Here is Blake's "famous" Flo Rida dance. (Try not to judge me for letting my kids listen to this kind of music.... it just happens to be one of our favorite songs to dance to!) He dances just like his dad!

There are some good times too...

So lately I feel like all I have done is complain about my kids. I'm sure all of my friends think I am a terrible mother who doesn't love my kids, cause all they ever hear about are the negative things that happen, and how I just need a break from them. Well, I figured it was time that I brag about the good things that happen around here, cause believe it or not, there are some good times too...

Like this morning, Ashlyn and Damon were playing a game where they would run from one side of the kitchen to the other, and when they would get to a wall they would crash into it. Well, for Damon's sake, Ashlyn was pretending to run as fast and hard as she could, while really barely running at all, just so that Damon would think he was faster than she was. In all reality, Damon couldn't care less about winning a race, but that isn't the point. In Ashlyn's mind, winning is EVERYTHING, but she was willing to lose just cause she wanted to make her baby brother happy.

And just a few minutes ago, while Blake was playing Wii with a couple of his friends, Damon started screaming for no apparent reason, and Blake chose to pause his game to go kiss and comfort Damon.

And I'm sure most of you have heard me complain about how Damon empties out all the kitchen drawers like 10 times a day, well the part that I never mention is how happy he gets to clean it all up while looking at me for smiles and approvals. He might not put things back where they belong, and he might empty it back out as soon as he picks them up, but it melts my heart how happy he gets when he thinks he is helping me out by "cleaning" it up for me.

And nothing cheers me up more than the "dance parties" that me and the kids have. We blast the music up high or turn on our "Just Dance" Wii game and all dance. It is so much fun and pretty darn funny (videos to come on a later post!) to watch my kids, including Damon, dance all crazy!

So you see, we do have some good times around here too, even if you don't hear about them that often, CAUSE MAN I NEED A BREAK FROM THESE KIDS! :)

Blake's Basketball Video

Here is a video of Blake's last basketball game of 2010-2011. Try to ignore the annoying voice in the background and try not to get nauseous from the shaky video!

Christmas 2010

We had a very low-key, but wonderful Christmas this year.

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To start it off, on Christmas Eve we had Terry's parents come down and join us at the Paramount to see the movie "Mastermind". Blake has been wanting to see it and it turned out really cute. I would recommend it. After the movie we had them come over for a small dinner of "Super Bowl" food. (Super Bowl food just means the kind of food you would have at a Super Bowl party: You know, like lil smokies, and little sandwiches, and chips and dip. Things like that. Anyway...) We also played some cards with them... something we always do when we get together with them. At the end of the night we let the kids open one present, which is always jammies.

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Then on Christmas morning the kids woke us up at 8, and we went downstairs to see what Santa brought. Here are the kids showing off a few of their presents...

Here the two big kids are playing Wii in their brand new Snuggies.

(Yes my kids wanted Snuggies for Christmas!)

It was really funny... Ashlyn unwrapped her Snuggie first, and when Blake saw it he was really jealous. So as he was unwrapping his other presents,he was quietly saying to himself, "Please be a Snuggie, Please be a Snuggie!" Lets just say he was pretty excited when he finally opened his! (Yes, my kids are nerds! Don't be hattin!)

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After opening presents and playing with them for a few hours, we slowly made our way over to Terry's parents' house for a yummy Christmas dinner. It was very relaxing and nice to not have to travel for the holiday!

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Here are a few of our favorite things we got for Christmas this year:

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Damon: A ride on toy, a car ramp with little cars, and a baby swing to hook up to our swingset,

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Ashlyn: A dog purse, a Mp3 player, electric keyboard, Zhu Zhu pets with a habitat, and Wii games.

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Blake: Electric drum set, Mp3 player, huge star war lego kit, remote control car, and Wii games.

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Aubrey: Kitchen stereo that connects to my Mp3 player, books, Just Dance 2 Wii game.

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Terry: Blu Ray player, flat screen t.v., wrench, Wii games.

(Terry took back one of his main gifts. The Blu Ray and t.v. were family gifts but I had to list it on Terry so you didn't feel too sorry for him!)

We hope you had a wonderful Christmas!

Damon turned 1

On December 11, 2009 we were blessed with our sweet baby boy Damon. We love having him in our family. He brings us joy everyday. Here is what our sweet little boy looked like when he was born...

Here he is today...
Still just as sweet, just alot bigger!

Damon had his 1st birthday this past Saturday. Unfortunately, Terry's family had the Olson Christmas party that same day, and with all kinds of other things going on that day, we decided to wait and celebrate his birthday on Sunday.

Here the birthday boy enjoys a roll while sitting with his 2 favorite boys at the Christmas party.

Damon gets his first visit with Santa. Not to happy about it! He was terrified!



My big boy gets a turn with Santa as well.


And don't forget my princess Ashlyn.

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The next day we went over to Terry's parent's to have a party for Damon. We kept it pretty low key. (I've learned with having bigger kids, that you need to take advantage when they are young, cause when they get bigger, they want huge expensive parties with every kid they ever met invited!)

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We first let Damon open a few presents.

Here he is concentrating so hard on one of his new toys.

Next we had cupcakes.

We made the mistake of putting the cupcake in his reach before stripping his clothes off. He was not happy when we took it away before he could dig into it!

We finally stripped him down and let him have at it.

(You can still see the upset look on his face from the previous incident!)

Now that he has had a taste, he's forgotten all about the tears.

And if you think his face looks funny this color, you should have seen his poop the next day! It was bright greenish-blue.

(Sorry, I'm sure you were all dying to know that!)

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We were so excited for our little guy turning 1. We have had such a fun year with him, and look forward to years to come.

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Here are all the things our Damon can do by the age of 1:

-He has been walking since about 10 1/2 months of age.

-He has one tooth. (looks like another one will be in any day now.)

-He says Dada and Uh oh. (I can't get him to say Momma for the life of me!)

-It has been hard getting him to eat normal food.(non baby food) But he really likes scrambled eggs, mac and cheese, cereal bars, and bread.

-He loves to play catch.

-He loves our cats. (I'm pretty sure they are terrified of him though!)

-He wears 24 month clothes, mostly just the shirts. (We still squeeze him into a few 18 months.)

-He takes about a 3 hour nap everyday, and if we are lucky he will take a second 2 hour nap as well.

-He loves emptying out the kitchen drawers. All the dish towels and tupperware get thrown on the kitchen floor daily.

-He is drinking from a sippy cup.

-He is just a happy little guy.

Happy Birthday Damon. We love you!

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*One thing I forgot to mention... So on the morning of his birthday, we could hear him chatting to himself in his bed, so Terry and I get the other kids up so that we can all sing Happy Birthday to him. We walk in his room and immediately start singing. He looks at us, then throws himself face down on his bed and starts crying. Either the singing took him by suprise and scared him, or at that moment he realized he was never going to be the next American Idol, cause if we all sound that bad he knows there is no chance for him! Lets just say I was so mad I didn't have the video camera out, cause it was pretty funny!

There's nothing like sittin by the fire...

Terry has worked REALLY HARD on our yard since buying this house. One of the projects that has been the hardest is our fire pit. He has collected stones and set them in one by one like a puzzle to create a beautiful stone patio with a fire pit. This took alot of time, and he finally got it finished just in time to use it a couple of times. We were able to roast marshmellows for smores one night and then another night we roasted hotdogs for dinner.

Here Terry and the two big kids relax around the fire.
Then Terry set the camera timer so I could be in it as well.
(Damon was naping so he wasn't in the shot. Love you Damon!)

Here is an upclose look at the pit. Isn't she a beauty!

Then a couple days after those pictures were taken we wake up to this...

Yep, snow came early this year! At least we got a little use out of the fire pit!

And the kids weren't too disappointed in the snow. They built snow forts and had a snow ball fight,

This snow storm was just the first of many to come, we've had lots more and the kids have been loving getting all their snow gear on to play in it.

I'm sick of it already and can't wait for it to melt so we can enjoy our backyard again! Spring can't make it here fast enough!

Oh how I miss...

So, don't get me wrong, I love my life (most days), I love living here in Idaho (most days), and I wouldn't change the way things are, but some days I just get a little "home sick". Most of you know that I was born and raised in Louisiana and lived there until I graduated high school. I lived in the small town of Westlake, lived in the same house, and had the same friends my entire life. And on some days, like today, I start missing some things and really wish I could just go back and visit....

Oh how I miss...

1. Maw Maw Fruge and her delicious cooking, like gumbo, crawfish ettoufe, and the best roast ever. I miss living a block away from her and getting to see her and hear her "oh so thick" cajun accent whenever I wanted.

2. Maw Maw and Paw Paw Nope. Every Sunday after church we would take a nap, and then get woken up to go have dinner at their house. I miss going to garage sales with them. Paw Paw always had bubble gum in his pocket and would hand it out at church to all of the little kids in our ward. Paw Paw also replaced the tooth fairy, he paid much better than the tooth fairy ever would.

3. Having holidays with both sides of grandparents. We all lived in the same town so they never missed seeing what Santa brought us Christmas morning.

4. Thunderstorms. Oh how I miss that sound! It seemed like we would get one every other day, and now I never get to hear them.

5. Warm weather. We never had much of a winter, mostly just cold fronts that would pass through and leave it cold for maybe a week or two, then go right back to being warm.

6. Tornados. Yes this is a weird one!! I never want to see people or homes get hurt or destroyed, but I would always get such an adrenaline rush everytime we had a tornado warning.

7. The Westlake warning sirens. Westlake was surrounded by chemical plants, and on every Monday at noon, the town tested the warning siren system that warns people if there is a chemical spill, and as weird as it may be, I just miss hearing it, probably because it was just a part of my childhood.

8. Night plan. As a kid, all of the neighborhood kids would do what we called the "Night Plan", which is staying out after dark playing games. Like hide and seek. It was the best!

9. Riding my bike to the snowcone shop.

10. The food. Some of my favorites were... Popeyes friend chicken, Casa Manana, Pronia's, Tony's, Picadilly, and I can't remember the name, but it was the seafood restarant that had the best smothered okra. Yum!

11. The bridges. There were two bridges you could use to get from Westlake to Lake Charles, and I guess I miss them for some reason.

12. Softball tournaments. Softball was my "big" sport, and there was nothing better than spending an entire weekend at the softball field with all of your teammates.

13. The accents. Most of you probably wouldn't believe that I had a THICK southern accent. I was probably the worse in my family. But living up north has taken it away. Sad I know!

14. Yes mam and yes sir. You would never hear someone NOT say mam or sir in their sentence. And if they did their parents would probably slap them across the head! It was very disrespectful not to use mam or sir. I miss that so much. When I first moved to Utah, I was obviously still in the habit of saying it, and I would get weird or rude looks from cashiers or whomever I said it to, almost as if I was implying that they were old or something. So I dropped that habit very quickly! Man how I wish Idaho could adopt that habit. Its just so very polite!

15. Trees. I never realized how many trees there were until I moved away. The interstates and highways were surrounded on each side with trees. My house had huge trees everywhere. Here you have to live in a very old house or up on the mountain if you want any trees.

16. Humidity. When we took a trip to Hawaii recently, I came to realize that I actually miss humidity! It kinda felt like being home at times when I would hear the wind blowing through the trees and feel the humidity on my skin. I really didn't know I missed it until I was back in it.

17. Crawfish boils.

18. Cajun/Zideco music. I didn't listen to it much, but I recently heard some of Wayne Toups old songs, and it just brought me back home.

19. Lightning bugs. (or you may call them fireflies.)

20. Summer nights.

Well, I could go on and on about the things I miss, there are so many, and mostly it just made me feel better to write a few of them down. The south is really a completely different world. The lifestyles are just so different. (Some of it good and some not so good!) There are lots of good people that I miss down there, though I have met tons of great people here. I love living here and raising my kids here. I just need to buckle down and plan a trip to visit my old town so that I can stop feeling so home sick!