Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Lu Lu got this Reinedeer sucker in her stocking on Christmas. For some crazy reason she thinks that reindeer must growl. It was the funniest thing EVER to listen and watch her!



*The shutter on our camera died...so we haven't taken many photos as of late, except with the kids' cheap camera. Be patient...we'll get it fixed someday. I'll try and be better about posting all the photos we took up until it died.*

Friday, December 18, 2009


Ultimate Gum Kit...Noah's dream come true.

We got to make our own gum and pick the flavors. We had a lot to choose from.



As you can imagine it was a horrible mess.



But like any good scientist Noah persisted and though he disliked the sour batch he loved the cotton candy version we made, and even saved some for Mom and Arwen.

Friday, December 11, 2009

We went and visited Grandma and Grandpa Nielsen and all the Aunts and Uncles and cousins this year for Thanksgiving. Here are a few silly pictures from the trip!

Remember Fenton's Ice Creamery from "Up?" We went there. Twice. It is the yummiest place to get ice cream. Ever. Larkin insisted on sporting this fashionable hat the first time we went. Apparently she brought along her own treat :)



Noah made friends with a gopher snake.





Arwen fell in love with Grandma's chickens.




Joshua had fun playing the the ashes and munching on all the yummy pomegranates and persimmons from Grandma and Grandpa's trees!

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

I am sooo excited!! My friend Jen (who used to live here in OR) is coming to visit me next month! We are going to have too much fun I can promise you!! Best of all, Jen is offering to take pictures of any of my friends' families!! She will be doing mini-shoots (which are just perfect if you have any kids! She is super fast and makes taking your pictures really fun!!) She is only charging $150 per session and then you will receive a disk of 10-12 high resolution images on a disk so you can make all the copies you want...(Christmas is up and you know you need a super cute picture of your family to send in your Christmas cards!!) She will take pictures of your family as well as some of your kids. Check her work out here. She also has a photography blog that shows off how awesome her work is here. She is coming on the 21st of November and will take pictures on Saturday morning! Let me know if you want her to take your family pictures! (I'm not trying to sell anything here guys...Jen is the BEST and I just want you guys all to have amazing pictures for this awesome deal!!!) Here are some of my favorites that she has done for me in the past.





Just let me know if you want your family pictures taken...she's only here to play for one short weekend!!

Tuesday, November 03, 2009

Oink, Oink

This poor boy is sick. He overheard a conversation about the swine flu and is convinced that he has it. (He is a bit of a hypochondriac...he makes me take his temperature 3 or 4 times a week to make sure he doesn't have a fever!) He doesn't eat and is withering away to nothing...even more nothing than he was before! Get well soon, Noe!
Happy Halloween!!

Halloween was a blast...like always! Arwen decided that she wanted to be a witch..again, so woo hoo for not having to buy her a new costume! She had a pretty silly little cackle that she did over and over again! And she'd say, "I'm a wicked witch," in a high, crackly voice! Silly girl! I'll put up the pictures of the other three kidlets as soon as Aaron has them ready.

Saturday, October 31, 2009

The night Noah wore his wolf suit

and made mischief of one kind

and another

his mother called him "WILD THING!"

and Noah said "I'LL EAT YOU UP!"

so he went to bed without eating anything...

like he does 6 out of 7 nights of the week on his own accord.

Happy 5th birthday my wildest thing!

I'll eat you up, I love you so!!

Thursday, October 29, 2009



What do I do???  This little "princess" is so stinking naughty!!  She had me laughing hysterically this morning...at all the inappropriate times!  We were reading scriptures and Larkin decided that was a great time to start dancing.  If you've never seen Larkin dance, you're totally missing out.  She's got sweet little moves.  Then she started rolling on the ground and squealing like a pig!  She was distracting ALL of us and poor Aaron just kept trying to keep us under control.  He finally used Larkin as an example and explained that she was doing an interpretive dance of Wicked King Noah's Priests and the dancing Lamanite daughters.  It worked!  But the clencher... EVERY TIME we kneel down to say family prayer....morning and night, she starts playing duck duck goose and slaps our heads as hard as she can while we are trying to be reverent and say a prayer.  Such a naughty, silly little girl!

Wednesday, October 28, 2009


I had to miss Arwen's soccer game on Saturday :( but Aaron and the kids went and cheered her on.  Apparently this was so not the game to miss!  Arwen totally schooled the other team! She scored 3 of her teams 5 points.  The other team only scored 3 times!  Aaron said she looked professional...like she knew what she was doing ;)  Way to go Arwen.  A few games ago, she was getting so frustrated and shared with me that she didn't think soccer was the sport for her because she just wasn't any good at it.  When you're 6 it's all about how many goals you can make and poor Arwen is a much better defender than she is offender.  I just wasn't able to to get her to understand that she really is amazing and that I don't care if she is the worst player out there, I just wanted her to have fun and make new friends.  After the coach put Arwen back in, I whispered a little prayer and asked Heavenly Father to give Arwen a little confidence.  It wasn't but a few minutes later and Arwen made a goal!  You should have seen her face.  She was delighted!  I almost cried.  What a huge change that little goal made in her little life.  Since then, she LOVES soccer...even if she doesn't make any goals.  She is super fast and really is an amazing little defender.  She isn't as hard on herself and doesn't get as discouraged as she used to!
I sure do love that girl!!

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Aaron found a site where you can enter in all the text from your blog (or any word document) and it will take the words you use most and make them the biggest. It was fun to see the things I type most about. Obviously Arwen and Noah are the biggest. Poor little Larkin is tiny :(
Check out Aaron's post if you want to build one.

pdf version


Wednesday, October 14, 2009


Here's another one of my favorite pictures of Lu lately! She just walked in and I asked her who this was a picture of. She said, "Baby." I asked her what the babies name is and she said, "ME!!" I asked if she was a naughty baby and she said, "No." I asked if she was a good baby and she said, "No!" Ha! What a goof.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009


(I don't think I am allowed to post this picture yet...as it's not quite finished...but I can't resist. I get to look at it all day as the back ground on my computer and wanted to share it with all of you.) Larkin was so stinking cute on Sunday! Her hair turned out so cute, her dress was darling (thanks Wendy...it is one of Madelyn's old dresses!) and she kept her bow in all Sunday! I just love that little pixie so much!
I told Joshua that his super hero name should be "Train Tracks." But he doesn't agree. He likes Chocolate Factory Jelly Bean Gum Train Tracks. Okay...but it's kind of a mouthful!!

Kawai

Ha! I am finally up to blogging about our trip to Hawaii. It was FABULOUS! We had so much fun! The best part was doing it all with the person I love the most.

Kiss at sunset...
There were LOTS of chickens on the island! Thanks again for the hat mom, I LOVE it!
Warm ocean water...how do we get that here??
Gorgeous views...
Lots of fishies...

Adventures...

Boat rides...
Dolphins!
More adventures...

Fun old men who keep the chicken population thriving by loading their bikes with old bread.

Camouflage looking trees...

Togetherness...
Rental cars...

And the Napali coast. Everything was so beautiful!! We had the best time ever and can't wait to do it again!!

Monday, October 12, 2009

We drove up to Washington one day to the Mount Saint Helen's area. We went to the Ape Caves. We have been there one other time and had a great time and wanted to go again. The problem was we forgot how COLD it is in the cave...pretty much we froze. The kids were done with it in about 7 minutes!

Here's the only shot we got right before the kids whined that we go back outside.
Arwen and Aaron went back after I got the little kids out and explored some without us wimps! They had fun with flash lights and glow bracelets...at least I didn't forget the bracelets ;)

Best Buddies!

Aaron gave me a day off from the kidlets and took the 3 big kids to the gorge to do some exploring and have REAL fun...you know the kind you can only have when nagging, worrying mom is not around! They braved Oneonta Falls even though it was kind of chilly outside.

They all hiked in the stream to get to the waterfall.

Such happy kids. They had fun and were gone ALL day! I got the house pretty darn clean...too bad it never lasts! Thanks for the day off and being the greatest dad ever, Aaron! Love you :)

Wednesday, October 07, 2009

After baths lately, the boys have really been into styling their own hair. I's always funny to see what they will come up with. Joshua likes to comb his all straight down and looks pretty nerdy. Noah has gotten pretty good at adding waves and a part. Well, his hair is pretty long right now...as you'll see. Aaron offered to help him one night and this is what they came up with.


Boy in mirror with brush=HAPPINESS


Just a peek to see how it's coming.



Adding the finishing touches.


Pretty much it's FABULOUS!!! Don't you just wanna kiss those lips??