Early Christmas

It actually snowed here last week on December 10th. Christmas time is officially here! Snow is a RARE occurrence in these parts, so the whole neighborhood was out playing in it.

The next morning there was still snow on the rooftops.

We preserved some of the precious snow into a giant snowball and it sits in a bowl in our freezer. We've never seen the kids this excited, it was better than Christmas morning!

We surprised the girls with an early Christmas present a week ago. A 9 week-old kitten! It's been a rough start with a sick kitten and Annise showing allergy symptoms the first few days, but they're both doing better. She is the most playful, cuddly kitten we've had. She jumps up to sit in our laps every chance she can get and romps around the house. We are in love! No consensus on a name yet.

Annise and kitten cuddle up...

Photo Shoot

We got family pictures taken last week and our friend, Kari got some great close-ups of each of the girls too. Thank goodness for pictures so we can remember how they looked when they were little.

Been Busy

A special visit from Great Grandma Sherlia from Idaho for Thanksgiving. What an amazing lady! We had a fun day together eating, playing games and hearing her testimony.

Jeremy coached Nina's soccer team, the Blue Jays, this season. Great daddy-daughter time and he's committed to coaching another season. Nina and her cousin, Malery have had fun playing on the same team for a few seasons. They are both awesome players! Soccer is in their blood...


Amazing talent show performance by Bryn and Nina and friends. Dancing and singing to
"Party" by Demi Lovato. These are brave gals to get up in front of a huge crowd and perform.

Suprise! Avery's room got decorated by the Young Women's Presidency for her birthday. So cool - she's already had three paid babysitting jobs during her first month of being 12.

Halloween X Four

Pumpkin carving for FHE...the girls gave their ideas and Jer and I carved accordingly.

Bryn got to dress up as a storybook character for school on Halloween. We came up with Miss Viola Swamp at the last minute, but she also looks a little bit like Wednesday Addams. She's the first daughter who's let us dress her up in a "scary" costume. What a great sport...she really got into it!



I guess the reason Bryn was okay with the scary day costume was because she got to be a garden fairy that night. They each knew exactly what they wanted to be. Let me tell you, it was quite a feat getting four girls into costume, hair and makeup. But, of course, worth it!
We had a really fun time trick-or-treating this year.

Babies

I was looking at my sister-in-law, Megan's new post of her baby Peter and thought he was so beautiful. These are baby photos of Annise (first) and Bryn (second). (Nina and Avery were born in pre-digital camera days) Of course I think they are so beautiful ~ I just miss that soft baby skin, baby scent and baby cuddle. I guess knowing we're done adds to the longing for those baby moments...

Last Year's Halloween

Halloween is so much fun! Here's a photo of the girls last year. Their plans for this year so far are: Annise - ballerina, Bryn - garden fairy, Nina - devil, Avery- Hermione. The youth are putting on the Halloween party this year for the primary kids so Avery gets to help that night. It's on her birthday and will be her first youth activity she gets to attend as an official "Young Woman."

Whirlwind of a Month

Hurricane Ike strikes! View of our front yard from inside our house. We lost power for 11 days. We never thought we'd live to see the day that would actually occur here (Jeremy lived here during Hurricane Alicia in 1983 and they did lose power for 10 days, but we thought that was so long ago; surely the city was more prepared and ready now) ...anyway we survived with the help of a pricey generator purchase and amazingly cool weather the week following the storm so we didn't sweat to death. We only lost one side of our backyard fence and had lots of large downed branches, leaves and pine cones in our yard. We were very lucky. Many people had trees down on their homes and cars. It was all pretty exciting and we will have quite a few lasting memories from September of 2008.

View of our backyard fence that blew down during the wrath of the storm.

Other things happened this month too. The girls started school. What a glorious day! Avery started middle school this year (6th grade). Very big deal!! Nina's in 4th and Bryn started kindergarten. Annise enjoys being alone with mom, but does miss her sisters during the day.

Bryn and Annise got a new bunkbed. Only the highest quality for our daughters, 2 of the supporting slats underneath the top bunk mattress have split already and Jeremy's had to repair them so the girl on top doesn't crash thru to the bottom bunk. Oh well, it LOOKS cute!

Bryn finally celebrated her 6th birthday! The waiting has been torture (on the entire family...). It was so fun to see her so happy. She has the best smile and it is a real treat when she breaks into a great big one to show her pleasure.

Goodbye to Summer

Farewell to Kari and Spencer's Family ~ they moved to Utah last week. Why does our family keep moving away?? We are sooo sad!
But excited for the adventures they'll have with Spencer going back to school. We're looking forward to going to visit them, and all the rest of our family there.

Bryn, Wes, Spence and Zoe gettin' a little crazy!
Baby Adeline is a beauty...
Girls' Summer Book Club ~ the girls read "Island of the Blue Dolphins" and had their cousins and friend come chat about it and share yummy treats. What a fun learning experience...good prep to be ready for school to start next week.
End of Summer Tea Party ~ planned and executed by Bryn. What a mess to clean up, but they had a delightful time eating off plastic and munching on graham crackers.

Proud To Be An American

Attending the 4th of July Parade, Bryn with friend

Jer "caught" a flyball at the Astros game we went to, no glove!

Hanging with the team during the game...

Annise rests after getting her tonsils and adenoids out, poor baby! (Mom looks tired too.)

AL turns "351!" oh that's "35 plus 1" according to the kids...

Nielson Family Moments

Here are some more photos of family from our recent trip to Vegas and San Diego, it was sooo great to see everybody, sorry we didn't get any photos of Kyle and Lindz but they looked great in person...

Our Summer Vacation

	Waiting at the airport to head to Las Vegas...
	Hiking in Red Rock Canyon (we lost about 1/4 pound of skin)
	We also visited Paris (on the Vegas strip)...
	On Sunday, we visited the San Diego Temple grounds...
	We spent a day on Oceanside Beach with our dear friends, Jason and Kara McDonald. We first visited this beach 17 years ago, before all these little people came along.