Ornamental Tradition

A few years ago, we started a family tradition of getting each person in the family an ornament while we are on our summer vacation. For example, last year we got adorable trolley cars in San Francisco. This year on our vacation we did not have much time to shop for ornaments, and when we did get a chance to look, we couldn't find anything we liked. I checked online for ornaments of the Nauvoo temple, but they were a bit expensive, so I just got one of those for Scott and me. Anyway, I have been pondering for a few months if we could make some kind of ornament that could represent our vacation. Finally, this week, I put something together. Each of us got a "Prairie Diamond Ring" at the blacksmith shop in Nauvoo. (They are just horse-shoe nails bent into a ring shape.) Then I stole some awesome photos of the Nauvoo temple off the internet. The children each chose a photo and a color of ribbon for me to use. Add some large glass marbles, and this is what I came up with. The rings from the blacksmith shop are tied into the ribbon bow.


Spencer's


Simon's


Sierra's


Sam's

How Beautiful!

Last Saturday Scott and I met some friends for lunch at the Garden Restaurant. This was the view from my seat at the table. Breathtaking, isn't it? Imagine it in person! I was really glad that I had my camera!

Hallelujah!

Sierra and I sang this year in the combined Midvale Stakes' production of the Messiah. Next year we might try the orchestra. I performed in this starting at about age 11, first by singing for a few years, and then playing in the orchestra starting at about age 14 until I left for college. Every year since that I have attended the performance I have said "I have to be IN it next year!" Finally, I did it, and I am grateful that Sierra and I had a chance to bond and do this together. Scott "sacrificed" his desire to also participate with us by sleeping in and then tending the boys during our rehearsals. :)

Sierra thought she could get extra credit by taking a program to her English teacher, but then when she did, she found out that she could only get extra credit if she was not a part of the performance--kind of messed up logic, if you ask me. We emailed the teacher about it, but she won't change her policy. Oh well.

FHE in SLC

For family night last night, we went to dinner at the Olive Garden and then toured the lights on Temple Square. The kids were surprised and excited that we had invited a friend to come along with us. Dallin's family lives in Arizona, so we adopted him for the evening. He made the perfect big brother for the kids and we all had a blast.

Our waiter at Olive Garden was really annoying and it took forever to get out of there. The kids began to entertain themselves by taking their hats on and off to see what kind of laughs they would get from the rest of us.

I think the snow was one of the highlights of the evening. Of course we haven't had much snow yet this year, so all the kids were making snowballs and throwing them at each other. Finally Spencer made a huge snowball and carried it around with him. I think he would have taken it home with us if we hadn't refused to allow it into the car. Spencer said we should put a photo of the snowball in our christmas cards with a poem from Shel Silverstein:

I made myself a snowball
As perfect as could be.
I thought I'd keep it as a pet
And let it sleep with me.
I made it some pajamas
And a pillow for its head.
Then last night it ran away,
But first it wet the bed.

Samuel, Sierra, Dallin, Simon, and Spencer

I Like my Birthdays

Exciting day! Samuel turned 8 last week and was baptized on Saturday, Dec. 6th. He seemed a bit nervous at home, but at the church he was jumping up and down. Then, when the spotlight was on him, he wouldn't talk, just shrug to any questions he was asked. On Sunday, the Bishop called him up to the front of the chapel and told everyone how happy Sam was to be baptized. Sam just stood there with a straight face. Everyone knows him as such a happy child. The whole congregation chuckled at his stage fright. Poor kid. :)




Simon, Sierra, Samuel and Spencer. (For some reason, Spencer decided to wear his Halloween tie.)



Sierra gave a wonderful talk. The bishop was impressed that she would say that Sam is an "awesome" brother. She talked about how at her baptism the primary president said it felt like angels were there, and we thought that the angels might include Grandma Cheri and great grandparents that have passed away.

Apparently that choked Aunt Jodi up a bit, who was on the program to sing right after the talk. I didn't even notice, because she sang beautifully as usual.

For Sam's birthday the week before, he requested a pumpkin pie instead of cake. When we said no (because we were tired of eating leftover pumpkin pie from thanksgiving) he decided on a chocolate cake instead. Instead of making a kids cake, Scott decided to make a bunt cake. Then we forgot to take candles with us to grandma and grandpa's house, so grandma marsha found us some big candles.

It ended up looking like an exotic candle holder with the glass cake stand it was on. Since I had been reading Twilight a few days before, it made me think that it would be a cake fit for vampires. Sam had a hard time blowing all of the candles out.


(It is a rare thing to catch uncle William in the background of a photo. He always avoids the camera!)

Let there be light!

Scott was awesome with getting our Christmas lights up this year. Of course the weather helps a lot. Last year we didn't get them up at all due to the ice and snow--savings on the energy bill, but a bit of Christmas atmosphere was missing. A couple of the spiral trees still need some adjustments. We bought them on clearance a couple of years ago and they are in need of repairs. Oh well. It gives them personality, right? There is also a portion on the roof where we can't get the lights to work at all. Fortunately it is mostly hidden from view at this angle.



Here is a shot of our house and the next door neighbors. The street lamp almost gives the appearance of a full moon.

Now all we need is some snow to make it look really good!

In Memorial

Caramel Shakyhat Nicholson
Born June 30, 2001
Died November 4, 2008


Caramel came into our lives in August of 2001. He was born in a window well at my brother's house, his mother was a neighbor's cat. The owners wanted nothing to do with the kittens, so my brother and his wife found homes for them.

I love cats, but am also somewhat allergic. We decided to take our chances, but Scott's one requirement was that it be an indoor cat, because he saw too many injuries and fights happen with outdoor cats when he was a kid.

Spencer wanted to name him Chocolate. We decided he looked more like caramel. I think Spencer also came up with Shakyhat because he was shaking his head.

He put up with a lot of abuse from the kids, and was always very patient with them. He didn't like when we moved--hid under the bed for days. He also didn't like it when Simon was born--not at all sure what that new thing was in our room where he liked to sleep.

He would jump on the bathroom counter and beg for a drink from the tap. He would scratch the floor after using the litter box like as if he was trying to cover what he had just done, but he never actually covered it with litter. His favorite place to sleep was Sarah's squishy belly, but he could usually be found on (or in) one of the kids beds, lying on the back of the couch, or sitting in a window sill dozing and longing to be outside. As soon as anyone opened a door, he was right there looking out and trying to get outside. He would always nibble on the house plants and then throw up. His throw-up is definitely one thing we are not going to miss.

One of the kids bought themselves a little orange teddy-bear at some point, but soon after it was brought home, Caramel adopted it as his own. Many nights, after we had all gone to bed, we heard Caramel (who was usually very quiet) meowing almost mournfully. The first few times it happened, we would go check on him, and found him carrying around the orange teddy bear in his mouth. He would snuggle and fight with the bear, too. It is pretty beat up.

He loved lying under the Christmas tree, sometimes playing with bells that we put on the bottom branches just for him. He was always right in the middle of things Christmas morning, playing with all the wrapping paper he could get his paws on. I think I'm going to miss him a lot when we get the tree up.

We don't know what made him sick, but he stopped eating and lost a lot of weight. We got him eating again, but over the last 6-7 months, he still lost 2 pounds. After tests that didn't reveal much and experimental medication (antibiotic and steroid), he got worse instead of better. We decided it best to put him out of his misery.



Sierra saying goodbye.



The boys entertaining themselves while waiting at the vet.



One more kiss goodbye from Simon.

After we left the vet, Spencer sobbed all the way to The Old Spaghetti Factory, where we mourned our loss over some good food.

We miss you, Caramel.

Halloween

Our family at the annual Nicholson Halloween Party


Simon trying his best to get that donut!


The dragon and his cousin, Maddie the princess, had a blast playing together!


My very own Edward. :)


The whole family (at least the ones in town that could come.)


Ready for some trick-or-treating. What a beautiful night it was. The weather was perfect!


Sierra's Jack-o-lantern.

The kids got their pumpkins from a neighbor for a good price! Spencer wanted the huge one. Scott broke one of his good kitchen knives while cutting open the top.

A beautiful Autumn day!

The temperature was perfect, and the leaves were beautiful, so for one afternoon, I told the kids to go out and play even though their jobs weren't done. Sam was next door at the neighbor's house and missed the photos.



These are taken from our front porch.



The kids are wearing stickers from participating in a mock election. They say "I voted."

New baby Avery

One of the best parts of the Halloween party was getting to hold a new cousin, Avery. Isn't she cute? Born Oct. 13th, I believe.


Spencer has always loved babies!


Sierra is getting to be a really good babysitter.


Sam was the first to ask to hold her. I was nervous to let go of her long enough to take the picture. This one was taken when she was only a few days old. Simon is not sure what to think.

Teppanyaki

October 9th we went to dinner as a family for Spencer's Birthday, at his request. Everyone was excited. We enjoyed the company of a couple that sat with us. We told them they could pretend to be the grandparents for the night and our celebration. They were very cute with the kids.

Simon gave us a taste of how "big" he is getting. He had to try everything, even the mushrooms and shrimp, and he insisted on eating with chop sticks. He even wanted his own soup instead of sharing with me, so the server brought him one. The noodles were his favorite. I wish I had caught the expression on his face on camera when the chef first lit the stove top on fire.





The meal was wonderful as usual, but the price keeps us from doing this very often!

Sea World 2006

Late in 2006, Scott's computer hard drive crashed and he lost a bunch of our photos. Then he used some restore programs to salvage what he could. The photos have been somewhere out of my reach, needing to be sorted and organized. Scott has finally been working on organizing them, and I have been browsing through them. All of our scrapbooks are at a standstill at this point in time, and I need to get some of these photos developed for the kids books. I had forgotten about this family photo at Sea World in October 2006.




Amazing how life changes in 2 years time. We look a bit tired, kind of like I feel right now!

First Post

I've gotten into this blogging thing, and then I mention blogging to family and friends and they say, "Oh, give me your address!" So I decided we should start our own family blog. (Like AS IF I need something else to do with my time!)

All of our names start with the letter S (Scott, Sarah, Sierra, Spencer, Samuel and Simon), so our initials are all SN, and if you say that out loud, we are the SNs, which kind of sounds like Essence. Forgive my silly attempt to be creative. Actually, Scott figured it out long ago, I'm just stealing the idea from him now. Thanks sweetie :)

So, as long as I am being corny, lets think of some ways Essence applies to us.

• Family is of the essence. That means it is really important. :)
• Our family, though not perfect, has a great essence. In other words, our family's intrinsic characteristics are great!
• Um, I guess that's it for now.
  

Feel free to comment and be creative about how the word essence applies to us!

This is sure to be a new adventure! Welcome to our blog!