Nielson Christmas Nativity and Santa pictures

I love this family tradition of dressing up and acting out the nativity. Yes Kevin and I are the sheep and Maycee is a cow. Brandon and Isaac are the sheperds.


Yes, I know my hair is a different color. Well I am turning 30 in a couple days and I am feeling kindof old and frumpy and so I went to visit my wonderful sister in law and she spiced me up a bit!

Just had to post this picture to prove that we made Kevin sit on Santa's lap!

I have to blog this story so I actually have it written down somewhere and I can remember to tell Isaac this when he is older. So we decided that Isaac is old enough to pay tithing for the money he earnes doing jobs around the house. We proceeded to have the tithing talk. He was not excited to give the church HIS money. We tried to explain what it is for and why we do it. We told him something about giving it to Jesus. Well he paid his tithing but was not happy about it. The next day he said to Kevin, "Daddy, I wish that Jesus would give me my money back!" Kev and I laughed our heads off. I guess we failed teaching him about tithing...we will have to try again later.

This past week was a busy one for us. For starters my sister and her family visited us from Las Vegas. Monday night we did the annual "Nielson Family Nativity." I will post pictures later. Tuesday I had a dentist appointment :) and then we took the kids to see Santa vs. the snowman at the clark planetarium. My boys loved it and then we spent some time looking around the planetarium. If you need something to do over Christmas to keep the kiddos busy this is a fun activity. Wednesday I did some cooking and cleaning and then I had an activity day Christmas party. Thursday we spent the evening with Kevin's boss and his wife. Friday Kevin and I had a hot date...no kids...what! Yes, it is true we still do date once in a while. Thanks to aunt Marsha the kids had a blast and did not want to come back home with us. We got to go to dinner with all the adults in my family. With 2 sisters living out of town, we don't really get to do that very often and so it was a great evening. Did I mention that we had a preschool program and last day of school in there somewhere. Saturday started with Kevin's family party, a progressive breakfast in the morning. The afternoon consisted of family pictures and a fist fight between my two boys that ended up with a bloody nose (I will post those picture later). After that we jumped in the car to head up to Tremonton to my grandma's family party and we got caught in all the traffic because they had to close the freeway because of a huge accident so our 45 minutes drive took 2+ hours...are we still having fun. We finally made it to the party, had pizza, saw Santa, went bowling and then ran to my other Grandpa's family party (just 5 mintues away) and by this time we are so high on sugar and Christmas spirit that we are bouncing off the walls. So our crazy day was over and we headed home and went to bed. Here we are Sunday, December 21, 2008. The kids got dressed for church in their Christmas clothes and I snapped a picture on our way out the door. Aren't they adorable. Besides all the crazy running here and there we have really enjoyed being together as a family.

Kevin came home from work with the funniest christmas present from his boss. Yes, isn't it amazing a "Homer Simpson Nut Cracker". I never knew such a thing existed but leave it to Kev's boss and his amazing wife to find something so Kevinish! We love it...thanks guys!

Reese Family Temple Square

Last night we enjoyed the lights of temple square with Kevin's family. We had everyone there...except Michael (theres always next year). We found a cute sister missionary and asked her to take a group picture for us. Aren't we a cute bunch!

Christmas trains

We made our annual Christmas Trains. This is a fun tradition that we do with Kevin's family. All the cousins build trains out of candy bars and then we decorate them with tonz and tonz of christmas candy. Everyone gets really creative. This year Brandon even made Santa's workshop off the side of his train tracks. The boys worked hard to make them and they turned out great.

Worst Day Ever!

So life has been a little crazy at my house. To start things off I have had sick kids, first Maycee, then Isaac, then Brandon and Maycee again. We have had both the runny nose, cough, cold and the throw up, diahrria! Brandon and Isaac both missed school on Friday, Monday and Tuesday. Needless to say we have been spending a lot of time together...picture this...sick kids home all day, tired mom...not a good combination. So on Tuesday I decided I was going crazy and I also needed some grocery store items (like food) and so we went to Wal-mart. I knew that Brandon was not feeling very good but he said he would be okay as long as he could look at the toys! Off we go to wal-mart, we got 90% of our shopping done and then Brandon started to say that he was going to throw-up. I immediately grabbed a blanket and caught Brandon's throw-up. He threw up a couple of times and I just stood there in the cracker isle with Maycee crying, Isaac running up and down the isle and Brandon throwing up in a blanket. When he was done, I wrapped the blanket up and headed to checkout. I had a cart full of items and I didn't feel like I could just leave it there. So, I checked out and walked out to get in the car (I am still carying a blanket drenched in barf!) and as I walk to my car I see that it had been hit in the parking lot...I wanted to scream. I took a big breath and got the kids in their carseat, turned on a movie, gave Brandon a bucket in case he felt the urg again and proceeded to talk to the old lady who hit me and the police officer. Turns out the lady was just trying to pull into park and got to close to my car. We filed a police report and I got her insurance info. and all that good stuff. Considering the fact that she was in a HUGE 4x4 Heavy Duty truck with hips...I guess the damage could have been worse. It will cost $1,300.00 to repair but I guess I am grateful that her insurance will pay and not me.
After that I decided that I should just go home and take some medicine, I now have a headache, and not go anywhere for the rest of the day.
Isn't life wonderful!

Because tomorrow is Thanksgiving I should probably post this...
* I am thankful for my wonderful children
*I am thankful for blankets that are great at keeping children warm and catching barf in the store
* I am thankful for a beautiful new car to drive
* I am thankful that the lady who hit me has insurance
*I am thankful for a great husband who came home from work that night and made me pancakes...thanks honey...they tasted great!