Just Nellie and Me

Lizzy spent Friday in Tipton with Brinlee, Kelli and Grammie, so I had little Nellie all to myself. It was so much fun to just spend time with her and give all of my attention to her. She just ate it up too. She really loves Lizzy and they get along really well most of the time but she also loves when Lizzy isn't there and she gets me all to herself.

We had lots of fun, we went out to eat and ran to Walmart and did some shopping and just hung out. Nellie is completely over her difficult stage horray! She still throw fits just like any other kid but thinking back to how she was as an infant, it isn't even like the same kid. She is really happy now and even kind of independent. She is so loving and sweet, but man she really does have an opinion about things (I have no idea where she gets that from, must be her dad) She is still quite stubborn and she still seems to win most of the battles of will, but she is also kind of shy. She is so tough, I guess she had to be to go through what she has. She has such a strong spirit, I love it, I guess she reminds me of myself in some ways. She is even left-handed, I guess that is a sign. I sure am crazy about the little gal. She sat all snuggled on the couch and watched Dora, she didn't move from her spot the entire time that I got ready
She found Lizzy's monkey backpack/harness and decided to wear it all day, she had to wear it to the store and everything. I couldn't get a good picture of it because Nellie is not real enthusiastic about getting them taken.

Park Day... Horray!

We have been getting about 1 warm day a week sandwiched between some really cold days, but I'll take it. It was warm enough this past Tuesday (in addition to being the first time this winter that there hasn't been any snow on the ground) for us to go to the park. It was so nice to get outside. I am starting to get cabin fever and really need winter to end. I am sure a lot of you are all feeling the same way. Lizzy kept saying "Thank you so much Mom for taking us to the park! It's so much fun." We really did have fun even if it was a bit muddy. Nellie has to go down the slide by herself, something she has been doing since last fall. She is such a monkey, she has to climb the stairs by herself as well. It was hard to get a picture of her because she didn't even hesitate at the top, it was just down and climb the stairs and do it again.
Monkey #1 likes to climb as well, she climbs all the way to the top of this and it probably higher than ten feet. She also is fearless on the swings, she always wants me to do Underdog and they are really tall swings so she really gets up there. She is such a pansy when it comes to other things like swimming but not heights.

Poor little Nellie's eyes just water like crazy in the cold but she doesn't care. Nellie is so opinionated about her clothes. After I let her wear this jacket she absolutely will not wear her coat. I try and hurry and grab her coat out of the closet before she can see the jacket, but she isn't fooled, she just starts kicking and screaming until I let her wear the dumb jacket. She is the same way about her shoes, she has specific shoes she wants to wear each day and it has to be those shoes or else meltdown.

Valentines Day

Lizzy was so excited about her Valentines party, the night before she couldn't get to sleep because she was so excited. It was so cute. She brought home all her valentines and laid them all out and started going through them and telling me about them. She is getting so big! I can't believe how grown up she is getting. I think she was just a little bit excited about her Valentines.

For Valentines Day I decided to draw some portraits of the girls for Kevy. It has been years since I have drawn and I am just grateful that I still have the ability. I had some great black and white pictures of the girls from last summer that I drew from. This is very hard for me to post them because I am very critical of my own work. I look at them and all I can see is what is wrong with them. But I know people wanted to see them so I am posting them. Kevy loved them and all in all I am pleased with how they turned out. The pictures are dark because the flash made them pretty much disapper so I had to take them without it.

Cookie Decorating

It is a Hansen Family tradition to decorate cakes for Valentines and give them to friends or teachers, etc. Well, I couldn't find any heart cake pans so I just decided to do sugar cookies. For family home evening we decorated them. The girls did such a good job didn't they... just kiddding those are the ones that Kevy and I decorated. These are the ones the girls did, Lizzy was supposed to be decorating it for a friend, but I don't think that friend would appreciate the bite marks in it.
They didn't really do much decorating, they did have fun eating the candy though. That is pretty much all they did. When I went to put the candy away I found a whole bunch of half eaten ones that Lizzy stuck back in the bag, nice.
Nellie has been a really terrible eater lately so I have taken her completely off sweets as best as I can, but I couldn't not let her participate, don't worry all she did the whole time was see how fast she could stuff it in.
Llizzy was very proud of her cookie. She really loves doing stuff like this and she gets so excited about it. All day that was all she talked about was decorationg the cookies. "I so excited Mom we get to decorate the cookies tonight!" We sure had fun. I love making memories.