The end of Fall Sports (finally)!

It's been a great fall sports season but we are not sad at all to have it come to an end! Craig, especially, was a real good sport about it all (no pun intended) because Saturdays are his one and only day "off" all week and we usually had them filled with football and soccer games and an occasional cross country meet as well.

We were really proud of our children and the fine things their coaches said about them at the banquets that were held. Blake's team mom put together a very nice party complete with individual scrapbooks for each player--they were amazing. Blake's coach said that Blake was the kind of player he wished he could clone and have a whole team just like him. He said that when they asked for any help in putting away equipment or whatever Blake was the first one to jump up and help and he also said that on every play, in every practice or game, Blake gave 110%. We told Blake on the way home from that banquet that nothing the coach said could have made us any more proud of him. He really is a very good boy.
Here's a picture of the coaches serving the players their soda.


And here's a picture of Blake's award. His nickname on the team (everyone had one) was Viper (I influenced that from my Top Gun days, I'm afraid) and he got to carry the ball quite a bit.

At the end of the banquet, they were sending everyone home with balloons and what does Blake do with his? Of course, what any sane 10 year old would do--tie them to his ears to see if he could float away. Very funny, Blake!


A few days later, Ashley's cross country team held their banquet as well. It was a little dejavu-like because her coaches said almost the exact same things about Ashley that Blake's did about him. It's funny because Ashley and Blake are a lot alike in a lot of ways. They both try so hard to do what's right, to make others happy, to give everything all they can. We are really proud of them. Ashley is still running to try and stay in shape for cross country. She has amazing self-discipline as well.

Here is the only picture that really turned out from her banquet. The two girls with her are Whitney and Kaloni Bird from Shoreline ward. They both ran on the JV team with Ashley.

CRAZY girls

Some days Ashley and Alyse get really giggly crazy and that's usually when the stereo gets LOUD and the camera comes out. They just crack me up!

Veterans Day 2008

Our wonderful community of West Richland really makes Veterans Day special each year. At the kids' elementary school, they have a special Veterans Day assembly. They ask all of the students to invite their family members who ever served in the armed forces to come to the school for the assembly so they can honor them. This year Carter absolutely insisted that his Grandpa Ross come to the assembly. Grandpa served in the army--only 6 months active duty and then as a member of the army reserves. The kids were so excited to have their own Grandpa come.

I took Carly and her best friend, Tramayne Johnson, with me to the assembly. They were being so funny, I just had to include a picture of them. Sometime I need to do a blog post just about Carly and Tramayne. They are so cute together.


The next Saturday was the West Richland Veterans Day parade. Our ward's achievement day girls put together a float so we went to go support them and to enjoy the parade. The kids really had fun there and I couldn't believe how much candy everyone threw at them. It was like Halloween!

Halloween 2008

To be honest, Halloween is NOT my favorite holiday. I do think it's cute to see little kids dressed up in their costumes and being so excited to get all that candy. But skeletons, witches, spiders, carving pumpkins and walking around for hours out in the cold getting way too much candy just aren't my favorite things. Saying all that, we are pretty proud of ourselves that we put on the smile and carve pumpkins, dress up our kids and even put up one or two decorations around the house.

Nelson Family Tradition says that on the Monday before Halloween we carve our jack-o-lanterns for FHE. This year was no exception. The good news is that most of our children can actually carve their own pumpkins now! And the big ones can help the little ones too! They all had a lot of fun--as you can see!




Craig even got into it (I thought it was great since I know it's not his favorite thing) and helped Carly carve her pumpkin. He had fun grossing everyone out with waving the pumpkin guts around in our faces.


On Wednesday before Halloween we had a Stake Youth "Harvest" Dance. This was Brad's first dance ever and his sisters did a good job getting him ready. They gave him dancing lessons in the kitchen, including teaching him how to escort the girl on and off the dance floor and giving him pointers on conversation starters and good questions to ask. Ahhhh . . . the blessings of older siblings. So here's Brad, his friend Cody, Craig and Ashley ready to go to the dance. Don't they look great?



On Thursday was our ward's Trunk or Treat and Hallowen Carnival. Carter was very excited to be Zorro and Carly was Alice in Wonderland.




And Blake said he wanted to be a policeman. We got his costume all together and at the last minute he said "I know . . .I'll but a pillow up my shirt and look like a "real" policeman. He was so funny. He had just the right size of cop pot belly.




And Craig looked great as a jailbird--complete with a real ball and chain--courtesy of Craig's brothers who tied it around his ankle at our wedding reception! See--if you hold on to something long enough it WILL come in handy! Everyone in our ward loves the way Craig is such a FUN bishop. He cracked everyone up in this costume.

Carly's Birthday Party

I'm still working backwards a little and adding things from the recent past to this blog. But I just had to add a few pictures of Carly's super fun Princess and Knights Birthday party. This was her first "friends" birthday party and, of course, being a 5 year old girl she wanted a princess party. The problem was that a large part of her friends are boys. I convinced her that we should have a Knights and Princesses party.
My mom and dad were so great to come out and help me. My dad helped me make this big cardboard castle


and my mom helped me make this awesome castle cake



Carly and all of the girls at the party dressed up like princesses and everyone got crowns. The boys got cardboard swords and the girls got princess wands. It was such a great party!

Carly, Carly and More Carly

Alyse has been protesting lately because most all of the pictures on my camera are of Carly.

Well, what can I say? Everyone else is at school all day!

Here she is when we were at the Uptown Shopping Center and they had a cute "hand" chair that she thought was so funny!~



And here she is at our Pre-School Field trip to the apple orchard. She thought it was so magical to pick the apples right off the tree!



And they had a really nice swingset/tree house that she made me climb up into with her!


If you couldn't tell, Carly got her hair cut short! I insisted on it and she was not happy about it at all. To this day, she still laments about how she misses her long hair. I feel bad about it. I didnt think she'd be quite that tramatized--but I have promised her that it will grow.

Cute kids

Brad and Blake were being so goofy the other day. They are such fun boys.

Family Pictures

We went last Saturday to Howard Amon Park in Richland and had our family pictures taken. I thought it was great because this time it was actually Craig's idea. He not only mentioned that we needed to get new family pictures but he kept asking me if I had called and made an appointment. Our friend in the ward, Sam Vega, took our pictures again. He's done most of our Christmas card pictures for the past several years (wait till you see this year's--he did great!) and he did a super job again for us on these. Hope you enjoy!

Carter's Soccer Team

Carter started playing soccer this year and absolutely loves it. His team got free matching sweatshirts from a local sponsor. They had a lot of fun playing together. He'll be on the same team next spring.

Homecoming 2008

Alyse and Joe had a great time going to the Homecoming Dance this year. They are both on Exec Council this year, which was in charge of the dance, so they were decorating early Saturday morning. But they cleaned up nice. They went with the entire Exec Council and their dates. We took pictures of them down at Howard Amon park on the main dock. Don't they look great?