Our Lil' Experience

I may have put up a video too soon.

2009-07-07T13:16:00.000-07:00

Sorry to be break the news through a blog post, but yesterday we miscarried. I've cried a lot and now I feel much better. We accept God's plan and have faith that all will be well and we will yet be blessed with a little one according to His timing. We want to thank all those that have called, offered service, babysat, etc. We truly have felt an outpouring of love during this hard time and in a strange way, we feel more blessed than even. We'll update you on any future news.

2008-10-18T13:55:00.000-07:00

Newly Posted Family Pictures!

2008-10-18T13:37:00.007-07:00

Propostion 8

2008-10-11T11:18:00.000-07:00

Vote Yes for Proposition 8!

2008-10-11T11:02:00.000-07:00

Go to these websites to learn more about Proposition 8 so that we can make a difference in what is being taught in schools and in our freedom of speech. Help protect marriage and families. Make a difference soon! Voting is November 4th!
protecmarriage.com
www.preservingmarriage.org
www.whatisprop8.com

Lilly's first day of crawling (Jan. 14th) all thanks to a trail of Cheerios! She would never crawl until I enticed her with food.

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Lilly sleeps just like her Dad with her butt up in the air!

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They're Kreepy and they're Kooky, Mysterious and Spooky, They're altogether Ooky, the Nielson Family!

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Do you think Joel had some fun with this school project?

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Joel made me do this...really. For once, dress up was not my idea.

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Kendra and Joel outside the new Rexburg Temple

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Lilly finally mastering crawling at 8 1/2 months!

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Bundled up for her first sledding adventure!

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My brother Jamin, Me, and my niece Claire on Christmas Eve.

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Here is an older picture of Lilly taken in California when she was about 3 months old.

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Here is a picture I just received. It was taken right after Lillia was born when Joel had to fly back to California for summer sales.

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Joel enjoys being a father and husband who pesters us like this. We love him and will get him back eventually.

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Baby Girl enjoyed all the new things in front of her that she could grab and chew on. Joel also had fun dressing her up with gifts.

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Joel and Lilly on Lilly's First Christmas Day

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We're teaching her early the sweetness of soda along with how to be on a million dollar Squirt ad campaign

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Grandma Nielson and Lilly in December

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Lilly jabbering and playing with her snowman!

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Aunt Michon and Lilly before Kris's graduation

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Uncle Kris and Lilly playing Peek-a-Boo

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This one is just as funny with Lilly and Jacob. I love her expressions! This was taken back in August.

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I love this picture of Lillia and Grandpa Petty. I think she was babbling, but it looks like shes scared or something.

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She loves being in the water like her father.

2008-01-24T07:41:00.000-08:00

A New Year

2008-01-03T10:25:00.000-08:00

We are glad to start another year and move on past the holidays. I love the Holidays because they keep me busy, but they also keep me pudgy and poor. We had a great time together,though. I have a whole new set of fond Christmas memories after this season. My brothers Schuyler and Jamin came to visit. They have a fabulous sense of humor, so we did a lot of joking around and tried to tone down the board games for Schuyler's benefit. I felt very close to them, which is great because it is generally hard to achieve that due to the distance (they live in Chicago along with my other brother Collin). We spent time with Joel's family, too before Christmas for his brother Kris's graduation Dec. 22ish. It was fun to see them all since we were unable to go to Oregon and Washington to visit them. Lilly loved having so many grandparents and fans around. She loved them even more when she was allowed to play with the presents they left her under the tree. She loved the wrapping paper! (and the presents themselves, of course:) The Christmas holiday itself was spent with my siblings, mother, and numerous nieces and nephews. It was great! We played games, ate delectable food, ate some more, and played some more. Christmas morning Joel, Lilly, me and Michon (Joel's sister) opened presents at our house and had breakfast. It was very nice to be able to relax and focus on enjoying our daughter's first Christmas with her. This year was unique and special in that we didn't have quite the abundance as usual so we made do with mostly hand-made gifts or a few small store bought ones. I was worried it wouldn't be very exciting, but it definitely was. Lilly especially had so many gifts that we all took turns opening them or helping her open them, which took quite some time. What we did receive was cherished more than usual and we were more aware of the sacrifice and love that came with each gift. I truly only wanted to give more and not receive. I knew that would finally happen one day! Joel was so sweet about my simple gift to him. He is always grateful no matter what. He is always my favorite gift. It was initially hard this season when I realized we couldn't do what we generally do, but it turned out to be a great blessing. I definitely developed a greater talent for knitting, cooking, decorating, and being thrifty and creative. I stretched these abilities to the max! I also realized that we have a beautiful family that would never bat at eyelash at a homemade gift that might not be their favorite. Everyone was so very loving and sweet. I was constantly tearing up by everyones kindness and sincere gratitude. For these reasons and more, I loved the Christmas season this year!
On to other bits of info many of you don't know about our life:
Joel got ANOTHER job offer as a web designer! He really wanted this job for a while and was waiting to hear back. He heard back at the beginning of Dec. and quit his other jobs to work full time for Yellowstone Hotel Systems. He designs hotel websites and builds their web pages. He loves his job! He's learning a lot and will be more qualified for other jobs in a similar field when we eventually move. Lilly is doing well. She is still semi crawling, but just not forward. The last few days she has been exceptionally tumbly. She will go from sitting to laying down to a crawling position to sitting all on her own! Lilly has also recently discovered how to stiffen her body and throw herself backwards when she is mad. She is perfecting the art of tantrums and she is only 8 months old today! We have a long road ahead of us. Lillia is also fond of grown up food more than usual. She wants whatever anyone else has. She's feeding herself anything I give her, but especially bananas, peas, apple chunks, crackers, and bread. I am sure she would willingly try pigs feet if I put it on her tray, but I will wait on that one.
I am keeping busy with our own sort of visual family history. Since our computer crashed and took with it all of our pictures, I am now gathering every picture I can find for the last 3 years. I am cropping, editing, organizing, copying, printing, and saving anything I find. I am even going to put our first pictures of Lilly up in our house! I also haven't done a baby book for Lilly yet, so that is also part of this month long project. I like to be busy, especially if I can use any creative talents. Besides that, the only thing I'm really looking forward to is turning 25 on the 16th so that our insurance will drop a little after my little car wreck a few months ago.
All in all, our family is doing quite well. We're developing life skills that will help us immensely in the future. We set attainable goals that will bring us closer to our savior this year. Despite any mishaps that have come our way, we are happy and excited to be living life in the way that we are. We truly do have an overabundance of Life's greatest necessities!

Lilly's First Food Experience!

2007-10-24T10:43:00.000-07:00

My fruity husband. Get it? Ha, ha.

2007-10-23T18:08:00.000-07:00

Michon at the Sacramento fair.

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cute little pig butts!

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In this picture, Lillia hit the piglet in the nose seconds later.

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For our Anniversary, Joel took me to see the pigs! I got to hold all the little piglets. They were so adorable, but not so adorable when they grew.

2007-10-23T17:38:00.000-07:00

This was Lillia's first time in a playground swing in California.

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Joel likes to put things on Lilly's head all the time and enjoyes the fact that she hasn't figured out how get them off.

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Lilly in her new home and oh, so happy!

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Grandma Petty and Lilly at the A's game

2007-10-23T16:01:00.000-07:00

I had trouble keeping the ketchup on my hot dog

2007-10-23T15:53:00.001-07:00

Back in Idaho

2007-09-24T08:50:00.001-07:00

I've been getting a lot of grief from family and friends because I haven't posted anything new in a while. I have a valid excuse--we moved and we have misplaced our camera. I can't put any pictures on the blog until it is found, so please don't yell at me anymore! Sniff, sniff.

Our lives are quite different now that we're back in Rexburg. Joel is back in school, but taking 10.5 credits in night classes. He works full time at Lucky Tee Golf as a regional sales rep. He also works a couple days a week with his brothers at Gorgeous Garage and so he stays very busy. Joel does so much for us! We are both also trying to place 14 candy machines in Rexburg that we bought in California for extra income.

As for me, I sit at home and watch soap operas and eat Lindor truffles at all hours of the day because that's what mom's do! Okay, not really. I keep busy while Lillia is awake, but when she naps I've found that I do have some free time. Lately I've been improving the home, reading, water coloring, and learning how to crochet baby socks. I just recently talked to a baby store owner and asked if she would sell baby items for me in her new store. She said that if she liked them, she would. This week I am going to make baby bracelets and maybe socks. I'll take them to her and see what she thinks. I am also going to try to do three portraits for Christmas to help out while Joel is still in school.

We've been having a lot of fun in Rexburg with several of our family members around. We see Abbie and Jordan, Autumn and Joe and kids, Ross and Heidi, and Kris and his girlfriend Lindsey often throughout the week. Most of our friends have graduated, so we have to build them up again. I still have two favorite friends here--Hannah and Jessica, but I'm missing Amber and Dan, Jelaire, Michele and Taylor! I also miss my other absent family members. We should start a Smith/Nielson/Petty community here is Rexburg! Better yet, lets relocate to Crete.

Lilly isn't growing quite as fast, but she's developing more of a personality. At church yesterday, I held her on my lap and faced her towards a little one-year-old girl in our ward. Lilly laughed so hard (I thought she was crying!) for several minutes at this little girl who was only looking at her. It was so funny! Lilly doesn't laugh much, but she definitely thought the toddler was amusing.
Lillia started doing push-up's recently, too. She's eager to look around, so she pushes herself up to do so. She should start sitting up on her own soon.
When I took Lilly to Dr. Watson (my brother-in-law), he said she was in the 89th percentile for height, the 70th for weight, and 30th for head size. So she's tall, slightly chunky, and has a little noggin.

We love our mobile home. It is so nice to have our own place. I love the fact that any home improvements that I do will only increase its value or at least keep it the same so we don't end up losing a lot more in the end. It is so quiet in our place and it has more room than any place I've lived since leaving home. I finally have a yard! I am actually excited to have a garden next year which is strange because I HATED our garden growing up. We have a waterfall in our yard, two swings, several trees and it is landscaped. Not too long ago we even discovered that we have strawberries growing outside.

I think this is all the major stuff. Are you happy Charity and Amber?! I hope so. Thanks for taking an interest in our lives!

Big Blue Eyes!

2007-08-15T16:09:00.000-07:00

I just had to include another fist gnawing picture. It is so cute! Joel thinks it's cute when I do it, too (okay, not really).

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If only we could all be this happy in the morning.

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The Nielson Girls

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Struttin' their Stuff

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Me and my little sister, Abbie

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On our way to the ultimate candy shop! I'm getting Lillia started early on sweets.

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Joel golfing at the driving range.

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Joel and Kendra on a date at the driving range in Petaluma, California.

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Lilly grabs my face when I put her close to me. She mostly likes my nose since it is nice and large.

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Kendra and Lilly before church on August 5th, 2007.

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Lilly in an outfit from Dad. I think she might be pinching her cheek. I think she was trying to figure out why I kept trying to torture her by dressing her up and taking picture after picture.

Joel and Lilly having daddy daughter time.

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I love this profile! My girl is so dang cute with her chub and double chin!

2007-08-14T18:27:00.000-07:00

Rrrrar! I'm a tiger!

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My sisters (Autumn and Abbie) came to visit me at the beginning of the month. When they came, my aunt Lori and her kids came to visit us as well from Tracey, California. We had a lot of fun. I must say that I have a pretty entertaining family. My dad's side of the family is SO funny! I love them.

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Kendra and Lilly in Windsor, California in August, 2007.

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My cute baby girl in her Bumbo chair. She loves sitting in it because she can pretend that she's a grown-up.

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Lilly sucking on her first. It is one of her new hobbies. She is sitting in her Bumbo chair. She loves it!

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Here is the living room in our new mobile home. We are buying it right now even though we haven't actually seen it. We're going by Autumn's, Abbie's, Ross and Heidi's word. It looks cute, though. I'm so excited.

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This is the kitchen in our mobile home.

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This is the waterfall in our yard in our new mobile home. I've never had a waterfall in my yard before. Wahoo!

Getting Lilly ready in the Morning

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Lilly doing squats when she's only hours old!

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Still in California in August, 2007

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Hello! We're really starting to get into this blog thing. It is a more interesting form of personal history that we can even turn into a book and have sent to us! Anyway, life is great here in Santa Rosa. We're starting to get to know more people and sadly have to turn down invitations to play much too often due to Joel's busy work schedule. We have a lot going on the next few weeks. This week we might go to a lake with some friends for the weekend, next week we'll visit our cousin Jessie, then all of Joel's parents will come at the end of the month and then we're out of here! We pretty much have a mobile home waiting for us back home in Rexburg with a yard, a fence, storage space, three bedrooms, a swing, and more! What more could a girl want?! You may be thinking a house, but that will come. All I care about is a yard that is mine and a place that I can decorate however I want! I can paint the walls black if I want, or maybe even pink in memory of Amber ;). Joel and I are basically the same as last month, except I am attempting to write song lyrics for Abbie and Jelaire. I haven't told them yet because I'm afraid the lyrics won't be impressive until I work more at it. Joel is tanner and at the moment sick with a cold, and cuter than last month and cuter than yesterday, too. Lilly is naughty lately. She learned how to roll over a week ago and she wakes up every hour of the night when she rolls over because she doesn't like to sleep on her back. I can't wait until she goes back to sleeping for 10 hours solid! My sisters (Abbie and Autumn) came to vist me at the beginning of the month and that was a lot of fun. They are both so beautiful and giving! Abbie was funny because she was very particular about her pregnancy cravings and Autumn was naturally energetic and in need of a spanking from a sister every once in a while when she mess with us. We went to Sacramento to the old part of downtown and to an awesome candy store near my house, as well as a market. We went swimming with my aunt Lori and cousins. Um, I think that is all the basic stuff so far. We love you all! Thanks for taking an interest in our lives!