2010 in review

This was a fun challenge I did.  I was only going to do one picture per month, but then I had too many pictures to just pick one from each month, so this is what I ended up with.

January - Trevin played basketball, and spent the month on his science project.  February - Trevin earned his All 20 award and presented his science fair project. March - Trevin got a BB gun for his birthday, Tyrel got a new phone and we had a family BB shooting competition,  Travis and Tyrel received their Eagle Scout awards.  April - we had a big snowstorm for April Fools Day and then again for Easter Morning.  Trevin played soccer, and we took pictures at Red Bridge for grandma’s Mother’s Day present.  May - we planted our garden, and put up a fence.  Travis got his driver’s license and went to Sadie’s with Ashley.  Trevin participated in the Hershey Track meet, and Tyrel shaved for the first time.  June - Travis and Tyrel went to St. George for Youth Conference, Trevin went on his first overnight campout as a Boy Scout and learned to mow the lawn.  We spent a week with the Evers at Bear Lake at a cabin.  July - Spent lots of time floating the river at the Richardson Family Reunion.  Tyrel spent lots of time riding and jumping the 4 wheelers, Trevin took swimming lessons.

July - Sat on the lawn with the Nielsen’s to watch fireworks at the Stadium of Fire.  Attended the Smith Family Reunion at Soapstone and won a mega roll of toilet paper for being the best at Family Fued.  August - Spent a week in Denver with all the Evers family to visit with Great Grandpa and Grandma Evers.  Tried to take the waverunners to Utah Lake, but they died again, Tyrel got his learner’s permit, the boys started school.  September - Trevin played Flag Football, Lori bottled lots of salsa, attended the Onion Days parade and got to sit under the awning with the announcer, granpa Nielsen.  October - went on the Provo River Halloween Cruise with Sharlynn, Travis and Trevin wore the “fat” costumes for Halloween.  November - Sean played the part of Moses in the Ward Roadshows.  BYU beat Utah!!!, Travis didn’t shave for “no shave November”.  December - Tyrel became skilled at using the snowplow, we attended Christmas parties at the Evers and the Nielsen party was at our house where we made gingerbread houses.  The boys got Sponge Bob pj’s for Christmas.  We held the annual New Years Eve party at our house.

YAY!!

The loan fiasco from my terrible, horrible, rotten, no good, very bad day funded!

Free Food and Cheap Food

Sean sent me an email Wednesday morning asking if I wanted free food.  See, apparently, since he is on the board with the Spanish Fork Chamber of Commerce now, he is entitled to some perks.  YAY for perks.  There is a new Wendy's opening in Spanish Fork and they invited all the Chamber Members and their families to test out if their systems work and their employees were trained properly.  So we braved the awful snowstorm for free dinner at Wendy's and the boys thought it was most awesome!

On our way home, we noticed a sign at Crisps in Salem that the store was closing and everything was 40% off.  So, we stopped in there and got $500 worth of food storage for only $290.  SCORE for the Nielsen's.  Our pantry was looking pretty bare, but it is now full again.

Scrapbooking

Kristi came up and spent the day scrapbooking.  She caught on really quick and it was fun to be able to teach her and see her so excited about it.  I hope she keeps doing it.  We got the program ordered for her, Adam bought her some disks for her birthday and she actually got 5 layouts done the first day.  I think that's pretty good for just barely learning the program.  The kids played outside some, watched some TV, played Super Smash Brothers and had a pizza party.

We also got Kristi's blog updated and made her a new background and header, so it is all cute now.  She promises she will keep it updated better now that we got it all fixed up for her.

Troy and Lisa sent me the pictures from McKynlee's blessing a while ago, and I was able to get these layouts done of her in her blessing dress, so I thought I'd post them even though it was like a month ago.

Grandpa's "RUG"

So, funny story.....

When Santa was here for the Nielsen family Christmas party, Carolyn asked for a rug for her family room that now has a tile floor, so it was warmer and quieter for her kids to play on with their toys.  Lisa also asked Santa for a rug for her house.  So, when Grandpa LaMarr got on Santa's lap, he asked for a "rug" too while patting the top of his head.  He is getting a little thinner on top as of late.

It got me thinking.  My great uncle Wilbur had this awesome hat at the family reunion this summer.  It's a baseball cap that looks like a visor with hair coming out the top, but the hair is fake.

Heidi and Kirk got one for Uncle Greg for Christmas this year with brown hair 

So we thought since Grandpa asked for that, it would be funny to get him one too.

Christmas Day

The boys threatened me last night that they were going to get up at 5 am this morning and I told them no way.  Then they said 4 am and I again shut down their plan.  I told them they had to let us sleep until 7 at least.  At around 7:30 am, I heard Tyrel whistle (they know better than to come up the stairs until after we get the camera set up and we get out of bed).

We had a fun morning opening presents.  The boys got me a new can opener (not because I think I need a new one, I'm fine with the old one, but they hate it, so it is more for them I think.)  Sean got me a really pretty flower arrangement to set in some room that I haven't decided yet.  Then they all got me some new Mickey Mouse PJ's because my Minnie Mouse ones that I have had since we went to Disneyland when Tyrel was 5 finally ripped out a seam up the side so I needed new ones.

I got Sean the WOW upgrade and a GPS for his work truck from all of us because he has a hard time finding addresses sometimes and is always calling me to Google an address for him and give him directions.  We had fun trying to decide which voice we wanted on it.  The boys got him some black socks and a new tie for church.

Travis also got the WOW upgrade, his Skull Candy headphones that didn't get here yet, an oil vial for his key chain for consecrated oil (he asked for that, I'm proud of him), and a window scraper for his car. 

Tyrel got Skull Candy headphones that aren't here yet, a boogie board, and snow gear (gloves, coat, boots) for his winter campout.

Trevin got an Eagles Hoodie, some cars, and a Wii game.

All of the layouts I've been doing for the boys all year for their scrapbooks have been a secret.  I've been getting them printed through the year but not letting them see them.  I put them in their albums and wrapped them up and gave their 2010 books to them for Christmas.  I think it was their favorite present.  They all looked through each and every page and it was fun to see them reminisce and laugh about things they had done throughout the year.  I think I'm going to do that every year now.

We all got scripture markers in our stockings along with the traditional orange (chocolate oranges for our non fruit lovers), corn nuts, and some candy.

We used the GPS to find our way to Grandpa and Grandma Nielsen's for breakfast casserole.  Sean thought it was funny to not go the way it told us too so that it had to keep recalculating.  I said the lady was going to get mad at us if we didn't follow directions, I was just waiting for her to raise her voice at us.

The breakfast casserole and homemade Christmas punch and eggnog was yummy as usual and it was fun to visit with those that were there.  We came back home and chilled for the afternoon and then went back down for ham and funeral potatoes in the evening.  It was a lot of fun to spend time with family.

Christmas Eve

 It's Christmas Eve.  I made turkey with most of the trimmings for dinner tonight.  Everything is done and ready, but Travis and Tyrel's main present never got here.  I am so mad.  They guaranteed me they would have them to me by Christmas Eve.  At least they are older now and understand that they will get here eventually, but it makes it kind of sad that they don't have very much to open in the morning.

We read the story of Christ's birth in the scriptures tonight.  Sean played some songs on his guitar and we sang along.  Then we let the boys open their Christmas PJ's.   They were so excited to get SpongeBob PJs this year and I did well guessing on their sizes, they all fit perfectly.  They filled the Santa plate and actually went to bed fairly early.