oh where, oh where has my January gone?

We set our new years resolutions for the year and Evan is hoping to a lose a few of those holiday pounds. I mean look at the kid, he's a total chunk!

Before school was back in session we took an enjoyable trip to the coast for the day. It was a little bit chilly but rather beautiful none the less.

You can't really tell but Evan had gathered himself some wood and was building a fire. He loves camping and anytime we ask him what he would like to do for a fun family outing his answer is always to go camping. He's a regular Survival Man!

We conquered the sea monster! Evan was pretty sure this thing was going to jump up and eat him, but Dallin tackled the beast and showed him who was boss.

Here is pretty cool tree they call the Octopus tree. It's pretty neat!

Of course we can't forget our monthly culture night. Can you guess what it was? It might have been a bit of a stretch but we still had a blast. These two are my favorite amigos!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

So it's taken me a bit of time to get everything back in order after such a wild and crazy December. I need to get something up so you all know we're still alive. I even had my mother worried. Sorry Mom! Here is a little bit of our Christmas down in Brentwood, CA. Sadly I did not snap a lot of pictures. I guess we were too busy having fun. We also have some of our New Years party. We had a nice quiet one at home. We had Cheese and Chocolate Fondue and then played some games, looked at pictures from the year, wrote down our favorite memories on balloons and ran around in them, and then rang in the new year (at 8:00) with all sorts of noise. Matthew and I spent the rest of the night relaxing and reminiscing. Hope you all have an absolutely devine 2009.

Winter Wonderland

Just thought I would post that it is still snowing. I haven't seen this much snow in many years it seems. It just keeps coming and coming. Wednesday we got some good snowman snow so we all went out and made ourselves a little snow friend. He looked pretty sad by the next morning since it had warmed up a bit and rained. Evan said it's because he went out to play with the other snowmen. If you've ever read the Snowmen book you know what he's talking about.




It's absolutely beautiful outside, not to mention freezing cold. When the roads were cleared up a bit I ran out trying to finish up our Christmas preparations. It's a good thing too because it started real heavy again Friday night and by Saturday evening we had 10 good inches of fresh snow on top of the couple of inches we had gotten on Thursday.

Thursday's snow was nice and wet and so I managed to build a small hut. The boys were real good helpers at first but got too cold and went in while I finished it for them. I would have liked to have made it bigger but we only had a couple inches and I had used most of the snow up in our backyard.
So the kids were out of school all week and then because of the 2 inches of ice that topped our 10 inches of snow they canceled church. It was kind of sad to miss the Sunday before Christmas but we had our own little Christmas program and I baked up a storm with my little helpers. We made fudge, English Toffee, Spice & ginger cookies and chocolate peanut butter balls. It snowed off and on all day and it took us quite a bit of time to uncover our car. I haven't seen much movement outside because most people are just sticking to the indoors where it's nice and warm. Matthew's dental office canceled all patients for Monday and so we're going to take off early and head down to California. I'm a bit sad to leave behind our White Christmas but the boys are sure excited to see their Uncle Josh.

We're having our own family Christmas before we head out in the morning so here is the tree all ready for those sweet little boys. We hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!

SNOW DAYS!!!

I have some very vivid memories of huddling around our old radio (8-track included) trying to find a station that was listing the school closures for that day. There would be mounds of snow outside and you could smell the wood fire heating the house. There were either shouts of joy when he announced that school was not in session disappointed groans. I LOVED snow days but despite the amount of snow we use to get it was a rare occasion.


Now, as a mother I have experienced my first snow day and Evan his. It all started Sunday morning. We knew there was a chance of snow because of this cold artic front coming from the North, but I was pretty doubtful that I would actually get to see the real white stuff and not just ice cold rain. We were slumbering in our beds when Evan started yelling for us. I always ignore the first couple of shouts hoping they don't really want me, but when I finally responded with a groggy "What" he shouted "It's SNOWING!" Sure enough, those beautiful flakes were falling. We ran out in our jammies and coats just to feel them land softly on our faces. We lasted just a few minutes before we decided to watch from the warmth of a blanket on the couch. We got ready for church and it was still coming. We could hardly contain the kids in Primary because they were so anxious to get outside. By the time church was over there was a good 3 inches. The boys and I bundled up and rolled around outside for a bit before heading back to the church for tithing settlements.


We are now on our 2nd snow day with the chance of a couple more since we're suppose to get more snow and frozen rain early tomorrow morning. We've had the neighbor over so Evan's had a playmate, and we've been keeping busy playing, cutting, pasting, baking, frosting and movie watching. I can honestly say I still LOVE snow days.

O Tannenbaum

The Christmas tree is one of absolute favorite things about Christmas. I want it up as soon as possible and if I'm home those tree lights are on. When I was little I loved to turn off all the lights except for the Christmas tree and read or book or something. No surprise, I haven't grown up too much and still love to do that. I love the whole process of picking out that perfect tree, the one that screams "The Greatest Nielsen Christmas Tree Ever." Next year we're going to get a permit and go off into the mountains, but this year we found our tree in a local tree farm and I was just excited as the boys, running around in the mud looking for my new little friend.

It was a beautiful day and afterward we warmed up in the barn with some hot chocolate and visited the donkey and lambs. We came home with some great plastic ornaments for our tree.

I LOVE THIS TIME OF YEAR!!!!

The Polar Express

The first movie that Evan ever went to was when he was 18 months old and my dad took us all out to The Polar Express. We were kind of late getting there and so Matthew and I sat up pretty close with Evan. The kid didn't make a peep the entire time and I'm not sure he blinked either. He stayed that way until we had been in the car for about 15 minutes and then all of a sudden he just started jabbering like crazy. That was particularly strange for him since he hardly ever spoke, only sign language. We were laughing so hard because it was if he had finally processed the crazy movie and was telling us how awesome it was. He had a serious obsession with trains and would watch anything with a train, so when I heard about that the Mt. Hood Railroad did a Polar Express ride I knew we had to do it. We met up with the cousins and had a fabulous time drinking hot chocolate, singing carols and seeing Santa. I don't know that it will be a Christmas tradition but it was fun!

The kids got to wear their pajamas just like on the train so Evan picked out his glow in the dark dino shirt he just inherited from another cousin. Here they are enjoying their hot cocoa & cookie.

Dallin is a hot chocolate connoisseur and he gave this 3 stars. He takes his job very seriously!

I love how their faces were just glowing. They had been waiting so patiently to get their tickets punched. Evan was just sure that his said something very important just like the movie. He was even assigning us all parts in the movie on the drive there. I love the child like glee! Look at little Josha holding his ticket. So cute!

Hmmm, what could Dallin's possibily say except that I'm the King of the World and I totally know it.
Of course the greatest part was sitting on Santa's lap and getting a bell. What a jolly ol' elf!


Here are Noah and Arwen sitting on Santa's lap and then of course little Sparkly Larkly making sure to get her money's worth on this train ride. We love being close to our fun cousins!

Thanksgiving

Just trying to finish up the month of November with our fabulous Thanksgiving trip. The boys and I snagged a ride with some new friends so we could start a few days early. We made it to Boise and started preparing for the big day. It was really my first feast without a mother to run the show. I guess really there were 3 mothers; Becky Ann, Kendra & I and it turned out pretty yummy. There was plenty of food and we sure worked hard on those left overs. We brought the Rock Band and had a blast jamming to some tunes. It's so fun to watch everyone get into it. We'll have to get the ol' parents playing once they get back. That would be a fun show! I got to spend so much time seeing all my local family, playing games, playing at the park, shopping, eating and playing more games. It was so fun and so hard to leave, but we do what we have to. We loaded up the van and headed out Sunday and we were about an hour away when the van decided it wasn't going to go any further. Thanks to our friends who picked Matthew up and brought him back to Oregon and called the tow truck for us and to Barrett for rescuing the boys and I and taking us back to Meridian. So I guess my wish came true and I got to spend 3 more days playing with my family. I wish it would have been under better circumstances but I was grateful for the time none the less. It was a great Thanksgiving! I LOVE MY FAMILY!!!

November Update

So November has come and gone and what a whirl wind of fun and excitement. I decided to do a blog on the month by what pictures I found on the camera. We let the boys use it a lot so there are always some fun ones to pick from. So here it goes. . .

I love this time of year. I'm always so excited to pull out my fall holiday decor with leaves and pumpkins and all those rich fall colors. We wanted to take pictures with the beautiful trees around here because some were absolutely amazing. We didn't quite make it I suppose, but there is always next year. I was excited to add this piece to my home. I made it at our fall enrichment night. This was taken by one of the boys so I guess they must like it too.

Speaking of the Fall Enrichment I actually won a cooking contest. I have never in my life won a food contest. Not that I've really entered very many, but it still made me feel pretty special. There was a pie contest and I won for best all around pie. It's was just your normal Apple pie but I guess a little extra Bethany sugar goes a long way. I actually have to give kudos to Grandma Olpa because I used her recipe from Allrecipes.com. Thanks Olpa for making me a winner!

Evan is making some good friends around here. He still talks about his old home and how he misses his old friends, especially Aubrey & Dane (love you guys). But it's fun to see him forming some new friendships. There are a lot of good kids around here. He got invited to a birthday party to this giant indoor play place called "Out of this World" and it was pretty intense. He was sweating from running around so much with his little buddies.

Evan is posing as a greek god here. I've introduced a monthly "culture night" where we fix a certain meal, wear costumes and view a slideshow about the country. The boys have a good time and Matthew just puts up with me making him wear togas and such. This one was Greece as you can see.

Evan is so excited about babies right now. He finds them every where and thinks they're all so cute. So when we had this little guy over (Asher) he was dying to hold him. He and Dallin really struggle to get along at times and I try to explain to him that Dallin was once a cute little baby.

These two are my best buddies and we have so much fun together. Matthew went to Arizona for a weekend and the boys and I went out to a movie and invited the cousins over for another night of fun. I love being their mom and although things can get pretty crazy and I can't keep anything clean there is nothing that I love to do more than be with these two little hooligans. Aren't they just so stinkin' handsome! They get it from their Dad!

I do have a bunch of pictures from Thanksgiving but that will have to be another post hopefully soon. I don't want to get too far behind.

Trick-or-treat , Smell my Feet

We had a spook-tacular Halloween with an eerie fog wafting through in patches making for a perfectly, haunting night. We ended up with more candy than we know what to do with, and my two little gremlins were the talk of the neighborhood. Okay, maybe not exactly but they sure were cute and very polite sweet-mongers. We had a great time and believe it or not it was our first Halloween passing out candy at our door. The boys loved that almost just as much. Hope you all had a safe and exciting night. Can you believe it's November? Sheeeesh!


Oh, and here are the big trick-or-treaters. Can you believe I actually got Matthew to wear that? We attended an AWESOME Halloween party and had fun getting to know new friends. Matthew is such a good sport about things like this. We thought it would be pretty humorous seeing as in practically every ward we've ever been in people find us an odd match thinking Matthew to be terribly serious in demeanor and me a bit on the sunny side. He found it pretty difficult to stay in character. Haa-haa! I had a fun time making the costumes, but maybe a little too much time for the few hours we wore them. I kept telling Matthew that he needed to keep a long term perspective here. We are at the beginning of our long life together and which also means the beginning of our very own costume box. Now whenever we need a care bear costume we have one right on hand. Brilliant!

Pumpkin Patch

On the 17th we took advantage of Matthew's day off and joined some of our friends at a local Pumpkin Patch. We took a new kid in the ward with us so that's the curly haired boy you see in the pics. The little boys loved playing with him. It was a great place to hunt for those perfect pumpkins. We got to go on a boat ride with lots of surprises and a train ride. After we found our pumpkins we decided to do the corn maze. If we found all the check points we got a surprise so of course we could not stop until we had. It was a beautiful day and we all had a wonderful time!

Swimming & Soccer

Dallin and I too a swimming class for a couple of weeks while Evan was in school. Dallin loves to play in the water. He's not quite a fish but at least he is not scared of it. It has been so fun to have that special time, just the two of us, to have a little fun. He's such a silly kid. Matthew would come over on his lunch breaks quite often and watch. I think Dallin's favorite part of the whole class would be telling his dad all the neat things he did. "Dad I go under. I so brave!" On the last day they turned on the fountain and the slide. We only got to go down a couple of times, but I am fairly certain that Dallin would have done it all day long if he could. He's a thrill seeker! Thanks for being my little swimming buddy Dallin. We'll have to do it again!

Evan, although not a huge fan of the water, enjoys running around like a wild man. So, I signed him up for a soccer class. He gets to take the class with the twins next door so that is fun for him. They work on drills and learning techniques and then the last 10 minutes or so is a schrimage. It's pretty funny to watch, but they have improved a great deal since the first day of class. Evan seems to think that playing soccer means running into players and falling down a lot. I keep telling him that if he keeps falling down he's going to get his face kicked in and it will hurt. He does keep running the whole time and has a blast so of course that makes me happy. Way to go champ!