Charley the dancing machine

This is a little video of Charley jamming to one of his new favorite songs, "What I Am" by Will.i.am and the Sesame Street monsters.  JP and I are actually really excited that Charley is into this song, considering that the only other music he ever requests to dance to is the chipmunk versions of songs.  We stumbled across the chipmunk version of "Single Ladies" on Youtube one day, and Charley has been obsessed ever since.  He states, "I want to dance a little bit" multiple times a day, but if you try to put on a regular song he quickly corrects you with, "No!  I want the munks!"  And who knew that there are people out there that spend their time making chipmunk versions of every song you can think of and post them on Youtube for Charley's enjoyment.  Hopefully this chipmunk phase will pass soon before I go insane.

Mmmmm!

Miles using his new chompers to enjoy some watermelon.  This kid looooves eating.  Oh, and he did that stylish hair-do all on his own by running sticky watermelon hands through it.

Our Cayucos Vacation

We're back from spending a wonderful week on the central coast in Cayucos.  We got to hang out with the fam, take long walks, play at the park and in the pool, run on the beach, have some yummy dinners, and JP and I even got to  escape and go wine tasting :)  Here's a little glimpse of some beach time.  More pics to come!

Slow and Steady

We met these two tortoises while we were out taking a walk the other day.  Charley thought they were really cool and he liked getting on the ground and crawling around with them realllly slllowly.

Little Tan Man

I'm seriously jealous of Charley's tan skin! It looks like he took after his dad on that one. Sorry Miles, so far it looks like you got my fair complexion :)

brotherly love: Charley giving Miles a big smooch

Green Thumb

Great-Grandpa John was nice enough to plant tomato plants and gave us a strawberry plant for Charley's watering and picking pleasure. It's been a little tough for Charley to wait until the tomatoes and strawberries are red to pick them, but now they are finally turning red and we love to check for new berries and tomatoes every morning.

The first Tomato!

Mmmm! If Char could, he would only eat berries for every meal.

And Charley also adores helping Grammie water her garden. One of the only veggies Charley will eat willingly are the snap peas Grammie grows, because he thinks the peas are candy :)

It's My Party! (and I'll cry if I want to)

For Charley's birthday we walked over to Ruby's at the end of the pier for dinner. We all had a great time, except for the part where Charley decided he hated his birthday hat.

Ice cream sundae!! sweet!!

Jonathan giving us his best Blue Steel look while Miles is trying to eat his party hat in the background. Jonathan spent a good part of dinner trying to stop Miles from eating the table.

Charley liked his Ruby's hat much better than his party hat. He wanted to keep looking at it even while it was on his head.

Happy Birthday Charley!!

It's hard to believe that Charley has been charming us, cracking us up, melting our hearts, and always keeping things exciting for two whole years now. It's crazy! It wasn't that long ago that we brought a tiny little tan baby Charley home from the hospital was it? Now he's basically a little boy! Things Charley is into these days: his brother who he refers to as "My-My", doing anything dangerous, eating berries, yelling, saying "Mommeeeee" over and over and then resorting to "Kisten!" if he really needs my attention, sidewalk chalk, going on walks, playing with every dog and cat we see, going over to "Nennie's house", wind chimes and pinwheels, watching "The Fresh Beat Band" and Sesame Street on TV, wrestling with his dad, putting sprinkles on all food, playing with basketballs,footballs, baseballs, etc., playing with water, and using his big boy potty so he can get treats. I'm excited to see all the new adventures Charley will have as a two-year-old, and I hope he doesn't get a very bad case of the Terrible Two's. He already loves saying "No!" and more recently, "No! Stop it Mommy!", so I might be in trouble... :)

Charley and I made a pretty awesome birthday cake today. He was really good at pouring in ingredients, and he even helped me wash the dishes afterwards!

Time to use "the mixers" as Charley would say.

The best part!!

and here's the finished product! Of course we added almost a whole container of sprinkles as a finishing touch.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHARLEY! WE LOVE YOU TONS!

Playing Catch Up

Here's a little recap of Easter 2010:
We spent Easter up at Grammie and Pops house and had a blast as usual. Some highlights were getting to visit with Betsy and Auntie Robyn who came down from San Fran, Char and Miles handsome matching Easter outfits from Grammie, us getting to the totally packed church late and sneaking up to the balcony and having the whole place to ourselves, and having John and G.G. treat us to a delish Easter dinner at the Oakmont.

Savant Family pic

Three generations

Easter Cutie

Nelson Family pic

We're Still Here!

So we took a blogging break for a few weeks...or months :( Our camera took a fateful trip to Chuck E Cheese where it broke beyond repair, but we finally got a new one. We've all been doing well and Charley and Miles are growing by the second and doing their best to keep me super busy.

How cute are these two? Miles is seven months old and has his two bottom front teeth now and loves to bite everything. To our dismay he can almost yell louder than his brother. Yikes! But as long as he's being held, he's usually a happy camper :)

Cooling off by dipping our feet in the pool

I got this cute pic in a frame for Mother's Day from my boys :)

Charley LOVES helping Grammie water her garden and especially feeding the chickens!

Slam Dunk

If you come into our house these days, you better be ready to shoot some hoops with Charley. He is officially obsessed with basketball and can often be heard yelling things like, "HOOP! SHOOT! BALL! DUNK!" He's even woken up in the middle of the night a few times and started crying out basketball words, thinking that maybe we'll let him get up for a quick 2 AM basketball sesh. Charley had a tiny baby basketball hoop that he was kinda growing out of, so we got him a "big boy" basketball hoop this week, and he's in love with it.

When C. makes baskets he says "In the hooooop" or "Yeah baby!" and when he misses he says "Darn!" or "Almost!"

C. posing with Uncle Matt "How much will you give me if I make this shot?" Savant

Slam Dunk!

Miles is pretty content watching all the action and mostly just tries to not get hit by stray shots. Charley is a good big brother and tries to teach Miles how to hold the mini basketballs, but he gets very grossed out and offended if Miles drools on them at all.

Brotherly Love

Our First Christmas With Miles & Monty-Rex

This was Miles' first Christmas with us, and although he is the newest Nelson and enjoyed the morning with everyone, Charley still manages to attract the most attention, especially when he's playing with his gift from Uncle Matthew and Aunt Jennifer, Monty-Rex. Here's a little video showing Charley trying to ride his new dinosaur, which by the way, is not supposed to be ridden...Merry Christmas!!

Lets go ride a bike

John-Paul got an early Christmas gift from me and the boys...a bike! It's kind of a gift for Charley too, because now he gets lots of fun bike rides with dad in his cool little bike seat thing. They both are loving going on rides all around Seal Beach, and Charley likes to say "whoaaa!" every time they make a turn. He loved it so much, that he kept his helmet on practically all day after his first ride.

Ever since Thanksgiving I've been trying to get a picture of the boys together for our Christmas card, and it's been pretty much impossible. First of all, Charley seems to be incapable of staying still for longer than 2 seconds and also, when the camera comes out he becomes Mister Serious. Miles isn't much of a camera fan either, but even more than that, he really isn't a fan of being too close to Charley and being poked, hit, having his pacifier stolen, etc. So I finally just broke down and found a Christmas card with spaces for three pictures: a pic of Charley, a pic of Miles, and a pic of John-Paul and I. Problem solved! But here is some evidence of our valiant attempts at a family photo (and thank you to Jennie for being the patient photographer):

Happy Thanksgiving!

This Thanksgiving we have an extra-special blessing to be thankful for...new baby Miles! Today is his one-month birthday :)

You can blame my mom for this Thanksgiving scene complete with wooden pilgrims...

Workin it at Dad's Work

I took the boys to visit John-Paul at work yesterday, because some of his co-workers had been wanting to meet Miles, and also because we really needed to get out of the house :) Charley made himself at home right away, running into people's offices and taking things, and Miles hung out in his carseat most of the time until he decided to cry really loudly while John-Paul was on a business call.

Mr. Miles Daniel Nelson, the youngest Versatables employee ever.

Charley working so hard at Dad's computer that he needed a snack.

Stormer was a good sport and let C. run around his office and touch everything.

Charley decided he was a little chilly, so he put on John-Paul's co-worker Vy's leopard print Snuggie :)

Charley speaking to some important clients for John-Paul's co-worker Sam.

C. hard at work "measuring" his little brother.

The Nelson Household

Here's a little glimpse of whats been going on with the Nelson family lately...

Charley got a handsome haircut from Dad. Here he is in the mohawk phase of the haircut process.

And Miles has been snoozing....well and crying and eating a lot too, but he looks the cutest when he's snoozing :)