First day of Preschool!

OH, my baby boy started his first day of preschool! I THINK that I was as excited as he was! What a cute little stud. He is going to the rec center just down the road a bit and Mr. Daniel is his teacher! He LOVES to bring his Batman Backpack to school with him even though there is nothing in it and it is bigger than he is! What a stud! Here are some pics of the first day!

When I went to pick him up after a blissful 2 1/2 hours, he didn't have much to say. I asked him what they learned, and he said that they didn't learn ANYTHING!! He always says that! what a silly boy. It's like pulling teeth to get info out of this kid! Hopefully we will work on that as the school year progresses!


Standing in front of his NEW SCHOOL!


Lincoln and Calvin getting ready to go inside!


Cole says this one's the TJ (tear jerker) I think I might have to agree!

Garden Update

Sorry that I haven't been good about keeping up with the garden updates, but WOW have we been going GANGBUSTERS!!! Our garden is SO crazy! We have had lots and lots of yummy stuff to eat, and can, and do everything else with! Here's the count so far:

CUCUMBERS: 58
YELLOW SQASH: 22 +about 6 on the vine right now (too lazy to pick them...too much squash!
BEANS: about 12 lbs.
TOMATOES: 166
PEPPERS: 33
CHERRY TOMATOES: 439 + a boat load more that I am sick of picking :)
CORN: 0 sadly :( Maybe next year
PUMPKINS: 2 HUGE ones! We can't wait for Halloween!
RUSSET POTATOES: Still growing
YUKON GOLD POTATOES: 17
YELLOW ONIONS: 1 (The rest are still growing)
CARROTS: 52

SO there you have it! We are lovin it! Cole is quite the canner and while we were in Utah, canned about 12 bottles of DELICIOUS pickles! I have canned 12 bottles of tomatoes, and also like 15 bottles of peaches. Yeah for food storage! Here's to the rest of the harvest!

Back to School Breakfast

Lincoln and I decided that it would be really fun this year to invite all of his friends that are going to back to school over for a "Back to School Breakfast"! We had SO much fun! We served Ebelskevers- a Nelson family tradition and one of my FAVORITES!!! (what could be better than fried batter?!) - and had fruit and juice and all sorts of stuff! It was a HIT! As always, I was a day late and a dollar short with the picture taking, so I only have pictures of the adults. The kids weren't eating for too long anyways...the sandbox was calling their names! All except for Lincoln who stayed the entire 3 shifts that everyone was eating! He loves them like his mama does! But just know that they LOVED them! We did get some pics of a few of the adults though to document the day!


Lincoln was such a big helper. He even wore his apron the entire time! I love this little dude!


Big Boy Dylan hanging from the monkey bars.

The LOVELY (wow, just got out of bed- decided not to even brush my hair!) hostess holding the ebelskevers- or at least some of them! Those little guys go FAST!


Heather Schafer, and Steph and Camille Dix

Payton and Kate playin in the sand! LOTS of sand was dumped on heads this day. SORRY MOMS!

Thanks for coming guys! We can't wait for next year!

Welcome home Elder Miles!!!

WHAT!!!!!! My brother came home from his MISSION! I can't believe that it has been 2 years since he left! That is crazy. That means that we have now lived here in Denver for 2 years! Man how time flies! Anyways, that's why we were in Utah for so long...we were waiting anxiously for Bry to come home! We have missed him so much, and are so proud of him for serving in the Canada Toronto East (Spanish speaking) mission faithfully for 2 years! Now we are anxious to get him de-nerded! We'll see how long that takes...he is still quite fond of the old part! Welcome home Bwysie!

The WHOLE FAM (except for Cole and Rocky) for the first time in 2 years!


Ruby and Payton waiting ever so "patiently" for Bry to come out of the plane for heavens sake! We had to finally strap them in their strollers they were so crazy!


Lincoln has missed Bry lots! He said that when he got off, he was going to run up and TACKLE him to the ground! He didn't....too shy! :)


The boys in the fam. Bry is NOW TALLER than Ty! Holy Smokes this kid grew!

It's a..........???

GIRL GIRL GIRL GIRL GIRL GIRL GIRL GIRL GIRL GIRL GIRL GIRL GIRL GIRL GIRL GIRL!!!!!!!!

YEAH!!! Cole and I were able to go to the doctor yesterday and have our 20 week ultrasound, and we found that all is well with our little PINK bundle! She wasn't shy at all! (Seems to be the trend in the Cole Smith family ultrasounds!) But we couldn't be more thrilled. We are so excited for her to continue to grow and to develop! So far, she has been a bit nicer to her mother than her brothers were in the womb! I don't get kicked quite as frequently, or near as hard! This could very well change within the coming months, but for now, I am content to not get beat up quite so badly!


Here are her tiny little feet! She kept putting them up just like this during the ultrasound. SO CUTE!!!

We are having a DAY picking out a name. She of course won't have a name until she is born, but we are up for ANY ideas that you all might have! Lincolns suggestions are MARRILER, and/or ZUBLE. :)

I have a PLETHORA (of pinatas) of other things to blog about, like our month long trip to Utah, but for now, you are just going to have to be content to know that our little Minderina is on her way, safe and sound!

SLACKERFACE!!

Sorry I've been such a slacker lately with the blog! Not really feelin up to it, but now that I have the NEW best friend of an air conditioner in our home, I can stand to be at my computer for more than 3 seconds! There are more to come in the next few days, but here are a few to whet your whistle. :)

Happy Fourth!

Around our house, the 4th of July is one of the fav's. Cole's for sure! This year did not disappoint. We had a great time. We went to the same park as we did last year, except for this year we were ON TIME for the parade, and it is a dang good thing too, because Lincoln rode around that course like 6 or 7 times! He is really into his bike. As long as it doesn't wiggle, he is in hog heaven! Payton had a great time going around and snatching everyones flags and waving them around. We enjoyed some friends, popsicles, watchin and runnin through of the firehose, and ridin bikes/strollers!

The 3 parade goers...Cole joined in after he was done taking pics. He's MUCH better than me!

Calvin and Lincoln getting pumped and ready to start the parade!

My little flag snatcher/waver.

Check out that look of complete concentration! It took alot when there were kids flyin by you the whole time!

Payton and Mom getting ready to start the parade as well! We didn't get very far that way.

Little Mamma's boy. MAN is this a cute/happy little guy!

BEST pic of the day! How CUTE is he! He loves the bikin!


We then went home and had a nice little NAP which is always nice. We didn't know what we were going to do that night, because it was SO STORMY! It rained cats and dogs for a while, and we didn't know if we were going to be able to do any fireworks or anything like that, so we decided to head to Red Robin with the Dix's and have a scrumptious dinner and then decide what to do! Everyone in the restaurant enjoyed 3 crazy boys yelling and screaming and throwing food and everything else. (Okay, so it was just Payton doing those things, but there were 2 other boys there!) After dinner, it was still pretty stormy and we didn't feel like taking the kids somewhere where they would be miserable, so we headed back to the Dix's abode and bought a few fireworks and had a fantastic display of pyrotechnics! Just as we were finishing, the fireworks from a neighboring park that we didn't even know were doing fireworks started going off, and they were great! So we hopped into the car, drove a little ways and watched the rest of the fantastic fireworks! It was so fun. I LOVE fireworks! Then we headed back to the Dix's, ate yummy strawberry shortcake, then took our EXHAUSTED boys home to bed! It was all in all a very festive and american-ish 4th! Here's to the 24th and more fireworks! YEAH!

Sparklers are some of my fav's, and Lincoln thought so too.

Payton wasn't quite so sure! He wouldn't take his eyes off them for fear they would jump out at him!

Tiny Town

EVERYONE has to go to Tiny town if they live in Denver, especially if you have little boys that are absolutely OBSESSED with trains! We pretty much know where all the train stuff is, and can tell you all about them. So we decided one Saturday to take a little jaunt up to Tiny Town and spend a few hours up there. It definitely didn't disappoint. The boys had a GREAT time playing in all of the little houses, and having a fun picnic, and of course riding the Train! Paytons LEAST favorite thing was sitting in the front seat because we kept getting all of the "CINDERS AND ASHES" (funny if you watch Thomas every single day of your life!) all over his face, and he wasn't down with that. Funny little guy. Lincoln of course was in HEAVEN! He might just end up like our train conductor that started liking trains when he was Link's age, and decided that he wanted to drive one for a living. To each his own I guess! Anyways, here's some shots of the fun day!


CARRRRSSSS!!!!!!

Checkin out the little gas station. Definitely Cole's favorite!

Gettin ready to start the Train ride! CHOO CHOO ALL ABOARD!!! (That's what Payton was shouting the entire time we were going, except, of course, for when he was mad about the CINDERS AND ASHES!

He found a train that looked like Thomas that was on a Switch Point, and was PRETTY pumped about it! Cute little dude!