Farewell to the Thompson's!!!

Our good, Stephanie, planned and hosted a wonderful goodbye party for us. We had a ton of people come out and it was a lot of fun! There were a ton of food and we all had a good time!

Even cute baby Nathan had a good time!

These boys, Michael and Gerald, have been so good to my boys. They are wonderful examples and taught my boys a lot. They would often be out at the park playing football, baseball, riding bikes or playing basketball with my boys and other neighbor children. THANK YOU for the wonderful memories my boys will have!

Jenn, the crazy party animal, myself, and Stephanie, the queen of party planning.

Two other wonderful, fun friends. Shalene and Brittney.

Look at all that awesome food!!

Aaron, Stephanie's cool husband, helped bbq the burgers and dogs.

THANK you everyone for coming to the bbq. Thanks for the friendship, love and service you all have shown my family. We made a ton of wonderful memories and you will not be forgotten!

GOODBYE!!!!

What's in a name?

Ok, so most of you already know my last name is Nielsen. If you call me Thompson, I'll respond, but if you ask me, I always say Nielsen. Here is why...My mom, brother and I are the LAST NIELSEN's in our family line. My gram and grandpa had 4 girls, all of which changed their names when they got married. Except, my mom who never married. (Well, she did but that's another story...) Thompson is a good name, great actually. Nothing wrong with it, I just chose not to change right when I got married to Scott. But always said I would later on. And by the way, he doesn't really care what my last name is and would be fine either way. I know deep down he'd prefer that I change my name, but has never asked me to do it. I sure love that man! Anyways, when we first moved to Arizona I thought then would be a good time to change my name, if that's what I wanted to do. I waited, and waited and chose to keep Nielsen. Now, I have another opportunity with our big family move to Utah. Should I change my name or not? I still go back and forth and right when I think I have decided, I changed my mind yet again.
I love the name Nielsen. It's who I am, it's my heritage. But, the responsibility should lie with my older brother William. You would think. Not sure he's ever going to get married though. It's so hard to date while you're in and out of prison! :)
It has been a little awkward having a different name though. Teachers have thought I was a step mom or me and Scott aren't married..I do NOT like that at all. My boys don't ask why my last name is different, they just know my name is Lori Anne Nielsen. I have told them that when people get married the woman usually and should change her name to the last name of her new husbands.

So, what do YOU think I should do??? Thoughts? Suggestions?

Scrumptious

Scrumptious is the new word of the week...I knew right off the bat I wanted a picture with one of my boys in it. I really wanted a close-up shot of Nathan and some chubbiness. But, he has no rolls on him. Bummer for no chunkiness!! He is so tall and thin. So I went with the next best thing, Brigham eating something sticky, messy and yummy. I wanted to get a big chocolate cupcake with extra frosting on it and hand it over to him. But, the other day my mom pulls out the suckers she bought for all the boys from our little trip to Disneyland. Right when Brigham started eating it I knew I could get a great shot of him! There were several I liked (like the one below where he's smiling with his big dimples) But I chose to go with the shot with the sucker in his mouth. Just scrumptious, don't cha think?!

"Commitment"

Ladies! I need YOUR help! Which picture looks more like the word "commitment"?
3 of my friends and I are doing this fun and very creative picture thing, a photog. Where we choose a word for the week and take a picture of what it means to us. In other words a quadtych project. We will be selecting a weekly theme via a random pick of words we all submitted to our leader, Teresa. We all send her our picture then she will combine our four perspectives of that theme into a quadtych. I am so lucky to be working together with such amazing women with this project and making lasting fun memories. Teresa found the great idea from Madeline Bea.

I first thought of the word "commitment" meaning a relationship, a marriage. I wanted to do a close-up of Scott's and my hands with our fingers intertwined together with a neat rock or stone background...But I couldn't take that photo. Then I thought of my boys committed to climb that tree or rock wall. They were at school so I started to search for another idea of inspiration. I was thinking it would be neat to have a close-up shot of dry dirt with a little green baby plant poking through. Well, it's too late in the season in Arizona for a shot like that. Then it hit me, a pregnant lady. A real pregnant lady, due any time.

So what do you think? I need you vote!!

Do you like the first one...with the shadow or the other one with the hands on the back????

Craft Night

Yet another FUN craft night! This time is was located at my house and besides eating snacks and drinking soda I made everyone green shakes. YUMMY! Well, some of them were! I started out and made Oprah's "Green Fresh" as she and Dr. Oz call it. That is potent stuff! I made 3 or 4 other flavors using cabbage, spinach, kale, ginger root and random fruits. I don't have any recipes, I just toss in a little of this and a little of that.
Stephanie and I made these wrap cover-up's for summertime. How fun! Super easy to make too...

Here is silly Tiff after gulping down one of the better tasting shakes...

Here are some more flower headbands I made. Super easy and fun!

It's sure been wonderful to have a group of friends that meet once a week to hang out with, craft with, chat with and laugh. I will miss each one of you fine ladies. Thank you for being there and teaching me some fun crafts!

Happy Mother's Day!

This Mother's day I was in Santa Barbara, but it was fine because I celebrated Mother's Day for a second time when I returned home two days later. Early Sunday morning Scott called to I could hear Will, Jackson and Tyler sing a couple of songs for sacrament meeting in Mesa. A little while later Scott called again so I could hear Tyler give a talk in primary in Mesa. I subbed as the primary chorister while visiting and it was fun being with all the kids. Gavin made this cute bag filled with tissue paper and there was a small bottle of lotion inside. He also stood on stage and sang the Mother's Day song for sacrament.
Above is Will's letter to me, Tyler's talk and picture and Gavin's picture. He drew him and me..can you tell? :)

Scott ordered me these three books, all from a author I know! I can't wait to dive into those! (We read the children's book, "Grasshopper Pie", which was real cute. Her 14 year old daughter is the illustrate of that book! How fun!
Here is something else Tyler made for me, an adorable stat chart about me...Pretty funny if you can see it! ("youta= Utah, Tackos= tacos)

Jackson wrote up a cartoon word strip and made me a key chain and this door handle thingy. By the way, he goes by Jet now at school. (Jackson Evan Thompson)

Tyler made this at school for me...

THANK YOU all sweet boys and hubby!

I hope awesome, hard-working, fun, hot mama's had a wonderful Mother's Day too! We sacrifice a lot, but man it's sure worth it!

Airplane Ride!

I flew from the Phoenix airport straight into Santa Barbara. It was a little over an hour flight, easy! I had Brig's and Nathan the way there and like always, I got a lot of looks. Three people said I was daring bringing my tow kids on the plane with me. If they only knew how many kids I have...Hee, Hee!! For me it's not daring or really that hard. We travel lot and pack time wasters. My kids have gotten use to flights, and long car drives.

On the way home I had 3 boys, and you guessed it. Lot's and lots of stares. It wasn't bad at all. Gavin and Brig's sat next to each other and Nathan and I were on the other side of the aisle way. They each had backpacks with books, some toys and snacks.

By the end of the flight they looked like this! They were done! When they walked off the plane Scott was right there to help. They boys, especially Gavin, were thrilled to see Scott! (Hey you mom's that travel alone...Your spouse, friend or mom can get a pass to go with you all the way to the gate! That's handy with lots of kids and baggage!)

Fabric for 1 buck?!

There is a cute little town 30 minutes north of Santa Barbara called Solvang. It's a Dutch town with lots of yummy pastry shops. We heard about this store that sells fabric for $.99! There were rooms, and rooms of these huge bolts of fabric. Satin, chiffon, rayon, cotton, poly-blends.....It was awesome! Buttons 1 penny. Zippers 5 cents. You measure and cut your own material and take your stash to the front register and pay. I felt like I had yards and yards cut and my bill came to $28.00! That's it! Wild! I called some of my gals in Arizona and bought fabric for them too. It was so fun! This store is open only Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I'm already planning another trip there when I return to SB in a couple of weeks.

My good friend, Debbie, who told us about the material store. Hey, nice cleavage Deb!! :)

Nathan Hangin' out while we're putting away...

Above, one of the rooms. Below, another room...

There was another section of stretchy ribbon, buttons, flowers, belts, zippers....

We had a fun time! Thanks again Deb for the info!

Table Runner

While in Santa Barbara I had my mom pull out her old sewing machine. What a surprise that was! I loved using it. It weighs like 30lbs and is older than the hills, but runs so smooth. Aww, I loved it! I brought some projects to work on and only ended up working on one. (The weather was so nice I was outside most of my vacation!) Here is the table runner I was working on. Thank you V and Co. for this idea!! It's still not complete, but it's coming together very nicely!

My kitchen in Utah is a rooster theme with rich burgundy, forest green, chocolate brown and cream colors. The top is complete and it like 5 feet long by 2 feet wide. I still need to sew batting and the back onto it.

Santa Barbara FUN!!!

Gavin flew to Santa Barbara a week before I did. He hung out with Papa and Nana and had a blast with them. By the time I arrived with Brigham and Nathan, he was ecstatic to show me everything he'd done.
As I'm lounging in the backyard reading, he's showing me how he helped Papa pick up Rosie's poop.

We ate lunch outside and he was lovin' the watermelon!!

I was laying there, and had to get something from inside. When I returned this is what I found...

At the Mann home, the boys had bought Deb a orange, apple and avocado tree for Mother's Day. They were just putting the trees into the ground when we drove up. Gavin thought it was awesome to use the jack-hammer.

One of the days while we were in SB we took a walk by Los Canero's lake. We all walked while Gavin rode his bike. We brought a loaf of bread and had a fun time feeding the ducks.

Before I had arrived one of my mom's neighbors had major plumbing problems. There were workers out fixing the problem for several days. And every day Gavin was out there chatting it up asking several questions and watching the curious work being done. The guys on the job were all real nice to him. By the time I had arrived they fixed the problem and I was able to join Gavin in watching the cement being poured to fill the huge hole in the road.

We all had a FUN time, as usual, in SB!

Police Station

Last night for Tyler's Tiger cub pack we were off to the Gilbert Police Station. It was pretty awesome. I've only been to the SB one, and it was a long time ago. Man, was that place nice. (Not like SB at all!!) One of the cub's dad is a detective and gave us a sweet tour of the place. Above were in the call center room. That was amazing. There were about 6 employees on and at their own desk. Each person had 4 or 5 huge monitor's that helped them navigate through the process.

We went outside to see some Police vehicles. Here the boys are hanging on a SWAP truck.

Inside one of the Police cars messin' around on the keyboard...

Back inside, we walked through the large meeting room where the meet before each shift and talk about who they're after and what goals they want to accomplish for the day. I noticed this, and thought it was pretty interesting. Right next to it was a couple dozen mug shots of individuals they're looking for. On each rap sheet it stated their offenses. Yikes!

Here were in the "Evidence Room".
While walking around there were several cops, they would always stop and talk to the boys. Everyone was real nice and it was a great experience!

This is the front of the Police Department.

It was, yet another, fun activity for all the scouts. THANK YOU Jori for setting it up!! THANK YOU scout Dad for the tour!! And THANK YOU Gilbert Police Department!!