Brrr...

Off to Baby School on a chilly morning... Mom loves an excuse to dress me up in something different and especially a cute hat!

Winning Isn't Everything

A Cinderella story... From the worst record in baseball to American League Champs.
There's so many lessons in one season of baseball:
Follow your dreams.
Never Give Up!
Be a Team Player.
It's the Journey that Matters.

Check out the name of Lucky #7 :)
The Ray's cutest fan:

Way to Go Rays! Congrats on a great season!!

7 Months Old

Lucky number 7 (months) for our good luck charm. As we say every month, we can't believe how fast its going. She's getting quite steady sitting up, she's clapping and signing "milk" and babbles for deliberate communication. She's ticklish and giggles at Brady... she knows the sound of Brady coming to see her and will look for her when we do the baby sign for "dog". She loves a game/song we do called "the poor old horse" and gets excited to see the bath water running. She's eating all kinds of fruits and veggies and loves mom's homemade baby food. I think the favorites so far are zucchini and pears. She's scooting around looking like she may want to crawl. She sleeps 10-12 hours a night but is so curious about all the sights and sounds she might be missing, she's typically a cat-napper during the day, at least at baby school. Her eyes are still the most amazing blue hue and she smiles with her entire face.

7 months of pure joy. She is growing and changing everyday and we thank God for each and every one of them.

It Goes Too Fast

Sweet girl in her cozy bear PJs (thanks Nana!) on the morning we left to fly home. She was smiling here because she saw Nanny come over to say Good Morning!

Our last night of our trip after the Reunion we hung out with family. We had to watch the Family picture DVD again- I missed half of it the first time because it made my eyes well up.
Finley loved cousin Emily-- she's very entertaining! And after staying up late playing with the favorite new Bee toy from Aunt Shelli, sweet girl was off to bed. Chris and I watched the UF/LSU game with cousin Abby and new hubby Ryan (who are LSU fans). GO GATORS!

We had such a great time. Finley's smile sums it all up!

Nanny and Pappy loving on Finley the morning we flew out. We sure do miss everyone now that we're back home and can't wait for next year's reunion!

Fall Leaves

Each Nelson child and their family were given a family color to represent the Fall leaves on the figurative Family tree. Aunt Shelli assigned us yellow as that was my favorite color growing up. The changing leaves on the trees were beautiful. God is an artist. The place and the day were picture perfect.

Trip Day 3: The Reunion

The 1st Annual Nelson Family Reunion was a lot of fun and drew family and friends from across town and across the U.S.

Shelli made an awesome DVD of family pictures which ended with a surprise Happy Birthday segment, cake, neon green birthday garb and balloons for Pap who turns 80 in March.

The view from the hilltop where we had the reunion looked like a picture. Below is Finley and her cousin (my cousin's son, Aiden). So the big blue eyes are in the family...

It was a wonderful but tiring day for Fin. She hung in there most of the day playing with friends and relatives but eventually fell asleep (drool and all). The weather was chilly but beautiful- perfect for an afternoon nap!

The Homecoming Game

We got to go to the Homecoming game for "JM" (John Marshall High) which was really cool because its my mom's (and dad's and aunt(s) and uncle(s)) alma mater. (If you follow country music it's also Brad Paisley's alma mater which is crazy because this is a super small town-- its pictured and referenced in the song/video "Letter to Me"). My cousin Andrew also plays Varsity Ball for JM so we got to see him play which was a lot of fun! I had to take a picture of the sign below... it had nothing to do with us, but it was the only sign/seat reservation there and made us laugh....

Cousin Andrew (#50) at the game.

I made mom pose with her HS mascot... the "Monarch" (and here I was thinking it would be a large butterfly).

We left sweet girl at home with Nanny and Pappy to get some much needed sleep. It was too late and too chilly for her at the game.