My brother Paul didn't think Trenton ever smiled but I just had a hard time catching him on camera. He is a smiley guy. He loves laughing with his brothers. His happiest moments are getting his diaper or clothes changed-he loves being nude.
Sammy is often found past out on the floor somewhere. If he's tired, he just lays down anywhere with his dog Scout, sucks his fingers, and smells his "dee-dee", then he's out!
Back at the end of August Jeffrey asked me to take the training wheels off his bike and he figured out how to ride his two wheeler in 30 minutes!
My last living grandparent, Grandpa Nelson, died September 14th at the age of 92. I was able to fly to Yuma for his funeral last weekend. Funerals are funny things sometimes because its the one event that will bring the whole family together. People make special efforts to go to funerals. Grandpa's funeral was one of the best I've been to. That may sound insensitive but there were funny stories given, his best qualities exemplified, and a wonderful spirit. He was a great student and athlete. I always knew he was an outstanding track runner but I never knew he played quarterback in football, center in basketball, and I believe baseball. And he wasn't more than 5 foot 7 in tall (that's being generous). He was described as being loving, giving, humble, and a hard worker. Early in his life he worked at a hardware store and decided he didn't like retail. He and my Grandma ended up moving to Bard, CA (near Yuma) to run the Bard Store for 38 years. They worked 12 hours a day, 6 days a week.
Here's Paul and Audra-maybe a wedding picture.
They had three boys: David (my dad), Denny, and Jerry
My Gramps and me. My brothers and I have some fun memories in that Model T go cart. The first time I drove it, I ran it into a tree. We would play "tag" by driving around the orchards too fast throwing lemons and oranges at those running on the ground. My memories of Grandpa are seeing him flipping burgers (that he ground himself) at every family gathering, juicing oranges, cracking pecans, playing with his dogs, that blue jumpsuit he always wore and his quiet, relaxed, patient demeanor.
Hunter Nelson's blessing, the first great grandchild. Hunter turns 8 tomorrow. This is the "4 generations" picture with my dad, brother Paul, Hunter and Grandpa. He had 9 grandchildren and 11 great grandchildren at the time of his death.
My family at the funeral: me, Brent, Dave, Betty, Lindsey, Paul, and Mark. We haven't all been together for several years due to school and babies. My dad gave part of the eulogy and Paul talked about the grandchildren's memories at the funeral.
My dad told a story about the time when he was buying his first car from Bill Alexander in Yuma. Bill and my Grandpa were friends before Bill had a car dealorship. Bill would buy things on credit from the Bard Store. When my dad's car was ready, Bill called him up and told him to come sign the loan papers and pick up the car. Well, Grandpa was out of town and was suppose to be the co-signer on the loan but Bill told my Dad it would be OK that he could pick up the car and sign the papers when Grandpa got back. Then he said "If you can't trust Paul Nelson, you can't trust anybody".
I'll miss Grandpa just like I miss Grandma. They were a big part of my childhood and it almost feels like that part has died along with them. But what a happy reunion they must have had last Monday! Although we miss their company, I'm sure if we knew what it was like in the after life we may not mourn as much as we do when a loved one passes away. 
Trenton had his two month check up two weeks ago. He was 10lb, 10oz and 23 inches long. He is smiling and almost laughing. His newest thing is staring at and chewing on his hands. He'll open and close his hands and grab at his clothes. He has great neck control and will sometimes get his knees up under him when he is on his stomach. Here are some photos from the last month and a half.
Jeffrey started kindergarten on August 7th. It seems like such an early start date! I remember starting school after Labor Day. They are on a modified traditional schedule where they get two weeks off in fall, two weeks at Christmas, and two weeks in the spring. He goes to school every morning. Jeffrey was very excited on the first day of school. He saw his teacher Mrs. DeWolf come out to get her class and he ran to the front of the line and didn't look back. I didn't even get a wave goodbye. I'm glad he is so confident and comfortable already. I love his teacher. She has everything very structured which fits Jeffrey's personality perfectly. Sammy has been a bit lonely without Jeffrey in the mornings. Hopefully he will adjust and learn to play on his own.
The last week of July we headed to southern California for a Kjelstrom family reunion. John's family met together at Big Bear Lake. We were only missing Jason who is faithfully serving his mission in Brazil. Thanks to Ryan and Melissa who saved up their time share points to get three condos for the families to stay in. Lots of fun was had swimming at the resort pool, playing at the park, visiting the alpine slide, riding in the boat, water skiing, jet skiing, and playing at the beach near the lake.
Isabella, Jeffrey, and Sammy
All the cousings: Isabella, Jeffrey, Sammy, Jacob, and Andrew
Jeffrey was really brave and went down this water slide all by himself!
The alpine slide was popular with the little kids and big kids a like. Sammy LOVED going fast, so did John and Patrick. The men had time trials. Patrick and Spencer went so fast during the trials, they crashed towards the end. Patrick had some huge nasty scrapes on his arm.
Grandma Moats ordered a folding rocking chair and shipped it to Melissa's house so she could rock the babies. Trenton was in heaven. He fell asleep in her arms every time.
John's brother Spencer came out to stay with us again this summer, the third summer in a row. He was hear for almost 3 weeks in July. Spencer was my "manny", watching Jeffrey and Sammy so I could do errands or taking the boys to the park, library, swimming pool etc. He was a great help. One of the weekends he was here John took him backpacking near the famous Maroon Bells mountains.
Here they are in front of Maroon Lake with the Maroon Bells in the background.
Spencer taking a breather...must have been a hard hike.
Snowmass Lake
We blessed Trenton last Sunday, the 5th. My parents were able to make it as well as John's sister Katrina and her husband Patrick. Trenton is now 4 weeks old. At his 2 week visit he weighed 6lbs, 15oz, so I'm guessing he's about 8 to 9 lbs now. 
Its been a week. Trenton is a great baby. We had some small bumps with nursing and the nights are still long but he is mostly happy and content. My mom stayed for a week. Now that she is gone my house is destined to become a disaster and Jeffrey and Sammy may feel slightly neglected. We'll see how I handle things alone!
Trenton's first bath at home, they never like it.
I know this isn't of Trenton, but this is what we are doing this summer besides having a new baby. Jeffrey is playing T-ball and enjoying it. He had his first game last Saturday. All the boys get a chance to bat, there are no outs so they all run around the bases. Jeffrey also got to play 1st base and 2nd base. When he played in the field he would pat the runners on the back and talk to them. He said he told them about his new fish he'd just gotten before the game.
Trenton has come, and early too-hurray!! He was born at 6:21am on June 6th weighing 5lbs, 10oz and 19in long. By far my smallest baby-he's a peanut. So far he has been so sweet and Jeffrey and Sammy are thrilled to have a new baby brother. OK, for documentation sake here is the labor story. I had some contractions Friday night around 9:30pm but they felt like braxton hicks so I didn't pay much attention. We went to bed and I slept fine until 1am when I woke up because of a contraction. This one radiated to my back so I knew it might be the real deal. I got up and they kept coming, 5 min apart. (I think labor and kids throwing up always happen in the middle of the night-why!?) At 2am we dropped the kids off at a neighbors house and headed downtown to St. Joseph's hospital. I was admitted easily. They had to give me fluids before I could get an epidural because I was dehydrated. But I did finally get the epidural. My nurse was watching the heart monitor very closely-and she didn't say anything but I knew something was bothering her because I could hear that Trenton's heart rate kept going down with each contraction. At one point the heart rate disappeared. So nurses and doctors ran into the room. They got a heart monitor on Trenton's head and the doctor was saying to notify anesthesia because we might have to do an emergency c-section. This was very frightening for John and I. But they got me on my side and Trenton's heart rate came back. About 30 minutes later I had some big contractions and his heart rate again dropped. The doctor checked me and I was at 10 cm. She said I had to get the baby out-and I did. I pushed him out in about 5 minutes. Good thing he was little! Turned out that the umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck twice causing the drops in heart rate. We are so glad everything turned out fine and he's a healthy guy.
Ok, this is the funniest picture!! Welcome to the world Trenton!
My two younger brothers Mark and Brent both graduated from grad schools last week. I'm very proud of them both. Mark earned his MBA from Rice University in Houston and Brent his JD from Texas Tech Law School in Lubbock.
Mark, Brooke, baby Courtney, Adam, Molli
Grandpa Dave, Nicole, Danielle, Brent, Grandma Betty
April 25th was Sammy's 3rd birthday. He knew he was turning 3 and that we would have cake but he still didn't understand a few things. He stood outside my bedroom door screaming because he didn't get that he couldn't come in because I was wrapping his presents. If you said "Happy Birthday Sammy", he said "Happy Birthday Mommy!". We had a fun day. The morning started off with birthday hats-even his new stuffed dog Scout got a hat. In the afternoon Patrick, Katrina, and Isabella came over to have cake and open presents. Sammy helped me decorate the cake with sprinkles-he insisted on orange and blue. The cake was a bit crunchy from the mounds of sprinkles.
Sammy got a remote control car-here he is driving it on our new deck.
The kids got to color Easter eggs this year for the first time. It went well, I was afraid of the mess, but it ended up I was the only one to have a spill. The boys decorated their eggs then Sammy ate one. Jeffrey cracked open one of his, didn't want to eat it, then was sad that he no longer had 4 eggs. Sunday morning we woke up to rain which continued all day. The kids ate most of their candy before church. I'm obviously not very strict about candy eating-why prolong it, just let them have it! I was going to hide some eggs outside but couldn't because of the rain. Then I decided not to do all together but my plan was foiled. They found the eggs I'd prepared this morning in my room so we had an after Easter egg hunt in the house today. Now they have even more candy, but don't worry I sneak a few for myself.
Its March Madness-woohoo!! We love this time of year. College hoops, bracket predictions, trash talk between friends and family, what could be better? I've picked North Carolina to win it all. They were my pick last year too and disappointed me but for some reason I'm going with them again. John helped Jeffrey fill out a bracket this year. He'll win the big $10,000 from ESPN if there are a lot of upsets. He's picked Moorhead State to beat Louisville, North Dakota State to get to the 3rd round, and the biggest picks were Siena to make it to the finals against Butler. (Siena because its the name of one of his favorite babysitters and Butler because it sounds like "butt"). Jeffrey predicts Butler to win it all-not going to happen-and if it does we definitely get the money. John got technical this year by creating an Excel spreadsheet to help him predict the outcomes. (he's an Excel nerd!). I just used shear gut instinct. Let it begin!
Play written by: Jeffrey
Characters/played by:
Doctor Jeffrey-Jeffrey
Nurse Jeffrey-Jeffrey
Patients- Me and Sammy
Act One:
Sammy and I pull up to the doctor's office building and park in the parking garage. Next we take the pantry elevator to the second floor. Sammy insists on pushing the buttons. I make the "ding" sound when we reach our destination. We step out of the pantry and climb the stairs to Doctor Jeffrey's office.
Nurse Jeffrey: Please take a seat in the waiting room
a minute later...
Nurse Jeffrey: Sammy! Sammy doesn't want to go so I volunteer
Nurse Jeffrey: Do you have your cards?
I pull out our insurance cards and hand them to the nurse. Nurse Jeffrey takes the cards to what the kids call "Spencer's room" (because John's brother Spencer slept there for a month last summer). He begins to type on the end table while looking at the cards.
Nurse Jeffrey: OK, everything looks good. Come to the room.
I go into the boy's room and sit on the bed.
Nurse Jeffrey: How are you feeling? I heard Sammy coughing, he'll need some medicine and five shots. I'll do your blood pressure last.
Me: What is your name?
Nurse Jeffrey: I'm nurse Jeffrey and I'm a boy, the doctor is Dr. Jeffrey and he's a boy. OK, I'll go get the doctor.
The nurse leaves closing the door behind him. Two minutes later Dr. Jeffrey comes in. He is dressed in scrubs and has a stethoscope and the charger to John's electric shaver draped around his neck.
Dr. Jeffrey: I'm Dr. Jeffrey. Sammy is sick so the nurse will give him five shots later. First I'll listen to your heart.
He puts the stethoscope in his ears and listens to my heart.
Dr. Jeffrey: (Very seriously) sounds good now I'll listen to your breathing. Good breathing. Now I'll look in your ears, both ears look good. Now I'll listen to your blood.
Jeffrey puts one end of the electric shaver charger in his ear and the other end on my thigh to listen to my blood.
Dr. Jeffrey: OK, the nurse will come back now. Will you get Sammy? He needs his shots.
The doctor leaves and the nurse comes back. I grab Sammy but he's not into this pretending to get shot stuff so that's out. The nurse takes my blood pressure. Then Sammy and I leave-we don't even have to pay a co-pay!
The End!
John thought I needed to record this-but its disgusting in my opinion-yesterday Jeffrey drank some caffeine free Pepsi for the first time. It gave him lots of gas and he kept burping extremely loud; however, he did say "excuse me" so I wasn't overly annoyed. He had one particularly loud and long burp that enabled him to burp a whole sentence. I have no idea what he actually said. John was impressed and seemed almost excited that his son had such talent! I suggested that maybe someday Jeffrey could learn to burp quietly, but John scoffed at me. I'm surrounded by gassy boys! I guess the best I can do is teach them to say excuse me. Maybe I am turning into my mother-whom we coined "Miss Manners" growing up because she grilled us on our eating habits.
For Christmas, John gave me a treasure chest full of little envelopes. One said take a class of your choosing, another was for a massage, another was for a night of shopping. One was for a trip to get out of the cold. It hasn't been too cold this year, but that doesn't mean we couldn't still take a trip. I decided on Scottsdale, AZ since I found a good deal on a resort there. The rate was good and they gave us $100 food credit per day. So we left the kids behind and enjoyed the sun for two days. First thing that I loved seeing was green grass, I didn't realize how much I'd missed green plants! I also loved wearing my sandals and the desert landscapes. John got to golf of course-that's what Scottsdale is all about. If you want to learn more about his experience there you can visit his golf blog. Unfortunately the only picture I took was of him golfing. I got to drive the golf cart and read a book. The next day we went to a preserve one hour from Phoenix to bird watch and hike. In the afternoon we checked out some beach cruiser bikes the resort offered and rode around the man made lakes in the area. It was a fun trip and so nice to get away for a bit.
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Random Photos:
I forgot to post these months ago, so for documentation sake here they are.
This is Jeffrey before his preschool's Christmas concert. They sang Little Drummer Boy, hence the drum.
This is Jeffrey and his friends Paige and Andrew on a preschool field trip to the Littleton Museum.
Another of Jeffrey trying out John's guitar. He's shown interest in musical instruments. I recently started taking violin lessons-because of John's Christmas gift-and he is very interested in the violin. He watched my starter DVD one day and then was so excited to point out the parts of the violin and could name the correct notes of the four stings.
