Great weekend.....mostly!

Well, Thanksgiving is over, done, and put away. Here we go with Christmas! Thursday was nice. Family, fun, and okay food.....my rolls didn't work and it sorta ruined it for me....and Ron. I did go get him 2 dozen good rolls the next day though to make up for it. They are now gone! I think next year, a nice idea would be to go to Mimi's cafe or somewhere that serves up dinner for you....no work, no dishes, just good food and then come home for a nap.....but then there's the no leftover issue..... Oh well. I have a year until we do it again, so no worries yet!

Ron and I planned on going out bright and early Friday morning for some shopping, but Jared decided to change our plans by getting very sick beginning around 1:30 AM......poor kid kept nothing down until about 3 in the afternoon. So I went a couple places alone but it was not all too productive. But I got some done, and a little more Saturday, so we are getting there in terms of Christmas gifts. It is so strange, I feel like I just got Christmas put away from last year, so I don't feel like I should be doing this yet!

Saturday we made our little excursion to the tree farm....pictures here...
The quest begins for the perfect tree....anything bigger than the stick Jared has is game....

After considering a few, including a very blue Blue Spruce(maybe next time, I don't know if I'd get sick of a blue Christmas tree after the first couple of days!) we found the perfect tree. Good height, color, straight, and lots of open spaces for our ornament collection.

The cutest picture of Ellie....she is starting to look so much like a big kid, which makes her mommy very sad! I am still in denial that she'll be three in a month! I guess I should get her potty trained and perhaps moved out of her crib. Ellie chose this itty-bitty tree as her favorite.....we told her that maybe when she's about 16 that tree might by bigger than the stick!

When we got home, we discovered that of the three long strands of lights for the tree that we had, only 1 1/2 of them worked. Lowes had mini lights on sale, so we just decided it would be less of a headache to get new ones...while we were at it, we switched from clear mini lights to multi-colored. A little change is always fun. While at the store, the kids found these fun Santa hats and had to pose:


The finished product!


I stole all of these photos from Ron's blog. How sad is it that I didn't pull my camera out once? I let him do all the pictures with his iPhone, and then he blogged them the same day, practically the same hour, on his iPhone. He's doing a better job of documenting things than me, so if you ever wonder what is going on with us because I haven't posted in a while....check out my husbands blog!

We have a very busy week ahead.....Christmas prep, and then my sister and her hubby come up to help with some work on my mom's new house. She closes on Tuesday, and then Wednesday evening we will start ripping out vinyl flooring and carpet, tearing down wallpaper, laying tile, and painting the master bedroom and some shelves....all topped off with moving her out of her old house on Saturday. I'm really wondering how that day and saying goodbye to that house will go. It was home for me from age 10, up until I moved out on my own. Lot's of memories there. I'll make sure to take some pictures.

I Am Grateful

• 30. A Testimony and belief in my savior, Jesus Christ, and His restored Gospel.
• 29. My blog, for giving me a way to quickly chronicle life and it's happeneings
• 28. Saltines and Gatorade....poor J is sick, sick, sick...
• 27. Family, Food, and Fun
• 26. Noggin, to entertain the kids. I'm a busy cooking and cleaning woman!
• 25. Prayer
• 24. Recipes and menu plans that make life much easier
• 23. Peace
• 22. Music
• 21. Kid cuddles
• 20. Creativity
• 19. Clean laundry
• 18. Sunshine and 70 degrees! What a beautiful day.
• 17. No more gray hair ;)
• 16. Cute nursery kids singing songs
• 15. Saturdays....the only time I get my husband home all day!
• 14. Nicole, my now 7 year old! :)
• 13. My almost 3 year old who makes me laugh on a daily basis.
• 12. A full nights sleep
• 11. Choices
• 10. Diet Dr. Pepper
• 9. A sense of humor!
• 8. The sanctity of family and marriage.
• 7. Good friends
• 6. Education
• 5. The snow we woke up to - my kids were SO excited!
• 4. A free country and the opportunity to participate in government
• 3. My husband's secure job
• 2. My husband
• 1. My health

Let's revisit July....

I was looking through my pictures today, and saw these nice toasty visions of some July activities....even the monsoon rainstorm the kids were playing in was pretty warm! These were all taken on the same day.

It was our little city's "Family Festival", so we were awakened early by a hot air balloon hovering just above our house. Close enough we could yell "Hello" to the balloon guys!

Then it was off to the parade. We like to set up camp in the round-about. You get closer to the action that way, meaning the kids get more candy and otter pops thrown at them--it's Halloween in July! See the construction going on behind Ron? I bet you can't guess what big-box retailer is coming in......oh....you did guess. Yep, it's another WalMart taking over the world. Close enough we can walk to it. Sigh. I plan on bringing a cart home with me when I visit the first time, and then I never have to share with anyone else and wonder what kind of germs are on the handle. ;)

The rest of the afternoon was spent at the park, enjoying the blow-up slides, entertainment, and the firetruck's "water cannon".



We then got hit with a very wet and strong monsoon! The kids had a blast running through it! Unfortunately, even though the rain stopped, the wind didn't and our big fireworks show was cancelled! Oh no! It's okay though. The fireworks guys camped out in the field that night and all through Sunday and Monday, so we got a fireworks show that night for Family Home Evening instead. With Walmart being open next summer, no one knows what is to become of the fireworks for our annual Family Festival, so it may have been our last year. So sad if it was....

Just had to share.....

My husband made this today.....I had to giggle!

**for any non-BYU followers, that's Max "Mr. SIX turnovers against the U" Hall sitting over there....the outcast!

Poinsettia Festival

Nicole's dance studio had a performance at the "Poinsettia Festival" yesterday. She was very excited to wear her new costume and get all made up like a ballerina, albeit a fluffy-haired ballerina! She did well, and it was evident she enjoyed herself with her never-ending smile while performing. It made her very excited for next months performance in the "Nutcracker"!

Happy Birthday Nicole!

I can't believe it's been seven years....

Thank you....

Casper Conrad Nicoll

Don Carlos Nicoll Jr.

Guy Alma Nicoll

One mother's sacrifice: three sons sent to serve in WWII.
One army, two navy, later one served with the marines as a medical corpsman.
(And although not pictured, one son-in-law as well: J.T. Hunter)


Kenneth Naegle Nicoll

Later, after his mother's death, another son (my handsome father) served in the Air Force during the Korean War.

The ultimate sacrifice, as her second son was killed in action on Iwo Jima.



Thank you
to all our veterans who have served us and our country.
May the Lord bless you and your families.

B&W Challenge

Hope and Believe is having another fun photo challenge I thought I'd participate in. It is to take a photo(new or old) and make it B&W....I can do that! So here you go:


Funny bit of trivia with this shot: it's another self-timer deal!

Goodbye Autumn

This is almost pretty enough to not mind that this is what it looked like around here today...almost.

**photo stolen from my husbands iPhone!**

Check THIS out!

Recognize these kids?!

He, he, he, he! The kids had a blast! Thanks, Nicole, and Rubberball, for letting us come play!

Go to THIS POST on THIS BLOG for more smashy face fun.

And thanks to onehm for the heads up that it was posted! ;)

Month of Gratitude

I was just over at my cousin's blog, and she had a great idea that I'm borrowing, but tweaking a bit so I'll actually do it! She pointed out that November is the month that we celebrate Thanksgiving and remember the things we are grateful for. So this month, I'm adding a list to my side bar where I will list one thing a day for the 30 days of November that I am grateful for. Absolutely feel free to join in if you'd like to, leave me a comment so I can come visit your list too!

Family picture out-take...

Since the leaves are great right now, and this is possibly the last day of warmish weather to get a new family picture with an "Autumn" look, we fit it in! Here is one of many out-takes. It is near (if not totally) impossible to get all six of us looking good in a picture. (This is pretty close, except for J!) It doesn't help that I am doing this with the self-timer!

The rest of Halloween...

Pumpkins all lit and kids ready to go. (Off-topic, what is with the 5 year old and his forced smiles?! Ugh!) Riley and some friends stayed home and handed out candy while Ron and I took the kids around. They were die-hards and went farther than ever! Therefore, they now have so much candy it is sickening. Add into that all our leftovers, and I think we're set for a few months of treats....not kidding...we have a 5 lb. bag we never even opened! We thought we'd have more kids due to the good weather and it being Friday night, but we over calculated...oops! We did have a little bit of rain, as the sunrise predicted, but it was just on and off sprinkles, not enough to stop our little goblins.

Nicole kept trying to take off and leave us behind....she had candy to collect! But Jared was pretty good about being the "helper" big brother that I'd asked him to be and stuck with Ellie. Here he's making sure she doesn't walk in front of the car pulling into the driveway. Ahhhh, sweet!

Here's the "trick" Jared received. One of the homes was giving the kids potatoes as their treat, but then telling them they could trade it for a real treat. Most of the kids traded their spud back in. Not Jared! He thought it was very cool to have a potato. Of course two houses later he decided it was too heavy to haul around in his bag, so I got to carry it the rest of the night. ( I kept trying to let him carry some of his candy but he didn't fall for that!) I asked him what he wants to do with his tater, and he told me he wants to make soup.