.


I grabbed my camera this day to try and get a cute Caroline looking up at me picture. However, she decided that she didn't like that very much and began to cry. Poor little sick girl! Poor fussy!


If you look closely, you will see that Caroline has her cup upside down. The spout is on top. It's very hard to get anything to drink out of a cup when the spout is aligned with the air!


And...last but not least...Nathan had a film camera in a set that he got a couple Christmases ago. In rearranging toys, we got it out for him to play with. It doesn't have any film in it (we're not crazy), but he enjoyed going around the house "taking" pictures.

Christmas in Augusta

(there are lots of new posts so keep reading...I had to catch up)

Unfortunately, I tend to take less pictures as the Christmas season goes on. As a result, we didn't get many pictures in Augusta (plus, I was sick). Here are a few, though.

Friday night was Christmas Bingo. It's a tradition. They were so kind as to plan it when we would be there so that I could participate. Nathan played about half a round.


Matt...did not play. He's not a fan.


Here is Erin sporting a beautiful pigtail hairdo!


I attempted to get some pictures of the kids in their Christmas clothes. They weren't into it, though. Here's one of two that I got of the two of them.


And here's one of many that I got of Caroline.


Nathan wasn't thrilled, but Matt got some pictures of him anyway.

Christmas at Mema and Papa's

On Wednesday we had the extended Nelson family Christmas. It was at Mema and Papa's house. Here are a few pictures. The group shot is of the birthday people. We always do birthdays at the same time as Christmas because we have several December and January birthdays. The last picture is Caroline playing with one of her presents. She had to open her presents at home since she was sick and feeling pretty yuck that day (Matt also opened his at home).

more...

Well, I decided that I wanted to post a few more pictures from Christmas Day as well as Thursday with the Fergusons. So...here are a few pictures.
Nathan has been interested in Geography. He has a US map placemat, but we thought a puzzle might help him continue to learn.


Caroline got a couple baby dolls for Christmas. The first thing she did with all of them was to check out the eyes. Watch out baby! Caroline's about to poke out your eye!


Here is Daddy showing Nathan how to ride his bike - well protected, of course!


We tried to get a picture of all of us. This is the one that I think is the best.


Nathan ask Uncle Jason to help him play Operation. Unfortunately, it was the fancy version and they had a little trouble getting it to work right. Playing with pennies was much more successful! Nathan had a blast.


And then Granddad helped to clean the pennies out of his overalls.


Here's Jason and his little girl...eyes open, even.


And because we never take any...a picture of Granddad and Grandma together.

present giving

Nathan loves to give presents. Every day (at least once), He will bring me a present. His presents consist of some variety of toys or "signs" wrapped up in blankets. He seems so excited to be bringing them. When I ask if the things are for me, he always says "we can share them". As an explanation of the above "signs", He takes notebook paper and writes things on them and then cuts them out around the words. He calls these "signs".

walking and crying

I am still behind on getting posts up about Christmas activities. I will get there, though. In the meantime, I wanted to give one update about Caroline. While webcamming with Sean and Lisa on Christmas Eve, Caroline decided to take on more walking. She would wonder from one thing to another over and over again. Previously, she was only taking a couple steps between people when coaxed. She had taken just a few steps on her own, but they were few and far between. Anyway, this particular day she must have been distracted and not really realized what she was doing. It was really cute! I'm glad that Sean and Lisa got to experience somewhat of a first. Since then, she has been doing more walking. Often, she will start out going somewhere walking...well, toddling...and at some point wobble over. When she ends up on all fours, she will sometimes stand back up and keep going but will often just take off crawling.

Last night at church, we had a telling (and somewhat humorous) experience with Nathan. He was writing in his notebook during the sermon and copying words out of my Bible. (Come to find out later, he was writing a song.) All of the sudden, he got very upset. He put on his VERY sad face and started crying. You could tell that he was just heartbroken. After talking to him, I found out that he was spelling "and" and had written and "o" instead of a "d". He was writing in pen so he couldn't erase it. It was upset because he had made a mistake. I told him that he could just scratch it out and start over. He wasn't convinced. My mom offered him a pencil so that the next time he could just erase it. He didn't buy that either. He just gave up and gave me his notebook. A few minutes later, he asked me for his notebook and my mom for her pencil and started writing again on the next page. As he began flipping the notebook back and forth, I realized that he was copying the words that he had written earlier. He proceeded to do this until he had rewritten everything from before...with "and" written correctly. It's hard for me to understand such a desire for perfection. But...that's Nathan...at times, nothing less than perfect will do.

Christmas Day

On Christmas Day, we took things kinda slow. We actually ate breakfast before getting into the presents. Nathan and I had pancakes and bacon and Matt had french toast sticks and bacon. We NEVER fix these things, so it was a treat. Then, we read the story of the birth of Jesus from Luke. After that, we opened presents. Nathan and Caroline got lots of toys. Here are a couple of pictures.



For lunch, we had roast and rice and bread (leftover from Christmas Eve) and after naps we headed to Grandma and Granddad's house. We were finally able to meet Kaitlin - the first cousin for the kids.


We also spent a little time with all of the Fergusons on Wednesday and Thursday. Unfortunately, though, Caroline got sick Tuesday night so she had to stay home with Daddy most of the time. We did, however, get a picture of the three kids together.