I love Mothers!

May has been busy as usual and so I'm behind on my blog posting but I didn't want to forget to pay tribute to my mom. Stay tuned for more May happenings, luckily summer is right around the corner.  2 more weeks till school's out and I can't wait!

My mom is one of my best friends along with my sisters.  I am so lucky to have so many amazing women in my life who are always there for me and are such great examples to me.  My mom is one of the most kind and considerate persons I know.  She is always willing to drop anything if I need her, which sometimes I take full advantage of.  There have been a few times when I have been sick and she has taken time off work to come and take care of me even though I am a capable adult, sometimes you just need your mommy.  Not to mention many late night conversations as she lets me vent about all of the happenings in my life, I mean really who cares about all of the drama of my job and social life, well at least my mom does.  She has such a fun and bubbly personality and is a great friend to all.  

It was so nice to be able to spend mother's day with my mom, both of my grandma's and my sister Mandy.  My Grandma's are also amazing women, whom I have always looked up to, I am so grateful that they are both still around and that I get to spend time with them every once in a while. 

My mom knew that I would be coming to Logan in the afternoon for dinner but I decided to surprise her and made it in time to go to church with her, which started at 9:00 am which meant I left Salt Lake around 7:30.  Those of you who know me well know that I rarely wake up on a Sunday before 10. (Hey my church is at 1:00 so I take full advantage of a nice sleep in day.)  The look on both of my parents face as I walked into Sacrament was great, it made the early morning drive to Logan worth it. I was surprised that my parents were actually at church on time:) I stopped by the house first and they had already left. It was also nice to be able to enjoy sunday school and relief society with my Grandma Reese, who was spending the weekend at my mom's.  

We enjoyed a nice brunch at the Logan Country Club and it was such a beautiful day.  I hope that all of you amazing mothers out there had a nice relaxing day.

Happy Birthday Jessica

Happy birthday to my oldest and wisest sister Jessica.  She is one of my best friends! She also takes good care of me, I claim that she is my mom in Salt Lake. She always gives great advice and is a great listener as she will let me ramble on for hours to her sometimes.  Mike was out of town on business today so I decided she needed some quality girl time with me.  So Kara watched her kids and I took her to get a pedicure and manicure.  We then met the rest of our family for dinner in Bountiful at the Mandarin, which is very tasty.  It has become a family favorite recently.  It also makes it easier to meet up with the family coming down from Logan.  

Jessica's family will be moving to Colorado Springs the end of July as Mike was offered a great job that they couldn't pass up.  I seriously don't know what I'm going to do without them around. It is because of Jessica that I moved to Salt Lake in the first place.  She convinced me to come live with them and do my student teaching many years ago. Luckily it worked out and I was offered a job at the same school a year later.  I told her she can't move because who will watch her kids.  Unfortunately it wasn't a selling point.  Although I am excited for them and know it will be great for their family, I can't help but be very sad.  She is the first one to move more than an hour 1/2 drive away from the rest of the family, I knew it was bound to happen sooner or later but that doesn't make it easier, we are all very close, probably too close if you ask some of my brother-in-laws.   I know that many of you can relate to living far away from family.  Luckily Colorado Springs is only about an 8 hour drive away (I looked it up right after I found out) so it might be possible to make some weekend visits every once in a while.  

(The pictures above are from Taegan's blessing and Griffin's baptism that took place the end of January)

Wicked

On April 30th I was able to see Wicked again and loved it.  I have seen it in New York and London and now right here in Salt Lake City.  It was every bit as good as the big cities.  I was so excited to be able to see it with my family, unfortunately my Mom and Kara ended up not going.  My Grandpa Reed passed away so my mom went to the viewing to be with my Grandma and Kara gave up her ticket since she saw it in Chicago recently. It was really fun to have Raegan and Terry join us though, they had tickets for Friday but sold them and took my Mom and Kara's so they could go to the funeral on Friday.  We went to dinner at Market Street Grill before the show which was delicious.  I don't really like fish but I ordered the halibut anyway and loved it.  It was also fun to have my Aunt Vicky come with us.  I don't get to see her enough, even though we both live in Salt Lake.  I used to see her a lot more when her kids were at Highland and I was there teacher.

Ramsey barely snuck in the picture and we are missing Ashley and Vicky in the photo. When I asked my dad if he liked the show he made a negative comment and then said he could have had 30 acres of hay (or some crop) planted. Typical of a farmer this busy time of year.  I guess he does have to take advantage of any nice spring day when it hasn't been raining.  Oh well, I know my mom would have loved it.  He just might have to see it again with her. 

Happy Birthday Chloe

Sunday April 26th was my niece Chloe's 3rd birthday so I headed to Logan for a fun birthday party at her house.  We are definitely upon birthday season in the Nielsen family.  It seems like there is almost a birthday each week starting with my birthday until the end of May.  So prepare yourself for future posts. Chloe is absolutely adorable.  Although she is only 3 she is the little bully in the family and loves to pick on her older cousins, especially Taya.  It seems like when one of the other girls is crying it's because Chloe did something.  She is quick to say I'm sorry and then moves on like it was no big deal.  It seems like if anything is broken Chloe also gets the blame, we joke that she doesn't know the meaning of soft. Poor little Chloe.  At least she knows how to hold her own.  Chloe is a stubborn little 3 year old but we all love her nonetheless. I sometimes can't figure out how she belongs to Mandy who is my sweetest and nicest sister.     

 

I couldn't resist taking this picture of Ella sleeping on our car ride up to Logan.  Notice that Ella and Griffin both already have headphones on listening to their ipods.  It's just like all of my high school students. What will they be like as teenagers I wonder?  

Cute sisters in matching butterfly dresses.

I love watching my grandparents interact with all of their great-grandchildren.  They have more great-grandchildren than grandchildren now and I am always so impressed with how well they know each one of them,  even the ones they rarely get to see. They both have great memories.  They truly are such amazing grandparents and are very supportive of all of us.  It's tough watching them age, but they are still very active for their age and in pretty great health.  This is a cute picture of my grandpa holding Tyce.  Kara thinks that Tyce has my grandpa's large lower lip.  

Mandy made Chloe a cute butterfly cake.

Girls Weekend in Park City

I love being able to celebrate my birthday during the entire month of April.  Last weekend I went to Park City with the greatest group of girls.  Three of us have birthdays in April so our awesome friend Kimi planned a fun weekend in Park City.

The night began at the Hapa Grill where we enjoyed Sushi and Utah's Best Hamburgers (it's been voted on), if you ask me that's a random combination but it was delicious.  As you might imagine a night out with 8 awesome single girls could get a little crazy.   

We bet Haylie $25 to eat a heaping spoonful of ketchup (she hates ketchup by the way and just the smell of it makes her ill).  She handled it like a champ!

We had a pretty cute waiter so we decided to leave him an extra tip by giving him all of our numbers.  Lucky guy, how many guys out there can get 8 numbers in a night without even asking for them!  That started a chain of events that was hilarious.  Needless to say I felt like I was 14 again.  

 

Next stop was to our favorite Cold Stone in Park City.  We came to this Cold Stone hoping to find our buddies again who sang aggressive heavy metal to us last time we were in Park City for Sundance.  Just our luck they were working.  They not only gave us a sampling of some delicious Ice Cream but also another sampling of aggressive heavy metal.  There group name is Devil Dethroned. 'nuff said.  Check them out next time you're in PC, it is entertaining to say the least.  My favorite comment was from another customer in the store who asked if there mother had heard them sing. Or should I say scream.  

We then headed to the condo we had rented for the night for more fun.  You know, the stuff girls typically do at a sleepover, pillow fights, manicures, facials, boy talk, etc. Just Kidding we did none of those things, ok maybe only one of those things. 

Here are the 3 birthday girls: Kelli, Jessie, and myself.

So at about 3 am Kelli realized she forgot her toothbrush which warranted a trip to the gas station in the middle of the night. You know there are bound to be some crazy stories from going to a a gas station at 3 am. Unfortunately, I can't mention them on my blog.  I've been sworn to secrecy.  The snow was coming down pretty hard, gotta love the unpredictable spring weather in Utah.  As we pulled up to the gas station the lady working was sitting out in her car smoking.  I really wish I had taken a picture of her, she was classic.  She looked about 90 even though I am sure she is in her late 50's.  Her face was so wrinkled and sunken in, not to mention she had no teeth.  I guess that's what you get when you smoke a couple packs a day. Alli does a great impression of her.  She gave us some pretty crazy advice. I think we gave her the wrong impression about us, I can't imagine how that happened:)

  

I always love a night out with the ladies!  Thanks Kimbi for arranging it! 

Great memories were made.

  Oh I also need to give another shout out to Kimbi.  On one of my previous posts about my birthday party that Kelli had thrown for me I forgot to mention that Kimi also helped bake all of those wonderful cupcakes.  Unfortunately she chose Brittney Spears over me that night so I forgot to thank her for all her hard work.  I'm so grateful for some really awesome friends.  

"Eggs"iting Easter

It has taken me awhile to finish my Easter post because I had so many fun pictures.  So forgive me for the long post but it was a fun filled day!

Easter is one of my favorite holidays.  I love our families Easter traditions.  I was sad that I missed out on the annual egg coloring on Friday night because I was down in Provo buying a new car.  I headed to my parents early Saturday morning so I didn't miss out on any of the other festivities.  I love helping hide the eggs and even more I love helping my nieces and nephews find them.  I asked all of my nieces and nephews who wanted me to help them because I am so good at it and Ella was the first to raise her hand.  Chloe also wanted to ditch her mom and have me help her, have I mentioned before that I am the coolest Aunt:).  

  

Here's the crew waiting so patiently for the hunt to begin!

I love this picture of Ella pointing out the egg in the tree, we made a great egg hunting team.  Her basket was so full the handle broke.

I asked Chloe why she was laying down and she said she needed to take a little rest.  This egg hunting was hard work for her!

This picture is classic.  Tyce already knows how to torture his big sister.

After the egg hunt at my parents we always head up to Utah State to roll eggs down Old Main and have a picnic on the hill.  

Kara made my egg for me this year, hence the Mo-stink.  It survived a trip or two down the hill.

It's always fun having JoAnn, Jenna, and Kristie with us, too bad more of the family doesn't come up anymore.

  

I love the view of Cache Valley from Old Main.

We also had a little birthday party for Tyce on Old Main.  He turned 1 and it was really fun to watch him devour his cake.  Probably one of the best one year old cake eating frenzies that I've seen. Great job on the cake decorating Kara and Mike.

After we left Old Main we went over to visit Grandma and Grandpa it was fun to spend some time with them.  I really need to go visit them more often.  I miss the good old days of hanging out at Grandma and Grandpa's with all of my cousins.  It's hard to do that now that everyone's families are getting so big and we each do our own celebrations.

  

I really wanted to go bowling on my birthday but it didn't work out so we moved it to Saturday.  It was a great way to end our fun day of Easter activities. Jenna pretty much beat all of us (Mike was just a few ahead of her), I think she bowled a 132 or something.  Way to go Jenna!  I had a terrible game.  I guess that's what I get for bragging about my mad bowling skills. My nieces showed me up.  I'd like to say that my broken back may have impaired my bowling form, at least it sounds like a good excuse.  How else can I explain losing to a 4 and 5 year old:) 

Taya and Tyce in their cute Easter get up on Sunday

Me, my mom, and Taya decked out in our pink for Easter Sunday, Kara apparently didn't get the memo.

I walked into the room where Tyce was taking a nap and this is how I found him sleeping in the pack and play.  How can a kid sleep like that? A couple days later I caught him sleeping in the same position. 

Grandma and Grandpa came over to my parents for Easter dinner.  Grandma was helping make deviled eggs but Taya was having a really hard time letting all of her pretty eggs go.  She was pretty emotional about it.  She would not let us roll them down Old Main the day before and if you touched one of her pretty eggs she would freak out.  She gets pretty bossy sometimes. Kara made a compromise with her that they could take a picture of her favorite ones.  She had a lot of favorites! I can't figure out why Kara wouldn't let Taya keep just a couple:)