Soooooo Looooooong.

Today after a looooong day at school, Claire and Jane walked

 through the door with heavy backpacks, hungry bellies, 

and exhausted bodies.

These days are long (5:30 am-4:30 pm long).

Today a little brown box came in the mail addressed to Claire.

 I situated the box on the counter just right so that when Claire

 walked through the door from school, she would notice it and say something.

But she didn't.

As obvious as possible, I said,

"Claire, wow, oh man, look at that brown box over there

by the kitchen sink,  I wonder what on earth it could be!".

Surprised, she picked the box up and examined it, noticing the

unfamiliar address.

"I don't know who this is from." She said.

But I did, in fact, I've known for some time what this little box was,

and who it was from.

Then her face turned red.

Inside were two small cactuses

with a little note that read:

"You know who would have more fun at Prom than

"CACT-I ?  CACT-US!

PROM? 

This invitation was from the same cute boy in Utah

who was Claire's first ever date.

Claire has had a little crush on this boy all throughout elementary school,

(and possibly beyond).

He is adorable, and Claire is just thrilled!

I am so excited that BOTH my girls will be attending Prom in Utah

this coming May.  It will be so fun to shop for dresses together,

be in Utah together (and see my family!), and especially to 

 see Clane experience this exciting rite of passage together!

(Jane got asked to Prom too!)

Spiritual Enlightenment: For Him

"We can make each item on our to-do list become a way to glorify Him. 

We can see each task as a privilege and opportunity to serve Him, 

even when we are in the midst of deadlines, duties, or dirty diapers."

1st Grade Fingers

Lottie,

Today when I picked you up from the bus stop, 

you handed me a sprig of dainty white blossoms in

your dirty 1st grade fingers.

Then you told me that you left your sweater and your

 water bottle on the playground.

Awesome news!

We went home and you washed your hands while I began

cutting some cantaloupe up.

I think you ate the entire thing because you were eating the chunks

as fast as I was cutting them up, and pretty soon it was gone.

Then you made a birthday paper chain out of pink construction paper.

Six more days until you turn seven.

I. Can't. Even....

Then you met your two cute little boy//friends,

whom we call "WeeLi" in the park in front of the house and

then I didn't see you until dinner.

Helicopter Mama

Dear Nicholas,

Today you worked really hard to finish up your 

opinion report on animal actors.

It was hilarious but very insightful.  

We noted many famous animal actors like Crystal the monkey and Bart the bear.  

I learned through your research that some animal actors

 make more money than the average household in North Carolina. 

Crystal must really work hard for that money! 

(I think Crystal is a fantastic name for a monkey).

Sometimes I have to force you to do homework, and you hate it.

I've learned that I have to be "helicopter homework mama" 

because the second I step away to help another child or start dinner, 

or anything else, you seem to mentally step away too and then I'll find you

outside throwing the ball to Angus, or like today, making yourself a

big plate of chips and dip.

Today I happened upon an old blog post from 2007 when

we lived in Mesa, Arizona.

You were so so so cute, and you made me sooooo happy!

Looks like I am just as much of a helicopter mama to you then

as I am now, seems I can't stay away from your brown eyes!

Miss Ozzy at it again

Hey Lottie,

Sometimes when I watch you play and pretend, I see me in you.  

I've told you all this before, but when I was a little girl

 I had turned our basement into a full-blown school.

I called it "Little School".  It had 5 desks, and drawers full of hand-drawn

 math problem sheets and coloring pages.  

Any spare change I could find I spent at the copy shop over at BYU

 to laminate posters, calendars, and drawings to hang up in my "classroom".

Sometimes it didn't even matter if I had students or not,

 I'd talk to myself and pretend kids filled the desks. 

 I would use our 1989 intercom telephone 

(you have no idea what I am talking about),

and speak into the phone projecting the morning 

announcements and the lunch menu.

You do the same things, except you are WAY more advanced.

And you go by Miss Ozzy.

Tonight you had dad hold his camera phone over your paper projecting

 it onto our TV while your siblings copied your instructions.

You are efficient and and organized.  

I can tell you are a very observant student in your first grade class 

with Ms. L because you sounds just like her when you "teach".

You are super lucky that your siblings are
 good sports and they agree to play with you.

I was lucky if I could get my younger sister Lucy to join me,
and even then I probably paid her to come.

And my older siblings would never participate, unless you count that 

one time we had "school photos",
 or Umi taking photos of us using her Canon point-and-shoot.

Uncle Jesse pretended he was the PE teacher,
and Aunt Courtney put on red lipstick and 

a red blazer and pretended she was the principal.

I was just happy they wanted to play.

Remember a few weeks ago when your first grade teacher Ms. L. 

came over for dinner and you got to teach her??  

That was a dream come true for you!!

Keep teaching and pretending sweetheart-
you are wonderful at it, just like your real teacher Ms. L.

Love, mom

I Don't Want to Miss a Thing

Dear Boys,

Dad showed me photos and videos of your incredible camping trip in the

beautiful mountains of North Carolina this past weekend.

You guys are lucky to have such cool Scout leaders (and a cool father), 

who sacrificed their weekend spending hours with you and your stinky friends.

I'm glad you hiked in the pitch black night with headlamps, and learned to tie fancy knots,

 and of course mastering the skill of pooping in  the woods.  

This is really all good stuff to know.

It's preparing you to be good 

young men, missionaries, neighbors, fathers, and husbands.

Really it is!

I heard it was cold, and windy, and the moon was so 

bright you could barely fall asleep.

I hope you will always remember these cool experiences with your dad.

He told me that you boys were so good to help the other kids

and leaders when they needed it, and were kind and polite.  

More than anything that you'll learn on these campouts, 

serving your fellow dudes is probably the 

coolest and most gratifying of all.

Dad also told me that you saw an old abandoned 

airplane that had crashed in the 1960's.

I don't think I would have liked to see that.

Just seeing the photos gives me anxiety.

On Friday after the girls got back from their FFA meet

 ("this milk tastes like a cow got into an onion patch"), I dragged the girls 

(stinky manure boots still on) with me to the church where they helped

 me set up for a Primary activity I was in charge of on Saturday.

We didn't get home until around 11:30, then when we did

 we all just fell asleep. Pretty boring.

But I did think about you as I was laying snug in my bed

on my warm electric mattress pad

listening to the wind blow out my window.

I love weekends, but only if we are all together milking (note the pun) 

out every second of the time together.

I think you would all agree.

I am bracing myself for the day when one of you (then all of you), 

will find other weekend activities that will take my place.  

While I want you all to have fun, and find your own adventures

with people you love and like to be around, I want us to stay this way forever.

Great, now I have Aerosmith's song I Don't Want to Miss a Thing 

playing in my head.

Love you, 

Mom

Check out these amazing photos of you boys camping

though the years!

The Dialogues

di-a-logue

noun

1. 1.conversation between two or more people as a feature of a book, play, or movie

( me and Ollie in 2008)

I have been writing my blog now for almost FIFTEEN years!  

That's been a long dialogue between me and you,
except it's not really a dialogue since I am the only one talking.

I have been pondering lately why I blog, which, as it turns

out, is a rhetorical question since I already know the answer.

I recently read a powerful talk by Elder Ronald A. Rasband,

and his words were another confirmation of the questions I 

already knew the answers to.

"It is important to remember the powerful counsel found in Deuteronomy:

 "Keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes 

have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days 

of thy life: but teach them thy sons, and thy sons' sons." (And daughters).

Generations are affected by the choices we make. 

Share your testimony with your family; encourage them to remember 

how they felt when they recognized the Spirit in their lives and to

 record those feelings in journals and personal histories so that their

 own words may, when needed,

bring to their remembrance how good the Lord has been to them.

Very often in my blogging journey, I've promoted, reviewed,
and announced certain products and goods.

That was certainly fun, and my family was blessed in every way possible by 

those opportunities, but in the past year

 I have begun pulling back from that type of blogging.

I want to be more focused on storytelling and testimony building.

I think even the stupid one-paragraph blog posts with
 only one photo is my effort in 

helping build and strengthen my posterity for generations to come.

And if they "are affected by the choices I make,"

then I don't have a lot of time to be writing about stuff

that doesn't last, or stuff that doesn't strengthen

 my Little Nies today and in the future.

I want to be able to remind them of the wonderful ups and downs

our family experiences while together on this earth.

If I were to die tomorrow, I would be heartbroken if my kids

looked through my blog and wondered why mom 

took so many nerdy selfies.

Also, I think the posts I've written about cooking, or my jump shot,
before and after school photos, weddings,
photos of me pregnant, hard things, first dates,
carpooling, moving, and family photos.
Or that one time I wore that giant belt and pirate boots-- for reals,
these are important (and yes, sometimes trivial) but are
 things that need to be recorded in the NieNie Dialogues.

XOXOXO
-Nie

Spiritual Enlightenment: Lest Thou Forget

Jump Shot

Dear Little Nies,

When I was in 6th grade I decided that I liked to play basketball.

With five older brothers I watched a lot of hoops as a little girl,

and spent a lot of time in stinky gyms watching games.

So, I decided to try it myself and Umi signed me up to play on 

a city league team.  I also played guard on my

young women church team.

I played on my junior high team and when I was

 a freshman I played on the sophomore team.

I even sat for a few JV games.

Then when I was a sophomore, I decided to ditch basketball

altogether to become a cheerleader.

But that's a different story for another blog entry.

A few days ago we went to the church gym

where I shot a few jumpers for old times sake.

I'm a little rusty, and my hands sure ain't 

what they used to be, (neither is my bladder).

But I still have a nice jumper, if I do say so myself.

120 Days

Yesterday Lottie celebrated 120 days of 1st grade.

All that means for me is that I've made

at least 120 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches,

and my baby is growing up.

Actually, when you count all the Little Nies sandwiches,

 that's over 600 hundred sandwiches.  Holy cow!  

That's nearly 120 jars of peanut butter,

about 59 jars of jam, 24 jars of honey, and

 1,200 slices of bread, or 60 loaves of bread.

And we still have about 60 more days left of school.

Those are some pretty intense numbers.

Anyway, I dressed Lottie up as an old lady to celebrate this special day. 

 I don't have a lot of old lady accessories but 

I used my sweater pin, cheap pearls,

 and my amazing rectangle framed glasses from 2004.

 I also used some black eyeliner to draw wrinkles on her face.  

I wasn't very good at that part, but she was excited about it

and that's all that matters.

In the carpool lane before Lottie jumped out the door, 

I snapped this photo and chuckled to myself the whole way home.

Special Witnesses

After church on Sunday and before our St. Patrick's Day feast, 

we sat down as a family to discuss and finish the weeks lesson

 in the Come Follow Me manual.

Early last week we talked about the

  12 living apostles, and the First Presidency of The Church.

 I asked each Little Nie to pick an Apostle or member of the

 First Presidency to study and learn about throughout the week.

In fact, I told them that before they went on the phone, or

 computer, or TV they had to do a little research on who they picked.

So on Sunday after church we all sat down and and listened to each other

"present".  It was fun to hear and observe what 

each child had prepared (with pictures too!). 

Mr. Nielson: Oaks

I picked: Cook

Claire picked: Ballard

Jane picked: Stevenson

Oliver picked: Rasband

Nicholas picked: Uchtdorf

and Lottie chose President Nelson

I am so grateful for these special witnesses; for their lives, their families, 

their occupations, spiritual experiences, 

and of course their powerful testimonies.

I hope this little exercise will help my children have a more personal 

relationship with the men who have sacrificed their time

to minister as the Savior did.

(Look how darling Harriet Uchtdorf's dress is!)

I've been pretty lucky to have had personal encounters with

some of these wonderful men.

(President Nelson spoke at my Papa's funeral).

Elder Holland holding Lottie.

St. Patrick's Day 2019

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

We did our best to represent our Irish heritage,

 and we wore our green to church today.

Growing up, I always thought I was Irish; it turns out I'm actually more Scottish, 

but we love celebrating this holiday.  

You know me, I love celebrating anything I can.

Our Irish Feast included:

Hot butter cabbage

Baked small potatoes with garlic and carrots

Green salad

Green jello (of course) with lime cream

And I made two hearty loaves of Irish soda bread.

And we sipped on delicious cold apple cider.

As the years go by, some things never change on our

 traditional St. Patrick's Day table; like the chocolate gold coins, 

and the green ombre three-layer vanilla cake with 

sprinkles in the shape of a rainbow (with marshmallows as clouds).  

This year Lottie created a new tradition.  

She drew a little leprechaun and taped him under one of the dining chairs.  

Whoever found him got to fill their plate up with food first,

(and they get to say the blessing on the food too).

This year Mr. Nielson was the lucky winner.

It was a cute idea, and as I type this, I'm stressing

 out a bit because I don't know where that little paper leprechaun is. 

 I hope I didn't throw him away while cleaning up.  

Lottie would be heartbroken.

Thanks to my Little Nies, who humor me and

wear the silly props I buy to wear for our feasts.

The boys looked pretty impressive in their suspenders.