First day of school

Paige and Austin were so excited for school this year!  Paige actually had 2 "First days of school".  The 1st day of school was just an orientation, but we still had to take a picture because she's just too cute!!

Here's the 2nd day of school, Paige's 1st official day and first time riding the bus.  As you can see, ALL of the kiddos were excited to see the bus!!

Paige in line waiting for the bus

Can you tell Austin was excited for school?!?  I can't believe how big he looks in this picture.  I'm so glad we decided to put him in preschool this year!  He has done so well and is much better at being more independent.  He doesn't have to have Paige or Mommy and Daddy with him or helping him all the time.

He wanted me to take a picture of his "cool backpack". 

Flyin' some kites!!

We love where we live!!  Our house is right next to the Stake softball fields so it's like having a HUGE yard that we don't have to take care of!!  The wind was blowing just enough to fly some kites (surprise, surprise since we live in Idaho!!) so we did just that for Family Home Evening one Monday this summer.  The kids had such a great time and they both got really good at it!

Paige ended up running around the whole ball field with her kite!

Bryn enjoying the weather and just wishing she was older so SHE could have a kite to fly!!

I wish you could see his face in this picture!  Austin was so proud of himself!!

September 11th service project

Our ward did a service project at the reservoir on Sept. 11th.  It was actually really fun being there with so many families.  It looks SO much better!!

This was taken in the first 5 minutes of being there.  Notice that the kids were eagerly working alongside the adults.

Fewer children around.  Can you believe all of those weeds!!

No kids in the background! ;0)  Our friends' little girl was so cute with Bryn!

Taking weeds, dirty diapers and lots of trash to the dump

Towards the end of the project.  You can actually see the rocks and the water now.  Yay!!

This is where our kids ended up for the majority of the project.  In the sand volleyball court building sand castles.

Our cute Bryn!!

Look at that smile!!!

Boating with the Smiths

We jumped at the chance to go boating with our good friends, the Smiths, when they asked.  It was so fun to wakeboard again.  All of the adults were able to wakeboard and most of the kids were able to go on the tube-like thing! ;0)  Thanks, Kade and Jesalee, for the invite!!  It was such a fun outing!!

Bryn and me on the boat.  She wasn't so sure about the lifejacket as you can see.  It was so cute, though, so had to take a picture of it!

All the kids, except for Zoe.  I wish I could crop myself out of the picture since this is right after I finished wakeboarding!  Not sure was Austin's facial expression is all about, either.

Wakeboarding for the one and only time for over 3 years.

The kids watching Brian wakeboard.  What a stud!! :0)

Brian with Paige and Austin on the tube.  I'm not sure if you can see it or not, but the kids were LOVING it!  I was a little worried about Austin not liking it, but he proved me wrong.  He was smiling the whole time.

Paige even went by herself.  She is our brave child.  She loved using the hand signals to let Kade know whether to speed up or slow down.

The kids obviously LOVED the huge sand mountain at the reservoir.  We had a hard time getting them off of it when it was time to go.

Bryn even enjoyed it!

Buhler reunion

We went to the Buhler reunion this year in Morgan, UT at a place called Tifie Ranch.  It was a really neat place.  The facilities were beautiful to say the least.  The bathrooms, kitchen and eating areas were super-nice and updated.  They had cabins (we'll stay in these the next time we go!), RV sites and tent sites.  We stayed in a tent the night we were there and let's just say that it wasn't the most restful night we've ever had.  At least Paige and Austin had their own tent and they slept well!! ;0)

All of the Nebeker cousins.  It was so fun having all of us together.  We just were missing my brothers, Keith and Lance.  I felt for Julie and Bekah.  There were several times that I was at Brian's family's functions without Brian when he was in school.  Julie and Bekah, you were a very good sports!

The boy cousins

The girl cousins.  Bryn was very done at this point.  Maybe it had to do with the lack of sleep from the night before!!

Bekah, my mom, and Bryn.  Here's a better view of the hat I made Bryn.

I'm back - hopefully!!

Sorry, once again, for slacking in the blogging department.  Just know that we've all been busy and having fun and getting sick and having more fun and making lots of fun things (mainly me)!  I have LOTS of pictures of our adventures this summer that will be posted shortly, but here's some of the projects I've been doing the last few months.



Some ties I made my nephew for his 1st birthday

For some reason I can't make a caption for the picture of Bryn.  I'm tired of trying different things, so this will have to do.  I found the cutest hat pattern and have made several hats since then.  The hat Bryn is wearing is one of them.  I have a better picture of the hat, but I had to post this picture because Bryn's smile is just too funny in this picture!  I still need to take a picture of the matching hats I've made Paige, Austin, and Bryn. Once I do, I'll post it.





I made 13 of these babies for a friend's family to wear at a wedding.  I had to enlarge the pattern for most of them, so I'm glad they turned out so well!



More of these fun, easy booties!!  I absolutely LOVED the ribbon bows and flowers I added this time!

The last couple weeks, I've been really into making hair accessories!  Here are some that I made my niece for her 6th birthday!  Hopefully they've arrived at her house!!

I've been trying to make a few items of jewelry.  Thank goodness for kits and step-by-step intrstructions!!  Now I know a few more techniques that I'll be able to use to make my own jewelry, when I have time! :0)

More hair accessories.  This time felt.  How I love felt and these are just too easy!!  I got several ideas for these online, the main one being makeitandloveit.blogspot.com.  If you search this very talented lady's site, you'll find more ideas for these babies! 

Here are the vinyl hair accessories.  I have yet to make some headbands with this vinyl, but that will come soon.  Once again, makeitandloveit.blogspot.com.

My sister had a headband for her little girl from Walmart, I believe.  She happened to leave it at my house and I happened to use it to make my own headbands.  Aren't these too cute?!?  And they're are super easy!!

Last but not least, this scarf from makeitandloveit.blogspot.com.  This is the first time I've really used knit, so it took a little while to get used to, but it really was a very simple, quick scarf to make!!

Hopefully these will inspire you to make your own fun "accessories" of all shapes and sizes!  By the way, for those who live nearby, I'm going to plan a girl's night in soon where we can use my vinyl to make hair accessories to our heart's content.  I'll let you know when it is!!

So very lucky!!

Today has been crazy, to say the least.  This morning started like it usually does on a school morning.  We rushed to get Paige on the bus and then I had to get Austin ready for preschool.  Bryn was still eating breakfast in her booster seat.  Amid all this craziness, I hear sirens pretty close to our house.  I didn't think too much about it because it's not too uncommon to hear them close by.  That's when I got a call from my friend saying that Paige's school bus was hit by a semi-truck.  I can't even describe what I was feeling when I heard those words.  It felt like my heart stopped beating.  My friend quickly assured me that Paige was fine and that they were down at the stop sign where the crash happened.  We found Paige scared and just a little bruised up on her jawbone.  Oh, it could have been so much worse!!  The truck hit the bus as it was crossing the highway, so luckily most of the damage was to the engine and door of the bus.  There were a few kids taken to the hospital, along with the bus driver.  The most serious injury I've heard about is a broken clavicle, but most of the injuries were just scrapes, cuts and bruises.  Thank goodness!  I can't even imagine how the bus driver and truck driver are feeling right now.  Everyone is definitely in our prayers.  I am so grateful to our Heavenly Father who answered our prayers of safety and protection this morning.  I love my family more than anything and I am so grateful that Paige and the other people involved are OK. Here's a link to one of the news channel's websites that covered the story.  kpvi.com

Happy 1st Birthday, Bryn!!

Wow, we cannot believe that Bryn is now 1 year old!! Where did the time go?!? We are so grateful for this sweet, little girl of ours! She always has a ready smile and has quite the personality already! She loves to show-off when she knows she has an audience, she adores her brother and sister, and definitely has her daddy wrapped around her little pinky!!

Here are a few more things about Bryn:

~She only has 2 teeth so far. She finally poked those through at around 10 1/2 months...hopefully that means less dental problems later on!! :0)

~She was a late crawler, too, but being the 3rd child, we didn't mind too much! ;0) When she did decide to crawl at 11 months, she just did it. No, rocking back and forth on her hands and knees or anything like that. She just went. Funny girl. We have a feeling she's going to be the same way with walking!

~Along those lines, she is cruising all over furniture right now, so walking isn't going to be too far behind.

~She is tiny compared to Paige and Austin at this age. She is our petite child (she just takes after my side of the family, I guess!). She has her 1 year doctor's appt on Monday, but the last time she was in, she was around 15 - 20% in both height and weight. We'll see how much she's grown on Monday. :0)

~She absolutely LOVES dogs and horses! In fact, dog was one of her 1st words (the other one was Dada, of course). This girl can spot a dog or horse from a mile away. When we were at the 24th of July parade, I learned to hold onto her tightly whenever a horse went by because she seriously tried to fall out of my arms to get to each one!! She's just like Paige in this area. Maybe we'll have 2 vets in the family! :0)

~So far, Bryn says dog (daw), Daddy (dada), Mommy (ma), that (dat), uh-oh (uh-uh-oh) and lots of jibberish! She will also wave if she feels like it.

Those are the highlights of our beautiful, sweet, Bryn. Here are a few pictures from her birthday party and in her cute birthday outfit.

She looks so grown up in this picture!! I embellished one of her onesies this morning. The picture below kind of shows it better. I just cut out a flower and a number one and sewed them onto the onesie. Then I made a fabric flower bow to match.

We actually celebrated Bryn's birthday on Monday because Kandra and the kids could come and it worked well as our Family Home Evening for the week! She got a new baby swing, some finger puppets from IKEA and 3 adorable animal "cars". She really loves the snail car that my mom and dad gave her!

As you can see, she LOVED her cake. We had to laugh at how she kept putting her foot on the table. At times, it looked like her big toe was giving a big "thumbs-up"! (She moved it before I could get a picture of it. Darn it!)

Paige and Austin helped me make a lady-bug cake for her. It was the best we could do since we decided to have her party just that morning! :0) The cupcake head worked great for Bryn's piece, though!

We love you so much, Bryn!! Happy Birthday!

New England trip - Part 2

The 2nd day of my trip back East we went to New York City. We took the train from Connecticut to NYC and when we walked into Grand Central Station it really was surreal. I just kept thinking of all of the movies with Grand Central in it and couldn't believe I was there! It just got better from there, too! We stayed at the Hilton in Times Square with the best view ever. We looked down onto Times Square and could see the Harbor just to the left of us. It was awesome.

Here we are in Times Square. I couldn't believe how many people were there. It was packed, but I guess that's New York City! ;0)

Ash wasn't so sure about this guys for some reason. :0)

Jill was just being silly and walked up there to get a picture with this guy and then when he handed her the torch it read, "Now you owe me $3." Oops! ;0)

We went in the St. Patrick's Cathedral. It was a beautiful building. I'm always amazed by the details of these old churches!

I'm so glad we went to NY over Memorial Day weekend because we were able to see scenes like this at 30 Rock. It seriously took my breath away seeing all these flags. It was beautiful.

That night we got dressed up and went out to eat at Bobby Flay's restaurant, Mesa Grill, and then to Phantom of the Opera at the Majestic Theater. Here's Nan, Athena and I in a taxi on the way to dinner.

Our meal at Mesa Grill was AMAZING! I had the spiced pork tenderloin medallions which were divine!

Right before the show. Oh, how I love Broadway!!

I don't know if it was all the exhaust, the different smells, or what, but my allergies started acting up the night we were in NY. I thought it was hilarious that Nan took this picture just at the right moment to make me look like I'm sleepwalking on Broadway! ;0)

Central Park was amazing. I wish we had the time to walk around in it more, but we were trying to fit so many things in our trip to NY. It still is so crazy to me that a place like Central Park can be right in the middle of NYC.

We took the subway to Battery Park to see the Statue of Liberty, Ground Zero and Wall St. Definitely a 1st!

Ground Zero. The feeling I got there was indescribable. I am just so proud to be an American and have the freedoms we have in this wonderful country. I am so grateful to all of those who have fought and given their lives for those freedoms. I am so grateful for all of the men and women who are now fighting for us and our freedom. I will never forget the tragic day of 9/11/2001.

Battery Park

Wall Street and the Financial District

We had such a blast in NYC. We fit so much in and my feet were so sore from walking so much, but it was worth every mile walked!! ;0)