Meet Alex

I took Ben and Simon to mama and daddy and baby Alex at the hospital yesterday - we lasted maybe 20 minutes....Ben was very shy of the new baby as we walked in. Da was holding Alex and Ben immediately stepped back closer to me ...didn't know what to think. ..so I suggested tht he might want to set up on the bed with mama...his eyes lit up and he said YEAH! So up he went - mom took Ben and I took Alex. I got to check Alex out - talk about one solid little guy - I'm still not too sure how long he was but he truly handles the 9 lbs 5 oz without any problem. Ten toes on the long Willden feet, soft brown hair, didn't get to see the eyes. He surely can pull some faces though!

This is my favorite picture - you can tell from his ears that he isn't premature - such a softy!

Another good frowny face.

The whole family -this lasted a few minutes, long enough for me to shoot a couple pictures with Dirk's camera and a couple with mine. Then the boys wanted down. they got tired of running in circles around the room (although the room WAS twice the size Glenn's was at the Provo Hospital!). Then they discovered the push buttons on mama's bed and that was the beginning of the end - about the time they had mom folded nearly in half we decided the visit was over!!

However, today Dirk was giving Ben a hug and telling him that he was going to the hospital to see Mama and Baby Alex Ben held up three fingers - and said "three boys!!"

You gotta admit they make cute kids!! Congratulations Dirk and Da. And, Melinda, you better get your rest while you're in the hospital cause you are going to have your HANDS full for the next couple of years!as I unloaded the pictures on my camera I found several cute ones of Emma from when I stayed with her after Glenn's accident. I loved the poignant look on her face in this picture!

old pictures

my dad Merritt has had this picture for some time and has puzzled and puzzled over it. He knew that the oldest boy was Wallace, his father, and going down in age would be Theron - he really thought that the five year old was Clinton and the baby Uncle Bill, but couldn't figure out the seven year old - Peter was younger than Clinton not older. After examining the picture very closely I can see that both the 5 and 7 year olds look very very similar - I think that the picture is indeed Louis and Mary's five sons - Wallace, Theron, Clinton (age 7) Eldon Peter and Lawrence Dewayne (Uncle Bill)
This is the picture I lost somewhere between scanning and my blog - does anyone in the family know who this is?
This is a picture of me (Susan) and Kecia Lynn at Merrilee's wedding in 1982 when Kecia was about 19 months old.
This is a picture of my Grandmother Viola Yates Nielson and her oldest son Legrande (who went by Dan). They are picnicking in front of an old steam engine that was used for threshing - this picture was probably taken in 1920 or 1921
from left to right - great grandpa Louis Nielson, grandpa Wallace Nielson, great uncle Marlen Nielson with dog in wagon, Great Uncle Theron Nielson. The man kneeling in front of the wagon is Gerhardt Hansen, my Aunt Marie's uncle.
My Uncle Evan thinks this is a picture of my grandfather Wallace Nielson
Uncle Evan told me that he remember's his mother showing him this picture years ago and he believes that the lady is the rocker is his Grandmother Susan Isadore McCarthur Yates. The baby on her lap would be his mother Viola Yates Nielson and the girl standing between the two ladies is Aunt Dora (Grandma Viola's older sister, Susan Isadore Yates Bradfield). The other lady is Aunt Mary McArthur Mathews, sister of Susan Isadore McCarthur Yates.
Legrande Nielson, Darnae Nielson, Harlan Nielson, Evan Nielson, Wallace Nielson, Merritt Nielson, Larry Nielson and Sterling Nielson. This picture was taken in front of Grandpa Louis and Granma Mary Nielson's Leamington home at the time of Grandpa Lou's death in December of 1947
Merritt, Harlan, Darnae, Aunt Beryl, Grandpa Wallace, Legrande, Grandma Viola, Evan Nielson, Sterling Nielson with Larry in front. The two girls are Great Aunt Della's girls - Carole and Diane King.
My cousin Debbie Linge Frehner - her mother was a sister to my dad - my Aunt Jeannine

feeling better

I don't know if it is a week of eating toast and and bananas and drinking gatorade and herbal teas...or the antibiotics but things are looking pretty good. I can't say, by a long shot, that I am better, but things are looking up. I really really really want the antibiotics to do the trick and I DO NOT want them to find something bad (like cancer) in my colon....so we will pray that this is gonna do the trick.

It is so nice to feel good though - even when I do have an attack of diarrhea (like after drinking two bottles of barrium for the CT scan) I don't feel exhausted and tired and headachy and miserable like I did before because of the gatorade. I didn't think I would EVER EVER EVER choose a bottle of gatorade over a can of pepsi but I have been doing it all week! Amazing!

Still Feeling Rotten

It is 1:30 in the morning and I don't dare go to bed because every 20 minutes or so I need to run to the bathroom. I am low on energy - tomorrow I am going to go buy a whole bunch of gatorade to help restore the electrolytes...and Monday I am going to call the doctor for another appointment - there is no way I can wait until the 23rd (when they are doing my colonoscopy) to find out what else we can try to help stop this infernal diarrhea. The antifungal drug that I was prescribed for the Candida helped really well for one week - and since then has been coming back worse every day - Wednesday and Thursdays were my worst days so far. Today I felt pretty good - but tonight things are not good.

I will only eat toast and drink lots of liquids tomorrow so that I will be in good shape to go to Provo on Monday - I very much want to go see Emma and Ben and Simon....so I have to make sure I can do it....I have also decided I am going to halt my walks in the mornings - I have only been walking one and one half miles instead of the normal 2 1/2 miles and that still leaves me in awful shape for the rest of the day. I am going to see if I don't wear myself out first thing in the morning if I will have more energy for the rest of the day.

this is probably too much information (or TMI as Jamie would say) but I wanted to give you all an update as to what is going on STILL!

Thanks for your comments

I really really appreciated your thoughts and your comments and your feelings and your ideas. They were great. It is midnight and I am up with illness again - I will be so glad to have this all fixed!!!!

I heard you all and it looks like we aren't going to all agree with everything but that is a normal family so this is what I have decided - (this is not a democracy, it is a benevelant (sp?!) dictatorship!)

1 - we will have the Sunday or Saturday evening dinners with just a couple families at a time - that seemed to be a positive for everyone. I will probably pull names out of a hat to see who gets invited with whom. I agree that smaller groups means better conversational flow.

2 - Gifts - Mauri hit the nail on the head with the thought that a gift is my way of saying I love you. I enjoy finding things that will be appreciated and enjoyed. I disagree with Kris that you can't buy a decent gift for $15. I hate giving cash....that to me is no gift at all even though you may disagree with that. I will go ahead with doing it my way this year at least and see how it goes - spoiled aren't I!!!

3- Family parties - we will continue to have them...it is totally up to you whether you come or not. I will not stress or be upset if you choose not to - that is your right and your decision.

I loved the ideas of others taking the chance to be the hostess or to plan 'activity' type parties - I think that the hostess should be in charge of the paper goods and the drinks and then that leaves enough of the rest of us to have a good meal.

-We will continue to have our annual Easter Party, Mothers Day Party, Kris always does her kids's party since she has 3 birthdays in June, our 4th of July party, our day after Halloween party (that way you can trick or treat with YOUR kids in your neighborhood and then come celebrate the twins's birthday on Nov 1 and show off your costume that night too!), and I will continue to have my Christmas Eve party - we will have the nativity... I hope... I missed it so much this year. That takes care of birthdays for April, May, June, July, November and December. We WILL not leave out February, August and September....maybe we can combine the August and September birthdays - we will see how it goes.

We will attempt to keep things to a low roar and learn to use our indoor voices when we are all in the same room with each other - that goes for adults as well as kids. I feel it is important to share these times together as family - to let the grandchildren enjoy their cousins.

It seems that If I don't plan the parties, they don't happen (it is almost April and we haven't gotten together since December) - I love it when you guys say - "we need to have a party" ....we need to get together -

I guess in reality Kecia is in charge of our first organized activity party - we will call it a moving party! She just needs to tell us when they figure out the date. (Glenn will really need family to help with this one as he can only sit and tell us what to do and where things go - he will not be able to lift or carry or anything like that. He will probably lose his mind!! )

I love you all so very much and I thank my Father in Heaven for each of you every day - I am thankful for the friendships and the love - and the joy you add to my life.

Glenn's truck

I tried to download this video to facebook all evening last night once I realized I hadn't posted it correctly in the first place. That didn't work so I decided to blog it and then once its on my blog I can facebook it from there. This is Glenn's truck after the accident. Kelly is taking the video and you can see Shawn taking still pictures. Glenn is very blessed to have survived this accident. The Lord was watching out for him that day.

If Ever I start to feel better

I've been gonna write this post for weeks but I haven't felt good for weeks and so it keeps getting put on the back burner.

There are a couple of changes that I am thinking of instigating so I want to put them out there for all of you to read and think and pray about.

#1 - due to the fact that within the next year Ed is going to be retiring we are actually thinking about being a little bit more thrifty. Therefore I am going to be cutting down the amount of money I spend on birthday presents to about $10-15 per adult each year. The grandkids will get a little more - $25 each since the family keeps adding a couple more of em each year. I love to buy gifts ...but I have to learn to spend less. Sorry

#2 - Because I have been either out of town or SICK I have missed our family get-to-gethers for birthdays so far this year. I apologize to Glenn and Melinda so far...however, again, due to the size of the family getting together is getting somewhat out of hand.

I have been contemplating different things that we could do and the idea that keeps coming back and back in my mind is having Sunday groupings of Ed and I and a couple of the kids and their families at a time. In the summer time having the whole family over at one time is fine cause there is lots of room to spread out but in the cold weather or rainy weather we are sitting on top of each other trying to listen to five conversations at one time.

So how about if I pull two names out of a hat and call them up and say you and yours are invited to dinner at grandma's house on either a saturday or a sunday afternoon. If that date is not a good date for one of the families then we would put your name back in the hat and invite someone else. That way we could have a much calmer relaxed visit with all of you over a period of a couple of months.

What do you think? Let me know. I really wanted to do this for Glenn and Melinda since they had birthdays in February but we were gone the first half of Feb and I started getting sick the first part of March and I'm still sick. I wouldn't just do birthday combinations but to me that was a good way to start it. Once I got sick the last thing I have wanted to think about was having people come over so I could cook for them - unless of course you want to have a cup of spearmint tea and a piece of toast with me!!! Then come on over.

I love you all - I know that we love each other and want to see and visit and talk to each other and I am trying to figure out a way to do that that doesn't drive us all batty.

with all my love

mom

ps - Easter is coming up and Grandpa Merritt is going to have his annual easter egg hunt in his back yard on Saturday April 3 at 1 pm. Shawn has agreed to take family group pictures to replace the pictures on Grandpa Merritts walls with some up to date pictures - for Instance, Jeff and Teresa and Skye and Katy as a group - Tonya and Brett just had a new family portrait done but it is already a year old - another one would be fun and we could coordinate the sizes of the pictures. In my family Kelly and Jamie are the most up to date but my grandkid pictures need to be done individually - for MY wall. So lets all plan on showing up looking pretty and get some good pictures taken that day. We are even trying to figure out how to photoshop a picture of Cade into the group picture!! Whatever works!!