"I didn't know moms played Legos."

   I have a Lego addiction. I love to put them together with instructions, I have saved every instruction manuel for the different sets and put them in a binder.

 I also like to organize and sort. I have organized and sorted the Legos in many different ways. The best way seems to be in a big drawer all together. I have the people in a separate container and a small craft box with the small pieces to make them easier to find. Notice my soda, building Legos is hard work.

 

My obsession hobby started with Calvin and has grown with Max. Calvin liked Legos but he wasn't into them the way Max is. Max and I have and will spend hours playing Legos. I have been known to forget to pick someone up, forget to make dinner, miss appointments and so on. Here are some of my favorite things Max and I have  built.     
                                                                        pet store

 

Fire Station

 

 

farm animals and fence

 

 

A gun

 

 

A flower shop

 

 

 A Hat store

 

 

A tire store

 

 

Our latest creation. 

A football field with stands

 

 

Max and I love to shop at the Lego store at Bellevue Square mall. This year for Max's 6th birthday, I took him to the Lego store. It took forever to decide what he wanted to buy. He had the choice of one big Lego set, or lots of little ones. He chose lots of little ones. We ate at McDonald's for lunch and got a cupcake at the cupcake store. Then we played on the boats at Bell Square kids area. What a perfect day!

 

 

 

 

Max and I have built many cool sets like the x-wing fighter, 

                                                                  Jabba's sail barge,

tie fighter.

 

 One time we went through and rebuilt almost all the different Lego sets we have. It took weeks and yes we found almost every piece. Max likes to make fighting scenes with his  Lego storm troopers and Lego army guys. I like to make stores and houses. One time we tried to put together all the people in their original outfit, hair,hat etc.

I know most people would say "Get a life" but it is a great way to spend time with Max doing something that I also enjoy. Having one child at home after always having at least two, is very different. The poor kid has no one to play with, so he is constantly asking me to play with him. I may have played my fair share of Barbies with the girls when they were little, but they always had each other if I needed to shower get something done. Mike and the kids make fun of me for being so into the Lego's. Yesterday I realized just how weird I am for playing Lego's so much. Calvin had a friend over and he was showing him around our house. He came upstairs where Max and I were playing Legos. Calvin's friend looked right at me and said.....

                                                   "I didn't know moms played Legos."

I was a little embarrassed as I said " of course they do". So I guess my secret is out. I love playing Legos and I'm never going to stop!

loss of teeth

 

 

 

 

 

 

Max lost 3 teeth in the last few days. He got 4 dollars from the tooth fairy. Max said when his friend Josiah finds out, his mind will be blown.

He is growing up so fast and starting to look like a big kid. I love my max!

Photo Pandemonium - November 2012

This is Lexie. My mom is kinda making me take up this blog for her, updating it "regularly" and making her look good.

That's gonna last.

Anyway, this past November we had the privilege, I guess you could call it, to have family pictures taken again. Luckily, we had the amazing Kjrsten Madsen take the photos, so they turned out amazing no matter how rotten we were all feeling.

Needless to say, we were all a bit on edge. I mean, it's family pictures. These are going to be hung around the house for years. That gives us some high expectations - we want to look good, smile good, have the right outfit, all that stuff.

Here's how the day ended up going:

We all slowly woke up, dragging ourselves from bed with rather negative additudes towards the day's events. It didn't feel like a "picture day". It felt like a normal Saturday, and it was even raining.

Maybe that's what threw us off the most.

I think we had all been counting on it being partly sunny, maybe even cloudly, but none of us had wanted it to rain. We would get muddy and our hair would get all lanky. Who wants that to happen?

So, we all piled into the car rather grumpily (some of us wearing different outfits than originally planned) and drove to downtown Seattle.

We had thought that maybe it wouldn't be raining at our destination, but with our luck, of course we were wrong. We arrived at the studio and, surprise surprise, the roads were wet, and there was even mud evident in some places.

Of course, we didn't want all of our pictures to be in the studio, so, naturally, we went outside, to Gasworks, for some more inspirational pictures, maybe with the Space Needle set abstractly in the background.

But we weren't getting what we wanted without a little bit of a setback.

The only umbrellas we had just happened to be, in my mom's definition, "not good for family photoshoots". Okay, maybe she didn't say that, but she probably wanted to. One of them almost worked, it was a black and white umbrella, nice and simple. The other one was completely identical, except that instead of black and white, it was green and white - nothing worse than that, right?

We worked with what we had, and they didn't turn out as horrific as we thought they might. In fact, we looked pretty good.

I forgot to mention, Kjrsten got some really good pictures of us running up this huge hill we're standing on.

 

After that, we climbed another hill...

 

I'm proud of my family. We climbed two hills and avoided slipping in the wet and muddy grass on the way down. That is an accomplishment.

After the hills, we were cold and wanted to wrap up the nature portion of our photoshoot. We looked around a little longer, and then decided to go back to the car. Once we got back to the studio, we took individual photos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overall, this was quite the day.

 

:D

 

~Lexie(:

 

 

 

 

Family Pictures 2009

Max is at home with mom playing legos all day.

Calvin is in 2nd grade.

Lexie is in 4th grade.

Mckenzie is in 7th grade.

Kayla is in 9th grade.

Well we had our family pictures taken, and the kids say they never want to do it again. I guess I get a little grumpy when I have to get myself , 5 kids, and a husband looking perfect in coordinating outfits. It used to be easy when they would all wear what I told them to wear. Now they all have their own style and their own opinion. What happened to me being able to control everything? Not anymore!!!

Well I guess it was worth it, because the pics turned out amazing!!! It helps that my family is pretty cute.

One of my goals for this year is to keep more records of our daily doings. My kids are growing up and I don't want to forget all the funny things they say. Life in the Nelson house is crazy but fun. This is one of the many reasons I wanted a big family. Life is NEVER boring!!!