Blog Naming Contest

I think NIELSEN FAMILY BLOG is just too boring of a title. I have seen so many creative titles for blogs when I am out blog surfing. My title just won't do anymore. So, leave a comment or send an email and let me know what you think my new title should be. And no, Nielsen News doesn't cut it. Still not creative enough.

Images of Me

I saw this on my sister in law's sisters blog and thought it was kind of a fun idea. You Google images for the answers to the questions. Join in if you want! I changed a couple of the questions because I couldn't think of answers to a couple of them that she had.

My Age - I thought this would make it a little harder for you to guess how very old I am and no, you don't need to add them together.

A place I would like to visit - I've always wanted to go tour the national historic sites

Favorite object - can you tell I have been camping neglected this summer, I really want to go for a ride

Favorite food - I'm a sucker for Mexican food

Favorite color

Town I was born in

Where I live now - although this picture is the wrong season

My first name - I have actually eaten here twice on both of our trips to San Francisco

My maiden name

My last name

My first job

My Grandmother's names

My college degree

Where I went to college - although it was SUSC when I went there

What I'm doing right now

Fun "Girls" Day

Since there are so many men around this house, I have to take chances every once in a while for a "Girls" outing. Yesterday, we had a small enrichment group that got to go to Young Living Lavender Farm. Actually, my day started with going to get my hair done. I love having someone else do my hair! Then, a small group of us met at the church at noon and traveled down to the farm (about a 20 minute drive). Suzette from my ward works there and graciously offered to have us come down since the little restaurant there is closing next week for the season. So, we had a yummy lunch of salad, lavender lemonade, chicken salad croissants, and strawberries. Then she talked to us about the history of the farm and what she does for her job. After that we went on a tour in the wagon and came back to have some lavender ice cream. Lavender lemonade and lavender ice cream are so yummy! She gave us all a lavender sample as we left and we didn't even have to pay for lunch. It was a fun outing.

Last night for our YW activity, the Mia maids were in charge of a combined girls activity, so we did a back to school night. We had an Art class where they made locker magnets, a home-ec class where they made a pumpkin dessert, and a PE class where I taught them the history of Bocce and then taught them how to play Bocce on the lawn at the church. It ended up being a fun activity. The girls just rotated around to each class. This morning, I thought it would have been fun to also have a Seminary class to make it a little more spiritual and since Sean showed up to scouts on the golf cart and everyone wanted to drive it, I thought it would also have been fun to have a Driver's Ed course with the golf cart. It seems like all of my good ideas come too late. Maybe next year. After class we had after school snacks of cracker snack packs and juice boxes. It was a fun but busy day as I also had to fit in a YW board meeting, dinner, and running Tyrel to his new job of refereeing soccer games.

School Begins

Here are my cute boys on their first day of school. Don't they look nice with their hair cut?

Travis is in 9th grade in the Jr. High. He is taking Earth Systems, PE, Seminary, English, Algebra, World Civilizations, Geography, Weight Training and Guitar this year. It is his last year in Jr. High and then he will get to go to the new Salem Hills High School next year.

Tyrel is in 8th grade at the Jr. High. He is taking English, Algebra, Health, Science, US History, Body Conditioning, PE, Creative Writing, and 3-D Design this year.

Trevin is in 4th grade at the Elementary. He has two teachers this year, Mrs Turner (who I went to high school with) for the first half of the day for English, reading, spelling, history. Then after lunch he goes to Mrs. McKee's room and has Science, Math, PE. He will also have piano lab this year.

They were all excited to go and get to see all of their friends that they haven't seen over the summer. I'm glad they are excited and hope it lasts.

New Blog

In case any of you are in to digital scrapbooking. I got permission from a couple of designers to make quick pages from their digital kits, so I started a new blog to list them on. So, if you want to download them, click here.

New Benches

Sean and I found this amazing deal on benches Thursday, so we bought four of them to put around the fire pit in the back yard. The boys spent Friday morning putting them all together and I think they look wonderful and make a great addition to our back yard. Sean spent the day today re-painting the door frames around all of the back doors and mowing and edging the lawn while the rest of us cleaned house and did laundry. We were supposed to have a BBQ here tonight with Sean's family and his cousin that is here from out of state, but it has been postponed until Monday night so I'll post BBQ pictures then.

The boys went to the annual Moody Movie Night last night. A family in our ward has a huge grassy hill in their back yard, so every summer before school starts they have a movie in their back yard projected on a big sheet. Everyone brings snacks and blankets and hangs out on the lawn to watch the movie (it was "Cars" this year) and then the kids all stay and play night games until midnight or so. It is a fun tradition we look forward to every year.

Feeding the Masses

This post might be kind of long, so bear with me. A month ago, Trevin gave a family night lesson on Being a Pioneer where he explained that we didn't have to be a pioneer that crossed the plains to be a pioneer. There are many ways that all of us can be pioneers in different things.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, when it was my turn for the lesson, I gave a lesson on geneology and how important it is for us to keep our personal journals so that our stories aren't lost. I also related some stories of some of my ancestors to my kids so that maybe they might remember them. On my dad's side of the family I talked about my Great Grandma Bebensee who was a librarian in Nebraska and how she always made us "Spudnuts" when we went to visit her. She also had a cool sprinkler to run through and she called us "Tootie". We called her Grandma BB because Bebensee was too hard to say. I told them about my Grandpa's brother Willis who was a pilot during WWII and was shot down. My Aunt Terri wrote a book about him which was a great resource for my lesson. I also told them about my Great Grandpa Evers and how I used to get embarassed to talk to him because he didn't hear very well and I had to shout at him and how he lived to be 105 years old.

On my mom's side I told my kids about my great grandmother Richardson who crocheted me a baby dress and also crocheted my mom a baby dress. We both have pictures in these dresses and I still have my dress. My mom still has her dress also. I told them about my Great great grandmother Princess Ivy Estelle Brooks who I always thought was a real princess when I was little, but when I saw a picture of her when I was older, she actually looked like one of the Beverly Hillbillies. Princess was just her name, not her title.

It was fun to relate a few stories that I remembered to them. I made a book for my junior year in high school for an English project that had my memories (or stories I hear my parents or grandparents tell) about many of my relatives. In addition to the story, it had a picture (photocopied) and a recipe (typed with a typewriter and lots of whiteout). As I looked through this book, I decided I wanted to re-do it with the modern age of digital scrapbooking. So, since I told my kids that when it was my turn for treats for Family Night (which was this last Monday) that I would make Grandma BB's Spudnuts, I decided to start with re-doing her. When I get everyone done, then I'm going to get them all bound in a book for each of my kids and myself so we can all have copies of the stories, pictures and recipes. The picture of her are from when she was a small child with her father, when she was a young woman, and a picture of how I remember her.

Now to the Feeding the Masses part of my entry. We made the doughnuts and I forgot that the recipe made so many, so when we were done mixing, cutting them out, cooking, and sugaring, we had more doughnuts than I knew we could or should eat. So, we took plates of doughnuts to 5 families in our neighborhood so they could enjoy them for their family night treats also. It was fun and my kids and husband loved them!