Football and Face Paint

The Knopps invited us over to their house to watch the last of the playoff games on Sunday, and we were told we had to wear Jets or Vikings colors or pay a penalty. Of course this made Sundii and Dave decide to go all out in support of the Colts and the Saints! So Sundii and Megan came over to our house Sunday morning to get ready. Megan painted Sundii's face while Lindsay worked on Dave. Brooke helped by doing tattoos and I ran around trying to get everything else in the car ready to go.

Dave made his own wig, and I even sprayed the back of Sundii's hair blue!

All the Colts fans in the house....

and the Saints fans....

Marcy is a huge Brett Favre fan so of course they were cheering for the Vikings. (Notice her L for Loser finger!) She played the Vikings fight song all day and had the lyrics printed and hung in every bathroom! She had printed out a picture of Favre and hung it right under the TV so Dave kept putting his Saints monkey with his tail hanging down on the mantle right over it.

The games were really good, a little too good in the Saints game. Dave was so stressed out because the game was so close that he couldn't get too excited until they won. We had a lot of fun and FINALLY after 18 years of waiting Dave's team is in the Super Bowl!!

This is one happy Saints fan....."Oh when the Saints go marching in...oh when the Saints go marching in..."

Happy New Year.....or not

On New Year Eve and New Years Day it snowed a lot in Gooding. We got over a foot of snow. Brooke decided she wanted to go out and build a snowman...but she says she has never made one so she really wasn't sure what to do. Troy and Rhonda gave us this cute snowman kit several years ago for Christmas so she used that for her "accesories"! The hair is filler from a basket we got for Christmas which I thought was a pretty cute idea she came up with. Over all she did a really good job for her first one. The Jensens came from Twin so we could take the kids around in the snow on the four-wheelers. First we started to build a huge snowman...it was really hard to get the middle ball on! We got all three balls on, but we were running out of light so we had to get going before we could finish.

We went to Dave and Perry's work where there is lots of space to ride around on. The kids really liked being pulled on the tube and riding the four-wheelers in the snow. Dave pulled out both of our snowmobiles so we had those to ride too.

That was the funner part of the day....now the not so fun part of the day....while Dave was riding with Kayden he hit a frozen pile of wheat and flew over the handlebars of the snowmobile and flew about fifteen feet before he hit the ground. Several hours later after he had changed into lounge pants everyone noticed that his leg was swollen up really big and was as hard as a rock. He was in a lot of pain so Troy called his sister, who is a nurse, and she said we better go in to the dr. So off we went to the emergency room for the next three hours. I just happened to still have Brooke's camera so I took this picture while we were waiting.

They did a CT scan, iced his leg really good, and most importantly gave him some good pain medicine! We decided it was a good thing it happened on the first day of the year for our insurance deductible rather than the last day. He took it easy Saturday and didn't go to work, but by Monday he went back. He showed me his leg on Wed. and I had to take this followup picture...his leg looks like someone took a baseball bat to it. So, hopefully our hospital trips started and finished on the first day of 2010!

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.