First Christmas of the Season

For the last 3 years my family has started coming down to my house for the weekend before Christmas. They usually come on Friday and stay until Sunday sometime. We do Christmas presents on Saturday and we have a big Christmas dinner. Every year we have so much fun that we decide to do it again. Everyone is such a good sport to come all the way down here for it. I hope that we keep doing this tradition, because it makes it a lot easier on us not having to travel.

Merrial always looks so excited!

Addison opening her princess computer.

Brenden and Brooklyn with their new DS games. Loved them!

Shane and Hailey's cute little boy Griffin.

My sister Kate's boyfriend Art and my brother Shane having a good time.


Everyone having so much fun opening presents.

We just want to say thank you for all the fun times and memories that are being made. We love that you all come down and have a good time. Thank you to our parents for all the wonderful gifts, they always spoil us.

October 14th, 2010. A Visit to the Zoo!

Well, since my birthday was on the 13th and the kids didn't have school the 14th or 15th. We decided to head up state. I haven't been anywhere since June so I took the kids to the zoo. Addison had never been so she was really excited to go. The other times we have gone we only stayed for like an hour, this time we were there for 4 hours. It was a lot of fun! My brother Shane and his baby Griffin, my dad and mom all came with us.

Addison loved the elephants, especially the baby one. She kept wanting to go back and see them.

Brenden and Griffin on the rhino.

My brother Shane and his baby Griffin. Look how cute they are!

My little Ashlyn chilling in the stroller, she slept most of the time.

We think that this giraffe was in a trance it just stood there not moving staring at us.

All the kids, you never can get them all smiling at once.

You always have to have a picture in front of the gorilla measurement.

Brenden

Brooklyn

HALLOWEEN!!!!

This year we were very busy. On Wednesday the we had the ward Halloween party where the kids had a truck or treat. Then on Thursday we went and helped at Brooklyn's school party, but Brenden's class didn't get theirs because they were bad. Also, Jonnie went to Brooklyn's class dressed like a witch and read them a Halloween story and had an activity with them. They totally loved that. That night we went down to the Castle Dale City party were they had a dinner, with pumpkin carving, a witches convention and a costume parade.

Jonnie after she came home from Brooklyn's class.

At the city party in the Witches parade.

Friday night we decided to carve and decorate pumpkins, usually we do it the Monday before but we were late this year. We had so many pumpkins coming out our ears this year, this insurance company that does stuff for us brought us two giant bins of pumpkins in all sizes. So we started painting some first and then we carved 5 pumpkins. It took us forever.

Brooklyn and Addison painting their pumpkins.
Brenden had moved on to gutting his
Brooklyn digging in her pumpkin, trying to get out all the stuff.

Here are all the pumpkins on our wet front porch.

Here they are all lit. We had a ghost, a crazy face pumpkin, a skull, a witches hat and Merrial carved the wolves. I think they turned out really good this year, we always have fun doing pumpkins.

Saturday we started the day off with Addison puking all morning long. The older kids went with Merrial to move cows. We were suppose to go have dinner with some friends of ours at 3:15 but Merrial and the kids didn't get home until after 3pm and I had to frantically get them ready in their costumes because we were also going on a hayride trick or treating with these same friends. Addison was feeling better by this time so she was all ready thank goodness. We got to our friends just in time for the hayride, it had started to rain a little bit so we went to a few houses and decided to go to the schools trunk or treat. We got there and it started to pour on us, in just a minute we were soaked! I even had an umbrella but it wasn't helping, by the time we got done with that the kids had enough. We put all the kids inside the car and Tiffany and I sat on the hayride in the pouring rain all the way home, just a few blocks up the street. But it was far enough to have us dripping wet. So our Halloween was cut short by the weather but we still had a wonderful time with friends and family and the kids got way to much candy.
All four of my children dressed up for Halloween. Brenden was Iron Man this year, they all look so good.

The girls, Brooklyn was a pretty witch she didn't want to be an ugly witch, go figure. Addison was Princess Jasmine and Ashlyn was barely fitting in Addisons old kitty hat that she wore. She is my big girl.
Here are the kids on the hayride before it really started to rain. It was a lot of fun, hopefully next year it won't rain on us.

October 17th, 2010 Ashlyn's Blessing

We blessed our sweet little baby on the 17th of October. We had some family come down for it. Not everyone could make it, we just wanted them to know that they were missed. Merrial had Gracelyn's family, LaDawn's family, Joe, Craig and Jonnie, Justin's family and Jonnie's Aunt Sally. I had my Mom and Dad and my sister Katie and her boyfriend Art. Merrial did an excellent job on Ashlyn's blessing. He blessed her that she was going to be a leader and was going to keep her brothers and sisters in line. That would be really nice. Because he blessed Addison that she was going to be a peacemaker and that is totally opposite of what she is. I would say she is the instigator. I just wanted to thank all those that came again, we were glad you were there.

Ashlyn on her blessing day. All three of my girls have worn the same dress. She is 6 weeks old.

The girls. They are always mauling her, giving her kisses and hugs and always wanting to hold her. They love their new baby sister!
Brenden and his little sister. He is finally starting to like her, at first he wouldn't even look at her. Now I catch him talking to her and holding her for a minute.


Always have to have a family picture and this is a pretty good one.

Brenden's Flag Football

Brenden has been playing flag football the last month and a half. He loves it and he is so good at it. I am not just saying that because I am his mom, he has like turbo legs. He is a really fast runner and he just gets the ball and takes off. He is the team secret weapon, he is so little that they just don't think he can do anything and all of the sudden he has the ball and in the in zone.

This is him in full motion. It is kind of funny because when he has the ball and running I yell faster, faster and our friends by us are like how much faster can he go with out his legs catching on fire. I am so proud of him, he is such a good boy.
Getting ready for another play.

Here he is quarterback, handing off to his buddy Brett. This year there was only 2 third graders on this team, Brenden and Brett Olsen. All the rest of them were either 1st or 2nd graders, they had a lot of fun being the older kids on the team.

Brooklyn cheerleading and Addison's 3rd birthday!

So I am really behind posting because Addison has lost my camera again, so I haven't had any pictures to put on here. I have looked everywhere for it and then decided to buy a new one. I bought a new one and a few days later Brenden found my old one, happens every time. So if you ever loose anything just buy it again and then you will find it.

The Emery High Cheerleaders sent out a flier about the little girls cheering at a football game. Brooklyn decided that she wanted to do it, so I signed her up. Merrial and Brenden actually went up to the cabin that night so I had all the girls and we went to the game to watch Brooklyn. She was a little nervous at first to go out there and cheer, but then she had a lot of fun. Here are some pictures of her.


Addison's Birthday was October 5th and we had a little birthday party for her. We just had a few families over for dinner, had cake and ice cream and opened presents. She got a lot of princess stuff that she is starting to get really into. She was a lot of fun, she would get really excited when she would open her presents. Happy Birthday!

Welcome Ashlyn Dawn Johansen!

Born September 1, 2010
7 lbs 13 oz, 20 1/2 in

I went to the doctor on August 31st and he stripped my membranes. I really didn't think that it would do anything, because it usually doesn't work unless you are ready. He told me to come back in the morning and we will see if he would send me to the hospital. I was only 38w2d so I didn't think he would keep me. All that day nothing was happening, until 9pm then I started having contractions every 8 mins. I was up all night long because they were hurting, I just kept thinking either water break or contractions get closer together. But neither happened, they decided to stop at about 5am. I was pretty mad. So I fell asleep until 6:30am and decided to get up and get ready. I dropped my kids off at school and Addison at Jessy and Justin's and drove myself over to the doctors. I was having some more contractions by now, but didn't think anything of it. I got in there and he checked me and said you are 4cm dilated. I am sending you over to the hospital, because if I don't send you now you will be back today sometime anyways. So I called Merrial and told him and he said "Can you wait an hour?" I was like sure just hurry! They didn't get anything going until about 12:30pm and then I had her in 4 1/2 hours. It was a really easy labor. I am so glad she is here and we are both healthy.







Of course she had to go under the lights, because every single one of my children have had to. I guess there is just something about me that makes them have Jaundice.




Addie loves her baby sister. When we were in the hospital she really did, she keep telling everyone that she was her baby. Then we brought her home, she wasn't so thrilled. But now she is doing fine. We are all adjusting to having a new little person in our house. She is a really good baby and she all ready sleeps from midnight until 5am. I couldn't ask for anything better.