On Saturday, the day before Easter, we took Joel to an egg hunt. We arrived just as the announcer was starting the count down for the kids to run. There were a ton of people so Jeremy had to pick Joel up and try to run past the crowd. The huge crowd seemed to be a overwhelming for Joel but he had the biggest smile on his face when he was showing me all the eggs he found after the hunt.

Saturday night we let Joel dye Easter eggs for the first time ever. I had a mom fail; I forgot to buy vinegar so the only colors that came out were the pink and blue. Thankfully Joel didn't mind too much.. He still thought it was fun!

Joel was a little spoiled this Easter. On top of the goodies he got from the Easter Bunny, he also received stuff in the mail from Grammie (my mom), Great Aunt Cheryl, + Pawpaw & Granny (my dad and stepmom). Grandma (Jer's mom) also had a basket for him and Crystal (Jer's cousin's girlfriend) gave him a bucket full of goodies. He was very excited about each gift, and now he wants to it be Easter every day. He wakes up every morning and asks me if it's Easter still. It's cute.

{Easter morning}

{Egg hunt at Grandma's house}

I'm thankful he has so many people that love him and gave him fun goodies.. but at the end of the day I want him to know the real reason we celebrated Easter. The resurrection of Jesus Christ. It's not easy to explain it to a 3 year old but I still try. Joel LOVES for us to read books to him so the Easter Bunny put a book called "Let's Celebrate Jesus on Easter" in his basket. I already talk about Jesus every day to him and I always pray out loud (throughout the day and before bedtime) so Joel can hear. Sometimes I pray out loud and don't realize he is actually listening until I'm done praying and I hear a sweet voice say "AMEN!"  :-)

Merry Christmas!

Baby Nelson #2 is due August 2014!!

Pumpkin Patch & Halloween 2012

We took Joel to the same pumpkin patch we went to last year. He had a blast! I wish we could settle down in this area just so we can go to that farm every year.. It would be a fun family tradition! {It's fun to look back at last year's pictures and see how much he has changed! click here to see our 2011 pumpkin patch pics}

We bought two pumpkins this year--a small one for Joel to paint and a big one to carve. Joel had a blast painting his pumpkin! Somehow momma got stuck carving the big one though.. I think it had something to do with football but I'm not 100% sure.. hmmm.. haha! I didn't do anything fancy with the carving but I think it came out cute. + Joel likes it, and that's all that matters!

 

Halloween was cold and rainy so we went trick-or-treating at the mall. This was Joel's first year to go trick-or-treating, and I really wished we could have taken him around the neighborhood... but I think he had a good time, even though he had to stand in long lines for one piece of candy. His face would light up when he would show us all the goodies he had in his pumpkin. It was too cute! :-) Oh, and he totally chose the Iron Man costume. I wanted him to be a puppy but he picked Iron Man. Figures right? haha He was SO excited when we first put the costume on him.. He did circles in front of the mirror and kept smiling.. it was priceless!

 

Snow!!

A few weeks ago we had a snow storm! Joel LOVED it. He would take off crawling as soon as we sat him down in it. He had a hard time moving in his little snow suit though. Speaking of his snow suit.. We couldn't stop laughing when we first put it on him because he couldn't move and it reminded us of the kid on A Chr!stmas St0ry! haha!

Jer was so sweet surprised me by making a snowman family for us. It was too cute!

All the snow brought back memories from my first snow storm here when I was prego. Jer and I had fun looking back at a few of the pictures we took during that time..

First Halloween



Our little monkey :)

We stayed home on Halloween and handed out candy to trick-or-treaters. It was fun! Joel liked going to the door to see all the kids dressed up. He also had fun trying to get the candy bowl that I had set up by the front door. ;)

We had Fall photos taken a few weeks back, and were able to get a couple of Joel in his monkey costume. He was so cute!

4th of July

We had a great time celebrating Joel's first 4th of July!

Our fun started on Sunday night.. We stayed up past our bedtime and joined our friends, the C's, for a local firework show. {It was the first time I've ever been freezing cold while watching fireworks by the way, which was super weird to me! I'm use to sweating my butt off in the southern heat!} We were nervous about how Joel would handle the loud booms but HE LOVED IT! He seriously giggled the entire time! It was too cute!! (I've been kicking myself for not taking a picture or a video of him that night!)

On the 4th we hung out with the C's again. We went over to their house and had a yummy lunch. Afterwards we all went to a street fair in B-Island. The fair turned out to be really lame but we enjoyed the company, sunshine and fresh air.  :)