Aunt Lauren

Aunt Lauren came to visit yesterday--she looks so great!! She will be 15 weeks tomorrow and has the cutest little baby bump ever. She has always been thin (lucky!), and I know she is going to be one of those pregnant women that has just a bowling ball for a belly. I can't wait to meet her little boy or girl--she is going to be a fantastic mother!

AJ loves her--he had fun with her and she brought him a sock monkey jack-in-the box toy. He was scared at first but now loves this thing (Lauren: he warmed up to him and gave him a hug today!).

No pictures of the baby bump, I forgot to take them! You can visit her blog though to see her little bump (just click on the blogs I read link).

Busy Saturday

Yesterday morning we had a playdate with Sofya and her daughter Elle. It's been about two months since I saw Elle, born in October, and boy has she really grown! She is crawling and giggling--it's so amazing how fast they grow, and seeing Elle yesterday put it in prospective for me!

My big little boy:

We came home and ran some errands and then our great friends Clare and Josh came over for a cookout. We had a blast--I for one had a little too much to drink and am exhausted this morning! Anyway, it was a good time :).

Our parents are all coming over today for another cookout. We are really going to beat this grill to death by weeks end I think, this will be the third day in a row of cooking out and did I mention yesterday I had John grill me a burger for lunch too? We've been eating our breakfast on the deck, it's amazing how much we love it now that it's all nice and clean!

Our "New" Deck

Our house is eight years old and has never had any sort of treatment done to the fence and deck. We have lived here three of those years and have failed to clean and stain it. We hired a professional because it was really bad (see before picture below!). Eduardo was great--he even fixed our top-of-the-stairs baby gate, which our dog had jumped on the day before, causing it to be pulled out of the wall.

Now I have one last thing to do before I'm completely happy with our grounds--install sod in the backyard. Well actually, it's a small yard so I would really like to just go ahead and put flagstone down and forget the grass altogether, but we priced it out and it was $7000! We aren't exactly to-it-yourselfers when it comes to stuff like that, just seems like something that we could potentially really screw up. Anyway, two years ago, I had the grass coming in strong and beautiful, but since we were none the wiser, we didn't allow it to establish itself and let our dog go potty back there and now we have a large dirt area :(. I don't want to put so much effort into the grass again, so I have decided to just install sod in that small area in the fall. I'm sure I'll post the before and after once that is complete!

So back to the deck--here is a good before/after while he was powerwashing. Just powerwashing looked amazing--I was impressed! The staining makes it look so nice too (once it dried it just looked like regular new wood):


I'm almost embarrassed to show this, but this is what are deck looked like before it was done. Notice the gross mildew stains and the oil stains from our old shotty grill.

And here is the after! Eduardo said the oil stains wouldn't come completely out, but he actually did a really good job of masking them--now it just looks like it's part of the wood.

So after we got the deck and fence done, we trashed our old furniture and grill and got a new bistro table and chairs and a new grill. John and I went back and forth on the grill for a long time. John wanted a charcoal/smoker grill and I wanted a gas grill. I know, I know--food tastes better on charcoal grills and the smoker would certainly be used by us since we love food slow cooked, but what was most important to me was the cleanliness. I HATE charcoal and cleaning that crap up. I couldn't get the picture out of my mind of my newly cleaned deck covered in charcoal soot. In the end, we found a nice grill that had both! We would mostly use it on the gas side, but when we were really in the mood for something to be smoked or grilled with charcoal, we will use the other part of it.

After three long hours of John putting the grill together, we put the little monkey to bed and enjoyed a few hours on our deck grilling, eating, and chatting. It was so nice. Here is John grilling away! Filet Mignon for me and Turkey Burgers for John:

And here is me enjoying a great glass of wine (Russo by Coppola, which my brother of all people turned me on to):

Tonight our good friends Clare and Josh are coming over to grill on the new grill--I'm excited!

AJ GIVES KISSES!

I don't have any pictures yet, but just wanted to post that our little monkey gives kisses now! The kisses are still open mouthed, but it's so exciting! At first he would only give Mommy kisses, but now he will give Daddy kisses too.


Another thing he likes to do is to walk in Daddy's shoes. Notice the brushes in his hands. Yes, my son is obsessed with brushes--all kinds of brushes from hairbrushes to toothbrushes. There was a little while where he wanted to sleep with his toothbrush, since it was the last thing he does before going to bed. I think I kind of got him off that, although he does still get upset:

I also let him try blackberries for the first time this week. He loves them--as you can see from the picture below:

He is really talking a lot--every day he is saying new words and babbling like he is having a full out conversation with me. I have no idea what he is saying, but of course I pretend like I do and he loves going back and forth with me.

4th of July

We had a wonderful 4th of July weekend. We had an awesome visitor for the entire weekend--Aunt Kayla! AJ loves his Aunt Kayla so much. I think he might enjoy her more than anyone on the planet. She is a character--so AJ loves seeing her and her funny faces! On Friday we went to the zoo (see the third of July post). Saturday we had a whirlwind of a day--we dropped by our good friend Jeff's house then went to Grandpa Hall's. Afterwards we went to Seth and Sunny's parents house for fireworks. Seth and Sunny have two very cute and darling boys--Ethan and Dylan. Dylan is only 6 months older, so AJ loves hanging out with him. The fireworks were great too.



Sunday we drove up to Philadelphia for my family's annual 4th of July picnic. Yes, it was the 5th of July, but my cousin Jacquel got married on the 4th of July. Sadly, I didn't have anyone to watch AJ so I had to miss the wedding (heard it was beautiful though!). Anyway, the picnic is something everyone looks forward to every year. Aunt Kathy and Uncle Bob really know how to throw a party. There is something for everyone and TONS of food to boot. It lasts all day long and ends with fireworks. Last year the cops came (since the fireworks are all illegal!) so they decided to take a year off. Regardless, it was an awesome day:


AJ jumping with Grandma on the trampoline:





Swimming with Aunt Kayla:







Hitting the pinata!







Although he didn't get to eat the candy, he did get to fish for it!




The party in Philly made me really miss going up there for the 4th of July. John likes to stay in VA to have something more low key, but I think after seeing our party--he wants to go up every year (I hope at least!). AJ got to see his Godmother Christina and we got to meet my cousin Jennifer's daughter Ava--born in March. Ava is beautiful--another great addition to the Nelson clan. The Nelson babies are always beautiful. It was really nice seeing everyone--mostly Grandma. I'm so glad to have such a great family. Everyone always asks me why I made such a big deal out of birthdays and holidays--well, the answer is, I know nothing else! Every holiday is a party! With such a big, close family--everything has to be a party!

Zoo Trip

So today we went to the zoo with Aunt Kayla, Clare, Josh, Haley and her son Reilly. We met for lunch first then explored the zoo. I think I enjoyed it more than anyone else. Although they didn't have all of the animals out (they think the mama panda is pregnant!), here are a few of our favorites!


Baby Panda:



Orangutan--this is a very cool animal. He was so smart!

Reilly and AJ liked the grass the most:

After the zoo we walked to Adams Morgan to eat at John's friend Hani's restaurant. His family owns Mama Ayesha-a Middle Eastern restaurant. The place is really nice and has amazing food. I got the best chicken dish--it was a full chicken on a pita--the bread was the best part! AJ loved the hummus! Then we hopped on the metro home--we were all very tired when we got home, we went straight to bed!

The best part--AJ slept through the night! Hopefully he keeps it up!

Oh what a Year!

I obviously have been TERRIBLE at keeping a blog this last year. One post! I vow to keep a better update on things, especially now since my best friend is expecting her first child in January! She has a blog (and already has kept a better blog than me!) and I think it's great for us to keep in touch with each others lives since we are so busy, so hopefully she motivates me to keep this blog!

So a lot has happened in the last year--a quick highlight on the big things:

AJ is a Catholic! We got him baptized in my hometown in November of 08. My brother is his Godfather and my cousin Christina is his Godmother.

AJ has a little cousin! Roman Edward Glose was born on January 22, 2008. I'm an aunt for the first time too!

AJ's first vacation in February to Turks and Caicos:

Trip to St. Louis to visit my dad for his 50th birthday:

Trip to Las Vegas in May (and got to see Maggie!). This was also to celebrate my mom's 50th birthday:

AJ turned 1! My little boy turned 1 years old. I had a hard time with this. I kept thinking "if the first year went by so fast, what is the next 18-20 going to be like"! His party was awesome--we had it at Lake Accotink park in Springfield and AJ had such a great time. Afterwards we went to my parents to continue to celebrate with our family. So much of my family drove all the way down from Philly for the party. It meant to much to me that they all came down.

A few days after AJ turned 1, he started walking! He took his first steps at 11 months, but it was really just a few steps here and there. Within days of really walking, he became a pro at it.

Our annnual Destin Vacation with my brother and his family and my dad and his family (see how much my nephew has grown too?!):

So a big, big year. Now pray that I keep up with this blog--it's so amazing to see how much has happened this year!