Welcome 2010!

We had everyone up again on New Years Day (plus Troy) to watch some football, visit and eat. I really need to get started on my New Years goals after all the eating that has been going on lately. We just snacked on leftover stuff from New Years Eve for lunch and then we made pizza's for dinner. They all thought I was insane for taking a picture of the pizza, but it was so pretty with all the colors and it tasted delightful! I'm grateful that we made this combo pizza instead of just a bunch of pepperoni pizzas like we normally do on a Friday night.

We made two pepperoni; one meat lovers with pepperoni, sausage and ham; a chicken alfredo; and two combination pizzas for a total of 6 pizzas. The combinations were the first ones gone I think. Pepperoni was all that we had leftovers of. It smelled good and tasted even better. We had sauce, cheese, green peppers, red onion, olives, pepperoni, mushrooms, sausage, and ham. SO SO Good. Thanks everyone for the help cooking and the fun times!

Kaiden stayed overnight with Trevin and we stayed up late playing games and listening to Kaiden giggle because he thought they were so fun and hadn't played most of them before. We played checkers, Jenga, Disney Scene It, Topple and Twister.

New Years Party

We had a smaller group but still had a blast for New Years Eve. I changed the post time on this entry so it would be included in my blog book for 2009. Anywho, back to the party. We have had a New Years Eve party at our house for I don't even know how many years. I think we started in 2001. This year we had Todd and Haylee and their boys, Melisa and Lance and Savannah, Sharlynn, Traci, and us. Travis and Tyrel didn't want to go to the stake New Year's Eve dance because they love this party every year so much!

There was TONS of food! Haylee made a mexican dip and brought vegetables and a GIGANTIC tin of Almond Rocha's that most of us couldn't keep our hands off of. I made my usual party mix, nacho cheese and chips and Tyrel wanted FONDUE so I got a recipe I had a few years back from one of my neighbors and made it along with chunks of french bread to dip in it. It was a hit! Sharlynn brought veggies including celery with cheese in it which is one of my FAVES. Melisa brought rice crispy TREATS. There was tons of other stuff there that I'm not sure who brought what, but there was no shortage on good stuff to fill ourselves up with.

We played LOADED QUESTIONS and laughed so hard we were crying. There is always a question or two (or should I say ANSWER or two) that makes everyone laugh and gives us memories for years to come. I think the favorite question this year was WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST BODY PART? I'm not even going to repeat the answers here, but it was HILARIOUS and I got most of them right even though it was most embarassing for me to have to match them up to the correct person. We also played mad gab and laughed and LAUGHED at everyone reading the cards. Tyrel sounded like a little Chinese kid (kind of like that kid on GOONIES) when he talked. Traci sounded like a German woman and it was way funny. We ended with playing the Nielsen MEMORY lane game that I made last year. It is always fun to play and learn new stuff about everyone. It is a really fun game and the answers to some of the questions change every year.

Sharlynn spent the evening playing with the little kids with the WII. They must have all been WORKING hard because they all came up out of breath and with little pink faces.

Sean and Todd watched a FOOTBALL game and chatted. I think some are coming up tomorrow to watch some more football, so that will be fun. I may have to make a dash to the STORE to get some more chips to have with the cheese while we watch football.

We yelled HAPPY NEW YEAR at midnight, popped our POPPERS, and shot off our FIREWORKS along with many more we could see around the valley. I am a dork and didn't take any pictures this year and we missed those that weren't able to celebrate with us. Hopefully you all can make it next year!

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!