Christmas Eve PJs

These are the PJs we got for the boys to open Christmas Eve.  This is another one of the traditions they still indulge their old mother in because they like it.  Little did I know that this is all they would wear each and every day of Christmas break.  At least it cut down on the laundry each week.

More Photography

So, I'm here to show off another photography technique I learned.  This one was for twinkling Christmas lights and you hopefully think mine are awesome since I'm not going to point you in the direction of the sample photos from the photographer giving the tips. (hers look way more awesome than mine do)  I thought they turned out kinda cool although this is another one that took lots of trial and error to get photos that I thought were halfway decent.

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Christmas Card 2011

Postage is so darn expensive!  So, for those of you who want the summary of what we've been up to this year, here is the card we sent to a select few that don't have Facebook and don't get on the internet to read our blog.  The rest of you will have to enjoy it here.

Top Events - 2011

January - Trevin played city league basketball, Sean hosted a most awesome Elder’s Quorum activity shooting machine guns and shot guns at the dump,  Lori hosted a digital scrapbook retreat with Heidi in Orem

February -  Steelers make it to the SuperBowl, we host party at our house, unfortunately, the Steelers lose.

March - Tyrel turns 16 and is now old enough to drive and date and is ordained a Priest, Trevin turns 12 and receives the Aaronic Priesthood (ordained by his Dad)

April - Tyrel goes on his first date to Prom, weather is warming up so Sean is getting busy with work

May - Trevin graduates from elementary school, Lori takes a long awaited photography class and loves it!

June - Travis turns 18, Lori gets released from Cub Scouts and gets a new calling in nursery (sweatiest calling in the church)

July - Quick trip to Denver for Great Grandma Evers funeral, Sean and Lori attend Lori’s 25 year class reunion (man we are getting old), Travis works lots and lots of hours at the movie theater

August - Sean and Lori celebrate their 20 year wedding anniversary,  we spend the month bottling tons of tomatoes, Travis has his last first day of school, Trevin begins Jr. High, Tyrel is a junior

September - We attend the Onion Days parade and don’t know what to do with ourselves with Grandpa Nielsen not there as the parade announcer, Sean and the boys attend Father and Son’s outing

October - Sean and Lori get to attend the Payson Temple ground breaking in the freezing cold while boys enjoy it in the comfort of the warm Stake Center,  Tyrel has a blast as McPins of the Bowl Dozers (bowling club), Lori opens her very own digital scrapbook store with her sister

November - Travis and his friends get a special request to perform in the ManHawk Dance Off (Make a Wish fundraiser), they are awesome and get requested to perform again during the Skyhawk Gorge, Lori manages to pull off her very first Thanksgiving dinner, Sean starts plowing snow

December -- We wish you a very Merry Christmas and hope you remember the real Reason for the Season! 

Nielsen Family Christmas Party

Sharlynn planned the Nielsen Family Christmas party yet again this year and might I add she did an outstanding job, yet again.  I guess we should give her a break next year since she has planned all of them so far.  We met at our house for a brunch that actually didn't happen until more like lunch time because of a few technical difficulties with food assignments, but never fear, the food was great and we were all well fed.  After we ate we decorated giant snowman sugar cookies that I made for the party.  The kids (young and old) had a blast!

Bokeh - Do You Have Room?

So, the resident photographer at one of the scrapbooking forums I frequent did a little tutorial on how to get the Bokeh effect with Christmas lights.  In fact, she said Christmas lights beg for this effect.  So one evening this last week, when everyone was off doing other things, I set up the Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus from my nativity and gave it a try.  I have to admit, it took me several shots to get it exactly right, but Ashley will be proud of me, I shot this in my house, with the manual setting on my camera, and I love how it looks.  I love my nativity and I think it looks so cool with the tree in the background.

Then there was another challenge at our forum to scraplift a layout and I thought it would work great for this photo.  I also finally found the Shawna Edwards YouTube video of her song "Do You Have Room For The Savior" and added the lyrics to the song to my layout.  Here is a link to the video too.

Christmas Concert and Church Ball

Trevin's Christmas choir concert was tonight.  It was awesome!  Choir concerts always get me in the Christmas mood every year.  He says it is his favorite class this year and his teacher seems like so much fun.  He says if she goes to the new Jr. High next year, he will probably continue on with choir, so I hope she goes to the new Jr. High!  The most fun number was "Grandma's Killer Fruitcake", but they sang so many good songs with the girl's choir singing one of my favorites "Breath of Heaven".  Loved it!

pictures to follow

After the concert, I rushed to Tyrel's church basketball game and was able to catch the last half.  They were playing the Mountain View ward and stomping them.  Tyrel ended up rolling the same ankle he sprained playing volleyball a couple months ago in co-ed team sports, but I did get to see him play for a bit before that.  Their team played pretty well together and seemed to be having fun.

pictures to follow

Tree Trimming

We usually set up the tree the day after Thanksgiving, but this year we were a little late.  We were about a week into December before finally dragging it out.  Sean's aversion to hanging lights (even though he is excellent at it) has rubbed off on the boys, so it's a good thing we now have a pre-lit tree.  It took us a total of about 15 minutes to unpack, set up, light, and decorate the tree (start to finish).  Yes, I know, we are amazing!  It looked beautiful when they were done.

Gingerbread Houses 2011

The boys have at least one tradition they will still participate in.  This is their favorite one I guess.  Trevin was pretty psyched that he didn't have to give his to his teacher this year since he isn't in elementary anymore.  They have let the traditional houses go by the wayside though.  This year Travis, our future missionary, made a temple gingerbread house filled with lots and lots of gumdrops. 

 Trevin started out making a rocket ship, but that didn't quite work as planned, so he just stuffed it with as many mint m&ms as he could. 

 Tyrel made an architectural wonder that I'm amazed could stand on it's own.  

Christmas Tree

We decorated our tree for Family Night tonight.  I again couldn't talk my boys into setting up their tree downstairs.  It's kind of a bummer they are getting old and grinchy.  I love Christmas and it makes me sad that it is like pulling teeth to get them to help decorate.  I mean it took all of 15 minutes to set it up and decorate it since it is prelit and only has 4 sections.  Can they not just be happy for 15 minutes to humor their mother?  There will come a day that they will be sad they are not here for the tree decorating and it's coming soon.  Next year Travis will be gone on his mission and so this is probably the last year he will be here to decorate the tree with the family, so I guess that is why I was sad they weren't excited to help.  They are excited to do gingerbread houses next week though, so at least they like some of our traditions.

Merry Christmas (it's loud at our house this year!)

Sean and I woke up around 6:15 this morning and the boys were still sound asleep. About 10 minutes to 7, they finally got up.

It didn't take us very long to open presents this year because we went for quality instead of quantity for the most part this year. Sean and I kept is simple for the both of us this year since work is pretty slow for both of us.

Here is a rundown of what we all received.
Sean - New Steelers hat, new Steelers T-shirt, pinenuts and renewal of subscription to Rush Limbaugh online 24/7

Lori - New wireless mouse and keyboard for computer, new sweater, Trevin got me the new Harry Potter DVD
Travis - a huge amp for his guitar (it is so loud), a strap for his guitar, a new pick for his guitar, a cord to hook his guitar up to his amp, a pedal that hooks to his guitar that gives it different sounds (not exactly sure how to explain it, but it is pretty cool), a free month of WOW from Tyrel for his exchange gift
Tyrel - strings for Sean's old classical guitar since he is taking guitar at school the 2nd half of the year, a razor, a drum set. We got him an electronic one. Drums was the only thing he asked for and after looking at prices, I didn't think we would be able to swing it, but I won a set on Ebay for 1/2 the price of the ones we were looking at in the music store. He won't be getting a birthday present this year either, but he says it is worth it. He loves it. I just wish we could afford lessons for him so he doesn't develop any bad habits. Hopefully things will pick up when the weather warms up and we can do that. He also got a Jerome Bettis Steelers jersey from Sean. He was way stoked about that one! It took us hours to set up the drum set, but we got it done and he is loving it. He is able to plug into Travis' amp because we got a dual amp.
Trevin - Travis got him some Lego's for his exchange gift, he got a new scooter (back wheel on his old one is pretty much non-existent), Mario and Sonic at the Olympic games for the WII (summer olympics and winter olympics), Monsters vs Aliens DVD, SpongeBob footsie pajamas (they are hilarious), an Eagles Westbook jersey, and an Eagles beanie.
Oh, and all the boys got new sweaters for Sunday, but I gave them to them early so they could wear them the Sunday before Christmas so they didn't open them on Christmas.

We went down to grandpa and grandma Nielsens for Christmas Casserole, egg nog, and hot punch around 11:00. Most of Sean's siblings were gathered there and it was fun to hear what everyone got.

We came back home and veg'd until dinner time (actually we played drums and with Trevin's WII games) when we went back down for ham at grandpa and grandma's.

I am so grateful for holiday traditions, old and new!

Christmas Eve

Grateful can't begin to describe my feelings for my Savior, Jesus Christ, especially at this time of year. I am so glad to have the knowledge that I have a Heavenly Father who loves me enough to send His Son and a Savior who loves me enough to suffer for my sins so that I may return to live with them both and with my eternal family if I put the atonement into effect with my life. I don't know where I would be without that knowledge.

Today was a pretty kick-back day. We all kinda just did our own thing. I did a little scrapbooking and a little baking and Sean and I ran to the bank and the grocery store for a few last minute things to get us through the weekend. Trevin is a bit distressed that he seems to be having to empty the dishwasher 2 or 3 times a day with all the cooking going on and everyone home for 3 meals a day. Trevin and I made homemade oreo's this year to go on the Santa cookie plate.

We usually do Mexican food for Christmas Eve dinner, but Travis requested Italian this year. Since Sean is not really an Italian food fan (he thinks it all tastes the same) he said he would agree to it only if we could have chicken parmesan. So, that is what we had and it was so yummy. We may have to make that the new Christmas Eve dinner tradition.

After dinner we went to the living room and according to tradition, we had our little Christmas program. We started with singing an opening song. Travis has learned to play Silent Night on his guitar and so that was what we sang. I am envious of one of my friends that said she loved hearing her family sing Silent Night in 4 part harmony for family night last week. We are just not that good I guess. The guitar sounded good, I think I seemed to hear 4 or 5 parts, but harmony is just not a word that exists in our house when it comes to singing. We read the story of the birth of our Savior out of the scriptures and Sean talked a little bit (I love that man). Then Sean took over the guitar and we sang all the verses of Away In A Manger. We had a family prayer and then the boys opened their Christmas pajamas. I took pictures of them all individually in front of the tree in their Christmas jammies.
Trevin put together the Santa plate including the homemade oreo's we made, string cheese, and a cup of egg nog (which I put back in the fridge and got out again later) We all headed to the theater to watch a movie together and then Trevin went to bed. Tyrel decided he wanted to be Santa's little helper this year, so he set to work doing that stuff. It was a fun night filled with tradition and just being together as a a family.

Organized Chaos???

Every year Sean's Mom's family has a Christmas Party. There are easily over 100 people there every year. Each of Diane's siblings assigns their family members soups, breadsticks, and desserts. Everyone brings their stuff and meets at a church cultural hall that whoever is hosting has selected. We eat, have a pinata, visit with long lost cousins, and Santa comes.

We have missed the last few years because sometimes it is so chaotic and Sean just couldn't take it anymore. For some reason, he decided we were going to go this year. So, we headed out to Eagle Mountain. The traffic was horrendous. It is really no fun going through Lehi during rush hour. We got lost, but wandered around on some dirt (ice) roads looking for a steeple and finally found where we were supposed to be.

Again, it was organized (or maybe not so organized) chaos. The soups were good, the breadsticks were great, and the kids got to see Santa for the 3rd time this year. You would think he would know what they wanted by this time.

They got remote control cars and the best part was all the fun they had after we left and came home. They set up tracks and jumps and courses in the basement that went through several rooms. They were up till after 1:00 in the morning playing with their silly cars.

Evers Family Christmas Party

We got together with my family on the Saturday after Christmas. We got the yummy tri-tip for dinner along with all of the fixings. It was fun to be together and even more special because Dad and Mom leave on their mission in a few weeks and won't be here for next Christmas. Their wish is for us kids to stay close and do things together while they are gone and I think it will be fun to plan and do things with my brothers and sister this next year. Heidi and my mom got all of the boys and Kaitlin t-shirts that said "git er done" on them. This has kind of been our family motto since dad had his surgery over a year ago.

After dinner Travis and Sean played the guitar for us and Kaitlin and Tyler sang a hot cup of cocoa song for us. It was fun to be together with family and fun that mom and dad almost have their dining room done for us to eat in. We ate in it even though it isn't quite finished.

Christmas Day

Travis only put 3 things on his list this year, he wanted Guitar Hero World Tour (didn't get it) Iron Man DVD, and a new black accoustic/electric guitar like his dads. I told Sean he was going to have to buy the guitar, because I know nothing about what is good or not. Luckily he found a Washburn guitar with an electric pick up on Ebay that had only been played 1/2 a dozen times and came with 2 extra sets of strings, and a hard case. The guitars he had looked at that were similar in the stores were $500-$800. He was able to pick this one up for $220 with shipping included. I was a little worried because it took like 3 weeks to get here and I was worried it wasn't ever going to arrive and then what would we do since it was the only thing Travis was getting? But it arrived in time and it was beautiful, not a scratch or a fingerprint on it. Travis was so excited when he opened it up and he and Sean sat and played guitar together almost all day on Christmas day. It was so fun to listen to them. Most of my pictures are with his hand in his face blocking the photo shot, but I did happen to get this one.

Tyrel only wanted snow toys for the January campout at the Haskell's cabin for scouts, so he did his own shopping on Amazon and got himself a snowboard and a snow scooter. He is loving his snow scooter. I don't have his pictures scrapped yet, but here is a photo without a layout.

Trevin wanted Indiana Jones Legos and an Eagles helmet. We opted for a real helmet so he could have as a keepsake instead of a cheap plastic imitation. He spent all morning putting his Lego set together according to the instruction booklet. All of the boys have really enjoyed Legos and it was fun to see him do it by himself.

Sick on Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve, all was going well. I had some extra time in the afternoon and since I didn't get pumpkin break made and gifted to my neighbors, I decided I should at least make some for Sean and Travis' home teaching families, so I made some pumpkin bread and while Sean and the boys were delivering, I threw together some chicken enchiladas for dinner.

After dinner we cleaned up the mess and I sent Sean downstairs to get the boys so we could open our Christmas Eve gifts and read the Christmas story from the Bible. All of the sudden I got the worst abdominal cramps I had ever had. I was in pain worse than I remember when I was in labor. I was sweating and shaking and doubled over in pain. Tyrel had been sick with the stomach flu a few days before, so I thought maybe that was it, but I seriously was in so much pain I thought an epidural would be great. I began to wonder if maybe my appendix had burst or something. It was absolutely awful!

I had Sean help me into bed and told him I didn't think I could stand it and that I needed a blessing. He was at a loss as to who to call on Christmas Eve. He tried his dad and got no answer, so he tried his brother Todd. Todd asked if we could wait until they had put their kids to bed and I said "No, keep trying the neighbors." Thankfully, Todd said he could come up. I felt really bad taking him away from the family on Christmas Eve, but I seriously thought it was something really serious.

While we were waiting I told Sean where the stocking stuffers were hidden and where the "Santa" presents were so he could get them out. We had the kids come in to our room and sit on the floor to open their Christmas Eve pajamas.

He came, they gave me a blessing, Sean walked Todd to his car and by the time he got back to me I was totally fine. I ended up getting up and finishing off the Christmas stuff like I had planned. I'm so thankful for the power of the Priesthood.

Nielsen Christmas Party

We decided for the first time ever to have a Nielsen Family Christmas party this year. It was at our house and we decided to have dinner and then to re-enact the Nativity because Sean's family grew up doing that.

We had spaghetti, salad, rolls, and dessert and then proceeded to get all of the "actors" in costume. After finding enough bath towels, we proceeded to the living room for Grandpa LaMarr to read the story while we sang and had the kids re-enact the story. My kids are so much older than the rest, it looked like we had giant wisemen. Trevin and Alexis were Joseph and Mary and we had a couple of little rabbits instead of sheep, but it was cute! Travis and Tyrel tried their hardest to stay out of camera range.

This is a picture of Diane and LaMarr in front of our tree.

This was a fun family tradition that I hope we can continue.

Constructing the Houses

Our gingerbread house activity was a little strange this year. Travis and Tyrel wanted to make their houses so they could eat them and Trevin has 2 teachers so he had to make two houses (he doesn't get to eat one). I had some leftover dough, so while we constructed the houses, we had Sean roll out the dough and then Travis and Tyrel cut into cookies and baked. They put them in the oven and didn't set the timer until a few minutes later. I didn't pay attention and they had set it for the full time after they had already been in there for 3 or 4 minutes. So, needless to say, our cookies were a little overbaked. They insisted they were not burnt and tried them, we had boys spitting and spewing and looking for a sink and some thing to drink. It was kind of funny!

Trevin got both of his houses made and delivered to his teachers. Didn't he do a great job? This is Mrs. McKee with her house.

This is Mrs. Turner and her house. I went to high school with her and her husband and all three of my boys have had her as a 4th grade teacher. She was so excited to get her house because she has kept the houses the other boys made and she said her kids have picked most of the candy off of them, so she was excited for a new pretty house.

Scrooge and Jacob Marley

Trevin came home from school all excited because his school class was going to do a program where they acted out Dickens "A Christmas Carol". I asked him if he had a part and he said he was going to be Jacob Marley. I assumed the teacher would be narrating and they would just walk around the stage for their parts, but I asked him if he had any lines and he said, "Mom, I have a whole scene!" It was so cute. So every evening while I was makng dinner, he and I would run lines while I cooked. It is all he talked about for two or three weeks.

They did the play in their classroom and had scenery and costumes and everything. Scrooge did very well at being grouchy (can you see the scowl on his face) and Trevin remembered all of his lines and did a great job as Marley. Don't you love his chains? The little girl in Trevin's class that was the ghost of Christmas present was hilarious. She kept waving her wand and twirling around in her dress and she even talked with a British accent. It was so funny! They all did a great job and Trevin was excited that both sets of his grandparents could be there. He made Grandpa LaMarr (the actor) very proud!

Christmas Guitar Concert

We got to enjoy a Christmas concert at the Jr. High. It included the choir, orchestra and guitar class. We had quite a few kids we knew from our ward in the choir and there are three boys from our ward in Travis' guitar class. The guitarists played Silent Night, Jingle Bells, O Come O Come Emmanuel and What Child is This. After everyone finished their parts, they all played and sang We Wish You A Merry Christmas together. I'm so proud of Travis and all that he has learned this year in his guitar class. He loves it and I love listening to him play while I make dinner in the evenings.

Sub For Santa Translation

My wonderful brother in law Ken was able to translate our Thank You cards from our Sub for Santa Family. Thanks Ken

Translation:

For Santa Clause
From Daniela
Thank you
For bringing me
Shoes

For Santa Clause
From Daniela
Thank you for the toys and I hope
That you have a merry Christmas

For Santa Clause
From Alfredo
Thank you for the toys and I hope
That you have a merry Christmas