Sisters are the best...

I just have to say that sisters are the best!!! What would I do without my BFF's?? They truly are, I love each and every one of them so much!! Tonights shout out has to go to Jana though, she helps me with this blog thing that is sometimes harder for me than it should be - I am computer challenged and not very bright when it comes to technology (is that my mom coming out in me??) I am glad that they have got me going on this little bit of journaling though, because it is at least something. Thanks girls for all your love and support of your oldest sister!! I love you.

Christmas Morning...

Wow!! I can't believe that Christmas has come and gone already. This morning the first thing that Ella said to me is "Mom, is Christmas over?" - Since the tree and decorations are still up, I think that she is sure there is more to come. Luckily for us, our Christmas gift this year is a cruise. So, there is more to come. J.D. made these letter tiles and the kids had to unscramble them after unwrapping a stack with their name on it. They were confused at first, but it didn't take them long. They all worked together and it was fun to watch each of them figure out different words of the clue. Brenna was the one who got the last word 'cruise' and she screamed a very high pitched scream...it was fun. We decided that it is more important for us to spend time together as a family, having experiences, and creating memories that will hopefully last a lifetime than having lots of gifts. Our family is growing and changing so quickly that I feel I need to eat up every last chance I get to spend time with them all together, before I know it Morgan will be moving on and that scares me. Time goes by way to fast... I am sure I have said it in other posts, but it is true. We are excited to go on our trip, we leave on Saturday to drive to Los Angeles where we will get on the ship on Monday thru Friday. Leaving cold weather behind and hopefully enjoying some sunny weather!!!

These are all my "peeps" waiting patiently at the top of the stairs so I could go check to see if Santa had come, they looked so cute, and I like to torture them for as long as I can! Ha, ha!

Picking our tree...

So last night we got to go and pick out our tree for this year....

what an adventure!! It was really cold, everyone had to pee, and

no one could agree on how tall, how fat, how skinny the tree should

be. (It's a good thing Brenna was at dance, or that would have been one more opionion to take into consideration). Overall, it

was a fun night, Ella got to see and "make nice" with Santa and his reindeer that were there at the lot, oh ya, she also had an opinion and wanted the 'purple one' - all these weird colors of flocking!! The boys ran around the lot and got lost a few times and we all tried to get warm by the fire. I think in the end we picked out a nice sized, nice shaped tree. So many fun things to do in life.

Home from New York...

Starting our trip in Central Park

Outside the Metropolitan.

Times Square at night.

Typical tourists!!

FREEZING on the bus!

Dinner at "The Palms"

After the show...

A Birthday cake from "Trump"

Rockerfeller at Christmas...

Hot Dogs on the street!! Yum.

Regis and Kelly, AWESOME!

We are home and we had an amazing time!! The memories we made there will last a lifetime and I am so happy that we could spend this birthday weekend with Morgan and Brenna. They are the 2 best teenage daughters that I could ask for. I am thankful for them and the relationship that I have with them everyday...

Going to New York...

Since Morgan is turning 16 (gasp!!) this month J.D. and I wanted to do something special for her, after all, she is a fabulous daughter. We thought that we could do a big "sixteenth" birthday party for her, but we decided that it would be funner and probably more memorable for us to take her on a trip. So....we leave tonight. Taking the 'red eye' to New York City and spending 4 days there. Just J.D., Morgan, Brenna and I, I am so excited. J.D. and I planned the trip a little over a month ago and have been keeping it a secret, (so hard), until last week. We told the girls with sweatshirts that said New York on them. They had tears of excitement and poor Drew had tears of jealousy, sadness, etc. We have lots of fun things planned, shopping, seeing a show, doing all the sight-seeing stuff.... (all stuff that Drew would hate!!) Hopefully we don't freeze!

Red Lipstick on Thanksgiving...

We all decided to put on Morgans really red lipstick on Thanksgiving and kiss the kids...they all got into it and wanted kisses on their cheeks, their foreheads, and their lips!!

Thanksgiving...

I can't remember if this was the 3rd or 4th year that we had Thanksgiving at our house. Whichever, it was a really fun day. As per tradition, we set our "big long table" up so we could all sit in the same room for at least one dinner in the year. I have to hand it to J.D., he really had a vision the first time we did it and has kept the tradition going. I didn't think it could happen, but he pulled it off, and now he is quite a pro at getting the tables set up (consisting of our own kitchen table and SIX Costco tables). We sat 32 around the table this year, Grandma and Grandpa Nelson joined us for dinner and my cousin Michelle and her boyfriend Nate came over to visit. It is so fun to be around family and enjoy each others company and to truly count all our many blessings. We always have way too much food, and way too much dessert, but is is awesome!! I think all the kids had a good time, not to many melt-downs, and the weather was nice. J.D. started our dinner off by giving thanks to "ties", pilgrims wore ties, we are all tied together in the gospel, we have family ties, soccer ties (which helped to get the Real to the playoffs), and ended his speech in announcing that we will soon have a "tie" in our family with the birth of our 3rd boy in May. Three and three, who gets that lucky??

I started my Thanksgiving day with a 5k in Draper. It is called the "Human Race" and proceeds go to the Utah Food Bank. Last year it was just me and Jill, but this year Morgan, Brenna, and Julie joined in the early morning fun. We also had Jills friend Amy and Morgans, should I say, boyfriend, Riley with us. It rained a little, but we all had a good time. Morgan and I finished in just about 42 minutes with the rest of the group not far behind. It was a challenge for me to not take off and run (pregnancy has some downfalls) but it was all good!!

We of course went shopping at 2:30 a.m. to get our season started off! All the sisters went, including Morgan and Brenna, which ended up saving me money, because I did absolutely no shopping for them, but we missed having Christina with us. Hitting the mall that early in the morning is a weird experience (people eating anything from Chinese food to pizza at 3a.m. is a tad gross if you ask me). We then hit Walmart, where people are absolute FREAKS!!! I just sat back and watched the madness. I had no intentions of what I was going for and anything I bought was a bonus. Ending our morning at Target (everyones favorite) and then having breakkfast at the IHOP. I just need to tell my awesome sisters how much fun I had. They are the best, and I absolutely love spending time with them. I am blessed to have them in my life this Thanksgiving (along with so so so many other things).

Football Face....

I just wanted to share this picture of Drew duing the football season this year. I love the look on his face, for those of you that have seen him play this picture makes all the sense in the world. He is an intense player that puts on his toughest face during every game. It is such a contrast to the boy that he is off the field. A tender hearted boy at home, a freak on the football field!! J.D. and I love football season, it is truly a highlight of our year.

More changes in our life...

We have had alot go on in our home the last few weeks. Drew turned 12 and passed the Sacrament for the first time 2 weeks ago, (he was nervous, but did a great job). I cried of course, thinking that he was just born, the little boy with jaudice, sleeping in a weird suitcase light-up thing in our hallway on Little Creek Drive!!! He is now nearly as tall as me and our hands are practically the same size. How time flies and I don't think any of us realize how fast. He is an awesome son.

Morgan also had some big news this last week, she went on a first date!! I know her birthday isn't for another month, but we decided to let her go to a dance at the school. It was girls choice and she asked a boy named "Mikey" - he is a cute kid and seems nice. She doubled with her friend Kirstyn and her date Robert aka "Freddie". It was fun for me too. I helped her ask him with a pint of ice cream from Baskin Robbins (of course) with a note saying "it would sure be sweet if you went to the dance with me" - He answered with cupcakes saying "no matter how you say it the answer is yes" - he had made cupcakes with yes in different languages written on all of them.

So, I guess what I have learned as of late, is no matter how big my kids get, I am enjoying the stages that they are in. It is fun to see them grow and have life experiences, bitter sweet as it may be, it is what happens. I am so thankful for the kids that I have been blessed with, they are the light of my life.

Ellas turning 4...

It is so hard for me to believe that my little girl is 4!! Where did the time go? She is an amazing part of our family (as you can probably already tell from earlier posts). She keeps us all happy and is such a caring and polite little girl. We had a birthday party for her on Sunday night at our house with my family...it was like Christmas for her, everyone gave her such fun gifts, princesses were a common theme of the night, and she loves them all. Thank you all for coming to help us celebrate!!

Sunday night silliness...

Ella thought it would be funny last night to put on my boots and try and walk around the house. She really worked at getting them on and then had to walk like a penguin/duck in order to not fall down. She is such a fun part of our family. Our ward was split last night for the 4th time in the 5 years that we have lived here, this was after our meeting and it at least got a laugh out of Morgan and Brenna who were devestated...they lost their whole Young Womens presidency and a few of their really good friends, it was a sad night for them. I felt bad for them. At least we have comic relief.

More Halloween...

I was looking harder through my pictures and knew that I had a picture of Drew on Halloween and I have been feeling bad because I haven't posted it. I hate to leave one of my kids out of my post (no matter how yucky his costume was) Also a pic of J.D. and I on the night of our party...we are Real soccer players/fans...they made it to the playoffs and we are excited.

Such a long time, good excuses...

Well, well, well. It has been over a month since I wrote anything, and I feel like I have a few good excuses...our computer died and we had to get a new one, figuring out our internet was quite a challenge. Apparently we had a virus of some sort and it totally shot our old computer and was not allowing us access on our new one. What a pain. The other thing that has been happening in my life and I sound like a baby complaining is that I have been sick for over 3 weeks, and that can take a toll on a person. Finally, after coughing and blowing my nose for 2 weeks J.D. convinced me that it was time to see a doctor and sure enough I had bronchitis. Getting over that has been hard. Now the cough is nearly gone I just have so much fluid in my ears that I can hardly hear a thing....not to mention having a bit of the stomach flu and throwing up on Halloween Night. When it rains, it pours. And for those of you who don't know I am pregnant, nearly 13 weeks, expecting our SIXTH child. Wow.

Halloween was fun, but I am happy it is over. (Yucky month) We had our family Halloween party where everyone dressed up, including my aunt Sandy and Uncle Bob and my Grandma and Grandpa Nelson. It is usually a really fun night, but I was in a funk and apologize to anyone who noticed.

Ella dressed up as some sort of cat, she was pink and black and had feathers, but she loved her costume and wore it well...I still am finding feathers in my house. Jensen wanted to be Indiana Jones and he looked handsome, he wanted a black eye "with blood" and a bloody nose, I told him that Indie was never hurt and he just wanted his face painted. Drew insisted on being something gross and that is the part of Halloween that I hate, ew. Big boys. I love him though and let him dress up as some kind of half skinned warewolf, gross. He had fun. He got to participate in our wards "trunk or treat" because he just turned 12 and joined Young Men (I KNOW!!! Where does the time go?) He was in the spook alley and loved it. Morgan dressed up as Marilyn Monroe and Brenna was a way cute witch. Well, it's time to go pick up Morgan from piano, then I need to go volunteer at the book fair at the school and then take Brenna to dance. Did someone say 'dinner'? Because I don't know when that will be....

More Fuga...

So, we have had our little Japanese boy now for 6 days and it has been quite a fun experience for our family. He has been kept busy, alot of people have asked what he does during the day. He gets picked up and taken to an elementary school here. He has a buddy there that he hangs out with all day and then they bring him home to our house in the afternoon. I think we have completely worn the kid out. By the time night comes he is asking "what time is it?" - ready for bed. I hope he is having fun here. He seems to be doing fine, no homesickness and fitting in with our family really well. Learning lots of potty words from Drew and Jensen and eating "Otter Pops" like they are going out of style. Last night I am pretty sure he ate nearly a dozen while riding the scooter in our front yard...I wonder what it is like where he lives...

We have gone to Drews football games and practices, Jensens soccer games and flag football games...we never sit too long!! The kids have played in the hot tub with him a few times, he does like to swim and I look at it like an extra bath!! We took all the family to a movie the other night "Igor", after Brittyns baptism. I really wonder what he thought about that. We also took him to primary with Jensen and I (I am the teacher of the CTR 7 class)...so he has had a few chuch experiences. I also wonder if we have planted any little seed where he may remember feeling the spirit at our home, during family prayer, at bedtime prayer, or hopefully just the atmosphere in our home. I hope so. We are going to get pizza tonight for dinner. That is another thing that has been quite surprising to me. He is not a picky eater and cleans his plate at every meal. He has liked spaghetti, steak, moms baked beans and eats waffles or corn flakes for breakfast. We asked him if he wanted a snack before bed the first night he was here and he politely said "no" - Morgan then, under her breath said, "you see, we eat here just for fun!!" How true that is. I think we are stuffing the kid to the brim every day....

He has been fun to have around. I am nervous for him to leave our house on Thursday. J.D. says there may be an 'international incident'....he has made an impression on us that we won't soon forget.

Six Facts...

Six random facts about me, JENN
(i think that everyone has been tagged already, sad for me)

1.I am absolutely terrified to fly. I don't like the thought of being in a plane, but I do love the quick and ease of travel that comes along with it. I think I am starting to get better, but I really don't like it. If it gets me to Cancun, I guess I just have to deal with it.
2.I am a closet reality t.v. show junkie!! I love so many of them it is hard to count - thank goodness for Tevo. It is kindof a loser waste of time, but, my guilty pleasure.
3. I am a little bit of a laudry freak, I want the clothes clean all the time. Thus, doing it everyday is a part of my life....I am really good at cleaning it, not so good at putting it away, but my kids can find a clean pile folded and ready in the laundry room at any time.
4. I wish I could sing. When I was little I wanted to be Olivia Newton-John, (I can't believe I am admitting that) Ella and I pretend we can sing though, we do it alot!!
5. I am an ice cream snob. I think this started when my first job was at Baskin Robbins. Every since then, I am not happy with just a grocery store tub of ice cream. Bring on the COLD STONE!! (mud pie mojo is to die for!!)
6. I am completely computer illeterate. I am not sure how to navigate my way through most things that have to do with the computer. That is why the blogging thing took me so long. I still don't know if I am quite sure what I am doing.....

Fuga...

Tonight our family was lucky enough to have a 10 year old boy from Japan come to stay at our home for the next week and a half. His name is Fuga and my kids couldn't be happier. We have known he was coming to stay for about a month now and the anticipation has been great. Ella has been saying seriously nearly everyday "I miss Fuga" - she is so happy to finally know the boy that she has been "missing". Although he is 10 years old, he is no bigger than Jensen and I think these 2 boys are going to become fast friends. Brenna looks at him like he is a toy of some kind, and says "could he get any cuter?" - Morgan thinks it is absolutely hilarious that he makes the 'peace' sign in the pictures we take of him (apparently that is kindof an Asian thing) and Drew looked at him just now when he got home from football like "You are 10???"

We are all looking forward to our time together and hopefully all will go well....

Ella, my girly girl...

I just wanted to post about some of the cute things that Ella says and does that make me smile every day. She loves to be a girl, wants to be involved with the "big" girls - she honestly believes she is somewhere between the ages of 13-15 because of Morgan and Brenna. She loves curly hair and calls it "fancy" when it goes just the right way. Ella loves to help me with my mame-up (make-up) and she knows exactly where each item in my bag goes. Eye shadow, blush, lipgloss...she knows exactly what she can and cannot put on because it is too "dark" - mascara. She loves to dress-up and believes that she could just quite possibly be Cinderella.....

Ella woke-up on Friday morning and said "Mom, lets not go to gym today, I just want to go to lunch" , so that is what we did. We enjoyed a Costco hot dog and slice of pizza together after shopping and she loved it. She did not want to eat it in the car, we had to stay there...so on a Friday afternoon she picked our spot and we had lunch together. I am so grateful for my girl Ella.

Its Friday....

I am still trying to get the hang of this whole blogging thing. It is Friday and everyone seems to be in a good mood on Fridays, the weekends around our house are usually a pretty fun. Football and soccer take up a good part of the day on Saturday - we love our sports!! Date nights on saturdays (the benefits of having older girls who babysit) and then a LAZY day on Sunday, only doing the necessary because our weeks are crazy! Hopefully tomorrow Drew wins his football game, - playing Jordan - and Jensen with his soccer game, (they always win). Jensen is now playing "flag" football. Yesterday was their 2nd game and he made a touchdown and pulled a flag, he was excited. Poor Ella, we just drag her around from event to event. This is what we usually look like at the end of our Saturday nights. Such a fun and blessed life....... (by the way Jensen is SOUND asleep on our stairs, too tired to actually go up)

Being a mom...

So, this is truly why I can't get much done in my life. Janeen and I are trying to work on my blog. Cute Corey is with Morgan, Brenna and J.D. at a Young Womens dance (So lucky!!!) Realize, we just finished dinner only an hour ago and Jensen is already asking for chicken noodle soup - ew! and Ella really wants me to make her some "snores" aka "smores" - they are yummy and I want one too! Whats a mom to do??

Finally...

All of my weird sisters all have BLOGS!! I am giving into peer pressure and trying to become computer savy....even Brenna has one. This is going to be hard for me. We will see how it goes. I think Jana will be the most proud, this is for you, love.