...And then Christmas Day!!

Digging out......Lauren, Lindsey, and Adam behind one of the snowbanks!

What it looked like about half-way through the storm.  We could finally see across the street at this point.

Looking at our Christmas stash!

From Santa, Isaac got a Clone Trooper mask...

Syd got Tinkerbell Polly Pockets....

Noah got a 4-wheeler....

Daddy got PEZ and Noah was having fun with the flashlight! (the flash on my camera makes it look lighter than it really was in the livingroom)

Really excited about her Tinkerbell Polly Pockets!

Yes, Santa came and went, even in this huge blizzard!!

...So then came Christmas Day!!!  After hearing the wind howling all night, at about 6:30 am, the power goes out!!  So I'm laying there wondering why the heck the power is out.  So, I decided to get up and go look out the window.  Much to my surprise, this howling wind that I had been hearing all night was an actual and I mean TRUE BLIZZARD!!!  You couldn't even see across the street at this point, it was so bad!!  So, I knew then that had to be the reason for the power outage.  So, I lit some candles, and Chris and I went on a quest in the dark to find our flashlights.  We finally found them, and decided it was kind of fun having the power out on Christmas Morning, so we decided to wake the kids about 7:30 and let them join in on the fun.  So we gave them each a flashlight and we went to the livingroom to see what Santa had brought.  I must admit it was really cute seeing the kids come walking into the livingroom with their little flashlights and still being so incredibly excited despite the power being out.   We had no heat, no Christmas lights on, and no music, but we didn't care.  We eventually hooked my iPod up to a battery powered speaker, so we did get some music going, but it was just fun being in the dark, with the kids, on Christmas morning!  So, after the kids played with their Santa stuff, Chris went outside to boil some water on our camp stove for hot drinks since we were freezing our butts off due to no heat, and then attempted to shovel the driveway so his family could hopefully find their way through this nasty (I say awesome) Christmas blizzard to join us for presents and breakfast.  When he came in, he had shoveled over a foot of snow, mostly from snow drifting into our driveway.  At that point, we had only had a few  inches of snow actually fall, but the wind had made it much worse.  So, Chris' family finally arrives and we get breakfast going.  Luckily we didn't have to cook anything because the power was STILL out.  This was about 9:00 am and we could now see across the street some, but the blowing and falling snow was still pretty bad. At this point the power had been out for about 2 1/2 hours, and boy was the house really getting COLD at this point.  We were all bundling up in blankets and jackets, and drinking our hot drinks to stay warm.  FINALLY, at about 10 am, our power came back on and we got to opening presents.  From this point on, we had a really good time with everybody.  We got some pretty cool stuff.  Then after we finished with that, we looked out the window, and I'm not kidding or exaggerating at all when I say, we had about another foot of snow in our driveway!!  Chris' parent's cars were buried in snow!!  So, they stayed and hung out at our house until late afternoon when the snow and wind finally stopped enough that we could dig their cars out.  It was kind of fun going out and playing in the deep snow!!  Then Christmas night, we were supposed to go have dinner at my parent's house, but since there was a part 2 storm moving in, and I was still trying to recover from this deathly ill experience I had on Christmas Eve, we decided to stay home for the rest of the day and just let the kids have fun playing with their new stuff.  So the day after Christmas, we got up to find that after the 2nd part of this monsterous storm had moved through, we now had a total of about 18 - 20 inches of snow!!  WHAT A STORM!!!  Usually when a storm comes through, we only get an inch or so, so this storm was pretty fun for us!! So we dug out, I did a little post Christmas shopping, and then we went and spent the evening up at my parent's house and had our Christmas with them.  So like I said on our Christmas Eve blog, this will go down in the books as another pretty memorable Christmas for us.  Hope you all had a great Christmas and have a Happy New Year!!!  Don't get drunk!!

Christmas Eve...

Helping each other take Santa's cookies to the livingroom.  (Of course it's a fight every year on who gets to carry the cookies, so I have them carry it together)

Ike and Syd decorating their cookies for Santa, and in their Christmas PJ's!

Noah enjoying his new Christmas PJ's, and his Christmas cookie!

Well, we hope everybody had a great Christmas.  We had a rather interesting Christmas that I think will have to go down as one of the more memorable Christmases we've had.  We started Christmas Eve morning off with me waking up around 5am feeling REALLY ILL!!  After several hours of complete misery and not being able to keep anything down, Chris was gracious enough to take me to the emergency room for some much needed relief.  After a few hours,  3 liters of saline (since I was very dehydrated), some anti-nausea, and anti-diarrheal stuff injected into my IV, I was feeling much better and was able to go home, but not without the side effect of being completely stoned for the rest of the day.  Honestly, I don't remember much more of Christmas Eve day since I was incredibly drugged up.  We were supposed to have dinner with Chris' family that night, so Chris packed up the kids and went over for Christmas Eve dinner, while I stayed home and tried to sleep the drugs off.  Luckily I was a little more alert when they came home and was able to get up and help the kids get ready for santa to come.  It's a tradition for them to put on their Christmas PJ's and decorate cookies for Santa, so, that's what we did.  Then they went to bed and Chris and I "waited for Santa to come"!!  Finally about 10:30 or so, Santa finally made his appearance and we were able to get set up and get ourselves to bed.  Then about 1:30, I was asleep, but kind of in that twilight zone (since I was still drugged), when all of the sudden, I saw visions of a kid in our doorway trying to wake us up to show us what santa had brought.  When I came around from my twilight zone, there was Isaac standing in our doorway showing us his Clone Trooper Mask that Santa had brought him.  After yelling at him and sending him back to bed and threatening him that Santa would take his toys away if he didn't stay in bed, he was good for the rest of the night.  Now, during all of this, the wind was howling really loudly and hard, so I kept waking up throughout the night.  This will take you to part two of our blog, which is the next post.........

Let it snow! Let it snow!! Let it SNOW!!!

Wow!!  What a crazy and stormy week!!  Why is it that December is always so chaotic??  These pictures were taken a week ago when we got the first snow storm, and this was Noah's first time playing in the snow!!  He was around for the snow last year, but too young to care.  This year, he thinks the snow is pretty great.  In fact, a couple of times he has run out into the snow without any coat or boots!!  Of course it is short lived since he gets COLD really fast!!  I don't know about anybody else, but I think I'm getting the skiing bug......anyone care to join???  I would give anything to go skiing right now!  Anywhoo, hope everybody has a great Christmas, and we'll post more probably after the whole big Christmas thing happens.  It's so fun to see the kids get so excited.  They are counting the days down very carefully and consistently.  It's pretty cute.  Today Sydney was re-wrapping Isaac's gifts from school, and putting them under the tree for him to open again and again.  It was pretty hillarious!!  Not that she's the least bit anxious for Christmas to come!!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

Isaac helping his dad shovel the snow!

Noah checking out the driveway conditions to see if it's safe to drive. :)

Kids were wishing they had a hill to sleigh ride on.  That's one thing I really miss about Bountiful!!  Always having a place in the backyard to go sleigh riding or cross country skiing!!  Oh the good old days!

The trouble makers....uh,....I mean the brothers, Isaac & Noah

Going for a sleigh ride down the driveway, since we don't have any hills in our yard!
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

CRAZY WEEK!! (Caution...Long winded blog!!!)

WOW!!!  This last week was really crazy for us!!  We started the week out by that nasty stomach bug knocking me down on Monday.  Yes, it's still in the house, and it's knocked 4 out of the 5 of us down now in the last month!!  It drives me crazy that it's so spread out between victims!!  You'd think we'd be done by now, but unfortunately it's the gift that keeps on giving, only this is one gift I wish would quit giving!!  Here we are 2 weeks away from Christmas, and we're still randomly getting sick.  We have been able to get out some though.  Tuesday we took Noah up to Primary Children's for his tests.  I was still sick, but feeling well enough to go and be with him.  They did an upper EGD, and a colonoscopy and everything went well with him.  There was good news and bad news.  The good news is they didn't find anything wrong with him!!!  HOOORRRAAAYYY!!  No signs of anything serious!!! :) The bad news is, we still don't know what's causing his diarrhea and rash!!!  They are assuming at this point that he has chronic unspecified diarrhea in toddlers that hopefully he will just eventually outgrow (most likely before the age of 5..hopefully sooner for his sake).  So, if this is it, hopefully it will end soon!!  I don't know how much more I can take of this disgusting crap, and seeing him miserable with these horrible rashes!!  So, that is where we stand on that.  Other things this week...Wednesday, Isaac went on a field trip to the Festival of Trees, and then to see Santa at South Town Mall.  We got a pretty funny picture of them with Santa, which will probably be sent out in our Christmas card.  I will warn you now, it's not the best picture of my kids, but it was pretty funny, so be on the watch for that.  Then Isaac's teacher gave me some last minute news that Isaac had won a Star Student award at school, so we went racing to Isaac's school to see the awards ceremony after the field trip.  He was so excited for this.  He has been working so hard to win, so we were really excited for him.  They pick 2 students from each class every month, so it was a really big deal for him.  Thursday found us purchasing an early birthday gift for Noah, seeing as he figured out how to climb out of his crib and land on his head.  So, we found him a really cute bed!!  He has really enjoyed it, and unfortunately, so have Isaac and Sydney enjoyed it.  They won't leave his bed alone.  I must admit I was feeling a little depressed when I took the crib down that night.  I think reality really sunk in that my baby was no longer a baby.  He's even reached the point where he really would rather sit at the table rather than in his highchair, so I guess you could say I'm going through the blues!!  So, then on Friday, believe it or not, Chris and I went on a DATE!!!  Yes, we went into Salt Lake to redeem his $4 Jazz tickets.  We had a lot of fun!!  It was so nice to get out and be alone with my hubby!!  Thanks again Mom and Dad for watching the kids for us!!  Then Saturday brought more barfing (Isaac again), and having to miss our Christmas party.  Chris and Sydney did go, and Sydney was very excited that she got to see Santa again.  Then later that day, I got out and got some Christmas shopping done.  I tell ya....I HATE SHOPPING!!  So then came Sunday.  Sydney was supposed to give a talk in primary, but when I was getting her ready for church, she decided to barf in my bathroom sink while I was doing her hair, so here we go again....more barfing!!!  So, I put her back to bed and ran Isaac over to church long enough to give her talk for her.  I must say that was an interesting experience with Isaac.  He has never done a talk before, but he did pretty good.  So, this week....I'm really hoping will be a little less chaotic!!! 

GO JAZZ!!  They kicked some serious butt against the Toronto Raptors!!

Just before tip off, introducing the starting players!!

Chris and me at Gateway just before the game!!  BRRRRRRRR!!!  It was so cold!!!

ZZZZZZZZ!!  We were very shocked that he went right to sleep and never once came out of his room!!  Maybe the transition won't be as hard as we thought!!  In fact, he has slept REALLY well in his new bed.  It must be much more comfortable for him because we don't hear a sound out of him until morning anymore!!!  :)  GOTTA LOVE THAT!!

The kids LOVED Noah's new car bed.  

Syd on the carousel at South Town Mall

Isaac too!!

Isaac was actually jumping up and down when they called him up for his Star Student Award!!  It was pretty cute!

Us with Isaac after his award ceremony.

Isaac showing his prizes...they gave him a star pen, a free kids meal coupon for Wingers, and another one for Applebees, and an opportunity to sit at the Star Student table at lunch.  Oh was he ever excited!!!  Now, if we could just get everybody's stomachs back to normal, we could take him to redeem his free kid meals!!  

HAVE A GREAT WEEK EVERYBODY!!  Sorry this blog is so long winded!!

Busy Weekend!!

Hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving weekend!!  We had a very busy but very nice weekend.  We spent Thanksgiving Day at my parent's house, and enjoyed some great competition as we cracked open some games with my siblings and our aunt, uncle, and their families.  It was a total BLAST!!!  Then we spent the rest of the weekend decorating our home for Christmas.  It's tradition in my family to put up Christmas decorations the day after Thanksgiving.  So, we did that, along with some Black Friday shopping, took the kids swimming, and then had Chris' brother Adam and his wife over for game night last night.  It was a lot of fun.  I must say, I have been absolutely exhausted today and it's been nice not having anything other than church on today, especially since this week will be EXTREMELY CRAZY for us.  We will be taking Noah up to Primary Children's on tuesday for some tests.  Don't be alarmed, he's not deathly ill or anything.  He's just battling some intestinal issues and an EXTREMELY bad diaper rash that just won't clear up because of the constant diarrhea.  This has been going on since birth, but has worsened over the last 6 months, so we have decided to look more into it.  We'll keep everybody posted.  Knowing our luck, he's probably just inherited his mommy's stomach issues! Aside from that dreadful thing we have to deal with, we also have field trips, a Jazz Game (GO JAZZ), and a Christmas party to attend, along with our regular weekly things on, so it's going to be very crazy!!!  Anywhoo, I just thought I'd share some pictures of our weekend...

Noah very much in love with the Christmas train (we'll see how long it lasts before he derails it...so far, so good).

Chris helping Sydney put her ballerina ornament on the tree.

Isaac is putting his Darth Vador ornament on the tree while playing DS with his other hand.  He very talented with multitasking, especially the DS!

Noah's new nickname is now DASH!!!  I think you can clearly guess why.  It's impossible to get a good picture of him anymore!

The kids are all nestled in their blankets watching Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer!  (Yes, we have disgusting carpet that desparately needs to be replaced!)

My contribution to the Nielsen/Stewart family Thanksgiving feast!!  I'm trying really hard to get good at making pies before Grandma Stewart is no longer with us!!  I know they'll never be nearly as good as Grandma's, but I'll sure try hard to at least make them edible!! :)  

Sydney entertaining herself by drawing on foam.  She actually did a really good job writing everybody's name, but let's just say, the foam is in the landfill by now.  SHHHHH, don't tell her that!

Despite my poor husband literally TEARING his pants on the roof, I must admit he did a pretty good job decorating the outside of the house for his poor Christmas decoration freak of a wife!!  Thanks Babe!!

Yes, and here are the pants he ripped on the roof.  He thinks he may have rubbed against a nail or something, but I had to laugh when he told me his story about trying to get off the roof without anybody seeing his sexy butt!!  See, there is a busy street behind our house, so he had to wait for just the right moment for there not to be cars so he could hurry down the ladder and into the house before the next car came driving by.  I'm sorry, but I thought it was hillarious!!  I don't think he was too enthused about the whole thing.  Oh the sacrifices we do to please our spouse!!  Thanks again hon!! :)I wonder how much money I'd get if I sold them on ebay?!?!  I could sell them for a penny, and then charge $50 for shipping!!  Yeah!!  Okay, I'm not that crazy!!

HAVE A GREAT WEEK EVERYBODY!!!
 

Happy Birfday Daddy!!!

We celebrated Chris' birthday this weekend.  The kids were so excited!!  We started off by serving him breakfast in bed, then going shopping separately, but bumping into each other at Target and now knowing what we got each other for Christmas (oops), then watching the BYU/UofU game.  Then on Sunday, we had our families over and Chris, yes Chris, made lasagna for dinner, and man, that guy can cook!!  I was very impressed!!  It was sooooooooooo good!!!  So, we had a good time with everybody and Chris got some good stuff for his birthday!  I surprised him with 2 Utah Jazz tickets that we will be redeeming next week.  I was very proud of those tickets, since I won them off of ebay for $4!!!  You really can't go wrong for $4!!  Also, his mom found him BYU and UofU football Pez dispensers!!  He was pretty excited over that.  We really didn't care who won the game saturday, since Chris started at BYU and graduated at the U!!  We just wanted to see a good game!  So, that's all for now.  Hope everybody has a great Thanksgiving week!! :)

mmmmmmmm...........caaaaaaake!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHRIS!!

So I come walking out of my bedroom to find Noah in the hall sitting in a laundry basket, cuddling with his blanket, and looking at a book!!  I thought it was so cute, so of course I had to take a picture.  The kids were playing in the basket earlier that morning, and I guess he decided he liked it and wanted to stay in!  He sat in that basket for a good 20 minutes looking at that book!

Isaac and Sydney were so excited to give Daddy breakfast in bed for his birthday.  It was so cute to hear them singing happy birthday while they're trying not to drop his food and drink.  

Sydney having a bad hair day!!!

BARF-O-RAMA!!!

Yes, the plague strikes again.  'Tis the season for the stomach flu to make its way through the house, and for me to go through my anxiety/stress of having to make sure my house is clean and disinfected from these disgusting episodes that have to continually be cleaned up and bleached, and doused with lysol, and open the windows and freeze the whole family to death while I try and de-germify the house to keep the plague from spreading, even though it still spreads. ordeal.  Yes, we all have to battle this from time to time and quite frankly, I think it's one of the worst things about being a parent and a wife!!!  This is now week 2 of this crap going through the house, and since we haven't really been going anywhere for fear that we might spread our germs, I have been getting a lot of house cleaning/going through random things, done.  Well, my sweet husband happened to come across this box of old pictures of mine, mostly from the 80's and 90's, and I just had to have a good laugh over hundreds of pictures that he found in our garage, some of which I've been dying to share and embarass some of my buddies!!!  So, since we are still camping out at home and suffering from major CABIN FEVER and feeling like we live in a bubble lately, I thought I'd take this time to share with you, some of the hundreds of pictures.  Here they are....

Hi there Leisa!! Yes this would be you and me, I'm guessing between '96-'98 since my hair was short, and Chris was probably on his mission.  I think we were teaching primary together and I'm not sure what or where this was, but maybe a primary meeting or something.  Aren't we just ADORABLE???

YES!!  I really did live in a room with orange crapet, I mean carpet, and yellow checkered wallpaper!!  I'm guessing this had to be in the mid to late '80's!!  I think I decorated my sister's bed for her birthday and was quite proud of it!!

I'm not kidding when I say my first born son was a CHUNK!!!!  He was only about 4 months old in this picture!!!  This would have been in 2001!

Yes, 1998 right after Chris came home from his mission to Russia.  This was the first time I met his family, when they came to Utah.  So, let me do an introduction starting from the left....Chris, his sister Lauren, his mom, Shauna (a great friend of ours), Lindsey, Chris' dad, then on the top, Cole (Shauna's youngest son), Clint (Shauna's oldest son, and the one who introduced me to my future hubby), and Dan (if I remember correctly)!!  It's funny to see how tiny Lindsey and Lauren are!!

Me and Chris in 1996 right before he left for the MTC (Missionary Training Center) to prepare for his mission to Bulgaria, which later ended up being Russia (long story)!! Notice we couldn't hug or touch each other because he was already set apart as a missionary, and that's one of the rules.

Me and Chris after his mission (1998)...I think this was his homecoming luncheon at the Dukes.  Funny to see how young and skinny we were back then. And we were hugging!! :)

Yes, I actually set my cousin Jenni up with my husband before I knew we would hook up and get married!!  We still have a good laugh over that!!

LAST BUT NOT LEAST...

Sorry to embarass you Leisa, but I had to put these in.  These would have been I'm guessing about 1993, the last day of school, and I think we went to Pizza Hut for your birthday.  I had a good laugh, and I think you will too. DON'T YOU DARE HIDE THESE FROM YOUR HUBBY!!  He absolutely has to see these pictures!!

So, If I come across anymore pictures, which I probably will, I will have to post them to embarass more of my buddies!!  Happy Day for now!!  Oh, and what have I learned from looking at all these pictures, especially of me?!?!?!  I REALLY NEED TO GO ON A FREAK'N DIET!!!  I can't believe how skinny I was back then!!!