Sweet Six!

Happy Birthday Brookie!!!

(Okay, so it was like 2 weeks ago) I can't believe she is six! (see hat below) What a sweet blessing she is in our home.

Brooklyn is everyone's best friend because she is so sweet and unselfish. She is a peacemaker, and a defender. (allow me to explain the latter) When she was a toddler, Jeff would pretend to attack me and little baby Brooklyn was the first one over to try and beat him off me. When wrestling, Brooklyn is always on the underdog's team. If you need help, she's got your back! This earned her the nickname 'defender' (or sometimes 'enforcer' if she was helping mom with disobedient kids) Here are a few things I LOVE about Brooklyn!

• She always shares her special treats with your brothers and sisters
• She is quick to forgive
• She has such a good attitude!
• She is so kind to animals
• She always does her best (no matter how long it takes!)
• She loves to try new things (refer to #3)
• She has an amazing imagination
• She is very considerate of others feelings
• She is a great snuggler
• She is the perfect example of sweet innocence!

You gotta love all those fun extra things about 6 year old birthdays like wearing cool birthday hats and rings and NEVER throwing them away!

Brooklyn was in dire need of some new wheels. I thought they were pretty shnazzy. I also got her a cheap-o little stuffed dog that is like 2 inches tall (complete with cardboard doggie treats)

so that she would have more than one thing to open. Guess which present she loved the best? Well, I'll give you a hint. She named it Toby and it's become a new member of the fam. Oh, and you CAN'T ride it. (you thought it was the bike, didn't you!)

Sorry no pic of him- or the cool b-day cake. My camera was having more battery issues. The cake was quite the sight. I always let my kids pick a theme for their cake (like puppy, mermaid, BYU, dinosaur, ect.) and whenever I asked Brooklyn what she wanted she went into an elaborate description of several things and I was immediately overwhelmed. When I asked her to narrow it down, the list was still too long. So I asked her to draw me a picture. She did and it was pretty specific, but not so detailed. Worried about disappointing, I just handed her a frosting bag and let her help. I did the angel (with multicolored wings, of course) and she helped with all of the details. Actually, it was a group effort. It was by far the 'busiest' b-day cake yet!! The kids had lots of fun with the decorating/finger licking!

I can't wait for it to warm up so we can get some good use out of that new bike!!!!!!

We love you Brookie!!!

Hold on to your hats...

It would be an understatement to say we had a few things to report on over the last month. So the way I see it is I have 2 options- Drag it out into several posts possibly never catching up to the present time- or give the condensed version in one and get it over with. Hmmmm- sounds like a no brainer. Okay all you lucky people out there in blog land. Here are our Christmas highlights in a nutshell.

Although I swore we would never do it again, we decided to have Christmas down in Utah this year. Our first stop: Fairview, for Great Grandma M's 95th B-day party! (Yeah for Grandma! 95 is really something to bark about! I'm not sure how I managed NOT to get a picture of her)

Grandma's party was at the Senior Citizen's Center so we stayed there and did the Dennis Mower family Christmas party afterwards. I got lots of cute pics of faraway family. Here are a few. Lucas had fun making the rounds-

Our Arizona family even made it! It is always fun to see those guys! We made sure to have snow just for them. Maybe next year we should let them host. We'd be packing our short sleeves.

Uh-oh! Not these guys again!!!!

Since we did both parties (one started at 1 pm and we finally left that night after eight or so) it was a LONG TIME to be in one place with that many people. Around hour 4 things started getting a little crazy...

How crazy? Take a look! This is the kind of psychotic measures you have to come up with to entertain this many kids in this small of a space for this amount of time.
(okay- I confess, this was actually a semi-organized game)

Jeff's parents left to spend Christmas with Jeff's sister back East so we headed over the mountain to see my family. I was excited to get to attend the annual Nielson Christmas Eve party. Because of our growing family, we had to do it at the City building (not many people can house a crowd like that!). It didn't seem as easy to chat with everyone, but I'm not sure there was a better way to do it. It was so fun to see all of my cousins, aunts, uncles, and Grandma N.

The highlight of the evening of course was the reenactment of the Nativity by all the great-grandkids. My dad read the story from the scriptures and we sang the carols which go along with it. Grandma made elaborate costumes which make it even more awesome. Here is Zack and as you can see he is a very wise man. My other kids looked so cute too, but for some reason my pictures were really blurry. I love this part of Christmas Eve because it helps keep the night in perspective and allows you a moment to reflect on what a miracle that night really was.

My mom loves to turn her house into a Christmas wonderland during the holidays. It adds to all the excitement for the kids. Her tree is like solid lights and ornaments. We always open PJ's on Christmas Eve. Jeff always gets some for me- although I have to open them carefully in case something inappropriate falls out. Jeff's came up missing and we didn't find it until we got home to Boise. I gave it to him then along with his main present I left sitting on the closet shelf. :) oops

Here they are sporting the new jammies! Now off to bed so Santa can come!!!

It was Lukie's first Christmas! He sure had fun---watching his brothers and sisters open his presents!

We stayed after Christmas until New Year's before we headed home. It seems we've made it a tradition to go bowling when Christmas is over. We always have a good time.

This is how my mom and dad bowl.

As murphy's law would have it, all these little kids and of course no bumpers. Don't worry, this one was a strike!

It was so fun to hang out with my bros and sisters! (in-laws and babies included!) It's great how your family can be your best friends! Moydie got in enough teasing to hold him over for a little while. Misty is his favorite target, but she asks for it because she is so cute. I'm sure gonna miss these guys when school takes them away. I did get to see Karen, but only for a little bit since she wasn't able to come down to mom's while we were there.

I think Kobe's favorite part of our trip- even more than presents- was making snow caves in the big snow bank at the church. They worked on them for 2 days and had 3 caves (each big enough to hold all 3 kids) which all joined together and then tunneled out the back. I've never seen anything like it! And of course, here I come with the camera- too bad the battery was dead! Dad got some awesome pics. If I can get one from him I'll post it.

Ahhhh- the memories. It was slightly chaotic and rushed (probably because I did all of my shopping and wrapping in the last week) and I've already resolved to be better next year so I can do a little more relaxing.

Well, there you have it! I miss you all already.

Is this what you call a panty raid?

Okay, so I have to take back all those bad things I have been saying about the terrible two's. Payter has totally redeemed herself. Not only is she my earliest potty trainer by more than 6 months, she did it all herself right before Christmas! (before you get too envious, remember it took me 5 tries to get one of these).
So any of you who know Payter know that she is a little hard to please. Well, I have figured it out! If you want to just make her GIDDY- fold laundry! She gets so excited about what is in "her" pile- but most of all she loves putting on EVERY PAIR of unders she sees.


Let's see- at this point I think we were up to 14...

The grand total was 17. That might be a record. I could barely pull them off of her. I am going to have to hide them since she knows how to get into her sisters drawers. (No pun intended) Seriously, I'm not sure I have met anyone who was so obsessed with underwear that wasn't a guy. (hee hee) Anyway, it seems we are not so hard to entertain after all, are we? :)