Teacher Appreciation Week

This past week for teacher appreciation we wanted to make sure that Palmer's teacher, Mrs. Warring felt APPRECIATED. I have been dying to etch something forever! I decided to buy a canister and etch a big "W" on it.

Here is the etching close up. I love how it looks, I want to etch EVERYTHING!

I was asked to bring a dessert to the teacher appreciation luncheon. I found a fun idea to do mini blueberry cobblers here.

They turned out so cute! Josh and I made the labels in Photoshop Elements and I loved how they turned out (even if they were big)
This is what the pictures was supposed to look like, but I printed it a little big.

It didn't turn out as I had planned. The metal ring covered a lot of the letters and instead of saying "a bit of blueberry cobbler", it said "A Bit of lueber cobbler"...awesome.

I got this idea from here.

Eight Year Anniversary

Josh and I have been married eight wonderful years today. I was so in love with Josh when I married him that I thought there was no way that I could love him any more. I love him even more today. Happy eight years Josh!

Cinco de Mustache-or Mayo

Cinco de Mayo has become a tradition in our family. I think we celebrate it more to learn about Mexico than to actually celebrate the event of Cinco de Mayo. It is a tradition that I love and a great excuse to cook Mexican food (love it).

I gave the boys pictures of chile peppers and sombreros and they colored them. We used them in some of the decorations. 

We started a craft that was making maracas found here. We used the colors of the Mexican flag. It was fun for them to learn about Mexico a little bit. We actually didn't finish it because I couldn't find our rubber bands, which you need to complete the maracas. Oh well, that can be a bordem buster for another day. Thanks to last year I actually knew a little bit about Cinco de Mayo and could teach the boys. I like to teach the boys things when ever possible. You know in case they are on Jepordy :) Do you know that only one state in Mexico actually celebrates Cinco de Mayo, but people in every state in the U.S. celebrate it. Are we a great nation or what, always looking for a reason to celebrate. I was born in the right place :)

This is what I did with their pictures after they colored them. They were at soccer practice while I did the decorating and when they came home they were so excited that each of them had colored part of this little Mexican mobile.

We had the yummiest food, most of it found in the "Essential Mormon Cookbook" they have volume one and two and I ADORE these cookbooks. They have a lot of good ideas for party food and a lot of just yummy recipes. It is where I got that fantastic hot dog recipe. The boys weren't too into the Mexican food, but I will try and try to get them to try new things. Hopefully some day they decide they like something other than peanut butter. We ate Chicken Tostadas with guacamole salsa and fiesta rice. I was in love with both recipes.

I have loved the mustache craze that has taken over the world in the last year. I think mustaches are so funny, especially huge handlebar ones. I decided to bring some to our little fiesta. I made them out of black craft foam hot glued to dowels. They were a hit.

We couldn't stop laughing about the mustaches all night. Even when we did the Mexican hat dance, nobody wanted to be without. They gave the party some serious flava.

Those are some seriously good lookin' mustaches.

my mustache is a little crooked.

Cute McKay. I wonder if he ever sits there and thinks "what kind of family was I sent to!?"

The plan was to do the Mexican Hat Dance. We have a Sombrero from something long ago, but we couldn't find it. So we danced around a football helmet. It was so much fun crazy enough and my parents were the best sports about it! We had a great time.

For the final event of the night we made Mexican fried ice cream. Now doesn't that look good? You put honey, whipping cream and maraschino cherries on it.

I was so worried about the fried ice cream. Luckily my Mom was there who is an amazing cook. It ended up not being as scary as I thought and was so yummy! This is the recipe that I used. I substituted the corn flakes for Nilla Wafers and it was heavenly!

I LOVE This!

I am so excited that I finally got this picture! I ordered our print of the boys on canvas and it is AMAZING. I am going to get some more of the individual pictures, but we're goin' slow ya know? It sit and stare at it all the time. Lovin' it!!!

Nationals Star Wars Day

When Josh and I started dating I discovered that he had never seen Star Wars (WHAT?) We quickly remedied this and had a Star Wars movie-a-thon. I grew up on Star Wars. I LOVED Star Wars and was in love with Luke Skywalker and as I got older I graduated to Han Solo (he is an acquired taste). When we began to have all of our boys we quickly bought all of the Star Wars movies (the classics at least, the jury is still out on how I feel about the new ones).

Were you aware that today was National Star Wars day (May the 4th be with you, get it)? What a fun day to celebrate with boys! Well, in true Nelson fashion we decided to celebrate (of course we did). For dinner we had X-Wings (these were BBQ chicken wings, and you would only know what an X-Wing was if you are a Star Wars nerd...and I actually do know what an X-wing is.) We also had "Yoda Sodas" (lime sherbet and sprite). I found some good ideas on the internet (as always, I love that thing!), especially on the Star Wars site!

I found some Star Wars coloring pages and made some Star Wars coloring books.

Here are some of their great pictures. I don't want to brag or anything (ya right) but my kids have some serious coloring talent.

I found these awesome masks on the star wars site. Aren't they great!

And the group photo.

We also played Star Wars bingo (thank you Executive Homemaker!)

The kids loved it and I finally had to talk them into going on with the festivities.

BINGO!

And lets be honest the best part of Bingo is EATING the M&Ms.

After all of the upstairs festivities we went downstairs and watched "Star Wars."

I love that they wanted to play light sabers, and HAD to have their masks on, who cares that it was totally awkward to hold a mask while fighting.

Palmer was dying that he had to HOLD his mask. He is pretty ingenuous though, he figured out how he didn't have to hold it...pretty smart huh?

Dad got home from his meeting just in time. Palmer was DYING to play swords with someone.

I have no idea how he could see, but he didn't seem to mind that he couldn't see. He just wanted to have the mask on.

Lincoln was thrilled to take his light "saver" (they don't believe me it is saber) and his coloring book to bed.

Don't Eat Spidey!

We are always looking for fun things to do for our Family Home Evening activity. I found this fun activity on the Executive Homemaker blog. It is called "Don't Eat Spidey." You can even download the picture from the site. Our printer is out of ink so we tried to go to Kinkos. Well, apparently the guy at the counter takes his job seriously because he WOULD NOT print it. He said there was a copyright conflict. When Josh asked him about it he said he wouldn't even print a picture that someone had painted of Mickey Mouse because Mickey Mouse was a copyrighted character...okay Mr....Well, we ended up printing a really sad one on our computer. I forgot to take pictures until we were almost done, so this is all I have.

The rules are that you put a piece of candy on each picture and someone covers their face (at our house we cheat, so you have to put McKay's blanket on your head, this is the pic above :) Someone else picks a picture and shows everyone. Then the person who isn't looking (under the blanket) gets to take the candy off and eat it until they pick the one the previous person chose and then we all yell (and I do mean yell) "DON'T EAT SPIDEY" and his turn is over.

You can see our sad little paper in this pic. Oh well, it got the job done and we will print a good one somewhere else!

The kids LOVED it when we would shout "DON'T EAT SPIDEY!" It scared McKay each time we would yell.

This is what it looks like when it is done right. You can get the instructions and download the game (just hope your Kinkos lets you print it!) right here.

Gum Lover

Our little Hunter LOVES gum. Maybe I should say is obsessed with gum. Every day when Josh gets home from work he runs out to his car and says "can I have some gum?" He asks me all day long, he asks my mom, my friends and even perfect strangers if he can have gum. Now, while my kids are so young I don't like to have gum in my house. I just know it will end up in the carpet, hair, eyebrows (this happened this morning) etc. So I tell them they can have it outside. If it is cold outside usually the boys will opt out...not Hunter. I think he would sit outside through a snow storm just to chomp some of his ever lovin' gum.

We really should avoid places like this and usually do. We got caught at this one...Hunter thought he had died and gone to heaven. Do you think heaven might have huge gumball machines that are filled with FREE gum?

I actually also used to love gum. My favorite when I was younger was grape Hubba Bubba (do you remember that stuff). I liked it so much that once a boy gave me a huge box of it to tell me he liked me...weird but true. I remember being younger at the grocery store and I saw a huge shopping cart full of grape Hubba Bubba and I wanted to buy the whole shopping cart. I vowed then and there that when I got older with my own money I would buy a whole shopping cart of grape Hubba Bubba. It is a good thing they don't make that stuff (or that I don't know where it is), because I think I might have made good on that vow.

Wow! Look at the size of that cheek.

Palmer and Lincoln were happy to get a bouncy ball.

*After I wrote this post Hunter came up from the family room crying because one of his brothers (who shall remain nameless), pushed him off the couch. I was snuggling him and telling him it would be okay and he started crying something that I couldn't understand. I finally figured out as he was crying he was saying "I want gum." What did I tell you....OBSESSED!

BYU Women's Conference

Here is the reason for a few days of silence on my blog. I went with my mom to BYU Women's Conference. It was a much needed break from life and I was spiritually fed. I listen to so many wonderful women and men and took PAGES of notes. I have to admit that I got a little overwhelmed with how much I need to do better, but that was just for a second and the majority of the time was spent learning some amazing insights into life. It was so much fun. I would love to go again next year with my mom and all my sisters (and sister-in-laws :)

I had so much fun with this cute gal. We laughed a lot, got to know each other on a deeper level (who knew you could learn so much about your mother), and had many a spiritual and insightful discussion. It was so much fun to be at BYU where she went to school and met my Dad. It was great to hear all of the stories about her college life that I had never heard before. I had a ball and will always remember having my mom all to myself. It was a wonderful experience.