Cub Scouts

Will loves cub scouts. I love cub scouts. The brothers love cub scouts. Will is really into certifying in the different areas in his book to pass of as much stuff as possible. I wonder where he gets that from!

Last Wednesday was another pack meeting and will received 4 more belt loops. He has a total of 10 so far. There is a cub scout activity later this month where he will have a chance to get 9 more. He is so jazzed about that!

This month the cub scouts theme is games. They opened with a fun game. There were several different size bowls-cups and the boys had to throw bean bags into them.

Here is Will with his scout mater, brother Bryce, receiving some of his belt loops.

Will had to show the other cubs how he certified in some of the areas. One was physical fitness and Will had to do 10 push-ups.

After the boys got into teams and one was blind-folder while the other gave directions without touching his partner. They had to slowly and carefully navigate through the maze.

The little brothers all love cub scouts and cant wait to be old enough to attend as participants. This summer one of the camps the boys will be attending is cub scout camp where Will, Jackson and Tyler will all be able to go! I haven't told them yet! They will be very excited though.

Mud anyone??

The other day we had a friend of Gavin's over, Rock. The two boys were playing nicely outside while Rock's mom and I chatted it up inside. A few minutes later Will goes out and joins then. That's nice of him I first thought. Then, after a few minutes I look outside and this is what was happening!!

It first seemed to start out with making mud and playing in a little pile of dirt. Then it escalated to making mud balls and not only throwing them all the cement wall, but at each other. What fun! When I went out there to access the damages the boys pretended to throw mud at me. After convincing Will it would be detrimental to his health if that happened they chose to throw them at each other instead!

The boys made a complete and utter mess of my newly cleaned back yard, but they sure had fun doing it. Thanks Will for the great idea by the way!

After they were done having their fun, or rather after I was ready for it to be over, I pulled out the hose had them all stripe down to their choners and sprayed them off. After most of the mud was off they ran in the house to take a nice warm shower.

I have gone out there 3 different times to clean it up and still looks like a battle zone.

Boys will be boys!

100th celebrations

On Monday at the boys school was 100th day of school. All week long they have had a fun theme to make this week extra special. Monday was Crazy Hair Day. This is how the boys looked.

Will wanted spiky hair.

Jackson wanted a Mohawk.

Tyler wanted a Mohawk too, but his hair was a little too long and a little too think for that. So spiky like Will was second best.

Tuesday was Crazy Hat day. Will sported his Disneyland hat with the ears. Jackson wore his black cowboy hat and Tyler wore the red cowboy hat.

Wednesday was Mix Match Shoe day. The had a lot of fun with this but all three of them noticed their feet felt a little weird.

Thursday was Sports day wear they could wear a jersey or a shirt of their favorite team.

Friday is Pajama day! I kept Gavin's and Brigham's PJ's on and were heading

to the school in a little bit to celebrate with the rest of the school.

Potty Trainning...Still

Sweet Gavin is having a harder time than the other boys with potty training. He will turn 3 years old on February the 11th and is not totally there yet. He's about 50%. I've tried everything, but he seems to be taking his own sweet time with things.

Anyways, the other day I let him put his big boy underwear on. And this is what he looked like!

Silly boy put those undies on backwards. I was laughing when Gavin first walked out, and started looking at me funny asking me what was so funny. That made it even cuter that he had NO idea his undies were going up his cute little cheek!

TEN years baby!!

I am happy to report that Scott and I have completed the first decade of our relationship. There are many, many more to come, but we are thrilled to announce we've been married for TEN whole years. YEAH!!

Last night Scott said he had a present he wanted to give me a little early. SWEET! Just like Christmas eve! It was a DVD movie of TWILIGHT!!!!!! (thanks Jill!!) So last night we watched Twilight again. I plan on watching it again this afternoon too. It is such a great movie! A perfect gift for me too!

Today is also the 100Th day of school at the boys school. They all had to bring 100 of something. Each day this week is a theme. Today is wacky hair day. Jack wanted a mohawk, and Will and Tyler wanted spiky hair. This afternoon there will be a school wide activity that we are planning on attending. So, Gavin will have a mohawk and I will do something wacky with my hair.

This evening after FHE we're all heading out to dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant, El Rico's. (The place where when you buy an adult entree you get TWO kids meals for FREE!!)

Scotty, I love ya like butta baby! Your the best husband for me and a wonderful dad to our little family. It hasn't been much of roller coaster ride with us, thank goodness. More like a never-ending day at Disneyland. And someday I'll even change my last name to match yours! :)

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!

The Name Game

Here is a cute name game I found on my friends blog. Thanks Deanna for a cute idea!!

1. Your real name:
Lori Anne Nielsen

2. Your gansta name: (first three letters of real name plus izzle)
Lorizzle

3. Your detective name: (favorite color and animal)
Pink Puppy

4. Your soap opera name: (middle name and current street)
Anne Trent

5. Your Star Wars name: (first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name, first 3 letters of your moms maiden name)
NieLoNie

6. Your Super hero name: (2nd favorite color and favorite drink)
Yellow Lemonade

7. Your witness protection name: (mother's middle name and fathers middle name)
Dee S.D.

8. Your goth name: (black and a name of one of your pets)
Black Taffy



A little silly, but fun. #7 makes me laugh!

The LGN diet

Have you heard of this before?

The LGN diet?

I first heard about it on my mission in Spokane. Some of the sisters joked about being on the LDN diet because soon they would be home and getting married.

The LGN diet stands for the Look Good Naked diet! :)

That's so funny! But true. I think every girl in the back of her mind wants to be on or tries to be on the LGN diet.

Book Fair

Being the PTO president at my kids school, which is a lot of fun but very time consuming, I head the Scholastic book fair. Ours is coming up in 3 weeks or so. The theme is "Reading Makes you a Star". Hollywood, glamour, lights...We have a kick-off in the evening where we will serve free popcorn. We are planning cute little crafts like decorating your own academy award, painting your hands to make a hand-print like on the Hollywood walk of fame. Also I have printed out a 8x10 piece of paper that looks like a movie reel. Each child can draw their favorite scene from any movie they choose.

The Book fair will be open during the next week before school and right after school to get as much foot traffic as possible. For every $20 a person buys in books, they can pop a balloon on the popcorn wall for free prizes. There will also be a jar to guess how many kernels of popcorn are in a jar. Winner gets to choose any book from the fair. Each classroom is decorating their door from their favorite scene in a movie and there will be 1st, 2nd and 3rd place prizes for that.
On Wednesday night we will be having "Movie Night". We are planning on showing "Alvin and the Chipmunks" and serve pizza, drinks, popcorn and snacks.

Can you think of any other activities, decorations, games, or whatever else I can do to make this event better??

Chips, my favorite snack!

I love, love, love chips. Usually BBQ, sometimes sour cream and onion or Ruffles low fat. But I found the most delicious, most yummy potato chip a couple months ago.

Ruffles thick cut cheddar baked potato. Oh my! YUMMY!

Well, I was so thrilled to find a yummy new chip. Then last week I was out shopping and couldn't' find them, anywhere! I went to Target, Wal-mart, Albertson's, Fry's, Bashes, and Safeway. :( Sniff, sniff.

With these chips on my mind and not having the ability to purchase them I started going a little crazy. I asked my mom is Cali to go hunt some down. Nothing. I asked my cousin in Utah. Nothing. I special ordered them at a few grocery stores. Scott searched on-line at Ruffles.com and found the closet store for me to buy the most YUMMY chips on the planet. North Phoenix. Over an hour away! Ah, suck-a-mongas!

If you ever see these MOST DELICIOUS chips buy 2 bags. One for me and one for you! :)

Yes, we're staying!!

Well, we have decided to stay in Mesa for another couple years. Most of you know I feel about living here. I was hoping to start packing up the house this month so we could move right after the boys finish school in May. It's just too hot here for me. I love everything else. I love how new all the stores are. I love that everything is clean, no graffiti, no homeless, no gangs. We love being outside, we love playing in water. But 115 is just TOO hot for us. And like right now, it's been in the 70's. I would rather it be much colder weather. I want to wear a long sleeve shirt, sweatshirt, snuggle up with a big 'ol goose down blanket, build a fire......I know the people in Connecticut or Montana would enjoy some nicer weather like we're having now.

Scott is in the middle of his rotations and has been offered a job at each one so far! At one of the office rotations the doctor offered Scott a job to open and run his new office! A great offer, but the ER is more his passion. Scott is so personable, so smart, so hard-working. Any of those hospitals/doctor's offices would be LUCKY to have him!

At Scott's first rotation a emergency room, he truly fell in love. He loves the action, the business, and the staff. They offered Scott a significant higher pay than what he would start at in SLC. Also, when working in the ER experience is preferred. So, we've decided to stay here in Mesa for another couple years. Scott can work at the ER to not only gain experience but we can pay off a lot of his school loans with the higher pay he's been offered.

Yummy, inexpensive food...

Yummy, inexpensive food...Verses yucky cheap food.

Why is it that you can get a meal from several dollar menus that are so disgusting lately? And they make it so easy with all the drive-thru's and commercials corrupting my child's head. It costs me more money to eat healthy and serve healthy meals for my family. Kinda ironic!

Well, on my pathetic budget we only go out very seldom. Here are some of our favorite YUMMY and inexpensive places. Subway Sandwich. We can buy 2 foot longs for 5 bucks each and that feeds my family. We do make it a meal and get two drinks to share and 2 bags of chips. Relativity healthy and at a good price.

Last week we were running late and Scott said let's go to Little Ceasar's pizza for their 5 buck take out. I didn't really understand what he meant b/c I haven't been there in so dang long. I remember their old slogan, "Pizza, Pizza". And it was ok at best. Well it was pretty good, not the best, but for 5 bucks each large... another good deal.

You can't forget about Taco Bell. We order that Grande Meal. 1 bean burrito, for me and the rest hard shell tacos for the boys. Scott usually orders something fancy, like a bowl or nachos. Probably not very healthy but great on the purse strings and yummy in the belly.

YC's is another favorite of ours. We've only been there 3 times but it's fun, yummy, healthy and cheap. All the food is raw and you choose meats and veggy's and shovel them into your bowl and they cook it on this large circular grill right in front of you! It comes with soup, a drink and dessert!

We also just recently found this great little Mexican restaurant (way down on Power Rd.) If you go on Monday nights, for every adult entree you order you get TWO FREE children's meals! And the meals come with drinks. They also serve you fresh homemade salsa and chips.

When you go out where do you go? (Not any nice fancy restaurant, something YUMMY and INEXPENSIVE!)

Divorce is CRAP!!

What's the deal with all this divorce crap happening more and more often? My good friend called me tonight and told me that her husband gave her divorce papers a couple days ago. WHAT? I had NO idea. She had NO idea. She is left with 4 kids and all the bills. I feel so bad for her. She has been married 9 whole years, and now it's over. I went to her house and talked with her about all this for about an hour. So sad, it makes my heart just break for her and her children.

On the drive home I was trying to think of how many people in my family have been touched by the painful experience of divorce. Surprisingly, only 2 family members have been through that ordeal. One of my cousins, who I see about once in 5 years has been divorced several times and then the other cousin (who's like my sister!)

I came home and walked over to Scott and we stood there and hugged for several wonderful minutes. I am so in love with him. I am so thankful for him. I will work even harder to make my marriage work. I want to be married for a VERY long time!

The Cleanse!

Many, many of my friends in Santa Barbara are doing or have completed the 10-day lemonade cleanse. I wanted to do it for a while but was unable to because I was nursing. I wanted to see if I had enough self control to go without food for so long. I also was very interested in having my insides cleaned out.
For those of you who don't know about it, here is a little more information about it. Your suppose to drink sea salt water (16 oz with 2 ts, salt water, in the morning. That is what makes everything get clean inside you. It's like a an exfoliation on your insides. Then all day long you drink lemonade ( water, lemons, organic maple syrup and cayenne pepper). You do this for 10-days (some do 7 some do 20 days).
Today is my 3rd day! YEAH! But, I can't keep the salt water drink down. Not even a tiny sip. And really, that's the whole point. So, I am not sure how much longer I will do this cleanse. I have lost 5 lbs. and have been doing surprisingly fine without food (except for last night I had a teeny tiny little something at our anniversary dinner with some sweet friends).
Have any of you done this cleanse before? Or something different?

Our NEW fence!!

We are planning on staying here on ASU East campus for a couple more years, and have always wanted a fence in my backyard to keep the kiddos from escaping across the street to the park. Papa was here visiting for a few days and so he and Scott worked on it. We also had another one of our good friends, Dwight, to help us.

It was a 2-day project. The boys dug 2 foot holes for the posts and then the next day built the rest of the fence plus a gate for it.

On Saturday the weather man said it was suppose to rain that night or on Sunday. So I went out and helped the boys paint the fence with redwood stain. It looks so nice.

The boys are all excited and Jackson asks me if now we can get a dog. I told him we already have a dog, his name is Gavin. "I mean a puppy, mom!" Then I explained to him we have a puppy too, his name is Brigham! "Mom!!! A REAL dog!" Maybe....

Finacial Pledge

I enjoy listening to Suze Orman, and yesterday she was on Oprah. (Thank goodness for Tivo!!) Any who, the discussion was on your finances and how to get out of debt, stay out of debt and other good practices for when you're an adult.

Her big plug at the end was this:

For ONE day do NOT spend any money
For ONE week do NOT use a credit card
For ONE month do NOT eat out at any restaurant

Now, I was taking notes until the end. The audience was oohing and awing over how difficult this would be. Really? I practice this all the time. This is EASY to do. This is how I live. Right? I don't mean do bag on Suze or Oprah, love them both, but come on.

Licorice anyone??

One of our family's favorite candy is licorice. We love it! We were all eating some the other day and I walked by Brig's and notice someone gave him a piece!

NEW TUNES!!!

I have update my play list to change up the new year on my blog. (The background too!) Right before Christmas I watched Mamma Mia and the boys sat and watched the entire movie with me. They would get up and dance around at every song. It was really fun. The next day I watched it again with Scotty. Over Christmas break in SLC we watched it 3 more times with everyone. (Granted, the actors don't have great voices. But, it's catchy tunes and fun music to boogy to!)
While Papa was visiting he bought us the DVD and we watched it 2 more times on Wednesday night. Right when it was over the kids jumped up and yelled "AGAIN, AGAIN!!". Will restarted it on the machine.
Randomly during the day the boys will start up and sing one of the songs. It's real cute.

So here to start off the new year is Mamma Mia!! Enjoy!

Best Life

Did any of you see Oprah yesterday?? I tivoed it and just finished watching it. I thought there was a lot of good information, but was anything really new? Of course you have to love yourself. Duh. Of course you have to make time for yourself. Duh. Of course you need to eat healthy and exercise. Duh. I guess it was all a good reminder of things. I love Oprah, I don;t mean to bag on her or her show. She is Fabulous! I did take a few notes from the show and plan on logging on the computer next Monday night to watch her on-line class. I do think Oprah has a lot of confidence in the fact that she puts herself out there so well. Maybe that's one of the reasons she struggles with her weight, to help the millions of views learn how to conquer their own weight issues.
Your thoughts??

Happy New Year and random things...

WOW! I can't believe it's already 2009. Life has been crazy busy these last few days. We were in SCL, UT for the holidays and now we're back and time hasn't been kind to us. We have been running around with our heads chopped off trying to get as much stuff done as possible while Scott doesn't have rotations and while Papa is here to help us out.

The big boys put up a fence in the back yard (Dwight too!! THANKS!) Then we all painted it. It was time consuming and hard. The boys are all excited about the fence. Jackson said, "now we can get a dog!". "We already have a dog, his name is Gavin, And we already have a puppy, his name is Brigham!" :) I explained to them. They laughed. They think I'm kidding! Papa put together Gavin's scooter and bike, which he is thrilled about.

We deep cleaned the house, went to the zoo, went through every ones closets and drawers, put down all the Christmas stuff, went to Home Depot for the craft, went to a fun park with a rock wall with good friends, planned the new songs I'll be teaching primary, patched up some small holes and doings in the walls, blah, blah, blah.

I've had some ideas of new years resolutions in my head, but literally haven't had time to write them down. I will get that done this week and keep you posted.

I am excited for the boys to go back to school, but I will miss planning fun activities that we have been doing. It will be nice to get back to a normal schedule, but it has been fun running around doing different kinds of activities.

This is going to be a GREAT year. Here are some of the upcoming highlights!!
Gavin will turn THREE years old!
Brigham will turn ONE!!
Scott will graduate from the PA program.
Jackson will be baptized.
Will will be in the double digits in age.
I will hopefully be pregnant.
get our first family pet, other than my children.

Maybe some other fun and exciting things I can't even imagine or guess right now, we'll see!!