Christmas Treats

Dancing with Daddy

I guess this should have gone before Christmas...but here are the girls and Lance making Christmas Treats to pass out to the neighbors. My Mom used to make this treat when I was growing up and I love it because it's fast, easy, and requires no cooking. And it cracks me up because people are always asking for the recipe...so now that you know my secret here's the recipe:

1 bag chocolate chips

1 bag butterscotch chips

1 jar of honey roasted peanuts (you can also use dry roasted ones)

Okay here's the hard part :)

Combine the chocolate chips and butterscotch chips in a microwavable bowl and microwave for about 1 minute then stir stir stir, microwave for another minute or so and then stir again until all melted. Then mix peanuts into the chocolate mixture. Take spoonfuls and place on wax paper. Let them sit until hardened (or you can cheat and just put them in the freezer for a bit!)

Christmas Day

Well we were hoping for snow but the frozen-over lawn of a park worked just as well and Lance got in some male-bonding playing "ice-football" at one of our favorite parks.

Maddi in princess heaven!

Ella modeling her adorable hand-made hat from Aunt Linda

I love the Christmas Morning Picture where all kids line up in age order- this picture brings back many childhood memories!

Christmas Eve

The Nativity Production and if you look closely at Maddi's tummy you'll see that she insisted on making this as authentic as possible.

Nelson the "reindeer" donkey and Maddi as Mary

Mary lost interest in the production at this point so her understudy, Mia had to step in!

Our 3 Wisemen

It was quite the experience watching them all try and put this together.

Our traditional Christmas Eve Dinner of Tamales. This year we decided to buy some authentic Guatemalan style tamales and while it was definately interesting, I think we've decided that we'll go with the Mexican style or homemade ones from here on out! Thanks Browns for being such good sports! :)

Ella opening her first gift all by herself.

There are NO words!

Christmas With the Browns!

Nelson, Nathan, and the girls

Lance and Linda

All of us!

Here is Maddi licking the frosting knife. We can promise that they'll look pretty and taste good, but can't promise that they'll be sanitary! Let's just say that the girls ate most of these ones. :)

Christmas Eve Cookie Making we decided that "Santa" needed a wide variety of cookies this year and had lots of fun making them.

Lance's Sister Linda and her Family came from Montana to have Christmas with us. We had a blast together!

Merry Christmas

Dear Family and Friends Merry Christmas!!!

We hope all is going well for you and your family. We love getting to see your blogs, Christmas Cards, chat with you on the phone, and the visits we have had with some of you in passing now that we live out West!

This has been a very full and at some points crazy year for our family so we thought we'd fill you in on some of the highlights from 2009

- Lance Accepting and Externship position for his last year of Grad School in Spokane Washington

- Selling 1st home in Indiana

- Kathleen starting and finishing her own In-Home 2 day a week preschool program

- Mariella Ann Nelson arriving 6 weeks early on April 2nd

- Spending 4 weeks accepting lots and lots of help from Family and Friends while we went back and forth to the NICU while Ella recovered from a lung infection

-Lance finishing up his last year of course work and finals while going back and forth to NICU and keeping life together at home.

- Packing up our house in May and saying goodbye to good good friends

- Blessing Ella in Indiana before leaving

- Driving cross country with 2 kids, a wonderfully generous and helpful Aunt, 2 Cars, a moving Van, and a new-born on an apnea monitor while making stops in Utah, Idaho, and Montana to visit family along the way!

- Unpacking and moving into rental house that was rented sight-unseen and finalized while in transit.

- Kathleen having surgery to remove a lump on her neck that thankfully turned out to be a cyst.

- Enjoying a Summer of Ella getting off her apnea monitor and doing wonderfully, and visits to and from Family.

- Mia getting her first pair of Glasses after being diagnosed with amblyopia (aka. lazy eye).

- Maddi getting potty trained! Yeah only one child in diapers. :)

- Fun fall visiting family in Seattle and Montana while Lance attended a couple of conferences in Indiana and Florida.

- Lance beginning the interviewing process for jobs. (We are hoping to have things finalized by the end of Jan....so stay tuned!)

- Enjoying more visits from Family and Friends in November and December. We have just been eating up this time living close to everyone!

We are so grateful for the many many blessings we have been given and are continually given on a daily basis. Lance and I have decided that being the parents of 3 little girls under 5 is definately our greatest challenge but getting to watch them grow, learn, develop their own relationships with each other, and to see their individual personalities emerge is the most rewarding experience we could ask for. And we are most grateful for the Savior in our life and the blessing we have to celebrate his birth at this time of year.

Ella 8.....almost 9 months old!

So again... a little behind on this but Ella is now almost 9 months old. She weighs 17 lbs now!!! I was shocked when we took her to the doctor. She is just LOVING food and hasn't turned any item down. She loves to sit up and play now, and is just dying to get her hands on anything she can grab....favorites include paper and sisters' hair. :) She loves loves loves her older sisters and it's very fun to watch them all interact. Poor thing has been struggling with some ear infections and is currently battling an ear infection she has had since Thanksgiving! Lucky for us that her Daddy owns his own otoscope and we have access to good medical advice....so we are crossing our fingers that she won't go down the same path as Mia and end up with ear tubes (as wonderful as they are!) But despite the pain she's been in she is still our sweet happy baby who brings lots of joy to our home.

Gingerbread Houses

We love making Gingerbread Houses every year at Christmas and this year was fun because some friends invited us over to make REAL gingerbread houses. We usually do the graham cracker kind with the flat roofs etc etc, but they actually make the gingerbread and go all out with the decorations complete with the evergreen trees. Very fun.

Grandma and Grandpa Nelson Visit

The girls were in awe of this statue. :)

This game brings back childhood memories for me!

We had a fun streak of visitors at our house for 3 weekends in a row and Grandma and Grandpa Nelson were the finale. The girls had a blast going shopping, playing games, reading books, attending our Church's Nativity Celebration, and going to see a Christmas Tree Display at a fancy hotel downtown.