Long Overdue Update

Sorry there has not been any exciting new posts from our family.  We have been busy and I have not been on the computer.  I thought I did a good job changing our music from Christmas music to normal music.  A quick update from December till now:

We went to Utah for Christmas and spent the holiday with Justin's family.  The boys were really excited.  They love to play with their cousins.  Santa brought the boys each a basketball and a note stating he left a basketball hoop at our home in Montana.  Tyler was really excited about that.  The boys also received pillow pets, nerf guns, books, and other toys.  Each year I try to limit the amount of gifts from mom and dad because I know they will be spoiled by everyone else.  As I get told repeatedly, they are not spoiled, just well loved.

We spent a quiet New Year's Eve home with the kids watching movies and hanging out.  I think we even went to bed early.  I guess that means Justin and I are getting older.  To quote Justin's t-shirt "growing old is mandatory, growing up is optional."  Everyone who knows Justin knows this saying is particularly true about him.

January was filled with school, work, and snow.  We did not do anything too special during this month.  Just spent time doing family stuff.

In February, we went to Powell, WY for Lan's return from his mission.  The boys love to go to Aunt Alana's and Uncle Pogo's.  They love to play with Tellese.  The boys were excited to play with Savanna, Morgan, and Steven.  They had tons of fun swimming with them at the hotel.  We were also able to visit with Grandma Olsen, Grandma Kathy, Grandpa Earl, and Aunt Teresa and her family.  Neeedless to say, the boys had fun with everyone.  Trevor was a good sport about wrestling with Tyler and Garrett.  The boys are all boy and like to wrestle and tackle the "big" boys.

The boys went down hill skiing in February for the first time.  They loved it!  They did an awesome job!  We just were on the bunny hill, but they had to use the rope tow to get to the top.  Garrett needed assistance getting on and off the rope tow.  He was awesome with his pizza wedge.  Tyler is a little dare devil.  He would get to the top and point his skis towards the bottom and just go.  We would have to yell at him to pizza wedge so he would stop.  Sometimes, he would just fall down to stop.   They have been after me since then to go back up, but is just has not worked out.  Maybe next year.

The boys tried wrestling for the first time during the end of February and beginning of March.  Justin and I both agree, this is not our favorite sport.  I believe in letting the boys try something once, but I will probably not push wrestling again.  Garrett did not like it.  He would say it is scary on the mat.  Garrett is quite comfortable goofing off with his brother, but during matches, he really did not care about wrestling.  Tyler took third in three out of four tournaments we went to.  I really did not care for Tyler's attitude with wrestling.  He did fine if we told him to try his best and think about the moves, but a few coaches did not say that before the match.  Needless to say, during those matches, Tyler would loose and get mad.  Even though I did not like his attitude, Tyler was pretty impressive to watch.  Luckily, spring soccer starts in a few weeks and both Justin and I are happy about that.

That about covers what is going on in our lives.  We pretty much just work, go to school, do family stuff.  We have been fighting the crappy cold bugs which are going around.  Hopefully, I will be able to post some picture soon.  I was able to take some cute pictures of the boys skiing and wrestling. 

Our Family Update

I am sorry that I have not written anything on our blog.  I like to put pictures with my posts and I have not had pictures to post.  Our family is doing well.  Tyler is in kindergarten and likes it.  He has trouble going to school when his brother does not have school, but he is getting better about it.  Tyler is a very caring, energetic little boy who loves sports!

Garrett is a busy 4 year old. He goes to preschool two days a week and loves it!  He is too smart for his own good.  Garrett is a busy boy...he loves to push buttons...figuratively and actually pushing buttons.  He is my little "Dennis the Menace" and is a precious boy.

Justin is Justin.  He may be getting older by age, but that is the only part of him that ages.  I always tell people I have 3 boys because sometimes Justin acts younger than Tyler and Garrett.

I am still a busy, working mom.  I will try and update our blog later.  I hope the holiday season is going well for everyone!

Tyler's Pre-K Graduation

In June, Tyler had his pre-K graduation.  Tyler's teacher, Mrs. Fischer, puts together a little program where she speaks and hands out diplomas to the students as a send off for kindergarten.  She had parent helpers tie-dye tee-shirts so that every student had the same uniform on.  The kids all made their own hats.

 This year, the kids all had yellow tee-shirts on and they walked into the sanctuary wearing sun glasses.  The yellow represented the sun.  Mrs. Fischer said all of the kids are so hot and bright just like the sun that they will go far with their education.

 Tyler was really excited about his big graduation day.  Tyler thought it was pretty neat his family was at his graduation.  After the little ceremony, there was refreshments which both boys loved.  My boys think cake and punch is great!  Tyler was able to say good-bye to some of his friends since all of the kids will be going to different schools this year.  It is hard to believe my son is in kindergarten this year.  Time does fly by.

Justin and his dog

Everyone knows the saying, " a dog is man's best friend."  Well, in our household this is true to a point.  In our household, the saying should be "man is a dog's best friend." 

Justin and Miley

Miley is our family dog.  She is a cross between a lab and a walker hound.  She is one and half years old and still has puppy tendencies on some things (she likes to chew on balls and other toys left in the back yard).

Miley and Rocky

Miley also loves Justin.  On the weekends, Miley follows Justin around and does not let him out of her sights.  She is afraid Justin will leave her.  Justin usually takes Miley when he goes and gets his coffee in the mornings when he does not work.  She is very spoiled by this little routine.  If something changes and she does not get her "Justin time" she pouts and is very sulky.  Sometimes Miley can be as bad as the boys.  Even though Miley is a lot spoiled, we love her.  She like to play with my mom's dog, Rocky, and the boys.  Life is never dull around our house with the dogs and the boys.

Our Camper

We got a camper from Kathy and Earl over Easter weekend.  It is a slide-in camper which had been sitting in their field for about 5-6 years.  Justin has been excited about the camper ever since he asked his mom for it.

Justin spent the Saturday of Easter weekend getting the camper out of the field and cleaning it up so we could bring it home.  He threw all of the trash away and vacuumed it out.  He also did an initial wipe down on it.

The camper was not in too bad of shape considering it had not been used for 5-6 years at least.  Justin did kill a bunch of hornets that made it their home while it was in the field.

Kathy came to visit us at the end of April.  While she was here, she reupholstered the whole camper.  The cushions were this tan, white, blue and green stripped stuff.  Kathy and her good friend, Jeanne, picked out some neat maroon and gold western fabric to reupholster the cushions with.

Kathy and Jeanne also picked out some fabric with chickens on it for the curtains but Justin said "NO" to that.  He liked everything else they picked out except that.

Kathy made new curtains to go match the cushions. 

Besides doing all of the sewing, Kathy also helped clean the camper. Justin and I painted everything bright white. Kathy wiped down all of the paneling stuff and cleaned all of the blinds.

Before Kathy came to Montana to see us, she went to Wyoming to spend time with Alana and Pogo.  While she was there, she showed Alana the fabric for the cushions.  Alana had a some left over western fabric from a quilt so she cut it up into squares for another quilt.  Alana and Kathy put together a quilt top for our camper.  While in Montana, Kathy and I tied the quilt and I sewed the edging on after Kathy showed me what to do.

Our camper has turned out very nice.  A huge THANK YOU to Kathy for giving us the camper and for all of the hard work she did on it!  We love you!  Thank you to Alana for the quilt top!  It looks very nice in the camper and it is warm.  Thank you to Jeanne for going with Kathy and helping pick out the fabric.  It looks really nice!

We tried out the camper over Memorial day weekend.  It works great!  The heater really works nice.  So does the stove and sink.  We have decided to get rid of the ice box and put in more shelves in that spot.  We tried the ice box out but it leaked.  We had one leak in the roof, but Justin now thinks he has it fixed.  Tyler loves sleeping on the top bunk and Garrett loves his spot where the table is.  The camper works great for our family.  Thanks again for everyone helping get it into shape!

Tyler's lost tooth

On April 19, Tyler lost his first baby tooth!  He was so excited!  He has been wanting to loose a tooth since January.  I have been telling him that everyone looses teeth at different times.  I told Tyler I was about six when I lost my first tooth.  Tyler was not very impressed with that story.  He does not have a lot of patience about some things.  His tooth started to get loose around March 31.  He kept wiggling it everyday.  On the day Tyler lost his tooth, it was barely in. Justin kept trying to pull it but Tyler told him no.  Tyler eventually let Grandma Joni tie some floss around it and pull his tooth out.  Tyler was so proud.  He showed everyone his tooth.  That night the tooth fairy came and brought him money.  Aunt Alana tried to convince Tyler the tooth fairy should given him ten dollars a tooth.  Justin told Alana that was a little too much since Tyler still has a lot of teeth to loose.  Now Tyler has a second loose tooth.  We will wait and see how long it takes him to loose this tooth.

My Birthday

On April 8, I turned another year older.  Justin likes to remind me I am on the downhill slide to forty.  This year, Justin and the boys made my birthday cake.  The boys had fun helping their dad.  Justin really enjoyed putting the candles on the cake.  As you can see from the picture, they made the cake really bright.  I surprised Justin and blew out off of the candles in one breath.  I did not have any help from the boys.  Tyler and Garrett were disappointed with that, but they were O.K.  Justin made sure I got my birthday spankings.  He then encouraged the boys to give me my birthday spankings.  I Justin's family missess him tons on birthdays since he never forgets about the birthday spankings.  I can hardly wait to see how bright my cake will be next year ( I am joking about that).