Christmas Eve

WOW, I guess I am the BIG sister!! We had a great Christmas and I will blog more later!! This is me and my siblings on Christmas eve. Me on the left, then Merrill, Nakia, Blake, KaReena & Shelby.

Christmas Newsletter

Here is our family newsletter that we are either sending out or emailing or just posting on our blog. Enjoy.

Greetings from the Youngs
I am going to try to get this letter out before Christmas this year, but I guess we will see if that really happens. Anyway, I hope whenever it does reach you, it finds you all well. This year has definitely had its ups and downs, but once again, we lived through them all.
This time last year our house was still in complete upheaval, we didn’t even have a full size Christmas Tree. I can now that we are all done with our addition and we were able to put up our Christmas tree in our new family room. YEAH. We could not have finished the addition without the help of our good friends and family. You all know who you are and we REALLY appreciate all of the help and time you put into making our days go much smoother!!
Jerika is a teenager, need I say more. I guess I will though, she finished her last year of Tavaci this year in May, boy I am glad we are done with that. But, she enjoyed every minute of singing. We are still waiting to get her into some kind of private voice lessons, but are currently on waiting lists. She also started Jr. High this year, which has been quite the experience for sure!! It has been somewhat of a struggle for her and she is working harder every day to make her parents happy with her grades. Since we moved out of the master bedroom upstairs, she got to move in and make some major changes, and it really looks cute!! The biggest change for Jerika this year is that we found out in January that she has a thyroid disorder and insulin resistance. Both of which are regulated by mediation and diet. So, that has been a real struggle for her to change her eating habits, but she has lost weight and I don’t know if that is a good thing, considering how many boys she is talking about all the time.
Kinlee is taking dance again this year, it is a little of everything, tap, ballet and tumbling. She loves it and that is all that matters. She is doing really well in school and freaks out when she doesn't get a good grade on something. She really keeps things hopping at our house, and makes sure that we are all towing the line. A couple weeks ago when I got home from work, she told me she didn't do her chores because she got thinking and wants to know what it is I do around the house. That didn't go over very well. She got baptized in October, which proved to be interesting, just like everything else in our lives. Ray held up the wrong hand when he baptized her and nobody mentioned anything until after she was confirmed, so we had to do the whole thing over again. It was quite the experience. I was glad afterward that we had added onto our house, because we had about 40 people over for lunch afterward. Which was really fun!!
Tyler has had a year full of ups and downs. He turned 18 in May and was supposed to graduate in May also. After much effort on his mother's part (because he didn't really care) he was still not able to walk with his class at graduation. But, took a summer class and received his diploma in June, YEAH!! A few weeks after his class was over, he started a job with Dome Tech and traveled to a few different states to work. And that lasted until a few weeks ago when he got laid off because of lack of work. So, he is working for his cousin and as of this week, living full time at our house. Pray for me, I am not used to boys in the house all the time.
As for Ray and I, nothing really changes, he's running loads all over the U.S. and I am running kids all over town. He did have a week long "vacation" in the hospital this year, which he has completely recovered from, thank goodness. And my boring life consists of making interchangeable watch bands, which I am sure most of you already know, but if not you can go to my blog and look watchmebead.blogspot.com. Also, if you don't already know we have a blog that I try to update every now and then it is youngmom1220.blogspot.com.
We are just thankful at this time of year to have our health, family, friends and our jobs. We love you all and hope you all have a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!

Oops - forgot the kids table.

Here's Kinlee (mine), Dax and Lydia (KaReena's kids).

Quiet Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was pretty quiet at mom and dad's this year!! KaReena and I were the only "kids" that came home. We of course had our kids and Ray's mom came also. Ray showed up in the middle of dinner, but at least he made it home! We had a really fun time!!