Thanksgiving in Vegas 2009

I have become such a grown up this year. Of course you are, you may say, you are married and have two children. Yeah, well so do some 18 year olds. What really turned me into a full fledged adult this year? I hosted my own Thanksgiving dinner.

Jon's parents, Bert and Charla, and his sister and brother in law, Jayda and Steve (kids, Skyler & Cole) made the trek to Las Vegas this year for the holiday. I was so intimidated by the whole idea I went into serious panic mode. I grocery shopped like a mad woman, filling every shelf of my pantry and refrigerator to capacity. I cleaned like I have never cleaned before, scrubbing walls and cabinets, rearranging my entire kitchen. I washed every single towel, sheet and pillowcase I own. And when that wasn't enough to calm my rising level of crazy, I pulled out the paintbrush and (with just a little help from Jon) finished renovating two rooms in our house. All in one week.

But even with all my extra prep, I couldn't help but wonder how a Thanksgiving at my house could even come close to being as great as one at Charla's house. My mother in law has the most amazing garden ever. When someone decides to throw together a salad for dinner, they step in the backyard and have everything they need in minutes. We spend half the time we are there eating tangerines and mandarin oranges right off the tree.

Thankfully, to make up for my lack of backyard produce, my in laws came loaded down with boxes of oranges, pomegranates, walnuts, boysenberries, and homemade raspberry jam. So fantastic.

My father in law took over all picture responsibilities and I haven't been able to secure them from him yet so hopefully someday I will update this post with pictures... but for now, our week.

They all arrived Saturday about noon. Well, all but Jayda who was working and joined us the next day. Skyler is 3 and Cole is 20 months so our kids are just about the same age. They spent the first few hours exploring our backyard and toys and seemed relatively impressed with their finds. We asked my teenage neighbor girls to come over and keep an eye on the kids while the adults had some serious Vegas fun.

First we headed to one of my favorite restaurants in town, Casa Di Amore. It is a tiny little place that could not look less impressive from the outside if it tried. The thing that catches your eye the most is the sign out front that says they are open every weekend until 5 a.m. What restaurant stays open that late?

Then you walk in the door and it feels like you stepped back into Las Vegas history. Pictures of old Vegas cover the walls and the plush seats are always full of loud, happy people drinking lots of wine. With a live crooner that sounds just like Frank Sinatra in the mic and delicious food, it is quite an experience.

We then headed straight to the strip where Charla, Bert, Jon & I got to see O, the water Cirque du Soliel show. It.......was.........I N S A N E

The stage transposed to anything from a flat surface to a pool deep enough for a 60 foot diver to land in in what seemed like seconds. The feats those people are able to do are just phenomenal. We had an amazing first evening. Sadly, since it was a holiday week, that was the only show we got to see that week. Oh, actually that isn't true. We took Steve and Jayda out to the Fremont street (the old strip) one night and took them to "superstars of magic". There is so much I could say about this show but I will contain myself to superstars they were not and magic was in small servings. It was definitely good for a laugh, and who doesn't need one of those?


The Nielsens are really active people. While my family was in Boise (quoting directly from my mom's blog) doing "some shopping and saw some movies and played some games and ate!" the Nielsens are rock climbing, hiking, playing tennis, swimming, and, thankfully, eating. On Earl vacations, I usually feel like I put on a few extra winter pounds. I eat almost as much with the Nielsens but feel like I have earned every bite after the rigor we are put through daily.

We were able to go rock climbing twice, once out at Red Rock. Ok, fine, by "we" I mean them. Even my mother in law made it to the top of the climb. But, I did full participate in our bouldering climb down to the Hoover dam and actually really enjoyed myself. Walking is totally my thing. Running, climbing, pretty much extra exertion of any kind, sorry. My mom always says, 'I am pretty sure I could walk a marathon.' Darn runners, making all of us dedicated walkers look lazy.

On Wednesday night, we took the family out to our favorite Thai restaurant and had another amazing meal. Then, it was pie time. It is one of my favorite Nielsen traditions. They make pie like it is going out of style. We only had six adults around. But I believe our final pie count was 8. We had two boysenberries, one apple berry, one dutch apple, two banana creams (Grandma Earl's recipe, the first recipe of hers I have actually been able to recreate to some success!) and an enormous pecan pie. Hmmm I'm missing one. I can't remember.

Then, it was Turkey day. Not surprisingly, I didn't actually own enough dishes to hold all of the food we were preparing. But we made do and scrounged up anything I had that could hold food and it somehow worked. We were able to pull together a really really good turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes (topped with pecans and coconut, I want more now just thinking about them) broccoli & cauliflower, homemade stuffing, and homemade rolls.

While the food finished cooking, we headed over to the hotel my in laws were staying at to fit in some pool time. Comparatively, Vegas is very warm for November. But, it has also ruined us who live here. When you regularly go swimming in 110 degree weather, 70 feels really chilly. The pool had a beach area that went straight into the pool so the kids just had the time of their life but I most definitely preferred my hot tub time. But there is nothing like a good swim to work up an appetite. The meal was fantastic, the following nap was blissful and waking up to pie, well that is just about as good as life gets!

On Friday, we had a great surprise. Jon's sister and brother in law, Cara and Ben, (kids, Eden-9, Hawkins-7, and Olivia-5) came down from Utah to stay with us for the rest of the weekend. They are just some of my favorite people in the world. It was the perfect end to a really good week. We took everyone hiking and a second day of rock climbing. Bert, Charla, Jayda, and Steve headed back Saturday evening and we said goodbye to Ben and Cara and family Sunday afternoon.

Charla also found time Friday morning to hit up a few Black Friday specials. Turns out the best part about having a pathetically stocked kitchen for Thanksgiving when your family comes over means lots of kitchen accessories for Christmas! Charla bought me four sets of corelle dishes, a salad spinner, an apple slicer, a pastry brush, a new set of glass baking pans, new measuring cups and spoons, some new wash cloths, I think there was more too. But anyway, it was all so amazingly generous and very much needed! My kitchen looks like a whole new place!

I remember being afraid to have in laws when I was younger. And, now that most of my friends have them, I see my fears weren't without merit. But through some miracle I was blessed to have married into one of the greatest families ever. We missed Jon's brother, Swen, and sister Krista. Maybe next year!

Even pictureless, it feels good to be caught up! Soon to come, pictures of my updated housing projects and Scarlet gets funnier with each passing day. I'll leave you with this Scarletism tidbit.

Mom - Scarlet, can you turn on that light for me?

Scarlet - Yup!

Mom - Wow, I didn't know you could reach that. You are getting so tall!

Scarlet - It's the food mom. It growed me!

It's growed me too, Scarlet.

Disaster Around Every Corner

Oh what a day was last Thursday. Oh. What. A. Day. It started off so well. We had another great sewing club get together. Afterwards, my good friend Mindi stuck around with her daughter, Jane. Mindi is an exceptionally talented artist and is doing two murals in my house. I am very excited about both of them. More on those later...

While Mindi and I worked upstairs (she will laugh when she reads that, she did absolutely all the work while I sat on my duff and kept her company) the girls played outside. I started to hear the water running, so I went to investigate. I found this.




And I found this.

They had been playing in the dirt, which included filling one of Scarlet's many purses with dirt, then decided to come inside to clean up. There was hand soap everywhere, including a lot in Jane's hair.

The girls were reprimanded, they then cleaned up their mess and were sent back outside. Mindi and I returned to our work. We could hear them from my room but after a few minutes, we realized we couldn't hear them jabbering anymore. I went back downstairs to investigate.

They weren't in Scarlet room.... they weren't anywhere in the downstairs........ they weren't in the backyard........ I flung the front door open and was just about to go dashing down the walk when my neighbors walked up with a two year old on each hand.

Scarlet, Jane, and their 'baby' in the stroller had decided to go for a little walk, Scarlet informed me. They were about four houses down the street when my neighbors spotted them.

More reprimanding, which included big frantic lectures on the danger of going on walks without mom and both girls were sent to individual rooms to think about their behavior.

Mindi and I then headed downstairs to get a glass of water before returning back to work. We chatted for a minute with Cynthia, who had stopped by. Then Mindi remembered she hadn't put her paint away and headed upstairs before it dried out. Very shortly after I hear a very ominous, 'Kacey, you'd better get up here....' Then I heard Scarlet start to bawl.

She also painted on her face like lipstick. When I reached my room, she was hysterically in tears. The two year old realization that she was in serious trouble.

I had no words, no idea as to what to say that hadn't already been said twice in the past hour. So, I just gave her a big hug while her body shook and enormous tears slid down her cheeks. Once she calmed down a bit, she was sent back into her room while I tried to figure out what to do.

Once I calmed a bit and reminded myself many times that she was two and, even though she knows better, she also really doesn't. How can you be too mad at a girl who tries to clean up when she gets dirty? Or pretends she is just like mom and takes her baby on a walk in the stroller just like mom does? Or sees mom and Mindi painting and thinks, I can make this wall pretty too? Don't get me wrong, I was still mad. Just not too mad.

Her final punishment was this. I came into her room with garbage bags and she helped me load them with her toys until her room was clear. When dad got home, they had a serious chat and Scarlet paid dad back for all the extra work he would have to do to fix the wall with all her Halloween candy. She didn't watch any shows this weekend, instead she earned quarters to help her pay back Mindi for the work she ruined.

She has done really well. Whenever she asked to watch a show or get her toys, I reminded her why I had them and she was ok with it and didn't ask again. I am really proud of how well she has handled herself and her punishments since.

Now onto much happier notes.

Rhode is cracking me up. He has finally found something to entertain himself with that does not involve hanging out in my general vicinity. He plays fetch... with himself.

The wind up..

The pitch..


The fetch..

Ta da!

Get him a ball and an empty space and he plays for a very long time, laughing and crawling as fast as he can.

To continue on the good news streak, some friends and I got together to de-crap our homes and had a garage sale. I made $120 and I have room in both storage areas of my house. Now that is satisfying.

Halloween 2009

I intentionally did not eat dinner last night. I knew, whether I ate anything or not, I would be eating my weight in candy later that evening. Why add to the calories? Plus, then instead of feeling like my stomach was going to explode from the amount of candy intake, maybe I would just feel pleasantly, sugarly full.



And it worked!



I am an admitted candy-holic. I have never outgrown my love for sugar in its purest, most refined form. Halloween is a happy, happy time for a girl like me who deprives herself of such luxuries most of the year.



Enough about me, more about the kids. What would October be without a trip to the pumpkin patch! Of course, this is Vegas. Instead of an actual patch of pumpkins, lets try some hay bales and pumpkins thrown in with some carnival style rides all conveniently situated in a casino parking lot. Love this city. Heck, at least they try...





Almost looks like small town USA.

I have almost conceded to the fact that my children will not photograph well together.

These two, on the other hand, are more than camera ready.

Scarlet saves her best smiles for her two friends, Blaze and Bennett. Both boys were out of commission all week with fevers and the like. Scarlet about went crazy with boredom.

And now, onto Halloween. I had a pretty fun idea for the family. I already had a pretty good idea for an 80's girl costume for Scarlet and a 50's costume for Rhode was pulling itself together. So, what better way to create a theme then to have Jon and I take up the two decades in the middle?

"Nope," was the response I received from a certain member of my family. Ok... so then I thought, let's join our children. I will dress 50's with Rhode and Jon would dress 80's with Scarlet. I was really mostly kidding when I suggested Jon shave some lines on the sides of his hair. Note to self, when talking Jon into Halloween costumes, do not joke about mullets.

So, instead of an adorable family theme, I had two adorably dressed children, no theme, no rhyme or reason to their costumes, but adorable nonetheless.

And, without further ado, my 80's girl -

While I was shaping her bangs, she looked in the mirror and said, "Wow, mom, you made my hair a rainbow!" She was very impressed with my skills.

Then after applying several coats of blue eyeshadow, pink blush and hot pink lipstick, she took one last look in the mirror and said, "Mom, I look like you!"

And my 50's greaser -

Rhode spent the entire evening in the stroller with a tootsie roll pop in one hand and his Halloween candy bag in his lap. He was so intent on that sucker he got it clean down to the tootsie roll before he tried to stick it in his sister's hair.

Speaking of hair, I intentionally have not let Jon cut Rhode's hair so I could grease it back for Halloween. It stayed for about an hour, then the rest of the evening it looked like an exceptionally bad comb over.

We hit up the ward trunk or treat then came back to our house to hand out candy to neighbor kids. Of course, when only eight kids show up, it means I have a good 2/3rds of a bucket of candy waiting by my front door. That is the last thing my hips needed. My Sunday school class might be a little sugar overloaded over the next month...

Oh, and heads up for anyone else who might have spaced that today is Daylight Savings. Rhode woke up at 7:30 a.m. and I was excited for the extra half hour of sleep... until I noticed the computer had already updated the time. Remember when you were a kid and daylight savings meant an extra hour of sleep every October? Those were the good old days.

For Lack of a Better Name...

You know how everyone is all of a sudden crafty? It seems like I can't blog stalk for one minute without being bombarded by how uncreative I am compared to every other mom on the block. Well, a friend of mine and I spent months aww-ing over adorable patterns and templates. And we grumbled about the dang kids who are both the reason we want to make things and the reason we don’t have time to make them.

Then, we reached our limit and came up with a plan. We would just have to ignore all other responsibilities and get some projects started. We really wracked our brains and came up with our very creative title of sewing club. The name really does not capture the essence that is sewing club. Sewing club is equal parts insanity and creativity, quality girl time and chaos. One day a week, a group of us, including all babies and kids of various ages, meet at my house for about four hours and try to complete a project. We get amazingly little done. What should have been a half hour project will likely take the entire four hours while the more intense designs take a few meetings to complete.

Why does it take so long? Well, let’s take last week for an example. We had 7 moms in attendance and 15 kids. Between sharing ideas, trying to figure out how to actually follow a pattern, unjamming the sewing machine again, feeding starving children, herding them back outside, breaking up fights, fixing owies and chatting about every topic under the sun, there is little time left.

Oh, and of course wrestling our supplies away from the crawlers.

We had an interesting incident a few weeks ago after one of the children insisted on pulling his mother outside to look at a spider. I was thinking how grateful I was it wasn’t my child when the mom is suddenly pulling me out the door with her and telling me to bring my camera. Here’s what we found.

Crazy huh? It was on the most intricate, enormous web in the corner of my backyard. I am not one for insect life but for a creepy crawly, it is pretty cool looking. Sadly, the spider met an untimely death shortly after. He will be missed… yeah not really but more than I have ever missed any other spider in my life.

Though we don’t get much done, we do get something done. Which is way more than I could say about my craftiness pre-sewing club. This has been going on for a few months now so it might actually look like we have accomplished a lot!

Since most of the products were made for her, Scarlet will serve as my model
One of our first projects was hooded towels.

Then there was hair bow week. We came up with these fun little creations.

We then found a pattern to turn a men’s shirt into a toddler dress.


I am so sad I didn't take a picture of the shirt before I cut it up. It turned out pretty fun though.

If you can see, the buttons down the back of the dress are the buttons from the front of the shirt.


Scarlet is also sporting her mom’s other project, fabric flowers.


And, most recently, we have my latest crochet project.

I was hoping to get a group picture last week but it was cancelled due to kid sickness.

Even when we get nothing accomplished, the kids destroy the backyard and front room, and my husband complains because he has once again sat on a errant pin, I still absolutely love sewing club. It is one of the happiest times of my week. So to all my sewing club ladies, thank you for all the memories made and all the ones to come.

Next on the sewing agenda, little boys church ties. Stay tuned!

A blur...

For the life of me I do not know where this last month has gone. Time is rushing by me faster than I can manage to grasp. All of a sudden I have a one year old child and my little newborn baby is gone. My first little baby has turned into a talking, singing, intelligently silly girl. And “the holidays” are absolutely around the corner. Where did September go people?!

But first things first. Before any more time passes and the kid turns two, here is a little insight on my not-so-fabulous first birthday party for Rhode.

I really try to care about my kids’ first birthdays but I just really don’t. I need a little more recognition from the receiver as motivation for extra effort. But, even in its pathetic-ness, it was still a nice little get together.

Some of Rhode’s closest friends came over. Well, some of my closest friends came over and brought their babies of various ages that Rhode loves to whack and take toys from. Same thing, right?

We had some good food, good conversation, and good play time for the kids until I realized the guest of honor had not actually joined the party from his afternoon nap. So I peeked in to see how the little guy was doing. This is what I found.




Rhode was a little dazed when I brought his more sturdily wrapped behind downstairs. I thought a little cake would wake him up. Oh, the cake. I was so embarrassed by it I almost didn’t let Jon take a picture. Let me explain. I wasn’t planning much on the cake front but I did want Rhode to have a cake just for him. So I made him a little two layer number that would be perfect for grabbing a whole handful.

While people were walking in the door I was scrambling to make some frosting. I don’t know what I did wrong but it was REALLY thin. I tried to add some food coloring for a little bit of creativity. I’m still not sure how I created the teal sea monster green shade.

So with no further ado, my son’s one year old birthday cake.

Anyone else feel like they are at a Mad Hatter tea party that went really wrong?

Rhode was obviously traumatized by the green monstrosity in front of him. He wouldn’t touch it for a million dollars. That is until some of the other kids braved the blob and showed Rhode how it was done.

He caught on quickly.


I let him tear at his presents, which he thoroughly enjoyed doing.


And now the reaction. What would he think of his new set of cars from the Stouts?


Success! Dang maybe we should have started with mom and dad’s gift…



Relief, he likes ours too.

I have so enjoyed this little boy. He is a bundle of chubs and smiles and I just want to kiss him all day long. He is going through a major mommy loving phase and I constantly find him on my lap or being carried on my hip before I realize I have actually picked him up yet again!
He has a few words. Mostly mama and dada but we get the occasional byebye, baba, and all done (ah da!). He just popped down a top tooth to raise the molar meter to three. No solid walking yet but he let go of the couch just last week and took about four steps to get to me. We’ll take it!

Now onto the rest of our month. Our good friends, the Stouts, got themselves a big old family car. We like to call it the fancy beast. First, their diesel excursion was just called the beast for obvious reasons. Any car that sounds like the school bus pulling up in front of your house deserves the nickname. But inside, it is one luxury looking car with dvd player and everything. Thus, fancy beast.

The best part about the fancy beast is we can now carpool. How many babies in car seats can you fit in the fancy beast?


Yeah that would be six. Three of Ashley’s, one extra she babysits, and my two. We looked like we were unloading the clown car when we got to the park. People passing by wondered if the train of babies coming from one car would ever end.

But we found this great city park. A good set of swings, slides for little kids, and a water park right in the middle of it.

Child heaven!

I tried to get Scarlet to stand in this spot where water would spray up around her in a circle without spraying her. She lasted just until the water started rising, then panicked and got some serious water in the face as she escaped from the circle of impending doom.
Bennett obliged as my new model.

I love this picture of the kids getting completely dumped on.


And finally, a little more fun in the Nielsen backyard. I know if I leave the kids with dad too long in the backyard, I am going to want to pull out the camera. Or save them from immanent death/injury.

This time, he found a solution to the age old problem. What do you do with two kids and one swing?

Pull some cirque du soliel style tricks!


And when that is not enough to keep daddy amused, make the baby stand.




I am speaking in Sacrament meeting in about two hours and teach Sunday School an hour after that. I think I should maybe start working on that…