Christmas Card

I didn't get as many Christmas cards sent this year as I usually do.  Postage is so expensive!  So, in case you didn't get one, I still wanted to share because I think they are cute.  So here is the annual Nielsen Christmas card.

You can click on the images to see them larger if you care to read what they say!

I had to post those cute pictures of my awesome family to cheer myself up.  It has been a terrible, horrible, rotten, no good, very bad day.  I have a loan I have been working on for over 3 months now and the lender is making it so difficult I just can't stand it.  Today was the last day to get it closed this month or else start all over again and drag it out another month.  We were almost there and it was just one thing after another and we finally just gave up, at least the loan officer gave up and turned of his computer and phone and said we would just have to send it to another lender next month and start it all again.  Right after that, the lender called me and said they were sending documents but it was 1 1/2 hours after the title company had closed and 4 hours after the customer had left.  I told them to send them out anyway just because I wanted to make them work even though it wasn't going to close.  I went down to Sean's office in tears because I had been working on it for the last 3 months, but working my guts out today trying to make it happen and then it didn't.  My being spiteful paid off though because the title officer was checking her emails from home and bless her heart, she saw the documents come, called the borrowers, and ran to their home at 8:30 tonight and got them to sign.  The loan officer got the message on his voicemail and called to tell me it was a Christmas miracle and I told him I had told them to go ahead and send the documents out even though he told me to just forget it, so I took credit for the miracle and I'm so thankful for that awesome title officer that took it upon herself after hours to make it happen for us.  Now hopefully it funds next week.

Snow Day

I think it snowed almost all day long yesterday.  We braved the weather and went out delivering treats to my visiting teaching families and Sean's, Travis' and Tyrel's home teaching families.  Sean likes to drive in the yucky weather, so it wasn't a big deal for him.  The boys all chipped in and helped make the treats for our Family Night activity and we got all of them delivered but one.  Travis' family wasn't home, so we wrapped it up and will try again tonight if we can get out. 

The kids woke up this morning telling me the power was out, and it was.  Tyrel said everyone was texting him that the buses were cancelled.  Come to find out, that was true but they were still holding school.  We decided since it is the last day before break, we would just let them stay home, so they are out shoveling and then we just found out that they cancelled school, so it is a snow day.  They have been wishing for one.

More Snow - Evers Family Christmas Party

Seems as though we are full of celebrations this time of year.  Trevin got up early and went swimming with his Scout group.  Tyrel has been having fun learning to use the winch on the 4wheeler to shovel snow with the blade so he spent the morning cleaning up the driveway from the snow we got last night.

Once Trevin got home, we headed to Leamington.  Heidi and I enlisted Dad's help to get our catalogs put together while the cousins watched the BYU game and then a movie.  We played Pictionary Man for a while before dinner (hard game) and then we opened the presents.  When my mom asked me a while ago what I wanted, I had mentioned that I wanted Dad's conversion story written down so that I had it.  He had told it to us up at the cabin this summer and there were lots of details I hadn't heard before, so I wanted the story in writing.  We all got a copy of it and it will be my favorite gift I'm sure for years to come!  The funniest gift was the hat the Marchant's got for uncle Greg, what a riot!

Sean played the guitar and we sang a few songs.  Kaitlin played a song on the piano and Andrea read a story before we opened presents and then after all of that we had a yummy dinner of roast, potatoes and gravy, salad, rolls, vegetables and banana slush.  Everyone but Trevin was too full for dessert and I'm sad I was too full because I've been craving peppermint ice cream with hot fudge.

Nielsen Family Christmas Party

The party was tonight at our house.  I was in charge of breadsticks along with Sharlynn.  Haylee, Lisa and Traci made soup and Carolyn and Melisa brought desserts.  Everyone brought candy for the gingerbread houses.  The food was so yummy!  I love the recipe I used for the breadsticks, so I will have to remember to keep that one handy for the future.  The corn chowder that Lisa (actually I heard it was Troy) made, was to die for.  So yummy!

Actually, I'm getting ahead of myself.  Before we ate, Sharlynn got Adam and Kristi on her phone for us to wish a Merry Christmas to.  In the middle of us singing We Wish You a Merry Christmas to them, the doorbell rang, Travis answered it, and it was Adam and Kristi and the girls!  What a totally fun surprise for them to be here for the party and staying through Christmas. 

After we ate, Santa came and he was amazing!  He was totally not rushed and took 5 minutes or so with each child, even some of the big "kids".  We all got treats from Santa and then went to make our houses.  Each family made one and my boys each made their own because they are old enough now to do it themselves and they were excited.  That has been a tradition since they were tiny and even though they are big now, they still look forward to it and still want to make them every year.  I'm going to have to see if I can find a couple more sets of the cutters I have so I can give each of them a set for when they have their own families.  Or maybe they will all just have to come to my house to make them every year.

The kids played and we got the kitchen cleaned up and then visited for a while.  It was a great time.  I wish Ken and Jen and their girls would have come.  It would have been great to have the entire family there to celebrate the birth of our Savior together.

Baking and more baking

Sharlynn came up tonight and we got all the gingerbread houses baked for the family Christmas party.  My back aches as I go to bed tonight and I hope it feels better tomorrow as I have lots of housecleaning to do to get ready for everyone coming over.  Building 10 houses in one night is a lot of work, but it will be worth it to see the kids having fun building them.

Travis' SEOP

Sean and I were able to meet with Travis and the school counselor today.  It seems Travis is on track and only will need 2 required classes next year to graduate.  So, he is looking into taking some classes at MATC to get some computer certifications under his belt to help with job seeking once he graduates.  He is pretty excited about the prospects.  He also needs to take the ACT this year, which he is not too excited about.  He is transferring out of TV Broadcasting into TV Production for the 2nd half of the year, and is checking into a couple of other schedule changes to get him more channeled to computers as he feels this is what he wants to do "when he grows up".  It was a pretty productive meeting we felt.

Sister Anderson in our ward isn't doing too well and I was able to help with dinner for the family tonight.  Since so many of us signed up, I only had to do rolls.  It snowed a ton last night, so I waded through the snowy mess to deliver them.  I got to visit with her for a little bit and it was good to see her.  I hope she gets feeling better, we miss her fun personality around.  It is sad to see her so sick especially around this time of year.  I'm going to try to go next week sometime and sit and visit with her for a bit.

Caroling with the Scouts

We worked on our Good Manners belt loop with the cub Scouts today.  As we talked, we had them frost cookies and we delivered them to a few people in the ward.  We let the boys pick the song they wanted to sing (Jingle Bells) and we also let them pick who they wanted to deliver them to.  They picked the Haskells (who weren't home), the Hardy's, the Ditlevsen's (who also weren't home), the Harding's, the Bishop (who wasn't home), and the Anderson's.  They sang well and seemed to have fun and they all got to take a plate of cookies home with them along with the rubberband guns that they made last week when they were learning about tools.

Sister Brown came over tonight with the pictures of her new grandaughter for me to get her Christmas project finished for her.  I finally also got all of McKenzie's pages done too along with the ones I did for Andrea that my mom had me do for her for Christmas, so I should be able to get all of those sent to be printed tomorrow.

We had tithing settlement on Sunday.  I love our Bishop.  He always makes everyone feel so good about just everything.  He is an amazing man and I'm so grateful to be in this ward.