Happy Birthday Karlie!

We had a double dose of birthdays this week. I cannot believe Karlie is 5 years old. It is so amazing how time really does fly. We picked the girls up from school and headed to Tacoma to pick up my contacts and have some fun at Chuck E. Cheese. Later she got to spend time at Kody's track meet(which all the girls love and it was so cold). Then she could not wait for presents. An mp3 player and lots of Barbie stuff!

She had enough cake that week so chose to have donuts instead. She said they were Kody's favorite. She was so cute!

Happy Birthday Karlie!!

Happy 10th Birthday Kayla!

Wow! It is hard to believe that it has been ten years already. It is so amazing that this is the little 3lb baby. She has done so incredible. After all the problems we were told that she could possibly have and she has had no developmental delays. She has grown so well and into such a beautiful young lady.



Here she is ten days old in the NICU under the bilirubin lights. The nurse was so cute she created sunglasses out of the eye patches.









It was as she wished a High School Musical Birthday!!

Happy Birthday Kayla!!

School Surprise

Kelsee was surprised to receive an award at school from her teacher, who just had a baby. She got it for great schoolwork! Way to go Kelsee!!

A New Phase

Today we registered Karlie for Kindergarten and then later I picked up Kody and HE drove us home. It really made me realize how I am entering a new phase in my life. My oldest is driving and my baby is going to school. It is both good and sad at the same time. Kelsee said it just right in a letter to Kody stating: " I am excited and not excited that you can drive now." Riding with a new driver is an interesting concept. Even though he is doing well and is cautious I find myself hanging on for dear life. I am trying to relax a little more each trip. I find this is the same way I feel about Karlie starting school. I know I am hanging on to her and her to me (when she was tested she made me stand where she could see me through the window). Right now I want to push on the brake and slow down life a bit. Since that is not possible, I will try to continue the practice of relaxing a little bit each trip so that perhaps by fall when I send her to school and take Kody to get his "real" license I will come to the realization that everything will be all right. I will keep telling myself this new phase will be great!!

WOW! Look what Mom brought us!!

Saturday I attended the Priest/Laurel Formal at the Stake Center. My date stood me up and so I was stuck taking care of the coat & purse check. HA HA! It seemed to be the Stake Leaders job. We are getting quite good at it. Atleast I got some extra exercise running back and forth getting purses for the girls all night long. I just wished I would have worn my sneakers. My feet were killing me and I wore my comfortable dress shoes...Maybe I burned one of the many sugar cookies that I ate while baking 12 dozen for this event. You have to try them to make sure they are all right. It is a rule!! Any way it was way cool and the youth got a huge bonus....It was all free. The theme was "An Evening in Paris" and you could not even tell it was the cultural hall. (I hope to get a few pictures to post). It was like sitting outside in Paris with the stars shining above you. There was a huge cafe front where they served awesome appetizers and dessert and to top it off a huge 20 foot Effiel Tower. It was really incredible. The night was not without a little excitement though. As we were finishing up the final touches about 40 minutes before it started the fire alarm went off. (I have never heard a talking alarm before). So we all had to go outside, stay there until the fire department got there and surprise it was raining. It turned out that the fog machine set the alarm off. Atleast this all happened before the kids got there. Luckily that was the only real excitement we had. The youth was very well behaved and we only had to fix a couple of dresses.

I left home about 5:00 pm that night and then did not get home until 1:15 am. They sent me home with all the leftover desserts to put in my freezer so we could use them for a dinner in a couple of weeks. I was so tired that I put them all on the island. It was covered and this did not include the 5 boxes of cheesecake bites and cream puff that I put directly in the freezer. So I got up the next morning and left for meetings before the kids got up. When they came downstairs and saw the spread...they thought they had died and went to heaven.

When I got home I heard two words, COOL MOM! I then had to burst the bubble and deliver the news that it was not for them.

(Like they could of ate it all anyway nor should they have).

I did let them try everything though.

I discovered that my willpower is very weak when that much chocolate and sugar is placed in front of me. I do blame it on lack of sleep and the cramp that was in my foot most of the night. Needless to say, I quickly got it all ready and placed it in my freezer, where I hopefully will not see it until I have to pull it out to take to the dinner.

The Wedding

Congratulations Christy & Ron!!

Dennis' sister Christy got married on Saturday at his mom's house in Boise, Idaho. We left late Friday and arrived at 2 am. I drank 3 diet Pepsi's on the way there and ended up wide awake once my head hit the pillow. When the caffeine finally wore off the poor cashier at the shoe store took the brunt of it. I hope I apologized enough. Needless to say I received a Diet Pepsi before arriving at the wedding.

Christy and I were friends way before Dennis and I ever started dating. We had a sewing class together in High School. We sat next to each other and I am sure the teacher was so glad when that year was over. I think we may have been the cause of that class being taken off the curriculum the following year. Christy sewed her finger and I made a mistake that all the teacher could do was shake her head and say, "How in the world did you do that?" We both also sewed our clothes we were wearing to our projects. It was frustrating, but we had a great time. I remember her trying to talk me into dating her brother. Who would of ever guessed.

Christy and Dennis are the only Gould/Owens siblings. So this was the first time since our wedding that both sides were together. We were missing 3 sisters and other than that all the siblings were there. It was all good. We got to visit with alot of family in a short time.








The Owens/Young Clan












The Gould Clan












My sister in-law Diane. The wedding planner, caterer and photographer. She is amazing!!







Dennis even sang a
few songs. My favorite
was right after the wedding
someone put
in "All My Ex's
Live in Texas"







I believe it was Grandpa Young!









My adorable Nieces & Nephew (The boys were out numbered) .

















Too bad I did not get close ups of all of them!


The Gould side all stayed at the same motel (unknown to us when we booked)
and we had 5 rooms on the first floor. The kids all had a blast in the pool. My girls enjoyed getting to see their cousins and it was fun to see how much they have grown in such a short time. Later when we all went to dinner I threw a piece of corn at my brother in law and Den's dad leaned just as it left my hand and it went right down his shirt.... I thought for a moment I was in huge trouble. Chad got at good kick out of that one..I still owe you Chad!