No More Pink

Owen keeps telling me my blog should not be pink. Yeah, he cares about that kind of stuff. So this new background is for Owen.

Potty Training and P90X

Last Tuesday, I did something crazy. I started potty-training Lewis, and I started getting up at 5:30 in the morning to work out with Corey.

Potty-training is not something I have looked forward to with any of my children, and waking up before the sun has never been high on my list either. But, sometimes you just have to do things that you really don't want to do.

Thankfully, Lewis has been doing tremendously well compared to the first time I tried to work on potty-training a few months ago. He is having very few accidents. Soon, we will be a diaperless household, and I will have three male children who all have terrible aim. Why is it that they can aim the Wii remote at just the right spot, but the big porcelain bowl is an issue?(too much information?) I am strongly leaning toward having a urinal installed in our next house (if we ever move, which is a whole different story).

P90X is a little harder than potty-training. Each morning, Corey and I get up way before a human being should be awake (in my opinion), and we head to the basement for an hour of physical torture. Okay, maybe that's a bit of an exxageration. Week 1 felt like torture, but now that I can roll over in bed at night again without feeling the ache of muscles I previously didn't even know existed, it's less like torture and more like a really exhausting workout. We are almost done with week 2, which means we have 10 weeks left. And by the time we're finished, I plan to be able to 1) do multiple pull-ups without the help of a chair, 2) do all the moves in the ab ripper X workout, and 3) do a decline push-up without falling on my face. How's that for some goals?

Haitian Earthquake

I have had a heart for Haiti ever since spending a couple weeks there on a mission trip when I was in college. It is a beautiful, but incredibly poverty stricken country. A year or two ago, a hurricane washed away many people's homes and livelihoods. And now with this earthquake, I can't even imagine the need. If anyone happens to be thinking of sending some support to Haiti, I highly recommend donating to Mission to Haiti. www.missiontohaiti.org. It is a wonderful mission organization. They have been around for a long time, and they do an excellent job of meeting physical and spiritual needs. We have sponsored a Haitian child named Jean Jacques Marvenson for a dozen years. He will turn 18 in a couple months. Please pray for him and his family.

Snoozing Daddy

Winter Poem

(I stole this from Sharon Harmsen's Facebook, but it is so fitting. I had to blog it.)

It's winter in Iowa And the gentle breezes blow
Seventy miles an hour At thirty-five below.
Oh, how I love Iowa When the snow's up to your butt
You take a breath of winter
And your nose gets frozen shut.
Yes, the weather here is... wonderful
So I guess I'll hang around
I could never leave Iowa I'm frozen to the ground!
Author unknown.

Sledding Temp : Negative 14

How cold is too cold to sled? Something lower than negative 14 (and that's without the wind chill). The boys went out a couple times today on the hill Grandpa made for them.

New Years in Britt

We celebrated Christmas a little late in Britt this weekend. We started out with New Year's pancakes in the morning (Nelson family tradition - my grandma has done these for as long as I can remember) and ended the day with gifts. The boys were very excited.

Owen and Lewis in the dog kennel.

This is Lewis' mean face. He got some very noisy toys this year. A guitar, a microphone, a gun, a sword and a grenade that all have sound effects.

My brother's son, Lucas, is ssoooo cute!

There was a lot of MarioKart action at Grandma and Grandpa's house. I pretty much stink at it, but it's kind of fun.