Christmas Letter for 2011

Nielson's Nuthouse
2011 Christmas Letter

Possible Themes for our family in 2011—Change, Fun, Crazy, Old, New, Old, Old. Aren’t we all just getting old? There has been a lot of change for our family this year. The state of Oregon doesn’t want their students to be able have any skills when they graduate from high school and so we decided we best be moving on. We moved to Tooele, UT. Tooele is off I-80 west of Salt Lake City about 25 minutes or so. It is on the west side of the Oquirrah Mountains. It is about 35,000 in size and a great place to be. It has been a great change for our family. Our kids have a lot of new friends and love our ward. We do miss family and friends in Oregon. We also love being able to be closer to other family members that we haven’t lived close to before. Change is good.

Lyle--is now teaching 6 keyboarding classes in Junior High. He has taught 12 years in high school and this a big change. School kids are fun but with no DECA, Tennis, student store, or 5 different classes to prepare for he has a lot of time to be with the kids. On Fridays he leaves school at 3:05 and walks home with the three youngest from school. He also turned the big 40 this year. For his birthday we went with two other couples and went to Salt Lake City out to lunch, to the Salt Lake Temple, and then to Leatherby’s for Ice Cream Sundaes. We then watched the BYU football game and the movie Thor at our new friends the Robinsons. It was my best birthday ever.

Cherise--is a little lost with all of the kids in school. She had planned on working but Tooele only has half day Kindergarten so what job can you do for 2 ½ hours? She is doing front end merchandising but it is only about 6 hours a month. She is hoping to get on at the school as an aide. She reads a lot! She loves our new ward and played on the Women’s volleyball team and is starting to practice with the basketball team. Its good for laughs if nothing else.

Jackson—is now 16 (a Junior in high school) and got his Driver’s License. He is getting old and also attending the third different high school in as many years. He loves being able to drive and Mom loves being able to send him on little errands. He played JV football this year. He finished his Eagle Scout project right before we moved and is working on getting it all in here.

Jacob--is almost 15. He is a Freshman in high school. He is enjoying high school. He also played football this year. He is just about ready to start working on his Eagle Scout project. He is hoping to be ready to do it during Spring Break. He got straight A’s last term and is an avid reader.

Rayah--is now in Junior High and 12 years old. She loves Young Women’s and being one of the older kids. She has made some great friends here and is loving the intra-mural sports program. She is playing basketball and wishes the Junior High had a team. Her lowest score in any of her classes currently is 95.8% and was very mad at one of her teacher’s for giving her a B on an assignment. She likes that her dad is at the school with her if she needs him.

Rylee--is 10 years old and in 4th grade. She is also playing basketball. She loves stickers and art. She loves Activity Days at church and has adjusted well to this move. She loves helping her little brother and sister.

Jensen--is 8! He is so excited to get baptized in January. He is a little helper. He is also playing basketball. He is very good at math and is loving his new school and friends. He can’t wait for Cub Scouts.

Rorie--is 6 and in Kindergarten. She loves school and every day asks many times when she can go. She is reading and loves learning. She is a lover and makes sure all know that they are loved every day.

We hope all of you have had a wonderful year full of many blessings. Please keep updated on us with our family blog: nielsonsnuthouse.blogspot.com. Cherise isn’t great at keeping us caught up but that is what New Year’s resolutions are for right? We love you all and think of you often. Please keep in touch.
Lyle- nielnut@yahoo.com
Cherise- nielanut@yahoo.com

Happy Birthday Jensen!

Jensen is 8 today! He is so excited to get baptized. He is our happy guy! Loves to help mom and dad and his siblings. He loves sports and video games. He LOVES his Oregon Ducks, but is also known to root for BYU. I can't believe it has been 8 years already. We brought him home from the hospital Christmas morning and spent Christmas Eve in the hospital as a family since they wouldn't let me leave yet. What a great Christmas present he was then and is now!

Christmas Lights

We have always wanted to go to see the lights on Temple Square. Being just 30 minutes to downtown definitely has its benefits. It was a crazy day. Lyle and I went with the Bowsers and Robinsons to the temple that morning. Then to 5 Guys Burgers and Fries, (YUM!) then to Costco, Kohl's, and Winco. After we managed to get all of the groceries for 3 families in the car we came home. Lyle took the neighbors to the airport and we turned around and went to see the lights with the Robinsons. SO FUN. FREEZING COLD! A whole 17 degrees outside and MAJOR crowded. We managed not to lose anyone, which was a feat considering the crowd. Here are some more of the pictures:

OK so it is time to pick a winner for the My Memories Suite software! I took everyone's name and put them in a list. Then I went to Random.org and had them randomize the order of the list.
List Randomizer

There were 11 items in your list. Here they are in random order:

1. Stacy Atkin
2. Yvonne Higgins
3. Kristen Clark
4. Rilee Ellana
5. Molly Phair
6. Kim Robinson
7. Rilee Ellana
8. Anita Brewer
9. Stacy Atkin
10. Yvonne Higgins
11. Heidi Jentzsch
12. Molly Phair

Timestamp: 2011-11-05 19:45:10 UTC

Then I had Random.org pick a number. The winner is................

True Random Number Generator
Min: 1
Max: 12

Result:
7
Powered by RANDOM.ORG

So that means Rilee Ellana

Congrats!! Email me and I will get instructions for you on how to download the software. Everyone else, thanks for entering. If you are interested in the My Memories Suite software you can still get $10 off. Use code STMMMS69698 for $10 off! Makes it pretty inexpensive($29.97 with code) for some AWESOME, easy to use(because let's face it, if I can do it so can you!) software!!

What I made with My Memories Suite!

OK, so I know I said I would post this sooner so you could see but Lyle turned 40 this week and that has taken all of my time....SO... I am going to extend the giveaway to November 4th at midnight. I will change the original post and that is where you will enter the giveaway. The instructions are all there. Go HERE

OK so I did this album in about an hour, maybe a little bit more. I fooled around a lot! The first 4 pages are pre-created templates and the last 2 I created myself. It was a lot of fun. It takes me awhile to get any creative juices flowing, so I think this is pretty good for a first attempt. Here it is:






Here are the 2 I created:




Only a few people have entered the giveaway...I know more of you wanted to so go enter here.

My Memories Giveaway!!!

So I was asked recently if I wanted to do a My Memories software giveaway! Of course I was very excited to be able to do so. Go hereto check out their software.

It is AMAZING!! I was looking at this software a few months ago. I have been feeling guilty that I am so far behind. But really, it is a pain to have to print out all of your digital pictures and then figure out some cute way to put it in your scrapbook. I literally have over 1000 pictures I would need to print. I had a hard enough time keeping up with film pictures, once we went digital...forget it!! So that is why I am so excited to use this software. It is all digital. You can just move your pictures that are already on your computer and put them into scrapbooks. They have lots of pages to just fill in, or you can customize it and be as creative as you want. They also have this amazing feature called "Quick Fill". You pick your theme and then quick fill and it literally just fills it for you!! How EASY is that?? I will be using that one for awhile until I feel like I am closer to caught up. You can purchase other styles of paper and themes, but you all know how I am about a deal and free stuff??? They have a section on their website that has FREE stuff!

You can print out your projects from your printer, or have a photo store do it (Costco, Walmart etc.) or you can have them printed in books! Check out the video above so you can learn more about it!
Here are some links for My Memories:
Blog- http://blog.mymemories.com/
Facebook- http://www.facebook.com/pages/MyMemories/140359372717593
Twitter- http://twitter.com/#!/mymemoriessuite

So here is how this My Memories Digital Scrapbook Software Giveaway will work.

1. You can enter by going to the My Memories website
and choose your favorite digital paper pack or layout, then leave a comment telling me which ones you like. (then I can check it our too! :) )

2. Go to the My Memories Facebook page and "like" them, then leave a comment and tell me you did it.

3. Tweet about this giveaway. Then let me know you did!
You can also follow My Memories

I am so excited about this digital scrap booking software. It is going to make my life so much easier, and help me feel so much less guilty!

Oh, and check out my sidebar. If you don't want to wait for the giveaway and just want to get the software which I will add is so reasonably priced, you will see a button over there you can click on to get $10 off. Just use the code STMMMS69698

Such a deal!

The giveaway will end at Midnight Mountain time on Halloween. October 31st!! Via Random.org. So go check out

UPDATE: The giveaway will now end on Friday November 4th at Midnight so enter now!!!!!

I will post what I made with this amazing My Memories Suite next week so you can see some of the easy, cute things you can do!!
POSTED!! Go HERE to check it out

October 6th SNOW!!

‎Let's note the date, shall we...October 6th...OCTOBER...not anywhere near Halloween yet! Look what we have... — in Tooele.

The kids, of course, are excited! Me...not so much. It is my first day of work, which is inside but still just a little more stress. Jackson has a football game today, OUTSIDE!! Not looking forward to sitting out in the snow for that! UHG!! And if it is going to snow there needs to be enough for a snowman. Pretty sure that isn't going to happen!
It rained all day yesterday, which was different since we haven't had a rain storm since we moved here that lasted longer than 30 minutes. It drops a lot of water but is short lived. This was most of the day, Oregon type rain. Hot cocoa weather! We will see what tomorrow brings. We went from one place with unpredictable weather to another apparently!! Good thing we like it here. :)

General Conference October 2011

Well, apparently it is easier to get tickets for General Conference in Utah than it is in Oregon. Any time we talked about getting tickets to Conference while we lived in Oregon, we were led to believe that they were kind of reserved for leadership and that it would be almost impossible to get enough for our family. So, imagine our surprise when we went to Stake Conference here in Tooele and they announced "If anyone would like tickets to General Conference let your bishop know how many you need." Of course, Lyle went immediately to our bishop and told him we would like 8 for our family. 2 weeks later our bishop handed Lyle an envelope with the tickets for Sunday afternoon session. We were so excited!!

We watched the morning session on regular broadcast TV. (Because you can do that in Utah. I am not even sure they showed it at the church other than Priesthood Session)

Then we left for Salt Lake. There was even a parking pass. Of course it was 5 blocks away, but it was free!! It was INSANE how many people were there. Lots of people asking for extra tickets along the walk to the Conference Center and outside it.

Really you are still watching it on big TV screens because you are far enough away that they look so little down by the pulpit. But it was awesome to be in the same room as a modern day Prophet and Apostles and the talks were great!!

Rorie turns 6!!

It was a little weird to have a birthday without family around! We have spent so many years with cousins around for the party. This was our first birthday since we moved from Oregon. I am usually so prepared, but not this time. I realized the week before that we hadn't gotten any presents for Rorie yet. I usually have this done months in advance! The cake has a big, pink "O" on it, of course, for the Ducks! Good thing she is so easy to please! I can't believe our baby is 6 already, we are getting OLD!

Pictures of Rorie's first day of Kindergarten

First day of school in Tooele Utah 2011

So in Utah school starts weeks earlier than in Oregon. Since Lyle and I grew up in Oregon and almost always started school after Labor day it has been crazy to think about going to school in August. Lyle had to be at work August 12th for all kinds of meetings that whole next week. We missed the Nielson Family reunion. That was so sad for us. So all of the kids are in school this year. Rorie didn't start til a week later for Kindergarten. Then Jensen is in 2nd, Rylee in 4th, Rayah in 7th, Jacob in 9th, and Jackson in 11th. They have adjusted really well! I am very proud of them.

Grandma Nielson came to visit for the first day of school. We are so glad she did that! We have missed her and loved seeing her. Hopefully, she can come and visit again soon!

It was Lyle's first day with students so we got a picture of him, for the first day too!!

Solo drive

Jackson took his first solo drive last night.I guess it wasn't totally solo since Jacob was with him, but close enough. Lyle and I decided to follow him from a distance. We were so scared he would crash. He didn't but it was close. Then when he came home I made him call me before he left and paced until he got home. UHG! I am not old enough for this. It is gonna give me grey hair and wrinkles!!!! :) Love you Jackson

Jackson gets his Driver's License

Jackson turned 16 in June and was not allowed to get his Driver's license until he finished his Eagle Scout project. Then he took the test the first time ( :) ) in July, but didn't pass. Of course, he took it in Medford, Oregon because it was full in Klamath Falls for all of July and we were moving at the end of July. So when we came home for the Phair Family Reunion, we had made an appointment for him to retake it. (You have to wait 28 days if you don't pass the first time.)

He took it today and passed. He is so excited!! Lyle and I are scared to death!!