Christmas 2008

I can't believe it is all over. I love this time of year, and I can't believe that Christmas has come and gone. Our Christmas was very busy but so fun! We started on Christmas eve at a party in Levan with the mangelson side of our family. Then we headed out to Mona to spend some time with Brett's parents, sister, brother, and their families. The kids decorated cookies for Santa. Except Madison said her cookie was for the Mrs. Bonus!!! Then we went home the kids fell asleep on the way so we didn't have to talk any one in to going to sleep. Brett and I thought that we were going to be able to go to sleep early, but it took Santa until 2:00 a.m. to finish putting together the country Kitchen. Christmas morning both of our kids were sound asleep and I couldn't wait any longer so I waited until my parents, brother, and grandpa got to our house at 6:30 and woke them up. We opened our presents and relaxed for a min before we headed off to Brett's parents for skinny man pancakes at 10:00. Then we were off to my parents for lunch and our family party at 1:00. Next we were off to Spanish fork by 5:00 for Brett's Grandma Nelson's party. It seemed like we were eating all day. Christmas day was full of parties and we all had great day. Friday we went up north to exchange a gift I had given Brett. Friday night Brett family got together for the Woodland party. We had a great time visiting, eating, and of course opening presents. Our Christmas finale was on Saturday. We got together with my Grandpa Jones for his party. We talked played games and of course ate more food. We had a awesome Christmas! We were able to see most of our family members and friends. The ones we didn't see we were able to talk to on the phone. We are so grateful for all that we have. We both have great families. We are so grateful for all of them. Thank you all so so much for all of the presents that you gave to us. We hope you all had a great Christmas an soon a happy a New Year.

Christmas 2008

Our Thanksgiving

Our Thanksgiving started out by making Pumpkin pie. Madison did most of it with a little bit of my help. On Thursday we went to levan to my grandma Mangelson's house. The food was awesome as usual. Then for the rest of the weekend we put Christmas lights on the house, went to visit Santa, and ended a great weekend at the light parade. We are so thankful for so many things. This is a great time of year.

It has been a while!!!!

It has been a while since I have posted anything. I posted some of the fun things we have done in the month of October. I hope you enjoy. Just a side note, My brother- in- law Jeff started his treatments for his bone marrow transplant yesterday. Kathryn has set up a blog for him so that we could keep up on how he is doing. For those of you who have been wondering how he has been doing you can check it out from my blog.

My cute Mickey and Minnie Mouse. Thanks to my sister Monica we had two adorable kids on Halloween. The kids had a fun night. We went to trunk or treat and then to visit all the Grandparents. We didn't get allot of candy but that is OK because Madison doesn't eat it and I do ,so the least amount of candy we have the better.

Family Night With the Parks

We went up to Josh and Diana's for family night the Monday before Halloween and carved pumpkin's and ate dinner. Thanks to Diana We had a really fun night.

Fall

We have allot of trees in our yard so that means we have allot of leaves. We had about 7 piles of leaves in the back yard so the kids thought it would be fun to play in them. It actually took Andrew a while to start having fun. He wasn't sure about it at first. Madison on the other hand loved it. She was out there for a couple of hours.

Deer Hunt Shopping Trip

Every year during the deer hunt we go shopping with Brett's Mom 's side of the family. Grandma Nelson gets a hotel room for all of us and we usually start the weekend with a fun craft. This year we made cards, ear rings, and some very cute hair bows or flowers for the little girls. We also went swimming and ate pizza that night. Then the next morning we were off to do some shopping. Poor Andrew was the only Boy . I have already made arrangement's for him to go with the boy's next year:) I had a really good time with everyone. They are all so good to me and my Kids. I made it through the weekend with only one really bad temper tantrum ,and only lost my credit card once:)

Old Green!!!

Sometimes all it takes is a green truck to make me realize what I have is enough. So it has now been three weeks since my car has been out of order. The car is in Levan and the transmission is in Provo. For a while I felt pretty sorry for myself. I wanted to cry out loud every time I loaded the kids in it. It would take me ten minutes longer to get Madi to school. If it wasn't warmed up enough I would have to stop and start again 2 or 3 times just going down main street. Thank goodness we live in Nephi! It is really loud, I felt Like I grabbed everyones attention when I came trucking it down the road. So basically I need to get over my self. Well I was wishing out loud that I could drive the car again, when Madi looked at me and said "Mom stop complaining we have so many memories in this truck." She loves that "green truck". She loves to hear the stories about how Brett first got my attention by asking me if I wanted to go check out his truck, and then taking me for a long ride, or how when I was pregnant with her he took me for a really bumpy ride in the "green truck" to try to get her to join us. (it didn't work) I then started looking at things a little different, and things didn't seem so bad. Then on Saturday when Elder Worthlin was giving his talk it seemed like he was talking right to me. I realize that I have to drive a truck that is more inconvenient to drive than my car, but at least I have something to drive. I am going to take his advice and just laugh. If this is all I have to worry about then I am pretty darn lucky.

Red Barn!!

Today I went with Madison's class to the Red Barn in Santaquin. It was really hot but allot of fun. We went for a wagon ride, and walked through the pumpkin patch. The Kids chose one pumpkin for the class room. Then we went back to the Barn and they gave us doughnuts. Madison was mostly excited because we got to ride in the school bus. She thought that was awesome. The other kids in the pictures are Jerico and Kassidy.

Happy Birthday Brett!!

It was Brett's Birthday on Sunday and he is now the big 29. He is growing up so fast:) We had a Birthday Party on Saturday night with Brett's family. We also celebrated Suzanne and Alan's Birthdays as well. On Sunday we had dinner at home (we are usually at Brett's parents) and then we towed our broken car out to Levan. My Grandpa has a shop with the tools we needed to fix the car. Brett and Lamar started to work on it and found that they needed a tool that my Grandpa didn't have. So We went home and had Birthday Cake (pumpkin pie, Brett's favorite). We love Brett so much. He is a great Person and I don't know what I would do with out him. I hope that he had a good day.

Mini Cheer and Uncle Casey "The best day of her whole life."

WELCOME HOME UNCLE CASEY!!!!

WELCOME HOME UNCLE CASEY!!!!

WELCOME HOME UNCLE CASEY!!!!

He is finally home. It seems like this past week took forever to get over. He flew into Utah yesterday at 1:59. This was a pretty exciting day for all of us. After the plain landed it took him about a half hour to get to us. It seemed like 12 hours. Everytime my mom would would see someone in a white shirt or a suit coat she would get all excited and say out loud OH! It was really fun to watch my parents they were both so so excited. He looks really good. Everyone keeps telling him he looks skinny. He seems really shy. But like always he had a big smile on his face. The kids love him. I am sure he wants a little space. Madison doesn't want to leave his side. She did Mini Cheer last night at the football game and she couldn't wait until he got there to watch her. As far as Andrew he is not sure who Casey is and Casey is not sure who Andrew is. They will have plenty of time to get to know each other. We missed him allot while he was gone, but we know he was doing the Lord Work. We are so proud of him ,and so excited he is home!!!!!
I didn't get very good pictures. I Will have to get some better ones from my sisters.

First day of Kindergarten!!

I can't believe that Madison is in Kindergarten. It makes me feel old. Madison was so excited for today. She started asking 7 days ago(about every hour) how many more days until school starts. It is finally here! We went to back to school night last night and talked to her teacher. Her teacher is Mrs. Lepien. Madison thinks she is really cool. Brett's mom also came by last night and gave her a pillow case so she could get a good nights rest and a book called "The night before Kindergarten". That got her really excited. She went to bed early. (those of you that know her that never happens) then she woke up at 1:30 and asked if it was time to go. I told her no and to go back to bed. She started back to her bed and turned back around and asked if it was still OK if she wore her butterfly shirt. She had no problem getting up this morning at 6 am. Thank goodness school started at 8:00. She was not nervous at all. She told me she would be fine and she would see me after school. When I went to pick her up the first thing she said was KINDERGARTEN IS SO FUN!! She has lots of Friends in her class. I am sure this will be a great year for her.

Brett was telling Madison last night when we were at back to school night that both her mom and dad went to that same school and room when we were her age. She thought that it was so cool. She has been really interested in what Brett was telling her so today she asked me what we looked like when we were in kindergarten. So I went to Brett's mom's house and My mom's house and pulled out the old Pictures. It was quite funny to see her reaction when she saw my picture. She looked at it and said WOW! with big eyes and then laughed. With Brett's picture she said he looks really young.:) I thought I would give you all a laugh and post the pictures. Enjoy!!

Every year Brett's work takes us to the Zoo. We have dinner and then we can hang out until we want to go home. It is something Madi looks forward to all year. The first picture is of Madison with the spider monkey's. When we go to the Zoo that is the first place she wants to go. Brett always is telling her she better watch out or he will come after her like a spider monkey. Well the first time we took her to the zoo we were walking by the monkeys and she said look dad a spider monkey. We laughed at her thinking she didn't know what a spider monkey was, but sure enough the sign next to the fence said spider monkey's. Kids are smarter than we think. The other pictures are of the rest of our time at the zoo.

We try to get together with Josh and Diana once a month for family night. The last couple of months we have gone up Santaquin Canyon. It is so fun for my kids to see Payton and Austin. Madison gets so Excited. We are grateful to have such great friends. The first picture is Andrew eating his daily dose of dirt. Second picture is Madison and Payton giving us there best pose. Third Picture is of the four kids.