Okay...last post for today...Uncle Joseph brought his two dogs to play with the kids this Christmas. Their names were Harley and Fizzgig...both of which the kids immediately forgot...so the dogs got re-named Emily and Fish Stick. Close enough! "Emily" was definitely the favorite. Noah asked Uncle Joseph is he could take her home with us. He carried that little 6 pound dog with him EVERYWHERE!!
(Noah has Aaron convinced that we are buying the kids a dog for Christmas this next year...great...so I can potty train Joshua, Larkin, and a new puppy all at the same time!!)

Santa did pretty good this year. I think all the kids got what they asked him for!!

Larkin, of course, asked for candy. She LOVED her jelly bellies...what a delicious and nutritious breakfast!! (I remember my mom always having special Christmas breakfasts...like hot chocolate and cinnamon rolls...which we were always too sick to eat after eating all the candy from Santa!!)
Here's Arwen in her Billy Bob teeth!!
Really Josh? Really? Why in the world are you still crying?? Not only did you get lots of great toys from Santa, but you snagged Larkin's baby stroller from her too! Joshua spent nearly every minute of the two weeks we were at Grandma's crying.
Good job, Santa...we were gonna have to have some words if you didn't bring Noah the silly putty he asked 2 million times for!!

There are now 10 cousins on the Nielsen side of the family. We got a picture of them in all their badness on Christmas Eve in front of the Christmas tree.


From left to right: Madelyn, Arwen holding little Christopher (Madelyn's brother), Joshua, Noah, Austin (standing), with Jack, his brother right in front of him, and Oh...I just noticed all we have of Evan is his bum...and then cute Dallin. Larkin is in the front trying to crawl away from all the mayhem!!

We were able to escape the crazy snow storms up here in Portland and head on down to California for Christmas with the grandparents and the cousins! After driving straight through a night, we met up with Aaron's bother Michael and his wife Heidi and their two kids, Austin and Jack. We first got to ride a cute little train...which Joshua LOVED!!

It was FREEZING outside, but the kids were troopers...I need to take a few lessons from them :)
Then nearby were a bunch of animals we could feed. Aunt Heidi brought celery and lettuce for us! The kids really had a good time.
There was a sign right about Noah saying, "Don't feed the rabbits...it gives them diarhea and then they can die..." Way to go Noah!!

Okay. so you're probably sick to death of me blogging by now...but really, what else am I supposed to do after the house is clean and we are all packed up to leave for vacation?? But really, this will be my last post for a couple of weeks, I promise!!
So, I found this AWESOME ribbon in my bag of party goods the last time I returned home from the Dollar Tree. Apparently Noah thought we really needed it! Oh how I have to watch these children like hawks!!!

One year ago...

How time flies!!

Our sweet Larkin turned one yesterday!! She is such a joy. I think that she has been my happiest baby. She is always ready to smile and giggle with any willing participant. But, she is also my most stubborn. She fights tooth and nail until she gets her way. She won't cuddle but LOVES to give kisses these days. I just love it! She has turned into a picky eater lately...actually she won't eat much of anything. She is certainly not as chunky as she should be. It makes me crazy!! She likes to play with her siblings and pull every toy off the toy bins that she can reach. She is a mischief maker, she is!
Happy First Birthday, Sparkly Larkily!! Oh how we love you.

Here she is in the darling outfit that Grandma Carrot gave her. She also loves her new baby doll. She is taking a nap with it right now!
Blow out your candle!! Me and the boys made her a big pink heart cake... that turned out better than any cake I have ever made. But, when I was folding laundry, two disgusting trolls climbed up on the counter and gouged the cake with their claws!! I repaired it as best I could, but...
Yep, I think she likes it. Add cake to the list of bananas, cheese, and milk that Larkin will eat!
After a bit, she really dug in and made a tremendous mess!! Way to go, baby girl. We love you sooooo much!!

I FINALLY finished my Christmas stockings that I started two years ago...Larkin and I finally have one! I love them!!! (thanks to all this snow...I've gotten a lot of projects done!!)

The order: Larkin, me, Joshua, Arwen, Aaron, and Noah.

Merry Early Christmas!! We celebrated a little early and opened all of the Christmas presents from Grandma Carrot (Karen) and Grandpa Dana since there was A LOT and we didn't want to lug them to Cali and back! Thanks so much Grandma and Grandpa!! We loved EVERYTHING!!
Joshua got a really cool, big train and LOVED it!! It has already run out of batteries, he has played with it so much! He about flipped when he opened it and FREAKS out if anyone gets near it!!

Here's Noe in his Spiderman jammies with his gum...his two favorite presents! He also really likes his bug vacuum and has already caught a spider in it...that Josh secretly let free up in their room! Naughty!!
Larkily loved her bath toys...obviously...they went straight to her mouth!!
Here's Arnie and her loot! She LOVES her jewelry box and all the goods that go in it! She got a really soft, pretty, pink sweatshirt that is soooo cute!
Thanks Grandma and Grandpa...you did great!! You guys are the best and we love you lots!!

Yippee hooray for snow days!! Here are the kids before we headed off to church bright and early this morning. They were soooo excited to see that it was snowing when they got out of the bath this morning!!
What sweet, CLEAN kids! I love it!

Hmmmm....says Josh. What is this stuff??
This was seriously the face that Noah made when I whispered to him the middle of Sacrament meeting that he didn't have to go to Primary today and that he got to go home and play in the snow instead! Actually, I think it was the face ALL the kids made!!
Yummy...
Joshua's probably tasted like chocolate!! Not chocolate rain...chocolate snow!!
The kids and Aaron lasted outside for a goodly amount of time while I tried to whip up a warm meal for them. I'm pretty sure Noah's eyes were frozen shut by the time I took this picture!!
After the boys got cold, Arwen stayed outside with Aaron for a while longer. What a sweet little girl!!

We celebrated Arwen's 6th birthday yesterday! She turns 6 on December 20th, but had her friend party yesterday since we will be in Cali for her actual birthday. We decided to do a "Pinkalicous" party. "Pinkalicious" is a book about a little girl whose Mom makes pink cupcakes and the little girl eats too many and turns pink. It's such a cute story! So, we decided to get tons of pink decorations, have the girls wear their pink clothes and decorate pink cupcakes. Then we played "Pin the Pinktail on Pinkalicous." It was so fun!!
Arwen has such cute, sweet little girlfriends!

Here they are decorating their cup cakes. We even had pink strawberry milk. And I found pink M&m's, pink wrapped Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, and pink wrapped Dove chocolates. So fun!!
Happy Birthday Arwen!! She had so much fun and got tons of really cute things from her friends!
This picture is mostly for Scott, my brother...who I am pretty sure doesn't check my blog...but just in case...I gave each kid a goodie bag full of pink things. I had bubble tape in it...you know...6 feet of bubble gum. Anyways, me and Scott used to chew it when we were little. Once we had some and my dad was video recording us and Scott put all 6 feet of gum in his mouth at once. It is was soooo funny! Must be a boy thing, because both of my boys did the same thing. Joshua was drooling all over the place and Noah just kept saying, "I love gum."