Lindsay turns 15

Lindsay wanted to buy something from Hollister or Abercrombie this year for her birthday shopping so we headed to Boise. The weather the day before was not very good, but once we got to Bliss the roads were fine. Dave had gone to Boise the day before Christmas shopping, and he said it wasn't busy at all. We got to the mall and couldn't even find a good parking spot it was so packed. We went to Vanity and she found this cute hat... We ate lunch at the food court....

She didn't find anything at Hollister, so we went to Abercrombie and she found a shirt and a pair of sweats that she really liked. She had really been wanting a new pair of sweats so she was happy.

I was doing some Christmas shopping while we were there and by the time I took this picture she was about done. She still had money left, but we were both tired so we came home. We had a good day and I loved spending it with her.

For Brooke's birthday I wrote a few things about her and I wanted to do the same thing with Lindsay.

1. After six years of being in Gooding she finally has her own room. She picked out the paint and the comforter.

We trimmed around the window and put up blinds.

Dave picked out some Japanese lanterns and hung them for her.. she really likes those.

Her room is really cute and now that she has more room she keeps it really clean. Her closet is very organized and she hangs things in a certain order. She has some pictures on her desk and she likes them to be in an exact spot. The funny thing is that every time I would go in her room I would put them in the spot I wanted...then when I would go back in they would be moved so I would put them back...finally she was in there one day and I went to move them and she informed me that she wanted them there and she couldn't figure out why they were moved all the time!
2. She is really liking music right now. She loves her IPOD and it seems like she always has music playing. Even when she is on the computer doing something she will have her playlist going.

3. She likes Suduko. There are lots of nights when I will go into her room and she will be listening to music and doing Suduko puzzles. She has a book of them that she has almost finished.

4. She likes toffee, Dr Pepper, and chocolate covered raisins. Dave got me a big thing of raisins in October and she ate most of them! She doesn't like Raisinets though, just the ones from Costco. For Christmas we got her a movie and her own thing of raisins.

5. She is a lot like me...if you have been around us much you know how true this is. She is a good artist, although she doesn't really like to draw, and she definately gets that from her dads side of the family.

6. She is a saver with her money. Brittney and Brooke tend to spend their money as fast as they get it. Lindsay is a lot better at keeping it...she has even started her own bank account and has money saved there.

Happy Birthday Lindsay-we love you.

Summer Softball

Both Lindsay and Brooke played softball again this year with the rec. district. I didn't get any pictures of Brooke playing unfortunately. Her team had 5 or 6 girls that have never played softball before so it was definately a learning year for them. Her team didn't win very many games, but at least Brooke got to play first base all game every game so she did like that.
Lindsay's team didn't win very many games either. They went into the tournament in fifth place....last. They only won two games during the regular season. They started the tournament playing Buhl....Buhl thought, like every team, that they would blow right past us. We ended up winning that game. Then we had to play Wendell (1st place in the season) the same night. The girls never gave up and they fought clear to the end and won. We were all so excited. The next night we played Kimberly. We were down eight runs, but once again they never gave up and came back to win. So Wed. night we had to play the same Buhl team again. We lost the first game and had to play them again for the championship. Buhl played awesome and we couldn't seem to get anywhere until the very last inning and we got up by two runs. They had last bats and started getting people on base. They had the tying run on third base and the winning run on second with their best batter up. She hit a line drive straight to McKenna who caught the ball, stepped on third and got the runner out. Double play to end the game. It was amazing....
We were so proud of their whole team....they kept their spirits up, they never gave up and they just kept playing the way they knew how to. After six years of playing together they finally won a first place trophy. When we got home we were looking at Lindsay's trophy's. There was only one year that they didn't place in tournaments, so they have done really well all these years.

McKenna, Tia, Lindsay

The only sad thing to happen was on the last night when I brought my camera to take some pictures. Brooke went out and took a couple of Lindsay in the field and I got this picture in the dugout....then my camera batteries died. I was so bummed out that I didn't have it when they won 1st. I missed the team pictures after the game. I got one with my phone, but that is it. I guess I will really have to beg Marcy to get me copies of hers!

Mom's Birthday

My mom turned 60 this year so we decided to have a party for her. We held it at my grandma's house and invited the whole family. Danelle did a great job on the decorations and everything looked really nice. We had a video made (thank you Troy and Rhonda for all the help on that) so we went to my moms house before the party to watch it. It had pictures of her growing up, each of our family's had pictures and then pictures of all of us. It was awesome and made her cry. Then it was time for the party. Brooke and Chelsey...they called themselves gangsters all day because of their sunglasses...they look more Hollywood than gangsters though.

Mikayla and Lindsay

Robin and Christopher...Taylor is hiding behind them. Robin says he doesn't like having his picture taken anymore!

Braquel and Brittney. My biggest laugh of the day.....my grandma has a clothes line over by where the food was set up. Braquel's boyfriend Kevin kept running into the line everytime he would walk over there. After a while we were trying to think up reasons to have him walk over there just so we could see him run into the clothes line!! Ok, not very nice....but it was funny!
My second laugh of the day....Our main course was a whole roasted pig...

When Gary and Jason started getting the meat out all of the kids went over to check it out. We have four boys in the family and they all were quite disgusted with the whole thing. Guess who sat in the back of the pickup and watched.....

The girls!! And of all the girls guess who was the most into it.....

Brooke had to get on the gloves, help get the meat out, and pull off some skin. I had walked away for a minute and when I was walking back I heard her say, "I want the ear"!

After dinner we had cake. Danelle's kids decided that Grandma should have 60 candles since she was turning 60. So we put twenty candles on three different cakes.... it is not easy to get 60 candles going all at the same time. We had four of us lighting them and still took awhile to get them all going.

I hope my mom had a great birthday. She is an amazing person who is always there to help me when I need it. She calls me at least once a week just to check in and see how our family is doing, and the kids think she is a miracle worker! Any time they have anything that need sewn up or fixed they put it in the "do you think grandma can fix this" pile. We love you mom/grandma.

Is it just me??

Is it just me, or is everyones lives getting busier all the time? It seems like I never have time to get all the things done that I want to in a day. Today is my day off and I had a long wish list of things that I wanted to get done. Clean house, do laundry, get the car serviced, get a haircut, go to the library, take Brooke to the Dr., mow the front yard, etc. (Most of the time it seems like I work harder on my day off than when I'm at work!) Anyway, after the kids were gone to school I decided to make my breakfast. While my french toast was cooking I sat down to check my Netflix que...then I looked at a couple of blogs...then I looked to see if I had new e-mail. Then I realized.....when I smelled something.....that my french toast was burning away. Obviously my attempt to get a few things done while I was making breakfast didn't turn out too well! I guess I better just try and stick to doing one thing at a time, especially when it comes to cooking! (Hopefully Dave doesn't see this post, he hates it when I try and multi-task while I am cooking. This isn't the first, and more than likely won't be the last time something gets burned.)

I'm sure that most women would agree with me that there is just too much going on in our heads to keep track of everything.....or is it just me??

Graduation

We made it!! The day we have all been waiting for all year finally came. The were more than a few days when none of us thought we would make it. But, everything came together in the end and we are very proud of Brittney for graduating. We decided to have some of our family and friends over for a pre-graduation get together. We spent lots of time outside getting pictures of Brittney with everyone. Lindsay, Brooke and Britt

Britt with her two cousins..Braquel and Taylor

Even Ellie got to come to the graduation!

Taylor, McKenna and Dave

Me, Marcy, and Tonia

My dad and Brooke

We had finger foods and snacks until it was time for Colton and Brittney to go to the school. We all decided to go early so we could get a good seat.

Braquel, me and Danelle....check out Dave in the background!

Amber (Cory's girlfriend), Cory and Brooke


The graduation was actually not bad at all. The speeches were all short and to the point. Colton was the salutorian and his speech was really good. There wasn't a key note speaker so it didn't drag on and on. I only teared up once (I know, can you believe it) during the slide show...each senior had a baby picture, a senior picture, a quote and their signature. It was definately my favorite part.

Colton and Brittney...

WOO HOO! I can't believe eighteen years have gone by so fast, it seems like she just started kindergarten and here she is with her cap and gown. Good job Britt...we love you.

WE ROCK!!!!

We had so much fun at the 80's prom last year that this year we had an "80's hair band party" for Troy's birthday. I had to work the day Dave went shopping for our outfits so Jen and Marcy helped him out. They picked out my whole outfit together and I have to say that they did a really good job. We met at the Jensen house to get ready together which was a little crazy because we were in a big hurry, but fun. (Dave looked AWESOME..he should have been in a band!) Then we loaded up and headed to The Turf Club.

Ready to rock!!

Abbie, Troy and I. Abbie and I ended up wearing the same shirt and tights, just different colors. (I was going to say that great minds think alike, but then I remembered that I didn't pick them out...dang it)

The groupies

Nikki Sixx, Slash, Axel Rose

Clyde and Becky looking good.

Sarah and Heather looking very 80's

We had so much fun at the party. It was a really fun theme, and almost everyone dressed up. We danced all night until they kicked us out.

Dave was pretty tired by the end of the night. He did say though that he was ready to go dancing again soon because he had so much fun. Thanks Jensens for such a fun party....it's our turn next year!

Track Stars

Both Lindsay and Brooke took track this year. I'm not sure Brooke really liked it, but she did appreciate all the excersize. We were inspired by Colton not drinking pop all during basketball season, so we decided that during spring volleyball and track we would not drink pop. It was actually not as bad as we thought, and we have cut way back on our pop drinking even after track was over. I am not a big fan of track meets...I think track is the least fun spectator sport! I think it's mainly because it always seems to be freezing at track meets! I took the camera to their last meet to get some pictures, but my batteries quit after just these three photos. (Luckily my mom was there and she took a bunch for us...thanks mom) When I got to Kimberly it started raining...all the kids got back on the buses. It quit raining so they started again, then it started hailing. This time they just kept on going. It was COLD. Brooke did the discus, the long jump, the 100, and the 200. Lindsay did the long jump, the 200 and two relays.

BRRRRRR!!

My mom and Jeff came because my girls and my neice Mikayla were all running that day. Lindsay and Mikayla ended up running the same leg of the same relay against each other which we thought was really funny. Our biggest laugh though was at Brooke. As she was running the 200 she kept looking at the other runners. When I told her not to look at other people and just run her fastest she explained to me that she had to look at them so she could see if she was last. If she was last she would run her fastest, if not she would just run hard!!

Stairs

Two years after we built the add on we finally have "real" stairs out of the back door!! Troy brought his equipment so he could help us get this project done. Troy is really good at what he does and we were so glad to have him, Jen, Marcy and Perry there to help us. Perry and Dave carried all the wood

The girls supervised the work!

We decided that we would all sign the concrete before we covered it up.

Dave and Perry were taking bolts off with little tiny wrenches....Jen had to show them how a professional does it!!

At the end Troy let all of us have a turn putting in some nails

Even Lindsay came out and got in on the action.

In an amazingly short time our stairs were finished. We are so lucky to have such awesome friends that would give up their Sunday morning to come and help us. Thanks guys...we love you.