Happy 1st Birthday Jacob/ Happy Valentine's Day!

This was my Valentine's surprise from Brent!

I was out late on Wednesday night. We had a very late mutual activity and I got home at 12:30 am. When I walk in the door these were on the table. I was so surprised. Thanks Brent.

As you know Jacob was born on Valentine's Day. We combined the holidays and had a wonderful evening. We invited Annie's parents over. We had a steak and shrimp dinner that was incredible. (Thanks to my mom) After dinner Jacob (with help from his older brothers) opened presents and ate cake and ice cream.

This is how we do birthdays in our house. All 3 boys attack the gifts. I love this picture because you can see the joy on Will and Andrew's faces as Jacob's new gift is revealed.
Good gift Grandma and Grandpa Crandall -They all love it!


This is Jacob eating his cake. We may have another Justin Plane in the family. (He hated getting his hands messy) The frosting on his face was grandpa giving him a little help.

I have to add that his new high chair seat is Grandma and Grandpa Nielson's gift. Our old high chair gave us a few near death experiences...it was at the end of its life. Thanks Brent and Marcia for making our baby safe.

Happy Birthday Jacob. We love you so much. You have brought us one of the happiest years of our lives.

I have to explain this one :)

Some of you may have seen this. For those of you who have not it's quite inspiring.

Katy (my sis-in-law) sent this to us the other day. I took it quite seriously.

To read it click on the link below. You may want to do what I did. Print a copy and put it on your refrigerator as a constant reminder!

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuF0ynQWKeRVfRvSnlEtgXGNtf-Zar8x27uuxtkGZiRpVEuw1huWSlaw1iaW6HabJtrBD7SY4AonSOKX6E52nKHOCGZVlIGVT45Ys21RBoNVbiM69aQOzJSic92r1OwkT_NmhUvDLqgwFs/s1600-h/housewife.jpg

So the picture of Jacob is what needs some explaining.

I am always looking for ways to be a better wife and mother. When I read this it was like an Oprah "light bulb moment". So I quickly made preparations for Brent's homecoming that evening. I put on a dress and some bright red lipstick (I don't own a bow for my hair so I thought some lipstick would do the trick), had a delicious hot dinner on the table for Brent when he walked in the door. I failed at keeping the kids quiet part (that is a work in progress).

Brent thought it was hilarious. My boys thought I looked like a freak. They kept asking me if I had to go to a meeting. We didn't get a picture of me, but had to pull out the camera after kissing all the boys on the foreheads. They thought it was so funny.

Speaking of Temples...

Brent and I had the opportunity to attend the Rexburg Temple Youth Cultural Celebration this past weekend. I have to say this was definately one of the most uplifting, spiritual experiences in my life. One cool thing was that we sat about 10 ft. from Elder Nelson, Elder Bednar, and Elder Costa. WOW!

I think the President Hinckley was truly inspired when he came up with a way for the youth to be involved with their temple dedications. You could not be in attendance at that event and have any doubt about the gospel and the purpose of temples. The feeling of the spirit that night felt like the actual, physical presence of the Savior himself. It was truly an emotional experience. For those of you who may not know what a Youth Cultural Celebration is, let me explain. Before a new temple is dedicated the youth in the surrounding areas put together and perform a medley of song and dance that depicts the history of the area and how the church was established up to the present time. It really is a celebration. In our church culture, most spiritual settings we are very reverent. It was interesting to witness an event that was truly a "Party" to celebrate having a new temple. Even in that "party" atmosphere the Spirit was "unrestrained". I have always known that I belong to the true Church upon the earth. I feel that the Lord has blessed me with that gift, to know. I can say that after this experience, my faith in my Heavenly Father has been strengthened. I know He lives. I know we are all His sons and daughters. Each one of us play a very important part of His plan. I believe that we each have a purpose. First we must come to know that we are literal descendants of God. Second that we live to understand our purpose in this life. Third that we spend every day, relying on our Savior, to help us achieve that purpose. God loves us! He wants us to return to Him. We can do that through the blessings of the temple. I am so thankful for this blessing in my life. I hope that each of you may have these blessing in your lives as well.

I am so excited to be involved so closely with the Twin Falls Temple. I look forward to all of the events that will take place during the open house and dedication of our temple.

Twin Falls Idaho Temple at Night

It has been a while since I have taken pictures at the temple. For the past few months it has looked pretty much the same outside. I am not allowed to take photos of the inside of the temple, so until spring time when the plants start to green up, I don't feel a huge urgency to be there weekly. A few weeks ago they put up the lights on the Angel Moroni at night. I think (I hope) the lighting situation will be improved when the temple is closer to completion sometime this spring. You can see in the pictures that the lighting is pretty scattered. I am happy that we finally have some lights on it, so it can be seen at night. We are still waiting on word from the first presidency of when the open house and dedication will be. We are so excited for this experience. It will truly be a once in a lifetime exprience.

For more photos of the temple visit

tftemple.com

The Boys!

It's been a while since I have pulled my camera out. We had major snow day last week so the boys and I stayed in and made cookies, watched movies, and found some time to take some pictures. So here are my handsome boys.

Favorite Memories of 2007 - Happy New Year!

I have had the opportunity to serve as the Twin Falls temple photographer. From the groundbreaking ceremony in April 2006 until the dedication, I am responsible for keeping a photographic history of the temple construction. My photographs are used in the "Temple Times" publication, and will be used in the history book that will be placed in the cornerstone of the temple. I have also had a few appear in the Church News. A compilation of my photos can be seen on the Twin Falls Temple website.

I am so blessed to be a part of this historic event. I have the privilege of working closely with so many wonderful people on the temple committee. We are preparing for the open house and dedicatory services that will take place some time this summer. For any updates or information about the Twin Falls temple visit the website at

tftemple.com.

Jacob playing on the shore of Redfish Lake.

Will and Andrew Halloween Costumes.


Will and Andrew with Brent at the Staley Family Reunion.

Jacob's Halloween Costume.

One of my favorite pictures of Jacob. He has such big blue eyes!

Will's first day of school!

Brent and Annie after helicopter ride over Twin Falls.

As the Twin Falls temple photographer I have had the opportunity to fly over the temple several times to take aerial photographs. Brent was able to come with me on this trip. We look forward to next time when we can take Will.

Will enjoying the beach at Redfish Lake.

It is difficult to get a genuine smile from Will when taking his picture,

but if and when you catch it, it sure is cute.

Andrew enjoying the bubble gun he got from Grandma Nielson for Easter.

Mom and Jacob at the pool. I took my boys to Las Vegas

this summer to visit Jaime, Eric and Teya.

So far my favorite picture of all my boys together.

Andrew, Will, and Jacob

Brent is such a wonderful husband and father.

One of our biggest accomplishments this year was getting Andrew potty trained.

If anyone is having trouble getting their little boy potty trained here is the solution.

After months and months of trying, it finally made sense to him when he could do it in the trees. (This is not a joke)
Just so everyone is not worried, we only let him do it while we were camping.

(Except in this photo...this was public city property...I just couldn't resist getting this shot)

The whole family got bikes this year for Annie's birthday.

We spent a lot of time this summer riding bikes together.

You can find these 2 Superheros at our house just about any day of the week.

If your ever in trouble give us a call we will send Superman and Batman your way.

I guess that's life when you have all boys!

Jacob's baby blessing on Easter Sunday.

This was our best Valentine's gift ever.

Jacob Gail Nielson was born

Feb. 14th 2007

1:05 am

6lb. 13 oz.

21 inches

Will reading to Andrew.

They are such good buddies. They do everything together.

So far, they get along very well.

Christmas Memories

Will got his first "Shiner". He was bending over to kiss his brother and hit his eye on the corner of the desk. At least that's the version mom and dad will tell you. If you ask Will he will tell you about the fight he got in and how rough and tough it was. His favorite thing to tell people when they asked what happened was, "you should see the other guy".

One of Brent's many talents is that he is a wonderful writer. One of his family Christmas traditions growing up was that he would write a Christmas play and the kids would act it out for mom and dad on Christmas Eve. This year Brent wrote a play for the grand kids to act out.

This photo doesn't do it justice, but you can see how cute the kids were in their superhero costumes. The plot of the story was that Batman (Will), Robin (Lucy), and Superman (Andrew) hear of trouble in Bethlehem and try to help find a place for Mary to have the baby Jesus. In the end of the story all of the superheros realize that the real superhero is the baby Jesus.

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. We spent most of our break with Brent's family. It was good to have everyone together. We spent a day together at Starley's cabin and although our trip was short we had a lot of fun. Don't let this picture fool you, although there was a lot of snow and potential for some serious snow play, we spent most of the time relaxing in the cabin. We got all bundled up for the 3 minutes it took to snap this photo. We will blame that one on the kids. I think all 6 babies were crying by the time we finished our photo shoot.

Overall our Christmas was wonderful. It was wonderful to be together with family. We enjoyed talking to both of our Brothers who are serving missions (Eric-Russia and Aaron-Spain). That experience certainly brought perspective to our holidays. We are so grateful for the blessings we enjoy. We are thankful for our knowledge of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We know that it is because of a living and loving Father that we are so blessed. We look forward to the coming year and all of the blessings it will bring.