OUCH Blake!

On the Sunday after Christmas, we all watched a movie together as a family and Blake was horsing around after the movie was over. He tripped and fell backward and hit his head HARD on the banister post. He hit is just right and that sound is something I will never forget. Craig and I both knew, right away, that we were going to the ER for stitches. Blake freaked out at first when he saw all of the blood but then he was amazingly calm. Luckily the ER wasn't too busy and we were an "easy case" for them, I think. Blake was a hoot because nothing really fazes that kid. He was almost excited to be there, after he realized he wasn't going to die.
Here he is in his wonderful open-backed "nightgown."


Waiting for the doctor to come, showing me his "pulse" band-aid.


The doctor is here


and here's what it looks like all cleaned up
but not stitched (small warning to queasy stomachs)


And now with 5 staples holding it together


He looks like a much more injured boy with this contraption on his head than he actually is--especially with his fake sick face


Ta-Dah-- and hour and a half later, start to finish, ready to go home

Christmas Morning

We had a wonderful Christmas day here. We hope all of you did too. I won't bore you with the opening presents pictures but here are a couple of good ones before the kids went downstairs to see what Santa brought.

Blake, Carly and Carter


The Whole Gang (a rare shot with everyone in it and actually looking at the camera).

We had a lot of fun surprising each other and enjoying the gifts given. We especially wish to celebrate the greatest gift of all--our Savior, Jesus Christ, who loves us, saves us, teaches us, blesses us and heals us.

Christmas Eve 2008

On the evening of Christmas Eve, we have always gotten together for a yummy dinner and family Christmas festivities. In years past we've usually gone to Grandma and Grandpa Ross's house but this year we were at our home. So, along with Grandma and Grandpa Ross and my sister, Kaelynn, we had invited the sister missionaries serving in our ward to join us and they weren't supposed to leave their area. We also invited a family, the Brooks, that are building a house in our ward. Unfortunately, the mom and 4 kids got stuck with the snow and bad roads in their home on the west side of the state. The Dad and oldest son, Cody, were here working on the house and going to school. I knew they were sad spending Christmas Eve and Day away from their family, but they were great sports at our home. Speaking of bad weather, a co-worker of Kaelynn's joined us at the last minute too because she was snowed in here and couldn't make it to her home in Portland to be with her family. All of our company was delightful and really helped make it a pleasant evening.
Here's the adult table

(The kids all ate too fast--I didn't even get a picture of the "kid table.")
And after dinner, we started a new tradition (hopefully it will be anyway) of having a birthday cake for Jesus and putting in candles and singing to him. We also each wrote down a gift we would give him this year and put it in a bag to read on next year's Christmas Eve.

After dinner, we enjoyed singing Christmas carols around the piano and we put on the annual Christmas nativity pageant.
Here are our sister missionaries, Sister Clayton & Sister Larson

Carter and Carly were Mary and Joseph for the pageant

Alyse, Jason Brooks, and Ashley were the angels and shepherd

And Brad, Cody and Blake were good sports about being the three wisemen.

(I think they would have been a little happier about it if we had had something besides pink bathrobes for them to wear.)
After the pageant, Santa dropped off new pajamas for all of the kids.



It was a wonderful Christmas eve.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESUS!

It's SNOW fun!

It's been a kids' dream around here (like in much of the country) with snow, snow and more snow. Last spring we bought a small 4-wheeler for the boys that they've really enjoyed riding out in the desert by our house. Now, with snow everywhere, they figured out that they could pull each other around the cul-de-sac with their sleds in tow. A few neighbor friends joined in too.



Brad took his job of driver very seriously. Craig's ski goggles helped keep the wind-whipped snow out of his eyes.

Cute Kids!

Every Wednesday I go work in Blake's classroom for an hour or so. Carly comes with me and she loves it because the classroom has a pet lizard named Blue Eyes and a pet guinea pig named Wilson. We are usually there during reading time and the teacher, Mrs. Walker, has the students take turns reading with the animals. Carly is such an animal freak that she spends the entire hour with whichever student has the animal. On this particular day, Wilson was liking to eat Carly's hair and she was loving it! I love the look on her face!



OK, Ashley is the cutest girl. She has her semi-annoying habits though and one of those is spending FOREVER doing her hair and getting ready to go somewhere. But when she's finished--boy does she look good! I had to snap her picture on this particular day because she had spent a lot of time on her hair and when she came up to leave to go somewhere I told her "Well, that MIGHT have been worth it. You look really great!" She is so funny!

Ready for Christmas

We got the tree decorated while listening to the same music we have listened to since Alyse and Ashley were little--the Mo-Tab singing "Jingle Bells." It's tradition now for us to listen to it while we decorate the tree.

Here's Blake hanging an ornament



And Ta-DAHHHHH -- the final product


And then, to top it off, my wonderful husband spent HOURS getting the lights working for the house decorations this year. He knows how much I love to decorate the house and I love these kind of lights--even though they are a pain in the neck. The problem is (and we didn't realize it when we bought them) that when the wind blows (which it does a LOT in West Richland) it sends those lights flying all over. Anytime they bang into the house eaves, they can go out or they will sometimes be blown so hard that the whole section of swag goes out and onto the top of the roof.
That's why it takes so long to get them working again each year. I am so thankful he did it for me. Don't they look great?



THANK-YOU HONEY! I LOVE YOU!

Blake's a WINNER!

I got a call the other from Blake's school letting me know that he was one of 12 winners (out of 85 entries) for a drawing contest for Flour Hanford's Safety Calendar. He got a $50 gift certificate to Barnes and Noble and he was invited with the other winners to come to a reception and be honored. Of course, he was very excited.
The theme was safety and it looked like most kids thought of water safety or fire safety or car/driving safety. I think one reason Blake won was because his was creative. . . it was about food safety. Here he is with his winning poster on display.

If you can't see it well, he drew a picture of a sandwich with mold growing out of it. It says "Don't let your food spoil, or it might spoil you."

One of the Flour employees talking while all 12 winners look on.


Not only did he get cake, a gift certificate, recognition, etc. but he got 25 copies of the calendar. His picture is on the March page.


And one last one of him with the president of Flour Hanford, his principal, Dr. W.P. and the woman in charge of the contest.

GREAT JOB BLAKE!

Sam Vega masterpieces

So our friend in the ward, Sam, is a great photographer, and he is out of this world good at the photoshop thing. I wanted to post a few of the fun ones he did of our family lately.
This one shows off Alyse's new haircut really well.


Doesn't Blake look handsome here?


And Carter--his personality is completely visible in this one.


Don't be fooled--Carly's not this sweet all of the time!


Ashley is naturally photogenic . .


Brad is really growing up lately!


To finish it off, here are all of the boys together


and now the girls


And another funny family picture

Finding the PERFECT Christmas tree

As Nelson tradition dictates, on one of the first few Saturdays after Thanksgiving we go up to the Tollgate area in the Blue Mountains, usually with our good friends, the Stocks. and find the PERFECT Christmas tree. The forest service sells permits for $7 and you can cut a tree down as big or as small as you want. With the 9-foot ceilings in our house, we like to get a really tall, full tree. Every year I think we won't ever be able to find a tree as beautiful as the year before's, but somehow we do. That is really a credit to Craig mostly. We'll be out hunting around in the woods and I'll say "This one looks good. We could just put it in the corner and hide that big hole in the back." Or "Let's just get this one--it will be fine and I'm too cold to keep looking." But Craig and the kids perservere and actually have a great time tromping around in the snow looking for just the right one.

Ashley insisted, early on, that she found the perfect tree! But we told her that we didn't believe that would quite fit in the house, even with 9-foot ceilings.


Some years there is so much snow in the Blue's that we are almost swimming, trying to get to the good trees. But this year was a little disappointing to the kids because there wasn't much, if any, snow really to play in. I think Carly was the most excited this year to go up to the snow. She's not old enough to remember that there's usually more snow so she was thrilled to play around in what was there.


The Stocks have a great tradition of trying to find the most unusual, crazy tree out there. Every year they come up with a good one that most people would just walk right by. Here are a few options they were deciding between.
Julie thought this could double as a chair and a Christmas tree:

Blake is inspecting this one to see if it will match the criteria for craziest tree ever.
(I'm dead serious--this is an example of what all of their trees have looked like).

But my favorite nominee was Dirk's--their 17 year old son. He found this tree and really wanted to cut it down and take it home. I thought the color was very unique. Afterall, it's not too often that you see a real-live, not painted ORANGE Christmas tree.


Meanwhile we kept looking for our tree as well. Here's Brad out hunting


and Carly found a good place to sit down and rest


and here's Blake and Brad with Grant Stock


In the end, our tree was discovered down off the road a little ways. Isn't it beautiful??


Brad and Blake took turns sawing it down



and then they counted the rings to see how old the tree was--can you tell it's age from their fingers??

(that's 17--if you can't tell)

Next week I'll post some pictures of the tree all decorated so you can see how beautiful it looks inside as well.