a christmas "potpouri" (if you will)

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! Our family sure did. This photo was taken after many hours of playing with new toys on Christmas day. Instead of "cheese" we told them to say "Merry Christmas". Hence the non-uniform mouth positions...and yes, it appears that Makay and Creed are in fact howling at the moon.


Good times at the Nelson house for Christmas Eve dinner. They are a wonderful and very brave family in our ward that hosts several get togethers a year with many families at once.

Kids partyin' at their own private table.

Makay and Easton at home, enjoying the orange bounties of the new vita-mix. Thanks Papa and Grama Kim!

After Christmas was over the girls wanted to be ready to ring in the new year in style...


Parker loves her red hair and enjoys sporting the "fohawk" as well as the "Kate Gosselin" look (for lack of a better description).

No matter how many times a night we cover Beckham up with blankets, he always ends up like this...bum in the air with his pillow on top.

For your viewing pleasure...

December Joys

Our daughter Makay celebrated her 3rd birthday recently and boy did she enjoy her special day! Since I'm on Christmas break from school, Berni and I took Makay and Beckham out to Red Robin for Makays birthday lunch (the other kids were in school). She had a great time being with mom and dad one-on-one (kinda), and to top it off, the servers sang a special birthday song to her and gave her ice cream. Yeah, she ate it all up...the attention too.
(She was very sad when the decorations finally came down!)

Thank you Grandma and Grandpa Button and Grandma Kim and Papa for the awesome gifts!Berni made a "strawberry shortcake" cake for Makay
Our glamour queen put on a birthday fashion show (note her face is same color as outfit-fashion always prevails over freezing temperatures).
Saturday brought a fresh blanket of snow and of course instant fun for the kids. I think I was more worried about them getting cold then they were.

Sledding is always a party favorite with this group.

Berni wanted to add some more Christmas spirit to our home, so she decided to try her hand at painting...I know I'm a little biased, but she did pretty darn good if you ask me.
Our family loves this time of year and the excitement that comes with it. We have enjoyed spending time with our children and talking about the birth of our lord and savior Jesus Christ. We hope all of you have a very Merry Christmas! Love-the Button fam

Liven' In The Ghetto Baby

You might live in the ghetto if . . .

1. you hear sirens on your street more then once a day

2. the question "what area of the city do you feel needs the most help?" is presented to the mayor and he immediately replies with the name of your community

3. there is a memorial at the entrance to the local park because of a gang shooting casualty

4. the Rite Aid closes at 6:00 pm instead of the nation wide standard of 10:00 pm

5. you find bullet shells at the playground

6. the school in your area was closed because of poor performance and the kids are know bused to other communities

7. there have been four murders less then a mile from your house in the past year

8. you accidentally slam your screen door on your way out of the house at night and a man on the sidewalk says you scared him and he was about to reach for his gun

9. a man in working on a friends car across the street and he runs up to you frantically trying to find a ride home because he's on house arrest and is breaking his curfew (we gave him the ride)

10. the local drug dealer lives a few houses down and is actually a really nice guy

and finally

11. Pizza Hut won't deliver in your area after 5:00 pm

If any (or all in our case) of those apply to you, then you might live in a ghetto.

Don't get us wrong, we love our home (not the actual house) and our neighbors are great. We have had many wonderful experiences with them. When we first moved here we where scared to death but we know that this is where the Lord wants us so we are happy to be here. It's just funny to us all the crazy things that happen in our neighborhood and we wanted to share some of them with you.