G 6th Birthday

December 27, 2012

My baby can't be 6??? Where has the time gone?

 She truly makes the whole family complete!  She is so much younger than the rest of the kids that we all just love her curiosity and fun of life!

For her birthday she wanted to go to the Treehouse Museum with her cousins.  Her day would not be fully enjoyed without her cousins!  So that's what we did!

G with her grandma R.

 They played for hours and hours together.

 Playing school.

 After the Treehouse we went to Burger King (G's choice) to eat and play some more.  It was so crazy cause I called they told me that they did something special for the birthday kid.  They didn't say what that was but it didn't really matter just that she was recognized as being the birthday girl. When we got there we asked and they were all confused and didn't know what to do so after all the confusion they brought out full size sundays for all 12 of us!

The birthday girl with her My Little Pony Cake.

 Opening presents at Burger King.

Opening presents at home:

It was kind of a long day and she was tired.

 But she woke up to open presents!!!

Happy Birthday Precious Cutie!!!

Christmas 2012

This is a picture G drew in art class. It is a really good picture for a 5 year old.  She decided to cut it out and so I had to hurry and take a picture before it was gone completely.

 Visit with Santa.  G asked for My Little Ponies.

 S went to the Christmas Dance.  She looked so beautiful.  I don't have a picture of her and her date because it was girl's choice so she went to pick him up and I didn't get any.  I was sad about that.  She is supposed to give me some pictures, but I'm still waiting...

We really wanted to see the Christmas Program at the Conference Center this year because Alfie Boe was the guest but we did not get tickets.  We were busy every single day of the concert except for Sunday morning so we went to try to get into the concert standby.  There were so many people there that we did not think we would get in but we did!!!  It was an amazing concert.  

These are my cute sunbeams that I taught for half the year.

This is the Christmas Program from the daycare.

My cute daughters just hanging out together!

The Kindergarten Program.

A short video of one of the songs.  I love my big kindergartner!

CR showing the boys how to make eggnog.  He is growing up so fast right before my eyes!  He is growing into a such a good young man.  But I couldn't be more proud... He is following after his father's footsteps!

Christmas Eve with my parents and Lele!  Christmas Eve was at our house.  We celebrated by having our traditional Bethlehem dinner of paches by candlelight.

My sister and her hubby and daughter and C posing in the background!

Oh how G loves her cousin Tay.  I think she loves being the big cousin as compared to home where she is always the little sister.

The Annual Christmas Program.  They get better every year.  I think this one was the best so far...

The Nativity Story as told by the grandchildren including "Bacon".

Christmas Day we went to dinner to the Manuel's.  They made their traditional Louisiana dinner.  This year we had gumbo.  Delicious!!!  After dinner we went over the the church to play some games.

Minute to Win It!

The little ones enjoyed one activity so much that they didn't move on.

I really love playing games and having my parents participate.  It just shows me that they love to spend time with us.  Of course the love language that I understand most is "time" so that's why this would be important to me!

The final product.  Winning did not matter to her just her amazing creation!

The things that my sister makes us do!  But we love it!

CHRISTMAS LETTER 2012

Dear Family and Friends,

Another year almost complete! Time just flies!  This is a summary of 2012 for our family.

Gra is now almost 6 years old.  She started kindergarten and she absolutely loves it!  She is learning many sight words and she is so proud of her accomplishments.  She performed in her first ballet recital in June and continues to take ballet.  Gra is our fun loving wannabe teenager but we love her as she keeps us young.

Cee is 13 and in the 8th grade.  He is an officer at the junior high and this is keeping him busy doing lots of service projects and attending the school sporting events.  He is still competing in gymnastics.  He participated in the spelling bee and received second place.  What an awesome accomplishment after all those years of practice. He earned a scholarship and a bunch of other prizes.  He is working hard on scouts and should be ready for his Eagle really soon.  We are so grateful to have a son in our home.  It’s refreshing!

Sid is 16 and a junior in high school.  She is in dance company.  She loves to dance and she is very good at it!  She still dances ballet and she got three awesome parts in the Nutcracker this year.  She was a Reed Flute, Snow, and Waltz.  She also choreographed a dance; for the Winter Concert, that was very creative.  She’s working on her driving hours and on finishing her personal progress so she can get her license.

Car is 18 and graduated from high school this year.  She participated in her last ballet recital as a senior.  She worked at Cherry Hill for the summer.  She wanted to go to UVU but at the last minute she realized she wasn’t ready and decided to wait until January.  In the meantime she has been working at a daycare center. Now she is registered and ready to move out at the beginning of next year.  We love having Car around--not only does she make us happy, but she has saved us many times as a chauffeur when we have needed help driving kids around.  We will surely miss her when she goes to school.

Kai is 21 and is in her senior year at BYU.  She is in the Family Studies program with an emphasis in fashion design.  She is a wonderful designer and will be participating in a fashion show in February at BYU as one of the designers.  Kai had the opportunity to do an internship in Boston at Anthropologie this past summer.  She lived with my brother’s family and she thoroughly enjoyed the change of scenery and environment.  She continues to work at the BYU bookstore and does some face painting on the side.  

Lis graduated with her Master’s in School Counseling in the spring.  She was blessed to get a job at a charter school that services 7-12 grades.  It is a half time  job  which is perfect since G is still in kindergarten.  She is loving her job and the opportunity to help students succeed.  It’s definitely a change of pace trying to balance a job and a family at the same time.

Cas changed positions this past year from operations manager to database administrator within the district.  The district also moved his entire department to Layton and that has doubled his commute from 7 to 15 minutes!  He is busy working with the young men in the ward and is always planning activities and campouts.  He is an amazing husband and father.  He has picked up more of the family duties since L started working.

Some of the events that we all participated in this year include:  A Disney Cruise in April.  We wanted to plan a fun vacation this year since we had two graduates and  it’s getting harder and harder to  plan these as everyone is growing up.  A Disney Cruise was perfect because it would cater to the various ages of our children and parents.  We flew to Florida and spent a day at Universal Studio’s (Mainly Harry Potter World).  The next day we boarded the cruise ship and went to the Bahamas and Disney’s private island Castaway Cay.  It was a dream vacation for us but it left us wanting to do it again in the future (maybe with extended family.)

We had the opportunity to participate in the filming of the Bible Videos that the LDS church is producing.  Cas grew out his beard (he had never done this before and doesn’t ever want to do it again, but it was worth it so that he could have the chance to be on the set).  Cas was there for the filming of “Caiaphas questioning Jesus' authority”. Lis and the older girls participated in the filming of “Jesus feeds the 5000”.  It still has not been released yet but we are anxiously awaiting its release.  It was a very hot day but such a spiritual experience for all of us.  Cee and Gra participated a few times last year. We may or may not be in the videos when they are released but either way, it was a testimony building experience for us all.

We had a year full of blessings.  Not to say that we did not have trials, because we all do at one time or another, but we’re always amazed at how the blessings come even amidst the trials.  We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Wonderful New Year!

Thanksgiving

November 22, 2012

This year we had most of the B's from Cheyenne come and spend Thanksgiving with us.  It was a lot of people at our place but it was fun!  The kids just have fun being together and so do the adults.

 Jenner (nephew) has been into exercising and because there were so many kids/beds in the basement there was no room to exercise so he went out on the patio.  A few of the cousins joined in the fun.  It was pretty cold out there and we were all watching from the inside so it was as if they were performing for us.

We started a new tradition this year.  I knew what I wanted to do it but I didn't know how to implement it until I saw this idea at the BYU Bookstore.  I got a piece of black butcher paper and hung it up on the wall.  Everyone throughout the month was encouraged to write something they were thankful for on the wall.  This is the final product.  It turned out great!

 Car & Jenner with matching shirts and socks.  These kids are crazy!

This was the teens/single kids table.

This was the youngins table.  KC and I were at this table :)

This was the parent's table.

The kids made a Thanksgiving movie and they made everyone and I mean everyone go outside and dance gangnam style.  It was pretty crazy and we were all just laughing!

This is the link to the video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQfxjMY3zOQ

The kids went out to the curve and were dancing as cars drove by.  

The boys playing football.

Like father like son!

That night of thanksgiving we had all of the Nelson side of the family come over and say hi.  It was crazy for like a half an hour there were so many people here and everyone was just talking trying to catch up on life.  It was a fun surprise to see them all.

We had to keep up the tradition of looking through the ads.  We were a little upset that many places were opening at night instead of early in the morning.  But a few of us did end up going shopping at night.  The thing I love about Black Friday more than the deals is the time that we all get to spend together.  It's like a rush to find what you want but then we can just relax and have fun!

On Saturday night we went to Provo and Jenner fed us at the Creamery.  K had to work so we went to the mall for a little while to wait for her to get off.  Afterwards we went to temple square to see the lights and had some hot chocolate.  We were able to get a family picture since we had Jenner and Derek with us.

It was a wonderful Thanksgiving.  I love having family over at our house for the holidays!!!

Nutcracker 2012

The Nutcracker seems to consume most of the month of November because there are a lot of practices and since KC and I chair the props committee backstage we are busy that entire week.  As busy as it is we love it so we do it year after year.  

This year was a little different as we only had S in the Nutcracker.  She did have 3 good parts though so it was like having 3 kids participate.

Reed Flute Dance

Snow Dance.

Waltz Dance

"Company"

This is in the lobby.  We were just waiting and someone offered to take a picture of us. I'm so proud of S she did an amazing job in all of her dances!!!