Girls Night

When Del decided to take the boys on a father and son campout two rainy, cold weekends ago, we decided to have a fun Girls Night! No boys allowed! We invited Susan and Layla over for a late night party and had a great time! We watched Mamma Mia (edited) and a collection of original ABBA music videos and sang along as loudly and off-key as we wanted to without any complaints from brothers! While we watched, we did facials...

and pedicures...I think we're going to do it again soon and do hair! My girls are really good at styling hair. Here's a style they created a few months ago involving an empty water bottle:

Aren't we cute? We could also do a Girls Night Fashion Show! Sunday, Grandma Nielson made my kids watch our old slides and the girls had lots of fun laughing at my 80's clothes! They decided they want to be Sally and Becky for Halloween. Great. Their clothes are good, but we'll have to work on 80's hair. They need some side ponytails or big bangs or something.

Our next night should be lots of fun! Call me if you want in on it!

Proud Parents!

Devin did it! Our amazingly talented, smart-alecky son did it! He graduated AND attended his Senior Prom! Who would have guessed? Well, graduating didn't surprise me, of course, because he's a bright kid, but the Prom date did!

Devin had a great time at his Prom with Justina Schmidt, a girl from his art class. From his awkward pose, I think he would have preferred it if her dress had sleeves! We decided to buy him a suit for his mission instead of renting a tux, and I think he looks very handsome.I love the group of friends Devin went with! They are fun and practical, so they decided to have dinner at Andrew Bringhurst's house (the boy in blue), which saved us all lots of money! Good kids! Andrew was an exchange student in Italy for a year, and he makes great Italian food.Several of these friends are theatre students, as you can tell from the way they posed in the last picture. They decided to look crazy, but there's no change in Devin. He told me he's crazy in spirit!

I Met Donny Osmond!

I really did! It was pretty cool to meet someone famous! He posed with my friend, Farhana Hibbert, but then other people saw him and his bodyguard came to get him, and I never got a posed picture....Dang it! I just got a picture of me standing and waiting for a picture.....

staring over his shoulder.....

and then walking away disappointed. Del says I need to be more assertive. I just stand there, nicely waiting my turn while other people push past me. Oh, well. That's what good manners will get you.

The Osmonds came to Malad, ID to dedicate the cabin their mother grew up in. It's a pretty tiny two room cabin, and it's now a museum to celebrate their mother's life. Sunday night we took our girls to the family history fireside they spoke at, and then Monday we attended the dedication. It was really fun!

The second generation Osmond brothers, Nathan, Scott and another guy, sang a medley of Osmond songs. Then each of the Osmond brothers spoke about their mother and then they sang an old song their mother had loved.

From left to right are Allen, Jay, Donny, Merrell and Jimmy. Virl and Tom (the two brothers who are deaf) spoke but didn't sing. We got all of the brothers' autographs except one who was sick (and I don't even know his name, so how famous can he be :)

Here I am with Marie. It's not a very good picture of either of us, but it will have to do. She didn't come because of the recent tragedy in her family (her son died). She donated this piano, which was her mother's, to the museum.

This old sewing machine was also their mother's, and the boys all carved their names in it when they were little. Rotten little boys, but I wonder how much more valuable that old Singer is because of its autographs!

I wouldn't say this tiny little museum is worth a trip, but if you're already going past Malad, it's kind of fun. Of course, Donny won't be there, though.

Emma's 1st Decade Party!

Ten little 10 year old girls, 100 little ten year old toes (If my math seems off, one little girl got sick, so her toes aren't in the picture). Girls can be lots of fun, not to mention noisy and full of energy! You can just imagine the giggles! Emma had a terrific time making flowery flip-flops and flowery hair clips with her friends. They made homemade pizza and had lots of fun!

My Roller Coaster Week

This has been an amazingly wonderful and incredibly awful week, and I'm glad it's over!

My week started on a really good note. Last Friday, Karen had her baby! He was 8 lb 10oz and has reddish brown hair. They named him Liam, and other than sleepless nights, they are all doing well. Liam is absolutely adorable and very sweet! Good job Karen and Rob!

Right after we saw him at the hospital, we headed to Boise for Ellie's baptism! It is so exciting to have another 8 year old in the family! 8 is great, right Ellie?! Unfortunately I don't have a single baptism picture, so here's a picture of Ellie and Emma at Emma's baptism. Cute girls! Congratulations, Ellie!

While we were getting ready for the baptism, I went looking for Maren and found a scene of intense drama! She had tried using Katherine's round brush to blowdry her hair and got it stuck---really stuck! She had tried to get it out herself and managed to work it in tight two inches from her scalp! I tried calming her down and removing the brush but both seemed impossible, so I called in the expert---Grandma!We slathered conditioner in her hair, but it was still stuck! Finally, I used scissors to cut all of the bristle nubs off. Still, it took AT LEAST a half of an hour to work her hair out! I guess I wasn't much help because I kept laughing (it was SO funny!) and I reminded her that she had said she wanted a haircut! Fortunately, only one little clump was lost (I got a little too close with the scissors when I was cutting the brush) and her beautiful red hair is still there! Hurray for Grandma!

The major drama of the week, though, was when we got home from Boise and couldn't find our cat, Max. We were worried, but we kept hoping and praying. The next day, Del called the animal shelter and they said they had a few cats that fit his description (huge, fluffy, no tail). Unfortunately, Max had been hit by a car a couple of blocks from home. We were devastated and had a very teary funeral that night with a eulogy written by Emma and a little grave marker she bought at the dollar store that says "Peace".

Here's Max with Millie, who mostly despised him, but occasionally tolerated him. He adored her and followed her everywhere. Millie is a normal-sized cat and he was huge compared to her, but she picked on him all the time. The kids called him their Cabbit because they were sure he was a cross between a cat and a rabbit.I don't think any cat has ever been so loved or fought over! Everybody loved to hold him because he was so snuggly and passive! He was a great cat and we will miss him a lot! Emma has already claimed the right to have him in heaven. She was like his little Mommy. He loved it when she held him like a baby and he'd purr and purr when she would kiss him. He was just sweet.

The week ended on a positive note. I had been begging, threatening, cajoling and bribing Devin to ask a girl to the Senior Prom, but it was going nowhere. I just wanted him to go and have fun. I loved dating in high school, and I think he would regret missing out on his Prom. Finally, I involved peer pressure, and his friend, Andrew Bringhurst, who is extremely social and outgoing, took over. He persuaded him to double with him and drove him to the store to get balloons. The next day a balloon bouquet was delivered to Justina Schmidt in 5th hour with messages inside inviting her to Prom. This is how she answered:

Her teacher let her leave class early the next day with a few other girls and they decorated his car. Devin thought it was fun and he enjoyed eating the honeycomb cereal off the window. Yuck! So now Devin is going to the

in a few weeks! Hurray! We ended on a very good note!

Chris is 16!

Happy 16th Birthday to a wonderful son that we love very much! Chris, you're a terrific kid and we're so glad you're in our family!

Chris can be quiet and hard to read, so here are some things I can tell you about him:

Chris has a quirky sense of humor that sometimes gets him into trouble and sometimes gets him out of trouble, mostly depending on my mood at the moment. There have been many times that his humor has diffused a sticky situation and gotten us all laughing. I won't mention the times his attempts to be funny fail and cause the sticky situations in the first place! :)

Chris has a kind heart and is a good brother. He loves to tease his sisters, but when they need help, he can be serious and sensitive (which never fails to surprise and please his mother).

Chris loves to read, play games and ride his bike. He just finished Driver's Training, and he's really excited to get his license. It takes six months of driving with a parent, so I have lots of fun times ahead for me!

Chris can also date, now and he's looking forward to it, although he's also nervous about it.

Chris celebrated his birthday in Boise with two of his friends who have moved away, Isaac and Jacob Miller, Devin, John and John's cousin. They went to see Avatar at their favorite theater which has lots of great snacks, and then to McDonalds for more junk food! There is never enough unhealthy junk food to fill a teenage boy's life! Normally, we try for some balance, but it was a birthday!

Chris has been a really great kid for 16 years! That's definitely something to celebrate!

Mr. Roboto Plays Soccer

We just spent an exciting weekend in Salt Lake City watching robots play soccer! How fun is that?! Devin's team competed at the First Robotics Regional Competition and did very well!

His team, Haywire Robotics, is made up of students from Century, Pocatello and Highland High Schools. They have to be recommended by a teacher, complete an application and resume' and then be selected from a group of applicants to represent Pocatello. It was pretty exciting that Devin was asked to be on the team as a computer specialist, and he loved every minute of it.

Devin got to work with a great group of kids and wonderful mentors, led by Mark Edwards, a retired teacher who coaches them each year. Teams from all over the world got together on January 5 to see a broadcast that showed what the robotics challenge would be this year. Since then, they have been working nonstop to design, program and build a robot that would competitive. Devin was at Haywire from 5-10 pm almost every night of the week, usually with just one night off. It was a serious project and hopes were high, since they were on a winning alliance last year and went to the national competition.
They really had a lot of fun working together, as you can see!


The competition was held in the Huntsman Center in SLC. The playing field had a scoring side for each team and a center section for a robot to retrieve balls to shoot to the teammates. Each of the 33 teams was randomly partnered with different alliances during the seeding rounds. Later, the 8 teams whose alliances had scored the most points overall were allowed to choose final alliances according to which robots had skills they felt were compatible with theirs. Our team, 1569, ended up being in an alliance with the team from Idaho Falls, the Ammoknights (they're in the city of Ammon) and one from Woods Cross, Utah.Here's our robot, named Conestoga, about to kick a ball to try to score. We did pretty well with our shooting and steering and scored quite a few points during the competition. The alliance we were on made it to the semifinals, but got knocked out in the final round by a team from California, the Holy Cows. They were ranked number one, but they started having a few problems with their robot. We wished they had had problems before knocking us out of the finals! The winning alliance had a Boise team on it, so we were really excited to have an Idaho winner again this year. There were 7 states represented at our regional competition. Our robot won an award for using innovative controls. There was only one other robot in the competition that had a similar type of control mechanism.The best thing about our team is that they had a great time and made sure everyone else did, too. They were on the floor for the entire time both days, starting dances, waves and anything else to get people involved. The other teams would join in and help Haywire cheer whatever teams happened to be playing.

Devin even got involved and did the Macarena, the YMCA and some line dancing. He had a great time. One of the judges told our team that they had made the competition so fun for everyone there. Because of this, our team won the Team Spirit Award, too! They were so excited! There were also 2 students out of hundreds who won a leadership award, and one was from our team! The Haywire cheering was deafening!

This was such a fabulous experience! There is a $12 million scholarship fund for competitors each year, so there are lots of good reasons why it's a great competition. Devin had an incredible time and we had lots of fun watching him!