Ok this is going to be a big one considering that
I’ve taken over a thousand pictures in the last month and half! I just missed everyone so much! I guess I felt the need to capture all our
moments together since there not as frequent as they used to be. But we did get to spend three weeks just
hanging out with our family.
We left Moscow the day after finals and arrived to SLC on Friday afternoon. Thanks to Grandma Anderson we were lucky
enough to fly home. It was awesome
because I’m not sure we would have made it home driving with a newborn and
Owen. But they both did amazing on the plane.
It was only an hour flight. But anytime we get Owen to sit still for
longer than a second we consider it a success!
When we arrived at the airport Owen thought he had died and gone
straight to heaven. He was hilarious!!! He kept going up to all the people in
the airport pointing and screaming "Plane…plane!" To be fair there was a plane; additionally
there were only about thirty other people in the airport besides us. So it wasn’t too hard for him to get the news
out there.
We had a very eventful first weekend back. Lots and lots of catching up! But the best part was Mason and his new cousin
Max were both blessed that Sunday. Michael gave Mason the most beautiful
blessing. For me it is such an amazing
moment as a wife and mother. It’s
amazing to me that I have chosen such a wonderful and loving father for my
children. You can definitely hear in Michaels
voice as he is blessing our children that not only does he love them, but he also has a strong love for our Father in
Heaven as well. This, for me, is what
makes this life wonderful. I cannot even
put in to words how grateful I am for our little family. After 4 years of marriage I’m more convinced
than ever that Michael is my very favorite!!!!
I think Michael would agree that all we ever wanted growing up was to
have a family of our own. I know I’ve
heard him say on more than one occasion that he was more excited to be a Dad
than a Husband, and he is both. He’s the Dad that is excited when
he gets done doing his homework at 4am and finds his boys in our bed. He just wants to cuddle him back down
even though its 4am. I love how much he loves our kids and so thankful he’s
able to be the one to give them such wonderful blessing from their Heavenly
Father.
We were very lucky to
have all our loved ones at the Church. I think there were about 12 other guys in the
blessing circle beside Mike. So it was
good times and a lot of fun to see all of our friends and family.
The rest of Christmas break was totally chaos . Between all of the Christmas activities and
trying to visit friends it was pretty busy to say the least. Owen ate it up though he was so excited to
see all of the cousins. And even knows
some of their names now. It’s so adorable especially when we face-time with
everyone and he calls everyone kel. That
is short for McKell, and he thinks that all of the Nelson girls have the same
name. He also knows Ian, Elijah, lissa
(Short for Melisa). Every day was a
blast and made me realize how hard I have to work for us to have a life in
ID. It was such a nice break from trying
to think of new creative ways to keep Owen entertained throughout the week.
Most of our activities in Idaho were discontinued when it started getting dark
at 3pm bottomed at twenty below outside! SLC was
seriously was so much fun. We’d wake up
in the morning and play with cousins then drive to another cousin’s house to
play. Then come back home and there
would be more cousins! Both my kids were totally spoiled with love. Especially Mason…. Aunt lissa broke him! She was always cuddling him and was the first
person to make him laugh. Mike and I still can’t get him to laugh that hard.
Between both sides of our family there was lots of Christmas
fun. We went Logan for a couple of days
to celebrate Christmas with my side of the family. My parents went totally overboard with presents
for the kids this year! They gave all
the grandchildren jammies, ornaments, toys and more. They also got Mike and me
a bunch of clothes. Between Grandma
Anderson flying us home, and my parents
pretty much giving us everything else, it ended up being a really big Christmas
for us. We weren’t expecting to get so
much stuff form both parents. However, we
are really grateful for everything that was that was given.
Even though Owen is still little and doesn’t quite
understand Christmas and Santa Claus yet. He is starting to understand opening
presents. That made things a lot
more exciting this year. Of course his
favorite things were Candy and the 5 dollar cars he got from Wal-Mart.
After Christmas things calmed down a little bit, so obviously both my kids
would need get sick so that we could end up spending the rest of the break with two grumpers. It’s never fun to have sick
kids….. But it really terrible to have a sick new born. Mason was so stuffed
up he could barely breathe, and that
always scares me. So you know I
wasn’t sleeping. It was
nice that they got sick at a relatively good time, seeing as Mike was able to help a lot and so were both Grandma's and Melissa. It definately could have been a lot worse. Poor Mason ended up having two hot ears for
the first time and had so much mucus that every time he ate it would all come
right back up. I was doing a load of
laundry every other hour. Or at least that’s it what it felt like… After we got
Mason on an antibiotic he felt and looked so much better within hours. I'm so grateful for Doctors and modern medicine
to help keep our babies healthy.
Both kids got better just in time for us to come back to our
own little home that we’ve created in Moscow ID. It was defiantly a bitter sweet goodbye, considering that we always want to be close to
our family and friends. However I have
enjoyed having our own little home; where it’s just us against the world. We also really love all of the friends that
we have made. I guess were lucky that we
have friends and loved ones in both places. And that is how Christmas went down this
year.
(Mikes note: We got back to Idaho at 11:00 pm, no heat was on in our house during the break, and our house was negative 50 degrees (in Anderson hyperbole land). We froze all night in a bed that didn't have any sheets on it because Meg wanted "Everything to be clean when we got back..."
...Frozen. End of note.)
(Mikes note: We got back to Idaho at 11:00 pm, no heat was on in our house during the break, and our house was negative 50 degrees (in Anderson hyperbole land). We froze all night in a bed that didn't have any sheets on it because Meg wanted "Everything to be clean when we got back..."
...Frozen. End of note.)
Now it’s finally time to
release all of the AMAZING PICTURES I’ve taken for the last month and a
half!!!!
On our way home for Christmas!
We walked in the house and about a half a second later Mel
was already starting the process of spoiling our babies!!!! That’s what Aunts are for. J
I missed this face so much!
It’s a party!!!! Finally some cousin fun!!!!
Here’s my favorite comment from our sweet Noah:
Noah - "Uncle Michael have you met the baby yet?"
Michael - Smile… "Yep."
Mason's baby blessing.
What an amazing day.
Priesthood Example.
I'll kiss for a cookie.
Lanie loves Beebee.
LIGHTS! They don't have these in Moscow.
This is why I take so many pictures. The look on Mason’s
face says it all.
Michael stealing another kid.
Surprised face
Owens TADA!
Babies making babies.
My kids think Grandpa is funny!
Blinded by the light.
Baby Max
Shepherd who needs to be shepherded back to the pagent.
Shepherd or Ninja. You decide. (Dad already did.)
Yes we had four different Mary’s at the Nickell family Christmas
party. It was awesome!
1
2
3
4
New jammies from Gma and Gpa.
Christmas Eve.
Cousin Love.
Breaking 2 babies. Love it.
Best 3 dollar car ever. He loved it.
Stuck.
"Baby chase me... Fine! I play wif Roman."
Feet match sizes.
Switched babies.
The Xmas Aftermath.