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!!!

Playing catch-up!!

Okay, so now that Halloween is over, I'll now be taking you back to the middle of October to share with you some events that went on then.  October ended up being such an incredibly busy month for us.  We started out the beginning of the month with Adam and Jessica's wedding, then Isaac and Sydney both had field trips to different farms, THE SAME WEEK!!!  Then came time for me to host my very first piano recital with my students, which was fun, but very stressful and I'm very glad it's over...then we celebrated Grandma Stewart's 94th BIRTHDAY!!!!  Then to end the month out, we had a week long of Halloween events, so, I'm feeling pretty relieved that October is done and we can start a new month.  So, here are some more pictures of our October events....

Yes, 4 generations in our family now.  So, this is Sydney sitting with her mom (that would be me), her grandma (Grandma Pat who is my mom), and her great-grandma Stewart (who is my mom's mom)!!  PRICELESS!!  HAPPY 94TH BIRTHDAY GRANDMA!!!  WE LOVE YOU MORE THAN YOU'LL EVER KNOW!!!!

Sorry, I just had to put this picture in.  This is my sister Debbie's baby, Brody (3 mo), and Greg (my oldest brother) & Brenda's new baby, Joshua (in this picture, only 1 month).  I just thought they were so cute!!  Yes, and for those who would like to know, Brenda is doing really well now after a very hard pregnancy and delivery.  They blessed baby Josh last sunday, and it was so nice to see Brenda smiling again.  You can definitely tell she's feeling much better!!!

Yes, me and 8 out of 9 of my piano students.  They all did a great job, and even better, the recital only lasted about 20 minutes, since it was their first time performing and their songs were very short.  So, everybody was happy about it being short, seeing as it was a Saturday!!!

Sydney in a treehouse at Wheeler Farm

Noah very much wanting to get into the water with the ducks.  He was absolutely fascinated by the swarm of ducks!  And yes, that is his foot hanging over the edge.  I was doing everything in my power not to let him climb in!

Syd feeding the ducks!

Sydney and her friend Alycia, very curious about why we eat turkeys, now that they've seen them ALIVE!!!

Sydney with some of the pre-school kids on their field trip to Wheeler Farm.

Having fun with her friends Anna and Alycia.  

Halloween Rap-Up

Well Halloween has FINALLY come to an end!!  By the time it was time to go trick-or-treating, they were so sick of wearing their costumes.  In fact, Isaac ripped his off right after we left Chris' work, and it took some work to get him to put it back on.  Anyway, so here's the last of our Halloween pictures.  They had a great time trick-or-treating with Dad.  Even Noah had fun (for once!).  These are the things that were done ON HALLOWEEN!!  Yeah, and I thought my kids got a ton of candy.....Kelly, your kids won by a long shot in scoring with the candy!!

Finally ready for trick-or-treating!

You see, my child actually DOES smile once in a while, especially when he finds the sucker stash - HIS FAVORITE!!

Checking out Daddy's Halloween stash.

Having a BLAST at Dad's work!

Trick-or-treating at Dad's work!