Happy Valentine's Day 2013!!!

 Happy Valentine's Day 2013!

Here are some photos of my little love bugs! 

More photos to follow soon about our fun Valentine's Day week!

We LOVE you all!

XOXO

Larissa, Jon, Shayla and Mitchell

Blowing Kisses!

Sending Kisses! 

Kiss a pig?

Got your attention?  The things that motivates kindergardeners to raise money for their school - a popcorn party, school dog tag, and - of course - having the school principal KISS a pig!  Anyway Shayla's school is having their annual walk-a-thon on Valentines Day February 14th and she is soooo excited to help raise money to reach these goals.  They will be walking laps to raise funds.  100% of these funds go directly to school supplies for these classes who all have 30+ kids in their class and go through supplies like crazy and often have to purchase from their own pockets.  I am Booster Club VP so I am directly accountable for this money going directly to the classroom!  Anyway, be glad I didn't ask you to buy the $15 cookie dough, I am just asking that you donate $1, $2 or $3 to the walk-a-thon to help raise funds for her school and help her meet her goals and get to see the principal kiss a pig!  I will post a photo here too!  You can click on link below to donate (goes to me and I write a check to school) or you can send me a check made out to Mountain Vista Boosters, or drop a $1 at my door!   SHAYLA thanks you, her principal does not (; 

*Donations 100% tax-deductible, Nonprofit ID #02-0775096. . Tax receipt available upon request.

Snapshots of January 2013

Snapshots of January 2013!  

Starts with having fun for the duration of our spring break...

Magic Mountain!
 
Mini Golfing!

 

Shayla attended Cookie U to learn all about selling Girl Scout Cookies 

 
Reading with Nana and Stella

 
Walking Tyson (sticking to one of my 2013 goals!) Shayla helps but we need 2 leashes to control this guy! Love our walking path!

 
Ice Skating with Shayla

 
Ice Blocking with our moms group!

 
5 years of mom group fun with all these awesome families (and several more who could not be there!)

 
My two buddies!

 
Reptile day at library (rocking the iguana to sleep)

 
Mitchell was stoked to wear the snake!

 

Best Reads of 2012

Here we go again – I hope that you enjoy reading about my best reads of the previous year, but even more so, I hope that you enjoy reading the actual books!  I was not a literary major, I do not have an extensive knowledge about all the classics, but I like to think I know a good book when I see – I mean read one!  I read about 20 books this year and here are the ones that were on the top of the pack for me. As I looked over my list of the reads I realized most of them were great reads and I would recommend almost all of them!!!  It is hard for me to choose the top this year, but I will list my top 5 with my reviews copied mainly from my personal reviews on goodreads so I can get my 2012 book review out before January is over!  You can read my reviews of all the books I read in 2012 and expanded reviews (although those are pretty short too) on goodreads - see end of post.

So here are my top 5 last year:

1. Moloka’I, Alan Brenner

Description:  Moloka’i tells the story of Rachel Kalama, a seven-year-old Hawaiian girl who contracts leprosy and is quarantined on the island of Moloka’i during the 1890s. Separated from her family and forced to grow up in the leper colony of Kalaupapa, Rachel experiences intense isolation. But she remains strong, finding moments of joy, and even love.

MY THOUGHTS: I had been WAITING for this to go on audio for years and it finally did!!!  I am glad I got to read it! I did really enjoy the story and it was written really well with lots of great characters. It made me research a bit on the history of the story and the Island of Moloka'i which had a leper colony for years. Some of the people in the story are based on real people but the main character is not. There had to have been so much strength for those sent to the Island and the families left behind. I did not even think about what would happen if a child is born there - of you want to find out, you have to read it to see! Such fascinating information and a great read!

2.  Heaven is Here, Stephanie Nielson  

Description: The survival story and love story of a woman, Stephanie was on the brink of death after a plane crash with her husband,  with burns over 80 percent of her body. She would remain in a coma for four months. In this moving memoir, Stephanie tells the full, extraordinary story of her unlikely recovery and the incredible love behind it—from a riveting account of the crash to all that followed in its wake.

MY THOUGHTS: An amazing survival story and amazing woman.  One to read!

3. Sarah’s Key, Tatiana de Rosnay

Description: Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old girl, is brutally arrested with her family by the French police in the Vel' d'Hiv' roundup, but not before she locks her younger brother in a cupboard in the family's apartment, thinking that she will be back within a few hours.

Paris, May 2002: On Vel' d'Hiv's 60th anniversary, journalist Julia Jarmond is asked to write an article about this black day in France's past. Through her contemporary investigation, she stumbles onto a trail of long-hidden family secrets that connect her to Sarah. Julia finds herself compelled to retrace the girl's ordeal, from that terrible term in the Vel d'Hiv', to the camps, and beyond. As she probes into Sarah's past, she begins to question her own place in France, and to reevaluate her marriage and her life.

MY THOUGHTS: This was a very interesting and heart wrenching book. Hard to put down.  A unique way to intertwine two lives of the holocaust and recent day. I wish with all the sorrow in the book there could have been a happier ending though! There was a movie made of this story too which was equally good and depressing…

4. Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn

Description: On their fifth anniversary, Nick and Amy's marriage implodes when Amy goes missing and Nick is hardly as distraught as he ought to be.  What happens next is a great story and mystery!

MY THOUGHTS:  Wow - what a book! First of all, it has way too many F-bombs so if you can find an edited version go for that one, but beyond that the author is brilliant to write such an intricate story and nail the characters and the plot. I was drawn in and loved listening to it (the audio characters did an amazing job with voices interpreting the characters!) I did find a few holes in the so-called perfect evidence that were not discussed( you will see what I mean by evidence when you read it). I could not "put this book down" and I would have given it 5 stars if the language was not as bad and I did hope for a different ending! But two big thumbs up! Another great beach or car read as you will want to zoom through it!

5. Winter of the World, Ken Follett

Description:  Winter of the World picks up right where the first book left off, as its five interrelated families—American, German, Russian, English, Welsh—enter a time of enormous social, political, and economic turmoil, beginning with the rise of the Third Reich, through the Spanish Civil War and the great dramas of World War II, up to the explosions of the American and Soviet atomic bombs. These characters and many others find their lives inextricably entangled as their experiences illuminate the cataclysms that marked the century. 

MY THOUGHTS: I have to include him by default as he is one of my favorite authors and I have been waiting for the second book in his trilogy (one every two years right now!)  Another masterpiece by Ken Follett! This one's main focus was on WWII and there were so many angles to the story and so many great characters. The only thing that seemed to bug me a bit about this book is that I figured out all the big surprises before they happened in the book. It didn't take away from the story, but I like suspense (;

Almost made the list:

Where'd You Go, Bernadette – Maria Semple – This was a fun, fast read – a beach read so to speak with creative writing!

Shanghai Girls and Dreams of Joy, Lisa See – This were both wonderful stories and so vibrant and dramatic!

As always I would love if you post in the comments and share your favorite reads of 2012 too – they may make my list next year!

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

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

Let it snow...

Well, we don't get snow in our town, so we had to travel to go see it.  We tried to take to the kids to the snow last year but it did not work out, so this year I wanted to be sure to make it happen!  We went with our friends the Loomis family on probably the coldest day of the year to the top of Mt.Pinos (elevation: 8,300 ft, 13 degrees!).  Brr and although Shayla had a great time, Mitchell was not having it!  He did not like wearing his snow clothes and cried most of the time, but he did smile when he was sledding down the hills. We were able to have a lot of snow as it had snowed the week of and it had stayed cold, so it was very beautiful in the mountains and the kids could not believe all the snow!

Mom and Mitchell

 
Me and my sled!

 
Jon and Shayla

 
All decked out!

 
Larissa and Leahna

 
Shayla loving it!

 
Mitchell's face most of the time...

 
The family!

 

Herbie & Dixie

So, before I had kids and before elf and the shelf came out, I came across these cute elfs and I thought they were a brilliant idea, so I got them hoping they would come "visit" my kids one day when I had kids!  Lucky for me I bought a boy and girl elf and now with my boy and girl they work great to visit from the North Pole every year.  They are a bit different from Elf on the Shelf in that they don't report back to Santa and the kids can play with them and they don't lose their magic if touched (;  But they do wake up at night and have fun and create mischief and the like!  Anyway Shayla gets sooo excited as it gets closed to Christmas as she knows Herbie and Dixie are coming to visit!  And now Herbie and Dixie get many of their mischief ideas online.  Love it!

Here is Shay with Herbie and Dixie (she had Mitchell take this photo of her)

 
They were watching movies and eating popcorn one night...

 
Fishing time

 
Race Car driving

 
Shayla and Mitchell had to plant the Magic Snow and Magic seeds from the elves...

 
...and 2 days later grew these trees!

 

That's all the elf shenanigans I took photos of  - here is Shay and I doing her gingerbread house!

 

Hacked...

So my google and blog and a few emails got hacked last week! Luckily I have security controls in place (like my phone gets notified if passwords or emails changed) and so forth that I caught them before any damage or charges to my accounts were made, but still - Ugh!  I had a fun week of trying to figure everything out and as the hacker created new email addresses in my name and changed many accounts I had to their false email accounts that I still don't have switched back --- it has been such a pain and time comsuming to figure out!

So this is weird as I am blogging from my google account but it is still linked to my hacker's email address which I now have access to (and changed the password so hopefully they cannot access it either) but cannot remove from my blogger account as it is the primary gmail account and if I delete it it will delete my blog!  But I don't want them to be able to get into my account again so not sure what will happen! Argh, so until I figure that out I will try to blog and hope that they can no longer have access to my stuff!

So hopefully someone learns from my errors and pain: 
Moral of the story:  Be alert, have security measures in place (back up email and phone notifications) and change your passwords regularly and NEVER have the same password for multiple accounts (and if the account allows you be sure to add symbol and cap letters to your passwords as I got hacked because it was an old account and simple password that I used on more than one account!) 

13 GOALS FOR 2013

HAPPY NEW YEAR!  So what does 2013 have in store for you?  I am one of those people who don’t necessarily make New Years goals every year as I do feel that when you recognize something that you need to change or work on, that you should start doing them right away, or that you should always be striving for self improvement.  I am always striving to be a better mother, wife, friend, do more service, have more patience, follow through with my intentions, etc, but I wanted to write a specific things list and I did think it would be fun to have things to look forward to (or to hold myself accountable for) and to do a 13 things I want to do in 2013 list -- I guess these are pretty much the same as resolutions so you can hold me to them!

1. Visit my grandparents in Idaho – I have been trying to get to Idaho again the last few years and after the passing of my other grandpa in 2012, I am going to be darned if I don’t get to see my grandparents in Idaho this year!!
2. Walk the dog once a week – I know once a week is not a big deal for most doggies, but my poor dog gets lucky if he gets a walk once a week as it is hard to walk him when I have my kiddos with me which is not very often, so I promise Tyson I will walk you once a week!
3. Archive all digital photos – Okay so my (extra) hard drive overfloweth with photos and I am going to need to clear it out to make room for all the new photos I will be adding of fun stuff this year. I did some research and I think the best way to store them (vs burning to a DVD or disk) is via a thumbdrive.  So I will be going through the last 10 years of digital photos and moving them from my hard drive to thumb drives.  Also as a double backup they will be saved on my Carbonite server backup.   If you have a better way to store/archive digital photos, let me know!
4. Redo my family Photo Wall – I have been wanting to have all my siblings wedding photos on my wall and have most of them but am missing a few, so this is something I want to get done!
5. Create 2012 Family Photo book – I like to do a printed family photo book of my digital photos each year so I want to be sure to get 2012 photo book complete before year end!
6. Organize/Redo Shayla’s room - She is finally getting a big kid bed (she is still in toddler bed) and has new interests (everything cheetah) and so I am redoing her room.
7. Organize/Redo Mitchell’s room – He will finally be moving out of crib (which converts to big kid bed fro Shay and that is why she has had to wait so long) and into a toddler bed, and is probably getting to old for an owl themed room, so I am redoing his room as well.
8. Ride a Century bike ride – That’s a 100k (62 mile) Bike ride!  Bike riding is probably my sport of choice and so to push myself to the next level I plan to do the Santa Barbara century ride (Oct 19, 2013) and even better I think Jon will be doing it with me so that will be a fun experience to train for and complete as a couple!
9. Attend temple once a quarter – This is a spiritual goal for me!  As part of my faith, I visit the temple as a place of worship and peace and I need to get to the temple more this year.  More about temples here. 
10. Read 10 books by 10 new authors – I love to read and it is always fun to discover new authors so let me know if you have a favorite author I should check out in 2013.
11. Write in my journal once a week – I have been writing about twice a month, sometimes once a week, but I want to ensure my journal writing is a minimum of once a week!
12. Learn a new skill – always a good goal to have, just not sure what skill yet – sewing, guitar, archery?  hmmm
13. Try something that scares me!  Did this YESTERDAY so I can cross this off my list!  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, here are my 13 goals for 2013!  Feel free to ask me about them, encourage me, send new ideas my way, oh and of course, babysit my kids so I can get it all done! Okay, I hope you are working towards things in your life as well  that will make you a happier person!  

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2013!!!

We decided to stay home and celebrate New Years at home (vs spending lots of $ on babysitter)!  So we had some friends over and did the New York New Years thing - meaning our party was over at 9 pm (midnight in East Coast time).  Anyway, we only decided on doing it the day before so not much prep time, but we did do some fun activities, the kids danced a lot, we had fondue and fireworks and sparklers!

2013 here we come!
 
Poppers for the kids!

 
 The New Years Tree - a fun tradition we started last year of redoing the tree with New Years stuff - I didn't put the balloons on this year as so many of them popped with our dry tree, but we have balloons that we pop every hour with activity ideas in them (tell a favorite memory of 2012, play a game, have a thumb war, dance party, etc)  

 
The New Year Party animal!

 
Our friends!

 
The Nelson Family on New Years

 
Shayla & Mitchell

 
Sparkler time

 
Family twister time!

 

We wish you a blessed and joyful 2013 full of everything beautiful and meaningful! 
Much love to you all!