Scruffy

Tyrel tried back during No Shave November to grow a beard, no luck.  He tried again in April and this is his accomplishment after a full month of not shaving.

Grandma Evers memories

After I wrote my big long post to my grandma, I remembered a few more things.  So, I thought I'd put them on here and keep adding to them as I remember them and maybe I'll get enough for a 2nd page.

I remember she always had gum in her purse.  It was Wrigley's of some kind, but I can't remember the exact flavor.  I want to say it was either the green kind or the yellow kind.  Speaking of purses, she had tons of them.  I remember her always moving everything to the purse that matched her outfit for the day.  She always had us wear our seatbelts in her car.  This was in the day before seatbelts were the law.  We thought it was cool to be able to wear seatbelts.  I don't know why we never thought we could just wear them in our own car.  She had a Christmas bow hanging from the ceiling in her garage so she knew how far to pull her car in.  Once it touched the windshield, she knew she was in far enough.  She had a brown refrigerator with an ice maker forever.  She was the only one I knew of when I was a kid that had an icemaker in her fridge.  I also loved her juice glasses that we would use for breakfast.  They were clear with a green frosted look to them.  I loved those glasses.  For some reason, they just remind me of grandma's house.  I can't believe she always had them for as long as I could rememer.  She also had cool kitchen chairs with wheels on them and they twirled all the way around.  I remember being at her house in Boulder for Christmas one year.  I was pretty distressed that Santa wouldn't find us there, but he did!   I remember when they got their microwave.  They were the first people I knew with a microwave.  Grandpa would make us bacon and scrambled eggs in the microwave and we thought that was so cool!  They kept a glass of water in the microwave all the time.  I'm not sure why, maybe in case it got turned on accidentally.  Maybe that was a rule of the first microwaves.  She always had spiced gumdrops in a dish on her coffee table.  I loved them and still do!

That's all for now.  I'm sure I'll remember more later

Tyrel's Prom

Tyrel’s first date ever was Prom, 2011 at Salem Hills High School. He had a lot of fun and created lots of good memories. His date was Samantha Woodward. I got to take pictures and chauffer them around because he is 16, but doesn’t have his license yet.

They started their date with their ATV ride to Four Bay where they had muffins and hot chocolate, built a fire and had a marshmallow war.  It was really muddy but they had a lot of fun.  Then they took the girls home and then let the girls get ready. When it was time to pick them up, Samantha was scared to put on Tyrel’s boutonniere, so it was a good thing mom was there. I took about 300 pictures and then dropped them off  at "the Sauce Place" for dinner. Then Chandler’s mom took them to the dance and back here for ice cream when it was over.

Fast Post - Very Busy Week

Tyrel decided to go to Prom, so busy making plans, helping him ask date, order corsage, order tux
Book Club on Wednesday night
Heidi and I did a craft Boutique this weekend so spent Thursday getting ready and all day Friday and Saturday at the boutique
Family Easter Egg hunt on Saturday - I was gone to the boutique but still had to make salad and make sure boys were up and got there, luckily Sean made it back from his Chamber of Commerce Easter Egg Hunt to get everyone there
Family Easter dinner on Saturday - with my family, so gone to Leamington all day Sunday
This week promises more of the same.  Need to finish Prom preparations, find a place to do date pictures and group pictures.  We got personal invitations to some big events in Utah and this weekend is the first one, so Heidi and I are frantically getting stuff ready for that.  Life will not be boring at the Nielsen house this week.  Tyrel has his "road" for Driver's Ed, so we will be up at 5 am for at least 3 days this week.  His ASL class has a competition in SLC on Thursday and Prom this weekend.
See ya!

More old photos

As I've mentioned before, I've been scanning in old photos that never got paper scrapped and doing the layouts digitally.  Here are a couple I did this weekend that I loved how they turned out.

The photos were actually not too good, too much sunlight and coloring was off.  But, it is amazing what a little Pioneer Woman action can do to not so good photos.

Grandma's Birthday

Yesterday was my sweet grandmother's birthday.  My aunt had a card shower for her, and I didn't get one sent.  So, Aunt Terri, I know you will probably read this, so if you can print it out for Grandma, I would really appreciate it.  Give her a hug and a kiss for me too please.

Grandma, I wanted to put down some of my thoughts and memories of you and thought your birthday would be a great excuse to do it. I remember loving to get to have sleepovers at your house in Boulder. I loved playing “jail” on the stairs and I thought your upstairs bathroom was like something you would find in a palace. I remember many Thanksgiving dinners at your house with relish trays of my favorite “celery with cheese” and who can forget your most awesome banana cream pie. You make better meringue than anyone I know. My very favorite all time memory was playing with your buttons. It seemed like you had millions of them and I loved sorting them by size, shape, color, age, fancy vs plain and many other ways. I was so sad to find out that you had disposed of them. I always hoped secretly that you really didn’t get rid of them and that my kids would be able to play with them someday. After you moved to Longmont, I remember getting to take piano lessons from you. It was hard to ride my bike up that hill, but it was fun to get to play the piano at your house. Some of my most fond memories are sitting around the piano while you played and getting to play the “bark, bark” part of “How Much is that Doggie in the Window”. I also remember songs like “Yes, We Have No Bananas”, “Blowin in the Wind”, “My Gal’s A Corker”, “I’ve been Workin On The Railroad” and many more. I remember preparing cookies with you while Heidi planted flowers with grandpa every Spring. I admire your sewing skills and love that I was able to come out that one summer to have you help me make dresses. It was fun working side by side to do that. The “twirly” dresses you always made us for Easter every year were so beautiful and fun and I also remember our “Little House On The Prairie” dresses that you made. I also admire your quilting skills and the many crafts you have made for my home to decorate during the holidays. You always look so classy and it seemed like you never changed when I was little. You always look so pretty and put together. I have enjoyed the times I’ve been able to visit with you now that I’m older and that you were always willing to let me bring the kids out and spend some time with you. They love the times spent at the “Butterfly Pavillion” and going out to eat with you. Travis still talks about the time he came out with my parents and was able to visit with you about the “old days”. I’ve loved hearing stories from you about when you were first married and about my dad when he was little. He was lucky and blessed to be raised by such great parents. I love you so much and hope that your birthday was simply fantastic. I wish I could have been there to celebrate it with you. Know that our thoughts are with you. We miss you and love you to pieces!

Love,
Lori
Your “Angel”

Can Winter please be over already????

Yesterday was great and today looks beautiful too.  I am loving the Spring weather and hope it stays warm so Sean's work will pick up.  I have absolutely no loans in process right now so we need more work so we can get our payments made.  It has been a rough couple years and this Winter has been brutal for us financially.  We keep plugging along though and things seem to be working out although we aren't getting ahead at all.  Both of our businesses keep growing (pest control and scrapbooking) which is good, but it is hard to be patient while they are building.  I guess this is Heavenly Father's way of making us humble.  It's working.  But we have been healthy and have food and a roof over our head and so many other blessings to be thankful for.

I taught a digital class in Draper on Saturday.  It was a small class, but because it was small, we were able to cover a lot of stuff.  It was a fun time.  Heidi is teaching a class in Cedar City this weekend and then we are doing a craft boutique next weekend.  We are still scheduling classes and home parties, so if anyone is interested, let me know and I can get you the details.  It is a great way to earn some fun prizes if you are a hostess. 

The kids are out of school for Spring Break this week.  Travis and Tyrel have some aerating jobs lined up.  If anyone else is looking to have their lawn aerated and/or power raked, let us know ASAP.  Their time slots are filling up, but if they get enough interest, they can rent it another day.  Travis is babysitting for the neighbor all day today and is glad to have some work to earn some gas money for the remainder of the school year.

Conference Weekend - Scrapping and more

I got my pictures scrapped from Conference weekend.  It was fun.  We had the biggest scrapping group ever I think.  We must not have been noisy enough though, because Grandma and Krue managed to take a nap.

Travis was so cute playing Legos with the little boys

Todd forgot to bring up his Sunday clothes for the Priesthood session, so he stayed home with the women and children.  But he could stand it no longer and decided he wanted to make a page.  So, we helped him along and then when the men got back, Troy was mad that we were doing a speed scrap without him, so he sat down to scrap too.  Scrappers included me, Heidi, Kaitlin, Melisa, Haylee, Lisa, Sharlynn, Traci, Todd and Troy.

Scrapping for Conference

It was so much fun to have a huge group of scrappers this time for Conference weekend.  It has been waning over the past few years, but this year there were 8 of us, plus I think Jen and Kristi were scrapping with us in spirit from their own houses. Oh, actually, Todd and Troy also joined in on the fun for a little while so that makes two more!  We got a lot done, listened to some great talks, ate some yummy food, had a few laughs, and made a lot of memories!  Oh, and we all did a speed scrap on Saturday Night, good times!  Thanks everyone for chipping in on the food and making it a great weekend.  I didn't have any current pictures to scrap, so I ended up going back to Travis' books from 2001 - 2005 and pulling all the photos I had developed but never scrapped, scanning them in and finishing those 4 years of his life!  It was a great accomplishment for me.  They are 8 1/2 x 11 instead of 12 x 12 because I switched over in 2006 to the other size.  Here is a look at what I completed.