More Carlsons

I think this is my favorite picture from the whole day.  They all have huge personalities and are so much fun!!  There were so many good pictures and I hope that they loved them too.

We also took some of Mya in her baptism dress, but I am going to let her mom post those.

Mr. Personality

Mr. Hottie

How cute are they??  The place we took pictures is in St. Anthony and I love it.  It is for sure my new favorite place to take pictures.  If you look really close at the green figures above them, one is a silouette of a girl and the other one (above Allisa) is a cowboy.  What a fun night we had.

Carlson Family - I love these guys!!

Earlier tonight I did 5 new posts with pictures of the Carlson family.  I blogged from Picasa and I don't know what happened, but all my pictures disappeared.  Kind of the story of my life lately.  Anyway, I guess I will do it again, but it is too late tonight.  So, here are a couple pictures just to tide you over.

Jerika is 16......

I really wanted to do something fun for Jerika's sweet 16, but I didn't know what to do.  And the bad part about it is that we did end up celebrating most of the weekend, not just one day and these are the only pictures I took.  I think I am slipping in my old age.   That being said, Jerika and I spent the day Saturday together.  We went to Idaho Falls and got her an IPOD touch, yes she is very spoiled.  Then we went to lunch at Olive Garden, just the 2 of us.  I think her dad and sister felt a little left out, but they lived through it and I am sure they are better for it.  Since we waited so late to plan anything, only a couple of her friends could make it to birthday cake that night.  But, they had fun watching scary movies.

Chelsie, Markie, Jerika, Breelyn & Mariah

Trying to decide what to wish for, since she already has and gets everything she wants.

Her not very feminine cake, who knows why she chose this, but it is what it is.

I think it is interesting in these two pictures that Ray and Kinlee are not even sitting by each other and they were the only two eating cake with the party girls.  Whatever, silly people. 

Sunday we went to the Park in Rexburg with the Sharps and celebrated Jerika's birthday and aunt Cindy's birthday.  Yup, no pictures.  I think that was a Sunday that I had a ton of meetings and was lucky to actually get a salad made and make it to the park.  But, it was fun!!

Monday, which was Labor Day and Jerika's actual birthday Grandma Walker came up for a little while and brought Jerika's present.  Then Jerika spent the rest of the day with a bunch of her friends doing whatever she wanted all day long.  I still can't believe I have a 16 year old, I am pretty sure I can't be old enough, right?

First days of school

As most of you already know, Jerika decided to go to Madison this year.  There were a lot of factors involved in the decision to let her go to Madison, but we finally agreed.  So, Kinlee actually started school the week before Jerika this year.  It might have something to do with the fact that Madison only has a week off for Spud Harvest and Sugar has 2 weeks.  Anway, here are pictures of Kinlee on her first day and Jerika on her first day, along with a few of both of them on Jerika's first day. 

Oh and did I mention Jerika got her license the week school started also?  I guess it has been a good thing, she can run errands and drive herself to school, but it is also so sad that my baby is old enough to drive.  She is a really good driver and we are lucky to have an extra car so she can drive to school.  The first week of school she tried out for the play at school, it is footloose.  There were about 100 people that tried out and they wanted them all in it, so she is in the play.  She is in 3 of the numbers and some of the kids are only in 2, so I am pretty proud of her.  She is in one of the numbers that only has 10 girls, which is one of the smallest groups.  She also tried out for the school choir, and she made it into the all girls choir called the Musettes.  She loves it and I think it will keep her pretty busy. 

As for Kinlee, she got a teacher this year that loves projects.  We have done 3 already this year.  She has been really good about them and pretty self motivated, which is impressive.  She loves her teacher, which is also good.  I wonder some days about her friends, but which parent doesn't worry about friends at one time or another.  I am just very thankful I have such good and healthy kids.  I couldn't have specialy ordered anything better.

Last week of Sabbatical

We started out the week again by going to Rigby Lake with Allisa and her kids.  That was about it for the week, well we didn't leave the house much the rest of the week.  Tuesday was mutual so we didn't do much that day.  Wednesday I decided that I had entertained the children enough and decided to have a me day and by that I mean I stayed in my room/bed most of the day and watched movies.  I think I watched 6 all together.  They were ones I really wanted to see and I had recorded them on the DVR but hadn't had time to watch them yet.  So, that is what I did and I am not really sure what the kids did all day, but they really didn't bother me at all.  I think I might have been grumpy that day too, so that might have been the reason they didn't DARE bother me.  Thursday I cleaned the entire basement, which was quite the task.  I organized scrapbook stuff and cleaned the laundry room and then I organized what little food storage I have down there too.  It was a pretty productive day.  On Friday I decided that since all my scrapbook stuff was organized we should scrapbook, so that is what we did most of the evening.  Saturday morning we decided that we would go to Lava Hot Springs so the 4 of us and M'Lynn Jerika's friend went to Lava to swim and then we went to Famous Daves for dinner.

This was Jerika's face after she went down the really big slide.

Pity Party.....

So, I don't know what my deal is lately, but I am so tired and just have no ambition.  I don't call people to do things, I don't scrapbook, and I don't want to be very social at all.  There are some very stressful things happening in my life right now, but as I was looking at blogs the other night, I read Ashley Sullenger's blog.  She is a young mother who last year lost her daughter in a drowning accident.  This is what her post said.... http://patrickandashley.blogspot.com/2011/08/counting-blessings-today.html and I decided that my life is stressful yes, but I am so lucky!!  She added a couple blogs to her post, one of which is a great niece to my bestest childhood friend and she has lukemia.  You can find that blog here http://www.togetherfortaleah.blogspot.com/.  There are a few other blogs I want to post of people who are really struggling and it makes me so thankful for my daily blessings and even more thankful that right now we are all healthy and alive and that is what matters most!!

http://welovemorganwatson.blogspot.com/
http://aliviaward.blogspot.com/
http://lookingupandkneelingdown.blogspot.com/
http://dennyandwendy.blogspot.com/
http://ironmanjace.blogspot.com/

Some of these people we know personally, others we have just heard about or we have mutual friends.  However, they are all very deserving of every prayer we can give to them.  Some of them could use donations also and I am sure anything would be very appreciated. 

As of today, I am ending my pity party and making sure I thank Heavenly Father EVERY DAY for my healthy family and all the things making me tired and keeping me busy on a daily basis.  So, even though you don't know me Ashley Sullenger, thank you for being thankful and making me see that even with all you have been through you can still be so thankful for the things you do have.

Girls Camp - Week 3

Camp was so much fun this year!!  I think part of it was because it was stake camp and not ward camp, so there was much less planning on our part.  We had 26 girls and 4 leaders up there the whole time and it was a riot.  I don't know for sure if the girls had as much fun as the leaders, but if they did it was more than successful.  This was all of us minus 1 girl and I am not sure where she was and neither is she.  I took almost 300 pictures during the week and these are the ones I narrowed it down to for my blog.  If you want to see all of them, I think I put them all on facebook.

 

 The theme for camp was SPY "seeking powerful youth" and not only was it fun, it was very spiritual and I think the girls learned a lot about individual worth.  The stake worked really hard on making it very uplifting and educational for all the girls.  Below is a picture of our lip sync.

In the picture below are the two best couselors EVER!!  Melanie and Amanda.  We or should I say they decided that since it was stake camp that we (they) could take charge and do everything themselves without a camp director.  I couldn't have been a better idea.  We bonded so much more with the girls and had so much fun as leaders too.  Marianna was there with us all week too, but I couldn't get her picture to load on here.  We laughed into the night most of the nights and the girls were actually getting after us because we were the ones being noisy.  Thank you ladies for a fabulous week, I know the girls love all of you and appreciate your hard work this year.  I don't know what I would have done without you both these last 2 years.  I can call you friends and I love and appreciate all you have done and do for me on a regular basis.

 

Jerika looks thrilled.  It was really hot and we were doing crafts.  I think she had fun though, even though it doesn't look like it here.

I am one lucky mom!!  I have spent the last 3 years at girls camp with Jerika.  I am pretty sure we will be getting released soon and I can really say I have loved spending the extra time with her.  When I was in young womens my mom was in there for a lot of the time too and I really enjoyed my time with her and now to get the same thing with my daughter is such a blessing.  I love you BOO!!

Trip to Utah - Week 2

We left Wednesday morning for Utah to see my friends.  The funny thing about all my friends I went to see is that they all work for different school districts, so they all had the summer off.

Wow, Kinlee and I look pretty excited, don't we?  At least I was paying attention to the road.

Our first stop in Utah was Bluffdale to see Jana and her family (minus Morgan, she was in Africa).  I first met Jana when I got a job at the title company before I got married.  We both worked in the front answering phones and other stuff.  It was so weird, because we had both signed up for the same college class and didn't know it until we both showed up that night, which was only a few days after I started.  Needless to say, we were joined at the hip from then on.  We had such a blast, we went country dancing and almost everywhere together and then worked together all day.  It was a really good time in my life.  Anyway, while we were there, Jana's son Riley who is a year younger than Kinlee, entertained her.  We went shopping for a little while and then we just hung out and talked the rest of the night.  It was so nice to just sit and talk, we haven't done that for years. 

Next stop was Holly's house.  I have known Holly since we were about 3.  My parents bought the house across from her parents and we grew up with each other.  She was my best friend.  Our birthdays were 3 days apart and very rarely did you see one of us without the other when we were growing up.  I wish my kids had that kind of friends now.  The other person in the picture is my friend Kathryn.  We all gre up in the same neighborhood, same ward and everything.  Holly's mom actually taught us kindergarten in her basement.  Wow, those were really the good old days and I could tell some good stories.  Anyway, we stayed with Holly, but went to visit Kathryn and we had so much fun catching up.  We laughed so hard just like the good old days.  In this picture, Holly didn't like her skinny neck and I didn't like my double chin and Kathryn just thought we were both silly.

Holly, me, Kathryn

Next stop Spanish Fork, Utah.  These are some of my newest friends.  They are actually Tiff's sisters Tammy and Tonia.  I went to Vegas with them a few years ago and Tammy was here from Nebraska/Texas (long story), so I went and spent some time with them.  We went swimming while we were there and then to dinner that night.  We had a lot of laughs too and our kids all got along really well.  Meeting Tiffnie has been a real blessing in my life and I get to be friends with her sisters too.

Tammy, Tonia, me

Dinner at Olive Garden.  We went with one of Tammy's friends from high shool and left all the kids at home to fend for themselves.

Saturday we went to Tricia's (my old roommate) and spent a little while there and then we went to lunch with her and 2 of her boys.  Spending time with her is always a blast and we just sit and laugh most of time we are together.

I couldn't take a trip to Utah and not see my baby brother.  We spent most of the day and the night at his house with him and all the girls.  We all went shopping and had a really nice visit.

We were all on our phones and Kinlee on the computer at the same time.  Anita thought it was funny when she came in, so she took a picture of all of us.  It is Shelby, me, Kelsie, Syndi and Kinlee.

Riley (Jana's son) joined us on our ride home.  She was going to girls camp on Monday and he was going to stay with his grandma in Rexburg.  He is such a good kid and he and Kinlee had a good ride home.  They kept each other entertained.

Kate had been in Island Park with her family for the week, so I called her on our way home on Sunday to see where she was.  It ended up that our paths crossed in Pocatello, so we stopped for a few minutes just to see each other.  I really miss her.

All of the Mills & Young kids.  They are all getting to big.  I couldn't believe how much the boys had grown since the last time I saw them.  At least they still remembered who we were.

A BIG HUGE THANK YOU TO ALL MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY FOR PUTTING UP WITH US ON OUR VISIT TO UTAH!!  You were all so awesome and accomodating.  We love all of you!!