I'm in Love!

Friday came and I couldn't stand the thought of staying home and cleaning again. I was trying to think of something that we could do and then I remembered all of the baby animals that the zoo just received so I decided that we were going to go and see them. If you know me, you know that I am definitely not a spur of the moment kind of girl, so this was big for me. It was a sunny, but very cold day, but I didn't care. We were getting out of the house! I took Meg and Will and we went by ourselves and it was so fun. The zoo was basically empty so my kids were able to run around and jump and explore without having me scared that they would be lost. They were so happy and it made me so happy watching them. We didn't have anywhere to go or be so I just got to play with them. Sometimes you get so wrapped up in daily chores that you forget to just have fun. We had a great time and I fell in love with my cute little kids all over again.

It's a...

GIRL!!

Baby Girl Alvord is due April 7th. We had a feeling that this baby would be a girl so we weren't too surprised about the news. Megan has said that she is going to have a baby sister ever since we told her that there was a baby in mom's tummy. She kicked me in the stomach early on in my pregnancy and my mom told her that if she did that the baby would turn out to be a boy. She is very careful about doing anything to my stomach now. I fell down the stairs at about 12 weeks and Megan was so concerned. She said that I needed to be more careful because "It be a girl then I be happy, it not be a girl I not be happy." Needless to say, she is very excited about the news. She thinks that her baby sister is going to sleep in her bed with her and that her name is going to be Emily Elisabeth (from Clifford) so we'll have to break the news gently to her over these next few months that might not get everything that she wants. We are so happy about the news and are extremely grateful that our new little girl is growing healthy and strong. Now it's time to think about baby names!

This is Halloween

This year we had a very interesting Halloween. As a mom, you always picture these perfect holidays and then are surprised and disappointed when your kids don't cooperate...at least I do anyways. Months ago I found the cutest Halloween costume of a cupcake that I was going to make for Meg. I LOVE homemade Halloween costumes and have vowed that I will always make my kids' costumes. I am sure that will change when I have three kids because this year, making two costumes about killed me. I showed Meg the picture of the cupcake costume and then told her that she would be a cupcake and will would be a sheep. At that point she made her mind up that she would be a sheep too. After giving her a guilt trip, begging, bribing, tricking I realized that it is no fun wearing a costume that you don't like and so I gave in and let her be a sheep. Stay tuned for next year's costume. I am determined that the cupcake costume will be made for someone. I worked on those costumes forever. I bought out every craft store's white pom poms. When we went to St. George I even made Dave stop at Roberts to see if they had any. Dave wasn't able to go to our ward Halloween party this year and I didn't have Will's costume finished when the party started so I wasn't able to go to that. My parents took the kids to their ward party and they wore the costumes then. Halloween came and Will missed his nap so our Halloween was filled with sobs and lots of requests for candy. I knew it would be a bad idea to even attempt to get him into his costume so he didn't even wear it on Halloween and didn't go trick-or-treating or anything. He was coming down with a cold and is almost over it so when he is in a really good mood one of these days I will put them both in their costumes and will get a picture of them. In the meantime, these pics will have to do. Meg had a great time trick-or-treating though. They were gone a long time and I got a little worried about them. She ended up with a lot of loot. She looked so cute, if I do say so myself. Will looked cute too, even though he cried when he had to put the costume on. All in all we had a fun day.

Meg was showing her muscles here because she carried some of the pumpkins in by herself to be carved.

This is the only time Will was happy all night. He would see the bowl of candy and cry and cry until he got a piece.

My angry little sheep.

Meg was actually just posing with her hand slightly in the pumpkin. We had to make her do it. She did not want to get her hand all slimy.

My happy little sheep.

Working hard for the candy.

My Night as a Teenager

This past Saturday night I lived as a teenager. I went with two of my Young Women to see the So You Think You Can Dance tour...is that weird? I really wanted to go and knew that Dave definitely would not want to go so one night at Young Womens I just threw it out there and asked the girls if anyone wanted to go. I didn't get much of a response so I just gave up hope. About a month later one of my sweet young women called me and said that she had been saving her babysitting money so she could buy a ticket. We called my advisor to see if she wanted to go with us and one of the other girls in my class and it wasn't going to work out for either one of them. I thought that would be totally weird if I went with Megan (one of the girls) alone so I lost hope again. Then she decided to buy Katie (the other girl) a ticket for her birthday. Talk about a great friend. Those tickets were pricey. The concert was great, the dancing was amazing, the dialog was super cheesy but it was really fun. I lived my night as a teenager until Katie asked if we could stay after to try to get autographs. I tried to be cool and said yes, but I really didn't want to. I was so tired...after all it was 10:30 when the show ended. Then, I knew I was old.

Katie and Megan (two of my wonderful Miamaids)

Nielsen Family Reunion

This summer we took three trips down to St. George. I think I had probably been to St. George a total of three times in my life before this past summer, but we had fun all three times. The most recent trip we took was a couple of weeks ago. We went down for the Nielsen Family Reunion (my mom's side of the family). I love the fact that I am still in touch with my aunts, uncles and cousins. It's kind of sad because I don't think I would recognize any of my cousins from my dad's side of the family. I love my family so much. We drove to St. George once Dave got off of work on Friday. The last time we went down Meg bit on the cord of our portable DVD players and put a short into it so we thought we would just drive down and the kids could entertain themselves. WRONG! About 45 minutes into the drive they were fighting and screaming and we found the nearest Walmart and got a part that we needed to make them movie work. I can't imagine how anyone survived road trips back in the day. We made it down in time to have dinner with my parents and Brian and Kara. I bet they were sad that they waited for us because our kids were crazy!



The next day we met up with the rest of the family and went hiking. We had a really fun time. We had lunch together and sang karaoke. I busted out my knowledge of Brittney Spears and did a little number with my cousin Candice and then Dave and I sang Love Shack. That night we went to see Thriller at Tuacan. Meg sat down the row from me with my mom and my mom did a great job of making sure that she knew everything was pretend. She loved watching the dancing. Will wasn't too bad either. They were both so tired and fell asleep about 30 seconds after getting into the car. We drove home the next day. It was a pretty short trip but was a lot of fun. Thanks Diane for planning such a great time!!

18 Months Already!

Time has flown by since my little guy came into our family. Will is such a wonderful addition to our lives. When he was younger he was so mellow and laid-back. Not anymore! He has changed so much in the last couple of months. Sometimes Dave and I look at each other and ask, "What happened to our sweet little angel?" He is very active and loves to climb, jump, run, yell, throw things, etc. He is all boy. I always thought it was weird when people would say that, but it's true. He is so much different than Megan was at his age. Right now he really likes cars and balls. He actually has a pretty good arm. Dave thinks he is athletic...and does not attribute that to himself. When Meg was potty training we bribed her with Cars from the movie Cars. Then I got a little into collecting them myself, so we have a really big bin of them. That is one sure fire way of making him happy. When you get the bin out of the closet he starts giggling and gets so excited. He carries them around everywhere. One of the monumental things about turning 18 months is that you get to go to nursery. Meg went so easily and I always looked at the parents whose kids wouldn't with pity. Now, Dave and I are those parents. His first day of nursery I was so excited. I took him into his class and the teachers weren't there yet. I have to set up for Young Womens and have to do that pretty quickly after sacrament is over so I don't have much time to waste. Some other dads were in the class with their kids and they said that they would stay with the kids until the teachers came. Big mistake! About 5-10 minutes later a lady in my ward brings me Will who is bawling and said that she found him wandering the hall. He had tripped and hit his head and was crying. So, after that moment he absolutely will not go to nursery. It's horrible. We don't know what we're going to do. I'm sure one day he'll be okay. We'll see how long it takes.


Will is a pretty small little guy. At his 18 month check up he weighed 23 pounds (50th percentile) and was 32 inches long (25th percentile). Meg was always in the 95-97th percentile in height and weight so it's weird to see this lean little guy running around. He is awesome and we wouldn't trade him for the world...well, maybe on Sundays but that's the only time. We love you Gus!

My Big Preschooler

This year Meg started Preschool. She was very excited to go to school. She was also very excited that she was going to get to ride a school bus to school. The only problem was that she doesn't get to ride a bus to school, so we had to break it to her gently. She seemed to accept the excuse that the busses are broken, until she saw them driving around as we were on our way to school. Oh well, you can't have everything. I'll show her this post when she is on high school begging not to have to ride the bus and see what she says.


She goes to Magic Moments Preschool in Riverton. Her teacher is Ms. Amy. She loves Ms. Amy and always wants to surprise her with her completed homework. She has a lot of fun friends in her class...most importantly her cousins Annette and Jocelyn. It's really fun to be able to see them a couple of times a week. So far she talks A LOT about a boy names Beau. She always tells me things that he says. After her first week or so of school she told me that she had said "hi" to a boy in her class and I told my mom. My mom asked her about it and she very adamantly said, "No, he said "hi" to ME!" She is so funny. I have been able to help out a couple of times with the class and she does pretty well. She normally has a tendancy to get a little distracted, but I can tell that she tries really hard to be a good listener. She is learning so much (writing letters and numbers and is learning a lot in spanish). We miss her a lot when she is gone. We are so proud of our little smart preschooler!

Happy 3rd Birthday Meg!

To all of my loyal blog readers (Aunt Diane and Aunt Kellie) I have finally decided to update my blog. We had a great and busy summer. Some of the most fun was had at Meg's 3rd birthday party. She had been looking forward to her own party after going to many friend and cousin's parties over the months. She really was excited for her birthday so I wanted to make it special. For awhile there she was into My Little Ponies and so we decided to have a pony party for her. We had two horses come and give rides. Their names were Snickers and Cookie Dough. We had A TON of 3ish-year olds attend. We also had one very "lucky" 9-year old who Meg requested be there-my cousin Jack. What a good sport he was to come and help...and he even rode a horse in the end. We had pony rides, games like horseshoes, pin the tail on the horse and a pinata. It seemed like everyone had a great time. I think I only heard one kid cry, but everyone was really good at waiting their turn and sharing.



Our little Meggie Bug is such a special part of our family. She has an EXTREMELY large personality and is a lot of fun. She loves to ding and dance. She knows most songs that come on the radio and has "her parts" that no one else can sing (those are usually the chorus). She is generally a pretty nice big sister. We love her so much and can't imagine life without her. Happy Birthday Meg!!!