2010 in pictures

I wanted to show you some of my favorite things from 2010. I have a lot of goals for 2011 and so excited for the upcoming year. So many exciting things are happening and it will be busy, but I am ready and can't wait. Enjoy seeing 2010 over again.

Something's IN there...

So I now have the cold that has been going around our family this last week and I can barely function. It has not been a nice cold. Just a cough, runny nose and body aches but still it's laid us all flat for at least 2 days each. I'm on day one. Anyways, that is just a reason why these pictures are of a very messy face baby.
Kate has been really funny with her mouth this week. She has been eating funny and I know that her teeth have been really close to coming through. So I decided to see if I could feel anything and stuck my finger in her mouth. And low and behold...
She's got something sharp in there! Grandma Thomas trick to the rescue! Boys, go get me a spoon. Yep, there is some tinking in there! You can see if you look really close. It's the one on the left, her right bottom tooth. Finally. She has been trying to get these teeth through for months. I don't think the other one is too far behind and the top will be next. You may not be able to see them in the pictures but you get the spoon in there and you can sure hear them. :0)

You can see both of the bottom teeth looking really white in this picture.

Here is the one you can kind of see on her right the tooth popping out.

On a side note. Does anyone know what is going on with blogger? I am not good with computers anyways but at least I could do the blog thing. Now I can't change my advanced settings and posting has changed too. Putting these pictures on is being difficult. Please, can someone walk me through the change or point me in the right direction?

Merry Christmas!

I hope that everyone has had a wonderful Christmas and haven't broken all of their toys yet. Just one of ours is. It got stepped on. :)
We have had a great week. Winni came and spent most of the week with us since Nate has been working nights. She helped me make all kinds of goodies and helped the kids blow off some steam on Christmas Eve morning. I can't explain why they get so crazy on Christmas Eve but they sure got out of control quick. I have also decided that I would much rather have Nate work on Christmas Day than on Christmas Eve. It was the longest night of my life and emotional on top of that. When he worked on Christmas Day last year, we just got up when he was suppose to go into work and we got to open presents with him here and just had a good morning. He had to be listening to the radio but other than that he didn't have to go on the road til after we were done and just playing with our gifts. Not having him around at all on Christmas Eve was terrible. He was able to come and eat dinner and so we opened the kids Christmas Eve presents with him before he had to go back.
Kate got Fruit Loops for part of her dinner and if you look close, you can see that Walle got some too. I was planning on her wearing her onesie under her jammies but they ended up being very colorful after dinner instead.

I've been waiting to put bows on Kate's head while opening gifts and it didn't even faze her. She wasn't interested in opening presents at all either. She wanted to know what was so great about what her siblings were opening instead of opening her own. Even with starting to open hers first, she still thought theirs were better.


I had made the kids jammies this year and was so excited to see them wear them. Normas was a little big around the neck but she loved them. She thought they were karate clothes and jumped around making hacking noises most of the night. The boys are in the background hugging each other because they matched. And Kate...


crawled out of her jammies. I was so excited because just a few days ago I found a pattern for little slippers and I made some out of the leftover material for Kate. They fit really well and only came off when she pulled them off.
Here are the three big kids. Thadd is into making faces whenever the camera comes out lately. I'm really hating it. So these next few pictures there are some that are good of half the kids and not so good of the other half. Kate wants to move to much to sit still for any kind of picture lately either.

K, so I totally cropped this one because it was just so cute of the two of them!

We watched Polar Express on the "big screen", (the projection screen) at Nana and Papa's and then headed home in the fog around 10pm. Now if anyone knows me, they know that I can't drive well during the day and not well at all in the dark, so the fog... well we made it home so that is all that matters right? The kids laid right down for me and I got to set out the cookies and milk for Santa and the carrots for the reindeer. Nate came home at 1am and we got to bed around 1:30ish. I was worried about the kids getting down stairs before us since they were all to tired to get instructions when we came home about the morning so Nate put some garbage bags down in the hall so that we would hear them step on them when they woke up. Sound familiar Heather? :) So when I heard the bags I smacked Nate telling him to get up because the kids were up. Then I looked at the clock. 2:23am!!! What the...!!! I have to say that I wasn't the happiest when I went down the stairs and told the boys none to nicely to get their butts back into bed and what were they thinking waking up at 2:30 in the morning. Back to bed we all went and around 7 is when I heard the bags again. We laid up in bed for about half an hour before the boys woke up Norma and Norma came and woke us up. I think next year we will be putting up the baby gate on the stairs.
It was a nice Christmas at out house with the kids getting more toys than they did last year and not as many video games either. I wish I had taken a picture of our living room. There was no where to walk or sit for two day with toys everywhere. Poor Kate couldn't get down and play with all the new things because they were all too little for a baby that puts everything in her mouth. Her favorite gift was some blankets that I made her. She just sat on my lap and sucked her thumb most of the day.
We were excited that Devin came over for lunch and we watched our one and only movie we got. Thanks John and Celest! We also got to talk to Grandpa and Nana from Mongolia! The kids loved seeing their blog this week with Grandpa dressed up like Santa. They sure miss them. We ended the day back at my parents and watched another movie on the big screen. My kids just love it!
Some of my favorite gifts this year was that John ended up coming down from Wyoming. He was just going to be down to see Celest in Logan on Christmas day and I was really sad about him not being there with us for Christmas and he surprised us all by coming all the way down. Celest had come to spend the day with us and I'm so very glad that she did. I couldn't be happier about having her in our family!
My other favorite was having Kate fall asleep in my arms. She doesn't do that any more and I have really missed it so it was so nice to have her sleep in my arms for the movie on Christmas Eve. She is so precious.
Merry Christmas to everyone and I hope your New Year's is good too!

Snow, snow, snow, snow, SNOW!!!

I just had to take a picture to prove to myself on Christmas morning that we did have snow the week of Christmas. I know it will be gone by Saturday but we did have over 12 inches. So I'll just look at this and say it's a white Christmas.

Christmas email this year, no time for cards

Hello Family and Friends!

This year instead of sending out a Christmas card to just a few of you, I'm just emailing all of you. I am so grateful for this time of year and all it means to us. I would not make it day to day with out our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He truly is the reason for the season. We have had an eventful year and I would love to let you all know what we have done.

Tucker turned 8 this year and was baptized. We are so proud of him and his decision to do this in his life. It was a hard day because it was also the day that Great Grandpa Powell (Wayne Powell) passed away. I think it will always be a day to remember for him and us. Tucker is in 3rd grade now and in a program at a new school. A.L.L. or accelerated learning lab, is just an advanced class where he can go as fast as he can learn. It has been amazing for him. He is no longer finished before everyone else and he loves that he is learning so many new things at once.

Thadd is 7 and in first grade this year. He had a hard time in the beginning making new friends. His best friend that lives across the street from us, Ira was in a different class this year and went at a different time. But he has made some new friends and is doing so very well in school. He is reading very well and loves that he can read chapter books. Both Tucker and Thadd have glasses now, Tucker got his for his birthday this year, and now you can't tell them apart from one another again. They still play together well and I'm glad for that.

Norma is 4 going 24. She is such a girl and very much the Queen of the house. She is learning to play with others better which is good because she will be going to kindergarten this next year. It has been nice having her home this last year but it will be nice to have her in school for half a day too. She hates when I do her hair but loves playing dress up all day. She has gotten taller and more mouthy with age. We love her though and it wouldn't be our house without her in it.

Kathryn Kristine (Kate) joined our family on March 3 this year. And I have to say that out of 4 children it was so very nice to have one delivery go like they are suppose to go. She is the perfect completion to our family. She is the happiest baby we have ever had and the cutest thing you have ever seen. She is 9 months old now and crawling everywhere. Kate and Thadd have a special bond. From the moment they met, there has been something between the two of them that just can't be described other than wonderfully special. She jabbers all day and sleeps all night. She loves playing with Norma's toys and likes pulling the dogs fur. We are so lucky to have her and it wouldn't be the Powell family without her.

Nate got a new car this year with work. He was upgraded to a Charger and loves it! He works all the time and has been taking classes trying to just get a degree of some kind. We don't see him much but he is working hard for our family and we love him for it. We were able to go on a few camping trips this year and that is all worth it. Kate is our outdoors-man and loves being outside. Nate went to Wyoming for a week this summer for some special training with work and loves that he can notice things about certain cars now.

I have just been a mom and house keeper. I've done a lot of sewing this year and holding a baby. (She is just too cute to put down most of the time.) I made Kate a bunch of clothes and made some diaper bags for myself and friends and then some to sell. I've enjoyed trying new sewing projects and have decided that a new machine is on the list of needs for this next year. I was just put in as the Wolf Den leader for cub scouts on our ward and have 9 eight year olds in my den. I miss my old calling were I just had to make birthday cards but I've had a lot of fun with the boys and I have enjoyed this calling too.

We send our love and hopes of a wonderful Christmas and New Year to all of you! May our Heavenly Fathers love pour down on you all and bless you this coming year.

Love The Powells
Nate, Bobby, Tucker, Thadd, Norma and Kate

To see more of our family you can always go to the blog at nbttpowell.blogspot.com It is private but all you need to do is send me your email and I'll add you. Merry Christmas!

A few things to catch up on.

First off, it's raining. I'm praying that it will turn to snow soon so that our neighbors will stop flooding. Plus I need a white Christmas. I just really do this year.

Last week we had our ward Christmas breakfast at the church. The day before, Tucker was asked to be a wise man and his response was, "It would be a privilege." Yep, that's my boy. So I hadn't even heard about the breakfast til this point so I just thought that Santa would be there like he had been last year. No Santa but I had dressed up the girls in their new Christmas dresses and got Kate's hair in her very first pig-tails!!! She has as much hair now as Norma did at 18 months. I tried to get a picture of them.
This is what I got. She is moving so fast now that she can crawl, I can't get any good pictures of her anymore because she will just not stay still long enough.
Here is Tucker in his Wise man costume. It was a nice morning. I had tried to get the kids to eat before we got there because I knew that they would be asking as soon as we got there about food and when we were going to be eating. Of course they didn't listen and of course, I was right.
Kathryn came to help me with the kids because Nate was doing Shop-with-a-Cop. He really enjoyed his morning and had a boy that got something for his whole family and himself for Christmas. Thanks Kathryn for your help.
Last Thursday Tucker had a Christmas program at his school during school. Since we had had such a hard time with getting a sit at Thadd's program, we went to Tucker's school 45 minutes early. We were on the front row. Norma even was wonderful the whole time. They just had each grade sing one song and Tucker's grade sang first. I forgot the camera, again and we couldn't get a picture with the phones. But it was nice and I just love Tucker's new school.
We have a book that we read a story out of every night before Christmas. It is the book my mom would read to us and now I read it to my kids. I love this tradition and my kids do too. I can't believe that I'm posting a picture of me, but here you go.
Nate got Norma these reindeer antlers with bells on them at the dollar store when I sent him into get some thing else, he always has to get just one thing that isn't on the list. I put them on Kate and she sounds so cute crawling around with these jingling. Again, not the best picture but you get the cuteness. :)
We got to go to Amy's house last night for a Christmas party too. It is so nice to be together as a family! Thanks Amy for letting us come and raid your house! I love playing games and even ones that the kids can play with us. It was good to Glade and Diane too!
I am not sending out Christmas cards this year. Instead, I'm going to email one, so be looking for that come Monday or Tuesday.