Uncle Greg

Life has been crazy and I haven't updated my blog lately, but I had to wish my baby brother a happy birthday today. I did this layout of one of his baby pictures that is my favorite. He turns 37 today. We love you Greg! Don't you love those chubby little hands?


Some of my boys favorite memories of Uncle Greg are when he lived with us for a while when we lived in our other Elk Ridge house. When we would sing the "Family Night Song" on the line that says "Father and mother, daughter, son, together on family night" we sing "Father and mother, my three sons, together on family night". But when Uncle Greg was living with us, we would sing "Father and mother, my three sons (pause) and Uncle Greg, together on family night." My kids thought it was hilarious and sang it that way for years after Greg didn't even live with us anymore. They still throw it in every once in a while now and it has been years since he lived here.


He stayed in a room in our basement and it was "Uncle Greg's room" until we moved out. Jen always thought it was funny when she would come stay over and sleep there (after Greg had moved out of course) and the boys would still call it Uncle Greg's room. I think she thought she had stayed there more than him and wondered why it wasn't called "Aunt Jen's room". Even when Greg was living with us, he was rarely there. I think Jen probably spent more time sleeping in that room than Greg did. He is such a busy guy with softball and his friends. I loved that he would cook us dinner once a week as his "rent". It was great for me to have a break and he is a great cook.


They also always love riding in the truck with him because he has crazy music and love playing with his video games.


Hope you had a happy birthday and hope you can work it out to come up so we can take you to dinner next week sometime. Love ya!

I Met Someone Famous - kind of

K, those of you that know me know that I am a fanatic about "So You Think You Can Dance". Well, today, my boys stayed after school to do some missing assignments and I had to run by Wal-Mart to grab a few things on the way home. They went their way to find treats and I went to find the groceries I needed. When I was done and checked out, I was walking out and there was this guy that I almost bumped into as I was texting my boys to find out where they were and he was getting a sticker on his items he was returning. I thought he looked familiar but couldn't place him right away. Tyrel texted me back that he needed my ID for the thing he was returning so I turned around and went to customer service. So this guy that I bumped into was behind me in line and I figured out who it was. It was Thayne from "So You Think You Can Dance". So I turn to him and say, "Hey, you were on So You Think You Can Dance weren't you?" He smiled and said yes and I told him that I had watched him and that he was one of my favorites. My kids thought I was a total geek.

New Years Eve

I can't believe the year has come and gone. It has been a year of struggles financially for our family and we hope for a better year this next year. I have actually been swamped with work over the past month, so hopefully the loans all close and we can get back on track again.

We had our annual New Year's Eve party. I think all of the Nielsen's were able to make it this year except for Melisa's family and Troy and Lisa. We played games, watched movies and had lots of yummy treats (Haylee brought yummy pomegranate ice cream) Then, when it struck midnight we shot off our illegal fireworks and all the kids shot off their poppers. Grandpa Nielsen had the bright idea to buy noisemakers this year and I thought I was going to go insane for those 5 minutes that the kids were blowing them. They definitely were noise makers!

I had put together a Nielsen Memory Lane family trivia game with lots of fun trivia questions from stories I've heard told over the years. It was fun to test everyone's memory. Alexis actually won the game and she is only 9!