Whoa! Hellooo 2009!

How on earth is it possible that my last blog post was regarding Halloween? The last two months of 2008 just flew by.

We were in Kemmerer for Thanksgiving and Annika's first 2nd birthday party attended primarily grandparents (8 grandparents total made it to that party - can you say SPOILED) and close Kemmerer friends. Birthday party number two fell somewhere in the middle of December and since it involved 5 two-year olds one of my friends referred to it as a revolving "time-out" session! It was actually a ton of fun. We are so grateful to have so many wonderful friends and family in our lives. Below are a few birthday picture highlights.

Annika really loved her books and insisted that Grandpa Nelson read them to her immediately before she could open anymore presents.



Clockwise from the top: Trevor, Camden, Annika, Addison, and Keeley.

As I've mentioned somewhere along the way that we are working to get the basement totally finished and are making some decent strides over the past months. Electrical work, ventalation, plumbing, fire alarms, cable, phone wires, and insulation are all up . . . and now we are attempting to learn to drywall. We have learned some important lessons: 1) Drywall doesn't bend 2) Drywall doesn't flex 3) Drywall must be cut precisely because it doesn't bend or flex. I am convinced that one of our drywalling sessions is going to go smoothly and not involve total frustration. Until then here are some updated photos of operation basement completion.

Looking into the office and then on into the back bedroom (ceilings in both of these rooms are actually drywalled now).

Our big little helper teaching us how to wear safety glasses.

Team Nelson decided to get a wild hair and spend Christmas in New York City where my brother David has chosen to start his career. It was an incredible adventure and I can't wait to do a slideshow to show off our adventures. I hope to post that very soon. Until then a couple final photos to share with you tonight. My very favorite part of this entire holiday season was having a helper for all of the holiday activities and also watching Annika love life and live it up - 2 year old style. Here's the big helper in action.

Annika working all of the cranberry compote ingredients together for mom.

Annika and I making giant chocolate covered pretzels.