Extended Nelson Family Photos

In December, when both of Jon's siblings were here for Christmas, we were able to get the whole family together to take family photos.  It was fun to all be together and to capture our families at this point in life! As Jon and his siblings grew up on a ranch (citrus and avocado)- that is now in disrepair - we wanted to do photos at a similar ranch to capture that childhood spirit. Here are some of my favorite group shots and shots of my family as well!  I loved how they all turned out! 

The Whole Gang!

My Family 

Jon and his sisters and parents 

 Another group shot!

Awww

The cousins! 

Yep - we made those babies!

Love these guys! 

  

Jon & Larissa

13 Goals for 2013 RECAP

As the year comes to a close, it is time to review and be accountable for my 13 goals for 2013!  These were the 13 goals I set at the beginning of the year to accomplish in my free time (haha!) http://niftynelsonnews.blogspot.com/2013/01/13-goals-for-2013.html

1. Visit my grandparents in Idaho:  DONE!  Our whole family was able to go to Idaho in July for a family reunion and it was so wonderful to finally be in Shoup again and to see my grandparents!  A LONG overdue trip and if I hadn’t met any other goals this year, I would be glad I accomplished this one!  So yay!
2. Walk the dog once a week – So I did skip one or two weeks, so technically I did not complete my goals at 100% but I did pretty darn good (and many weeks walked him more than once so maybe it carries over)  Unfortunately  Tyson’s hip is getting worse so he is in a lot of pain it seems after walks, so maybe it is not the best thing for him anymore (as a senior daog!) yet it brings him so much joy I don’t think he minds having a sore hip the next day (if dogs could talk…)
3. Archive all digital photos – DONE! YAY!
4. Redo my family Photo Wall – Almost there – have to print a copy of a print from Kelsy’s wedding in December to finalize my photo wall!
5. Create 2012 Family Photo book – DONE! Completed in February http://app.picaboo.com/WebView/Project.aspx?clientID=bac2d3fe86fd94f6c244a2841640b9b9&version=314919&siteID=ViaPreview
6. Organize/Redo Shayla’s room - DONE! She has a blue cheetah themed room. I still want to put more art (maybe her own paintings on the wall) but it is pretty much done!
7. Organize/Redo Mitchell’s room – DONE! He now has a dino room and the train table Jon started for him when I was 6 weeks pregnant is operational but needs some more work!
8. Ride a Century bike ride – NOT COMPLETED DUE TO INJURY PENDING...Jon tore his knee in August and had to have surgery on his meniscus so no bike ride fro him and I did not think it would be as fun to do on my own as we had set it as a goal to do together.
9. Attend temple once a quarter – DONE! I had to squeeze in my last quarterly attendance at my sister’s wedding on Dec 28^th, so it was a close one, but I never specified what I was going for – so that counts!
10. Read 10 books by 10 new authors – DONE!  See previous post about the books I read in 2013 and my favorites!  Next year I will not have this goal as I have a feeling I will be reading a lot of the same authors I have already read as I started the Outlander series which is really LONG (but good) and Ken Follett’s final book in his latest Trilogy comes out, so I already have several of my favorite authors on my reading list for 2014. Here were the ten new authors I read this year.

1. Cheryl Strayed – Wild
2. Paula McCalin- The Paris Wife
3. Mark Owen – No Easy Day
4. Francine Rivers – A Voice in the Wind and An Echo in the Darkness
5. Jim Gaffigan – Dad is Fat
6. M.L. Stedman – The Light Between Oceans
7. Marcus Luttrell – Lone Survivor
8. John Green – Fault in Our Stars
9. Ayana Mathis – Twelve Tribes of Hattie
10. Jhumpa Kahiri – The Lowland 

11. Write in my journal once a week – NOT DONE!  Ugh I have NOT met this goal. I have been writing in it once a month.  I need to step this up and set this goal again for 2014 with better results!
12. Learn a new skill: NOT DONE!!??  I cannot think of a new skill I learned in 2013 unless I can say something like learned how to use IOS 7 on my iphone!  Or maybe Rainbow loom bracelets – but I can’t even fishtail them!  Ha ha!  I did take an action step at least and sign up for an online Guitar course, so here’s to learning that in 2014!
13. Try something that scares me!  DONE as mentioned in February!  Jon took me to the shooting range so I could learn how to handle and shoot a handgun!  This scares me but also I think the skill is necessary to have in case of emergency!!!

So I did not do too bad – 8 completely DONE, 2 at 99% DONE, 1 no by default and 2 NOT DONE.  So I am saying that is a B grade at about 80% completed.  I am okay with that.  Sorry, I am not doing 14 goals for 2014.  I will just be continuing to work on a few areas of my life I want to improve on and work towards those goals! Thanks for your love and encouragement in 2013 and beyond!

Final Christmas Wrap Up: Christmas Day

Okay I had a lot of December and Christmas photos to share with you, but here's the final December post - Christmas Day wrap up!

I used crepe paper to block the stairs so they could not sneak downstairs early to see what Santa had brought (although Shayla later told me she did and retaped the crepe paper - that little stinker!)

The dying tree (we got it Dec 1st so it was pretty limpy by Chrsitmas day!)

The kids on Christmas morning!

Stocking time!

Mitchell is an easy kid to please - the reaction below from a piece of candy in his stocking!

The kids in front of the tree Christmas Morning!

Shayla's sweet gift - a calendar with personalized month pages

Then we headed over to Rachel's house to celebrate Christmas with Jon's family!

The kids had fun playing in the garage while adults visited in the front rooms - loved this set up!

Have to say hi to the Chickens!

We were so happy aunt Tara and uncle Danny and our cousins came from Utah to visit as we do not get to see them that often!

Shayla opening gifts

Mitchell and Danny

Our attempt at a nice family photo!

If you can't beat them, join them!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

More photos of our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day can be found HERE!

My Best Read of 2013

Every year I like to do a recap on my favorite books of the previous year!  Goodreads helps me remember and track them!  They even show you your stats – so it tells me last year I read 24 books and 9,235 pages.   Neat!  I love reading and discovering new authors and writing styles and meeting new characters in books!   And yes, I do most of my books on audio – it still counts! - while I am doing dishes, laundry, running, etc, so no excuse not to finish some good books this year!

Here are my top favorites and my do not waste your time books from 2013 – I would love to hear what yours were as well!

Dad is Fat, by Jim Gaffigan

My only 5 star book of the year because  #1: Jim Gaffigan is hilarious, #2: the only way to survive parenting is through humor and #3: I swear this was the book I WAS GOING TO WRITE ON PARENTING but from a mom's point of view and minus a few chapters and the title! Seriously almost every thought/chapter in his book was something that was so right on target and funny because it is so true and was probably something I thought at the time! If you are a mom or a dad you have to read this! If you do not have kids, don’t bother, you won't get most of it...I listened to this on audio which made all the difference I am sure as he reads it himself so it was like listening to his stand up act - so very funny - reading it may not have the same effect.

Voice in the wind, Echo in The Darkness, Sure is the Dawn – The Mark of the Lion Series - by Francince Rivers

 I had never read anything by her and breezed through this trilogy.  She is such a descriptive and beautiful writer and the characters and stories come alive and are marvelous (though tragic like most good stories). AND LOVED THE ENDING!

The Fault in our stars, By John Green

This story was so well written! I loved the quirkiness of the characters and the beauty that they portrayed through their lives and words. I felt like I could have met both main characters in real life and known them instantly. It is very touching and also humorous at the same time (so many quick witted one-liners!). It is a tragic love story as you may surmise from the fact that it is written from point of view of a teenager cancer patient, but at the same time a happy story because along the way, the characters find in their journey as they come to discover their own truth about life, death and love. A quick read and everyone should read this to appreciate such great writing! And they are making a movie out of this!

And The Mountains Echoed, By Khaled Hosseini

Hosseini is a brilliant storyteller! In this book he used the style of several short stories connected through the characters with each story having its own powerful ending/lesson. I really enjoyed each story and the way he tied all the characters stories together as the book concluded. There were a few holes in a few stories here and there which was a tad frustrating, but overall brilliant writing. I guess my other complaint is that so many stories were so depressing, but most great stories are bred from tragedy, and this book is probably the least depressing from all 3 of his books. The ending does have a shimmer of rainbow of happiness, but I still wish for a bit more happiness for the characters throughout the book.

Love Survivor by Marcus Luttrell - A great hero story and pretty amazing to hear what he went through! I enjoyed the background of the SEAL training and how personal the story felt. Several F bombs (mostly the author quoting others) but not surprising as it is a retelling of a military story). But beyond that a story of courage which helped me to have an even greater appreciation for those protecting our freedom! Looking forward to the movie.

TO check out previous years reviews/books, click here!

Don’t waste your time

12 Tribes of Hattie

Sorry Oprah, I rarely like your book picks so maybe I will start using any you recommend as what not to read! The writing was decent. It was a collection of stories of each of Hattie's children in a snapshot during their lives, but only one or two of them had any semblance of closure which is very frustrating for me as a reader. Maybe I just did not get her literary style or goal of the book, but there was no message from the book and no morals in the stories. It was depressing as well and I kept waiting for the happy story/closure/something to tie the stories together, and it never came. So only 2 stars and there are many other books out there that are more worth your time

Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls – Supposed to be one of the funniest comedy books of the year –  NO – although there were a few funny parts, I kept waiting for it to get better and wish I had not even wasted my time on it (although I did skip over some short stories when I could see where they were leading!)  but most of them seemed like he was trying to hard to be funny and other parts were very insulting and not funny at all.

If you don’t want to wait a year to read what I am reading you can join me at Goodreads at http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/641993

For past year’s favorites, go to http://niftynelsonnews.blogspot.com/search/label/books 

Christmas Eve at Grandmas

We celebrate every Christmas Eve with my side of the family and this year was no exception!  We had a fun - but hectic - Christmas eve at my Grandmas in Glendora with our cousins and family!   (Some photos from me and some from my Uncle Doug) 

The cousins doing some Christmas art

Monster Truck for Mitchell - he is so excited! 

More cousin love! 

Me, my mom and kiddos! 

The siblings in attendance (with brother-in-law to be Cliff!) 

Mom and Dad with the newest couple to be!

Grandpa and Quincy

GIANT Chocolate box with Sheelah

Enjoy the Christmas spirit!

Dixie & Herbie's Visit

Every year our nice elf buddies Dixie & Herbie come in the month of December from the North Pole to say hello!  They are often getting into things and causing mischief, but they are fun (and they do not tattle on the kids only have fun with the kids!). Here were some of their adventures!

Enjoying the California Sun...
 
Leaving the kids yummy snowmen donut treats!

 
Photocopying their faces...

 
So of course Shayla and Mitchell had to try too!

 
Leaving Toothpaste messages

 
And cereal messages to remind us about the reason for the season

 
Decorating the tree with kids underwear and socks

  
Making "snowmen" on the counter

 
Twister with friends

 
Racing cars

 
Making Christmas Cookies

 
We hope they come back to visit us again next year!

December Adventures Part 3

Oh and forgot a few happenings in December - so here is Part 3!

Shayla and I on her fieldtrip (continued from Part 2)
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At Mitchell's preschool class party

He was so happy to give me the present he made me!

We held our 1st annual Ugly sweater party!  Fun times!

 
Party Favors!

 
The winners - prizes were Ugly Sweater card game, cider wrapper in bottle ugly sweater and fruitcake!

 
Cheese and Cheesy!

 
Kids decorated cupcakes during primary!

 
We did a Nelson family photo shoot with all of Jons siblings and kiddos - here were my shots - cannot wait to see the results!

 
My cutie pies!

 
Yep many of these in our attempts to get photos!

 
Skating Plus with Hailey (while Mitchell had a playdate with Noelle)

 
Beautiful family bike ride on Christmas Eve morning

 
And a stop at the park to play before heading to our Christmas Eve Celebration with family in Glendora