punkin patch

 Last Sunday, my Uncle Jay and Aunt Pola invited us over to pick our own pumpkins in their patch. It was pretty legit. They had so many different kinds of pumpkins planted, but my favorite is called a Cinderella pumpkin. Its shape and color is GORGEOUS. The second picture I have posted is of Svea in the back of the little tractor trailor with all the pumpkins we picked and the little white pumpkin is hers:) 

Can you can?

 I made applesauce this week and canned it by myself, for the first time! It was so fun and rewarding. My wonderful cousin Megan gave me a load of fresh apples, along with her strainer, jars, canning equipment, and a link to a fabulous DIY canning website. 


And then I just did it. It was actually pretty easy! But it just made a huge mess.

Yes...I totally made a makeshift tripod and set a timer to get this picture. Don't judge...I really wanted to savor this experience!

Check Out this BABE!

Look at this girl! She is getting SO big. She's still twice the size of a normal kid her age, so she's pretty healthy:) She has started sucking her thumb. Exhibit A:

We try to make her stop, but it's just SO cute, and it makes her happy, so we pull out her thumb and replace it with her binkie most....well about half the time. 

She also is getting good at tummy time (and when I say good at, I mean not protesting it...) Exhibit B:

Svea also participated in the BYU homecoming parade last weekend....and it was FREEZING.  I am a program director for the Dietetics Afterschool Program, and being part of "Y-Serve" it was my responsibility to march and represent, and well, Svea had no choice.But as always, she was a trooper. (It helped that we got to ride in the heated truck the whole way instead of actually marching but....)

 Also, my dear cousin Megan watches Svea for me while I go to school, but if I need to go to campus for any other reason (reading periodicals in the library for an annoying assignment, or for meetings, or group projects, etc) I get to take her with me, and this is how we travel:

She loves it. I can see it in her face. 

8 Weeks!!

Svea turned 8 weeks last Thursday, and she is growing and changing so much! She went on her first airplane ride and handled it very well (she slept the whole way). She is also starting to sleep through the night. (WOO-HOO)...thanks to Babywise! She will have a night every once in a while where she'll wake up once, but I'm still working on training her:) Here are some of her favorite things:

She likes looking at books,

Going swimming,
Having tummy time on the Boppy,Watching movies,and holding her bunny.We love being parents and we are having the adventure of our lives! We love our cute little girl and her sweet spirit is such a blessing in our home.

Farewell Elder Morrison!

Last Wednesday, my family and I dropped off this handsome young man
at the Provo MTC {or as my little cousin called it, the empty seat haha} He is going to serve for 2 Years in the Puerto Rico San Juan Mission. I am SO proud of him and the journey that he has been on to bring him to this point in his life. He is going to do such good. I know that there are people waiting for him to come into their lives to teach them how to truly be happy. I admire him for his strong testimony and his bravery in leaving behind his friends and family, learning a foreign language and paying his own way to live in Puerto Rico to do the Lord's work. What an amazing guy! I love him and I can't wait to hear all of his amazing stories as he blesses the lives of many.

And this is Joy

Our Baby Was Born!

Alright...I know I'm setting a pattern here of overdue posts...but at least I'm posting something!
Our baby was born at 10:02am on June 9, 2011. She was 9lbs 13.5oz and 23.5in long. We named her Svea Lina Neilson, because we have Swedish ancestry and because Jonny served his mission in Sweden. I was in labor for 8 hours, which isn't too long, but I pushed for almost 3 hours, which is very long! It was so wonderful to have my mom there...Svea came just in the nick of time because my mom had to leave to catch her flight for her cruise at 2pm that day.
Well Svea is 4 weeks today! Wow. She has grown so much and looks so different from when she was born. She loves taking baths, going on walks, and snuggling. She's really good at eating and she sleeps for about 3 or 4 hours at a time at night, which I am very happy about. She went to her first fireworks show at Thanksgiving Point on the Fourth of July, and she handled it very well. We also went to Snowbird ski resort because my family was in town, and Svea and I rode the tram up to the top of the mountain, an elevation of 11,000 feet! She is smiling a lot and is SO cute and fun to watch. Here are a couple of more-recent pictures:

Weekend Update

OK---so a lot has happened, and I...(gasp!) haven't blogged about it. Yikes. I will try to do better! I promise! So this was me last weekend:

Because I had to rush Jonny to the ER from having SEVERE chest pain. Like, I've never seen him in so much pain before. Also, when I felt his heart, it was making a weird really irregular beat. It was so scary. When we got to the ER, he was treated right away...of course...and they ran a bunch of tests and x-rays. They said that he for sure had a heart murmur, which just means that one of the valves in his heart wasn't closing all the way and it apparently isn't that big of a deal. They couldn't tell what was causing the extreme pain, or what had caused the heart murmur. However, they did all of the appropriate tests to rule out all of the bad (life threatening) things. They told us to just go home, take it easy, and go see the cardiologist the next week.
Jonny met with the cardiologist on Wednesday, and he told him that his pain was most likely caused by pericarditis {i think?}...anyways, he said he had inflammation around the heart, but it has subsided now. He said that the stress of the situation caused the heart murmur, which has also disappeared. He didn't know the cause of the pericarditis, but he said that sometimes they just come and go. So basically, we don't know what caused it so we can't really prevent it in the future. Thanks Doc...

Well the second exciting thing that happened this week is we got to go have a 3D ultrasound of our baby! (Thanks to Jonny's sweet mom)Well basically, our baby didn't want to cooperate with the ultrasound...she was being so NAUGHTY! So we couldn't get any cool 3D shots, but we did get some normal ones. It was SO awesome. This is what the doctor was able to tell from our ultrasound: 1)She's chubby---like she's already 5lbs 4oz---but she has really cute chubby cheeks, 2) She has a full head of hair, 3) She has very full lips (I was hoping she'd inherit beautiful Angelina Jolie lips from her dad) 4) She is VERY long---but this was sort of expected as well---I mean, have you SEEN her parents?? enough said. So yeah, she's basically really cute, and I can't wait to have her!!

Ok third exciting thing (I promise I'm almost done babbling...) Is that I've finished finals! So I'm done for the Summer! YAY. Plus I did really well on my last final and got an A in the class! Double Yay! So this is how I've finished out this emotional week:

Dietetics Here I Come!

I got into the Dietetics program at BYU! SO happy. In two years, I can be as intelligent as these children about what is good for you:)

Two Years!

I have been married to this fabulous man for two whole years! Yay! Two years of learning, two years of fun, two years of laughter and joy and love. Yes, it's been hard but it has been so worth it! We are still so crazy about each other as the day we got married!

For our anniversary, we decided to take a short weekend trip to St. George. We stopped in Cedar City on our way down to visit Jonny's two sisters that live there, Summer and Malisa. Malisa is about to graduate from massage therapy school and she gave me a free prenatal massage for my anniversary! (benefits of being pregnant...)

We stayed at a really nice resort in St George called the Green Valley Resort. We had such a nice, relaxing time. We went swimming, ate a lot of good food, went shopping at the outlet malls, ate, and saw Rango. We basically did a lot of laying around and eating. By the way, if you are ever in St. George, you need to eat at these two places: The Bent Fork and Xetava Gardens. They are very unique, and delicious, and fancy, without being outrageously priced. Well to say the least, we had a wonderful time and it was so incredible to have a relaxing getaway with each other to celebrate us.

We're having a girl!!!

Don't worry---if you can't interpret the ultrasound, this is NOT the proving picture of our daughter's identity:) This was just the best shot we got, it's of her sweet profile. We are SO excited, and we couldn't be happier. One of the coolest parts of the ultrasound was seeing her heartbeat, because you can see all four chambers at work, going so fast! It was incredible. I also loved seeing the spine, because I could see each individual vertebrae in perfect alignment. SOOO cool.

We have several girl names that we love....we just need to decide which name is THE one for our sweet little girl. It's weird how I already love her so much, and I just can't wait to hold her in my arms and see her cute little face and beautiful eyes. I am going to love this mom stuff:)

I'm a foodie. So what?!

i have a confession to make---i love food. i love cooking food, i love arranging food, i even love shopping for food. and it's not just any food...but it has to be GOOD food. not weird foods. i don't consider myself very picky, but the food has to look good, smell good, feel good in my mouth and taste good. i know that sounds picky, but there are not very many individual foods that i will not eat. (fish, shrimp, game meat--eww--and mushrooms) Other than that, it's either the way something is prepared or presented that i'm particular about. maybe because i was raised by a caterer......hmm

although i LOVE food, and appreciate really good food, there are only very few things that are stop-me-in-my-tracks amazing. These have also been my favorite in pregnancy. One of these things are:



+





Amazing. I don't know what it is about this combination of a crisp apple with cheddar cheese, but it does wonders for me. Marie Calendars has said, "An apple without cheese is like a kiss without a squeeze". So true, Marie. When I eat it, it reminds me of the birthday dinner scene in Chocolat where I have to close my eyes and be caught up in the moment. Another food that has this same effect on me is Chocolate Covered Strawberries. It gives me chills. So there. Ahh---it feels good to have that of my chest;)

p.s. i THINK i may have felt my baby move today. but i'm not sure if what i felt was really what it was....if that makes any sense.

Happy New Year!

We arrived home from our Christmas break to see that we had missed a horrible storm that put our power out, and ruined our internet connection. I'm not sorry we went to Arizona for Christmas.
So because we JUST barely got our internet back, this post is slightly late.

Arizona was awesome. It was warm and fabulous. We went to H&M, launched rockets on Christmas day, hiked Camelback mountain with the fam, relaxed, played the amazing Kinect, and went to CAliFoRniA for New Years. It was SO good to be with my family and spend time with them.

I always love when Jonny and I get to go on vacation because we get to spend ALL day together for usually a week at a time! It's so wonderful:)

Well, baby is still growing, and I'm getting bigger...nothing too exciting has happened yet. This month, we get to have our first ultrasound and find out what we're having! YAY! Also, I keep waiting to feel the baby move because that's supposed to be happening any day now:)

Someday...

It's things like this that make me SO excited to have a little whippersnapper of my own:)

We're expecting!

Yes, folks that's right...we are having our first baby! We are so stoked to be parents and have a cute little addition to Jonny+Kelly:) The baby is due around June 4th. Soon enough we'll have one of these in our house:

SO excited. So far, we have heard the baby's heartbeat (so we know it's alive in there) and I've started to show a little. Yeah, I have a baby bump, and it's weird to get used to! Ha and it's only getting bigger.... (YIKES) Also, according to my pregnancy book, our baby is 4.5 inches long, has fingers, toes and fingernails, has hair, and knows how to suck its thumb! ha so. cute.
We will be able to find out if it's a little Jonny Jr. or Kelly Jr. in the end of January. (We are secretly wishing for a little girl, but I would love a little boy too:))
I can't help but think about what our little person will look like! We have some good characteristics that could contribute.....like bright blonde hair in childhood, full lips, and green eyes....but then we also have some bad genes in there and our poor child will most likely have really crooked teeth, gawky awkwardness in the pre-teen years, and be really tall and lanky. Sorry little guy...(or girl) haha
Well, as if I haven't stated it enough, we're extremely happy, and we'll keep you guys updated on the happinings of mini Neilson

Our California Trip

Jonny and I just got back from an interesting, but fun week in California. We went down to watch my uncle's kids in Chino Hills while he and his wife went on a cruise.
8 days
6 kids
1 Jonny
1 Kelly.

It was a really crazy week, but we had a lot of fun too. The hardest things were to keep up with the busy schedule, keep both eyes on the toddler AT ALL TIMES(otherwise he would climb on anything, ie the table, the trampoline, the playground), making sure Kennedy was ready in time for the bus to pick her up, changing poopy diapers in Chuck E. Cheese (yes; there were more than one), and watching wayyy too much Playhouse Disney and Nick Jr. for our own good. Other than that, we had a blast! And my little cousins are so cute. We played with them at the park, graffitied on the sidewalk with chalk, played games with them, went swimming and took a walk to the Tropical Smoothie Cafe.

Mark and Misty have two days that a housekeeper/nanny comes, so those were the days that we had off. On Tuesday, we went to Newport beach to have a picnic; and because of the overcast/windy weather, we just relaxed on the sand and read our books together. After that we went to The Shoppes at Chino Hills, the main purpose for going there that there was an H&M. WOW. This is my new favorite store! Jonny converted me. Cute tops, cute skirts, cute jackets, cute jewelry, cute everything. I think I tried on 50 things and I seriously wanted to buy EVERYTHING in the store....I'm not kidding. Unfortunately, I had to just settle with getting these adorable pastel yellow jeans, and a dark blue wrap-sweater. love.them. ok enough with my ranting....

On Friday, Jonny and I spent the day at Disneyland and California Adventure. We had never been together before, so we had a good time. The weather was perfect Disneyland weather, warm but breezy so it's not unbearable to wait in lines, but it wasn't even that crowded to begin with. Our favorite rides were: California Screamin, Tower of Terror, and Space Mountain (of course)... It was so fun!

The only sad part is that we forgot our camara's battery charger, and our battery was dead. So I'm sorry to say there are no pictures to accompany the post. :(

Overall, even though the trip was hard work, Jonny and I really enjoyed ourselves because we got to spend the WHOLE day with each other for each day that we were there. And that was nice:)

These are our Cancun Pictures....FINALLY up:) we went for my parents' 25th wedding anniversary. It was so much fun! Hope you enjoy!