This years top 10....

Well here I sit.....it's 10:35 New Years Eve. Most of you are having a fabulous time getting ready to bang the pots and pans to bring in the new year. But the girls and I are quietly sitting at home thanks to a ruptured ear drum from Emma, and a tad-too-runny nose from Addie.
I'll admit, my insides were pouting as I ate my can of Progresso soup for dinner and thought of the fabulous nacho bar we were missing at Mema's house (I've been thinking of Velveeta-Ro-tel cheese dip ALL WEEK. I LOVE that stuff!).

Could she not have TIMED the rupturing of her ear drum any better than New Year's eve? Really people.

As we snuggled up together and watched Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph (just a side note - I KNOW Rudolph is a classic. Burl Ive's rocks.....but it seemed kind of creepy and a tad bit scary the other night. And the music? Let's not get started on the music. I've been singing "We're on the island of misfit toys" all night long.....and that's simply way too long to be singing that song.)

...sorry...I digressed again. So, as I was saying......we were snuggled up watching some fabulous Christmas classics, I realized that really - this is where I should be, and at that moment, there wasn't anywhere I'd rather be. Yes we were missing out on some fabulous Nelson family company, and awesome ro-tel cheese dip. But spending time with the girls, with nothing else to distract my attention? Felt good.

Alright, so the real reason of this post was just a quick wrap up for the Nelson bunch.......So here's just a quick wrap-up of our top 10 from 2009 (in no particular order):

Disneyland - love love love that place.

Emma getting baptized.
(it was bright, okay?)
Tyler receiving the prieshood

Tanner becoming a Teacher


Jason running his first half marathon

Addie wearing princess panties (hooray for no-more diapers!)...woops....sorry, no pictures for this one yet :)

The "Thursday" pool (Thanks Sis. Stevenson)



July 24 Camp out in the back yard....rain, wind, and all.

Cruise to the Carribbean

Tanner's wall of glory: (This one may need some explaining.....back in July Tanner one day said "hey, I totally feel taller"....so we measured, and by George, he was. It thrills him to no end to be measured now. Monthly. And gloat in his height. And that he can wear Jason's shoes now. And that he buys clothes in the Men's section. Probably his most thrilling accomplishment on the wall of glory is the top 2 dates, if you'll notice they are 2 days apart. I'm not kidding when I say we measured and remeasured thinking it must be some mistake. Hooray for teenage growth-spurts that very well may eat us out of house and home.




....as I was looking through pictures, I realized that we have much more than a top 10 list. This has been a fabulous year, always an adventure, and like I'm sure is the same for all of you - there have been struggles, triumphs, lessons learned, lessons still working on being learned, and many many many blessings.

Life is good. No. Life is awesome.

The happy place :)

It is I tell you. It truly IS a happy place.
Not intending to bore anyone with a travel log.....but - just so it's documented.....here it goes....
8 days lapping up the 50's and 60's while you people were suffering in the 20's and snow (not to rub it in or anything :)....





...and on another triple happy note -
Son #2 FINALLY conquered a piece of himself! He has NEVER, ever, ever (did I mention EVER) liked rides. Any kind. Except the slow ones like the sky ride at Lagoon. Truly, you think I jest. Not so.
From the time he was 2 and we took him on the tilt-a-whirl at the city fair - he hated every minute of it. We've bribed him on a few things here and there - very mild things, mind you....i.e., Puff-the-dragon-roller-coaster-in-the-kid-zone-of-Lagoon, and the like. He tenses up like nothing I've ever seen, and we've all just kind of come to grips with the fact that he just does NOT like motion.
Now, giving the kid some credit - we've been to Disneyland 4 times, and even bought Lagoon season passes one year, and he's always been pretty darn patient at waiting (because when you don't like to ride rides, you mostly just wait). But this year was his year - he did it - he actually TRIED 5 new rides, and loved them (well, most every part of them....except the downhill parts - but he persevered people!)
It made the whole darn 12 hour drive down there completely worth it just to see his "I-just-CONQUERED-it!" face.
Kudos go to Son #2!


Third happy thing.....Never thought I'd say it, but princesses totally rock. What could make a 3 year old happier than meeting Cinderella, Snow White, Ariel, Belle, and as a bonus - Mulan???? It was a slice of heaven for the 3 year old.



And not that I don't love my life here in Layton.....but honest-to-Pete it was awfully hard to drive back, losing 10 degrees every couple of hours. Driving from palm trees, to the snowy 30 degree Wasatch front road slush. Ugh.
Blessed be you fabulous neighbors who shoveled our walks and driveway. We owe you brownies.

I totally could have taken another week or so of vacation..... but apparently the 8 year old was ready for our 8 days of fun to be end. As we were unpacking, I came down the hallway carrying a suitcase full of things to put away, and heard some sniffling sorts of sounds.....and there she was - crying in her bedroom. "What's wrong?" I asked.............."I'm just so happy to be home, mom".
Wow.
There's no place like home apparently.

Blah blah beige....

I've tried to like it people, really I have. But Beige? It gives me the blahs.
I've given it my best shot in every form: Tavern taupe, Sand, Beautiful beige....you name it, I have probably painted it on some wall in one of our houses.
Lest I offend someone, don't get me wrong here.....I have walked into umpteen hundred homes all painted with some form of beige and thought they were beautiful. Hence, I've tried to re-create that beauty-ness in my home.
But it's just not working for me.

Maybe it comes from growing up in a nothing-but-white home (well, okay....unless you count the dusty rose/country blue floral wall-paper from time to time), and living in several stark white apartments.

Beige is not too far off from white. It's kind of a non-color color.

I remember a couple of times as teenagers giving our parents a gift of home-make-over...poor mans style. One Christmas (or Mothers day, I don't remember which), my brothers and I thought it would be a great idea to pool all of our minimum wage job earnings together and fix up the upstairs bathroom that was starting to look quite dilapidated - a project we knew my parents would have loved to do, but couldn't afford. So, off to the home project store we went. Kmart, actually. Looking for paint. We brought home a can of stark "bright white". I did see the rows of different color chips there. But, I walked right on by - I thought they were for rich people.

No joke.

I figured we couldn't afford color.
(no one ever mentioned that color was FREE!)

So, white it was. And stark-bright-white that bathroom was painted.
I'm not sure how on earth my parents allowed us to do what we did, trying to fix things up. Looking back, I'm absolutely positive our work would not have qualified for any home-show awards, and in fact - coming from teenagers who had no direction, and absolutely no idea what we were doing - the work was I'm sure sub-par at best.

Anyway, I digress.
The point is, I think my life has been filled with an over-dose of white.

This basement of ours has been a "mochachino" version of taupe, (once again....really trying to love the neutral-ness of it). However, I decided that what I was really hoping for was a fun teenage-slash-family-hang-out-sort-of-a-room. So, just for the record - here's what the family room has looked like:






Can you say BLAH. And Blech. And Boring.




....and now drumroll please.....???? (Well, actually, it's not COMPLETELY finished yet, so I shouldn't ask for the WHOLE drumroll.....just a half drum roll.....a drumroll-in-progress-sort-of-a-drumroll).....







Too much......or getting better? I know it may be drastic for some, but - me thought the room was a bit pizazz deficient.
With any luck this project will be done by weeks end and I'll post real true live finished product pictures.

Hooray for color....I think.

Be nice..........or else

Being nice is good. Right? It's nice to be nice. Everyone should do it. I've always loved the idea of people......families, neighbors, everyone included.....just being nice. Someone once told me I live in an unrealistic "Pollyanna" world. (really people, is that SO wrong.......to WANT everyone to just be NICE?)

So the two year old has a thing for 'nice' too. Not personally, per se - she can boss the best of us, throw a hefty tantrum, and has even been known to occasionally grab, scratch, and kick innocent bystanders who happen to have what she wants at any given moment. Definitely not nice.

But as of late I've noticed a trend with her. While waiting in the dentist office a few weeks ago, she decided to play with the dinosaur set they had available. First time for a little dinosaur play for the girl, so I thought I'd show her what dinosaurs do.
"Roar" I said, in my best dinosaur voice.
"No mom" two year says, "they're nice."
"Roar" I said again.
"No. They're happy."

So we played happy dinosaurs.

Playing Sequence-for-kids (a board game with animals), she chose the lion card. "What does a lion say?" I ask.
She answers nothing.
"Roar" I say, in my best lion voice.

"They're nice mom".

Oh.

In the past month we've experienced lions, tigers, bears, cheetahs, dinosaurs, skeletons, and even played with the boys old castle set with the evil vs. good knights.

They are all nice.

The 'bad' knights were invited to eat soup with the good ones.

And if you ever wondered what a nice lion sounds like (because roar is not nice), I'll tell you what the two year old told me:


(put on your sweet-princess voice here):

"Hello. My name is lion. Come to my house for noodles."


Well put.


Be nice. Amen.

Conference weekend....were you listening??

So....this year for our conference listening tactics, thanks to the idea of a fabulous friend.......we invested in some sticky note pads, and a picture of the Prophet and apostles - which was taped onto the family room wall. As they spoke in conference, the kids (who mostly are 'too old' for bingo charts, word searches, and all the other creative things you can print out) - were supposed to listen, jot down something that was said and then post it on the wall under their picture.
Just in case some of you missed it, OR just need a little uplift-ment, Here - just for you - are some excerpts from the first session.....





(he talked about hell)




(never-ending life with family)

Do you feel enlightened already?


Apparently my instructions were not so clear.
OR maybe 8 year is trying to TELL me something.....
about the never-ending life with our family, and about hell.


I had better straighten up apparently :)


By the end of the last session we had a few more 'happy' notes:
"Henry B. Love is special"
"Russell Nelson: Heven is loving!"

And this one was one of my favorites - I think because I absolutely loved the talk too:


Conference is truly one of my MOST favorite things EVER. Loved every minute of it!

Wanna new ring???

Some of you know that my brother and his wife have a fabulous business making fabulous Titanium rings - Jason and I both wear them (and LOVE them!).
...........So.......they are giving away 3 rings - made to order, and all you have to do is check out their blog (and make sure to comment) (to read the official contest rules - they are 2 blog posts back....on her blog)(don't worry, they aren't long reads....I promise) - Just comment, and then your name will be put in the drawing. Check back each day (be sure to comment each day) (just until Wednesday, though) - and you're name will be put in additional times.
The lucky winners will be drawn on Thursday.

p.s.
My sister in law is a triple-great blogger - so you ought to check it out just because anyway!



GO HERE FOR A FUN READ AND A CHANCE TO WIN A GREAT RING!

From bad...to worse?

Really?
Okay, I think that some Heavenly people are trying to teach me a lesson. That I have to keep relearning. And relearning.
It's this:
STUFF doesn't matter.
I get so hung up on the trivial things in life sometimes that I can't get beyond it, see beyond it, plan beyond it, and (like Martha) - I am "cumbered about".

So.....we built this house about a year and a half ago, right? It's a blessing. I KNOW it's a blessing. I also KNOW it's bigger than any house I've ever lived in. It's bigger than the home my parents live in. It's bigger than most of the homes in Argentina apparently too (we were shown some pictures of their home shacks today in the primary I got to visit). We have been TREMENDOUSLY blessed.

Why oh why when I know how much we're blessed JUST BY THE FACT THAT WE HAVE A HOME, AND CARPET, AND BEDS, AND LIGHTS, AND RUNNING WATER, AND A BASKET OF FRUIT ON THE COUNTER...why oh why do the little things bother me?
All the unfinished projects in the house, like the paint drips on some of the molding. Like the few places in the wood floor that isn't QUITE finished, like the 3 walls of baseboards that aren't caulked and painted yet, like the no-back-splash in the kitchen either.....

I REALLY REALLY really do NOT want these things to bother me. But they do. Much mental energy is spent worrying about it. More than I'd like to admit actually. So I won't.

Shortly after we moved in, we noticed that the finish on the kitchen cupboards was scraping off - really easily. After a couple of months it was starting to look noticeably awful, and starting to happen on nearly every door and drawer in the entire house. Ick, huh?




A call was finally put in to the guy who did our cupboards, who said they must not have cured properly or something so he would replace all the door and drawer fronts in the home. Hallelujah!
So we waited.
And waited.
And waited.
The cupboard guy is a family friend (which seems to complicate things), who doesn't actually build cabinets for a living. Just on the side. His regular job takes him out of town about 2/3 of every month.
......meanwhile we're still waiting. (patiently, I might add)

All I can think about is the day that we get the new cupboard doors, and life will be so great, and I will no longer be embarrassed when someone comes into the kitchen and heaven forbid, has to throw something away (that particular cupboard is the WORST). It will be WONDERFUL to have cupboards that look beautiful. And finished.
I can't wait!

An ENTIRE year later, we finally we get the call. The cupboard doors are done.
HOORAY!!!
He'll be up Friday to install them.
My heart is leaping. Life will be so good.

Cupboard man comes. Carries in loads of doors & tools and starts installing.
Woohoo I'm thinking!

After a few hours I notice something not quite right.....







AAAAGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!
Not only are they NOT the same color as the previous doors, but the drawer fronts are a completely different shade that the door fronts, and they are ALL a different shade than the molding and trim. From the kitchen, to the 3 bathrooms, to the kitchenette downstairs.


Stand back. Take a deep breath. Laugh Ange, just laugh - I keep telling myself.
I'm trying.
It's sort of a laugh-cry thing for me at this point.

As the cupboard man left that night, completely and totally unsure of first of all - how the heck that even happened in the first place, and secondly - how on earth to fix the problem....
I hoped that perhaps someday I would find humor in this situation.

It's been 2 days since Friday now, I've had 2 days to look at all the different shades of brown we have going on all over the house. And 2 days to percolate on what to learn from this situation.

Here's what I've come up with so far.....

the MOST important things in life (insert your favorite Sunday school answers here) can STILL be done with mismatched cupboards, paint drips, unfinished master bathroom, missing baseboards, and even with out cute throw pillows & decorations to match. (hard to believe, I know.)

It (ie; stuff) doesn't matter in the bigger scheme of things. Well, it shouldn't matter.

My heart is REALLY trying to get the message through to my head.

Maybe once I figure that out, I mean REALLY figure that out - just then, maybe the cupboard man will figure out how to fix things :)

Who knew running errands could be so fun???

Had a few errand to run down south. Right near our old stomping grounds. So a deal was made. The kids (including Emma's friend Kora) had to 'suffer' through 'mom's' stuff, then the rest of the day was up to them. Here's how it turned out.....

First stop....(after the boring errands, of course) :)

Spanish Fork Reservoir!



TRIPLE GOOD TIMES!!!!! Love that place!
After a couple of hours sunnin' and swimming, a drive through our old neighborhood in Springville was next on the list - just to see how things were. We all waxed nostalgic for a few minutes. The kids realized that the BIG GINORMOUS hill they used to ride their bikes down wasn't all that big anymore. We waved at our old house, and remembered the 'good old days'. (just for the record....We ALMOST stopped at a few of your houses....just to say Hi.......we were SO close to dinging those doorbells..............but my better judgement decided we were wet, sandy, looked atrocious at best, AND it was just about dinner time.....so much to the kids chagrin, we forged on........)

Third stop? BYU creamery. Truly a happy and delicious place. (Well worth the stop.....if you ever happen to be on 9th in Provo).



Our final destination for the day was to hike up to Bridal Veil Falls - which is always fabulous! Walking up Provo canyon reminded me that I truly do miss Utah County (not that Davis isn't FANTASTIC, mind you.....)
Good times climbing up the falls, and the medal of courage be awarded to them all for daring to take a full body dip in the icy icy water!





Brave brave Tanner! (They were ALL brave....but the battery ran out.....darnet.)


I wish all errand days could be so fun :)

Deacons and Teachers and Priests....oh my!

Alright, well maybe the Priests part was a little bit of an exaggeration....but honestly - I can hardly believe we're old enough to have a teacher AND a deacon living right here! Can someone please refresh my memory to when I happened to get old enough to have boys THIS old?

An ODE to the boys.....



Best buds! (Probably just about my MOST favorite picture ever of them!)



Hee Hee Hee!




Tyler made the BEST girl ever




Napolean, Pedro, and....the Snow princess?




With Dad, Papa Nelson (doesn't he TOTALLY look like an FBI agent?), and Grandpa Walker








You boys are awesome - thanks for being part of the adventure!