Happy Birthday BEAR!

A year ago today, Jeremy turned into a real teenager. His 13th year of life wasn't so bad for all of us to live through, so we decided to give him back his birthday this year and allowed him to continue in his teenagerhood and become a whopping 14.

We had a few of his friends over on Friday for a really lame movie served with pizza and plenty of junk food.

Sunday, today, is his true day of birth. We celebrated with his favorite cake which is the candy bar cake. Since he was the big celebrity of the day, he was served his piece of cake on the BIG plate and with the BIG fork. He's so lucky! (and cute, don't you think?)This is a picture of the beautiful cake. For a mom that decorates cakes, it breaks my heart to make one that stays in the pan and has the "frosting" only be one color. I think I was subconsciously against this cake as I "forgot" to even buy candles to put on. But being the daughter of a boy scout like I am, I improvised with matches. We had to sing happy birthday WHILE I was lighting the matches (they burn FAST), so we sang fast.

Poor sorry looking little burnt matches/candles. He was still able to blow them out.

I love my Jeremy. He is a fantastically grateful and gentlemanly young man. He was so grateful for his gifts, having his friends over, birthday lunch, birthday cake and everything. He still opens the door for me and kisses me goodbye - even at school in the parking lot. He's such a cool 14 year old!

What's YOUR Favorite?

I know this is a little late because it's been a few weeks since we did this, but while Jeremy, Brigam, Mykie and I were taking down the Christmas ornaments this year, I asked them what their favorite ornament was and why. I thought I would share:

This one is Mykie's. A Pooh Bear that Grama Nelson made her about 3 or 4 years ago. Isn't it cute? Mykie said it was her favorite because her Grama made it a long time ago and it's always been her favorite because she has always liked Pooh Bear.

This one is Jeremy's. It is a cute little snowman that he made at school. I think he was in Kindergarten. It's his favorite because he has had it for so long and he thinks it's cool.

This is Brigam's. Sorry a bit blurry. It's actually an ornament of a tool belt. This was Brigam's ornament from this year. It was so cute because it had a hammer, pliers, screwdriver and even a belt and buckle. So cute. Brigam says it's his favorite because he is the Tool Man. He still loves to wear his hard hats and get stuff out of his tool box. He tries to "fix" everything he can. Sometimes that's a good thing, sometimes not a good thing.

This one is my favorite ornaments. It's also one from Grama Nelson. She gave it to Mike and I the second Christmas we were married. We were expecting Tyler early the next year. It is a little egg with a baby face poking through one side and the baby's bum and little feet poking through the other. It's so cute!

Do you have a favorite decoration?

Has you kid ever compared you to the Energizer Bunny and you weren't even wearing a pink bathrobe?

Mine did. And he really meant it as a compliment, not a suggestion to go look up the number to Jenny Craig.

It happened last Monday. Once again we had snow on the ground. A fresh few inches of the winter wonderland material. Brigam asked if we could walk to school. Well, what would you say? Because my brain works so incredibly fast in about 3 seconds I had the following thoughts, "You know, Terilyn, you really HAVEN'T worked out in like 3 weeks." and "Remember when you bought these $40 pair of boots? You said, 'Now I can walk with Brigam to school even when there is snow on the ground.'" and "If he want's to walk to school in the snow, who am I to extinguish that love for physical activity?" and "Is he crazy?" I think there was a few others, but I have so many thoughts in my head that I can't share them all with you. Some things still have to be personal.

Well, it was about 7:55 am and we were bundled up in boots, jackets covered by coats, winter gloves (with magic stretchy gloves to change into just in case we got too warm) and hats on our way to school. Walking down the street wasn't so hard, as long as we stayed in the tire tracks the cars left. It was getting difficult when Brigam kept holding my hand. Only one car had driven down the street that morning and I couldn't stretch to hold his hand while he was in one track and I in the other. So I let him walk in the track. It wasn't too bad, we were on level ground.

Soon we made it to the bus stop where the bus happened to come right as we were there (that NEVER happens. We are either running to catch it or we are waiting for 5-10 minutes for it to show up.) Brigam had to inform his bus driver that he and his mom were walking to school. Brigam had to patiently wait for the bus driver to finish talking with some trouble maker kid and then gave him the very important information. The bus driver looked at us like we were crazy and said, "OK" with a little shrug that clearly told me that he couldn't have cared less about our plans.

So we forged on. On through the cemetary. There are no tracks in the cemetary. Dead people do not get up and walk in the snow. It's a lot harder to walk in the snow covered grass than one might think. But I did it and Brigam was right there holding my hand. We finally made it to asphalt. That was much better and we continued our course.

Brigam wanted to walk behind the library to get to school. This is our normal route on a good "snow-free" day. I told him that there were no tracks. It's much easier to walk in tracks, and I thought that if we walked clear up to 19th on Union then we would be able to follow someone else's tracks. But as I looked up the street I realized that not even the crossing guard was at the corner. NO ONE was walking to school that day. Only crazy bundled up people like us. So I thought, "What the heck?" We headed for the back of the library where I realized that one terrific mom made her child walk to school that day. I was thankful for some type of track that I could put a boot in once in a while. It really was a workout. By this time I had already changed into the magic stretchy gloves. I was warming up. As we trudged behind the libary, Brigam still had the need to hold my hand. But when we finally reached the street that could take us to the school, my hand holding days were over. This was a little bit of a hill and I had yet to find some more tracks. I knew what I needed to do - I needed to power through this with both arms a swingin'. I let go of Brigam's hand. He didn't say anything for a second and then tried to place that little hand back in mine. I said, "Buddy, mom needs both of her hands to herself right now. I really need them so I can make this walk."
Brigam's reply, "Mom, you've got to hold my hand. You're my Energizer Bunny. I don't have any energy to walk if you don't hold my hand."
And then proceeded to show me that he couldn't walk when he didn't have my hand and that he CLEARLY could walk if he was holding my hand. How could I argue with such scientific proof of energy? I continued to labor on my way to his school while holding his hand. I even came completely out of my magic stretchy gloves. I was that warm.
But somehow I think that the warmth that came from deep inside wasn't just from the labor of walking Brigam the 1.5 miles to school. I think it came from the fact that I had just had my mommy batteries recharged.

Congratulations U of U!!!

We spent the evening watching University of Utah play football against Alabama. Alabama is a pretty formitable force. You know in Alabama those boys are born and bred for football.

Utah came out the first quarter with a score of 21 to 0. It was amazing! They had a lot of momentum. Alabama came back and shut the U down for a bit, but then the U came back with some fantastic plays and when the final second ticked off the clock the score was a whopping

31 to 17. Um . . . WOW!

We were all excited about the win, but Mike was really, Really, REALLY excited. Mykie showcased Mike's reaction in this little video:

Now we are just hoping that the U of U will be voted as the #1 college team for this football season! They are the ONLY college football team that went through their season perfectly - they are UNDEFEATED!

At least we believe in you, Utah!

Utes ROCK!

Happy New Year!

I am a day late in the greeting, but I've been busy. A normal start to a new year, right? Well, I was goal planning. I will update on those later. I will say that the most amount of time spent on goal planning is the actual deciding what will be best for you to goal for. Anyhow, I thought I'd give you an update of the happenings along with a few pictures.

I really wanted to add this little photo from my phone. This was from our ward's Christmas Dinner. Of course we had Santa visit. The photo background was fantastic. I don't know where they came up with it, but our ward really does a great job on all their activities. Anyhow, Brigam decided to go all Boy Scout on us and come to the dinner prepared. He was the only child that brought a list to Santa, he didn't want him to forget - what with all those other kid's lists he had to listen too.

I had to add this shot of Briggy on Christmas day. Even though his old brown boots were at least 1 size too small for him, Briggy wore them without fail to church and anywhere else he could. They were looking pretty scrappy so Mike and I got him some new ones. Perfect, huh? Actually, it is not abnormal to see Brigam dressed exactly like this - especially when I have gone to work and it's Mike's turn to get the kids off to school.

Here is a shot of our Jer Bear on Christmas day. He was so excited to get some snowboarding equipment - gloves, goggles, boots and a backpack. He was in heaven.

After celebrating the New Year complete with confetti, I now know why my Mom gave us these huge tubes of confetti before she left for Mongolia. I thought, "How awesome! Brand new packs of confetti." I wondered why she hadn't used it? I thought that apparently she had not experienced the joy of confetti throwing as a celebratory gesture. How silly was I? It was because she DID have experience with the confetti that she gave me the tubes. She was hoping they'd be used up before she came home. She especially had experience in the cleaning up of the said confetti. That's why it was so gleefully given. It was a mess that morning to vacuum it up and it was EVERYWHERE. We are still finding it. We've moved the couches (it was in, under and behind those), it's in the Christmas tree and the potted plants, behind the TV, in the toy box and darned if I know how a pile of it got into Brigam's bed. Those poor street cleaners in New York.

HAPPY NEW YEAR -confetti-free for you all. Aren't I nice? Yes, believe me I am.

Then we woke up on my dad's birthday to be greeted with a blanket of snow. This time I was determined NOT to miss out on the opportunity to have a guest stay in our yard for a bit. Meet our snow woman. Compete with scarf, hat and gloves; rock eyes, mouth and buttons and a celery nose (Mykie said that our carrots just weren't long enough. Darn baby carrots!) Actually the whole family DIDN'T help build the snowman. Although we were all outside in the snow, some of us built up the snow woman while others just decided to see how accurate they could be throwing the snow at those of us hard at work.

Although my coat really is lime green, the green on my face is not just a reflection. Mike loved the snow woman so much I was getting a bit jealous.

Mykie got a new camera for Christmas and she is photographing EVERYTHING whether it moves or not. She is camera crazy. Here's some of her shots.

This was a No Do the Do Day. Hats are nice - aren't they?

She is so beautiful! She asked if she looked good with blond on the top and darker on the ends. I said, "Yup" She said, "I should get that done." I said, "Hello, look at the picture, it's done already and naturally!"

Anyhow, a great couple of weeks. Now here's to getting them back in school and sharing them with the rest of society. Sad, but it's something I am willing to do. You moms and dads know what I mean!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to one of the greatest missionaries I know -

My Dad!

He is celebrating in Mongolia (or he already has because as it is his birthday here in the states, it is the day after his birthday in Mongolia) with very different Chinese food and (I'm sure) a very different cake. Don't worry, daddy, we will remedy this next birthday with real American food. Chinese food full of sodium and birthday cake and ice cream - both full with sugar!

We love you! Happy Birthday!

Merry Christmas Day!

Hello all! I just have to tell you about our wonderful Christmas Eve evening. After a great dinner of ham and funeral potatoes etc, we did the dishes. OK I did the dishes along with Mike. Our dishwasher is finally fixed! After clean up was complete, we went out for our traditional "lookin at the lights". I love that people are so kind at Christmas and decorate the outside of their homes for the enjoyment of others. We went up to the neighborhood in Kennewick that was the Christmas Songs neighborhood. On many, many houses in that area they have a board painted to look like a piano sheet of music and on it is a song. Then they decorate their yards accordingly. For example - I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus had Marge and Homer Simpson kissing. There were many others. It was so fun. Then we went to Canyon Lakes and saw some houses up there. Beautiful. But I think the greatest light show was down on the street of Deschutes. There is a landscaping/sprinkler business there that decorates all their trees and their buildings with lights. Not only do they decorate, but if you are by their building and put your radio to 101.7 they have Christmas music and their lights go to the beats of the Christmas music. That was really a great finish to our evening. Then it was morning.

Merry Christmas to all! And to all a good afternoon nap. I know I need one and it's only 9:45 am! After staying up late to help Santa, Mykie was in at 5:30 am asking us to get up. Um, NO! Remember we said 6:00 am? Appearently, she did remember, but since she couldn't go back to sleep, we needed to get up. When you are tired and looking forward to 30 more minutes of sleep - you can get a little snappy. See you at 6:00, Mykie.

When we did get up, Santa's gifts were ready to be opened. It was so fun. All the kids enjoyed their gifts. Brigam asked Santa for a guitar. I tried that with Tyler one year. He was excited for about 10 minutes and then the guitar went into the yard sale. So this is what Brigam got instead:

He tried it once, so the interest in guitars was just as I expected for him, but Tyler, Jeremy and Mykie have been enjoying it this morning. I even tried my hand at it. I'm not very good, but I intend to get better.

One of my favorite gifts was this one bought by Tyler when we drew family names:

It's called a Cocoa Latte machine and it makes your hot cocoa for you, keeps it hot, and frothy! The cocoa is delishious. The kids say it is the best cocoa they have ever tasted!

Now for our "Badger Mountain Bazaar Gift" for Mike and I. We've been wanting one for a long time. So I finally put the money from the bazaar towards it and this is what we got:

Yea! And it's such a pretty red too. I wanted lime green or pink, but Mike nixed that right away. This is the color we agreed on. He's already playing on it. We are so excited to have our own computer that the kids are only allowed to look at - not touch. We say that because only a week ago I paid $107 to get viruses taken off one computer. Then I still had to buy a new wireless router.

Well, Brigam is filming everyone with his new camera and I think I have to check the footage to make sure that I am in the best light.

Everyone enjoy the time they have with their family today!