A Beautiful Day

We always love going up north to visit family, but we especially love going up north for very special occasions.  The end of April we headed up to Logan for just such an event:

Marlene and Jesse's 

Wedding!

We had a good day to play before the big celebration.  Jacob and Ty headed out with the boys to do all sorts of cattle wrangling.  The girls stayed back at Grandma's house to enjoy some cherished time with COUSINS!  If the boys were going to be out cattle wrangling, the girls were going to do some puppy wrangling.  Poor little things.  I'm talking about the puppies:

Kenna loved that this one was so snuggly:

Allie just loved having something to pester:

And Lexi wasn't quite sure about a nippy little puppy.  Which is best because I'm pretty sure it wouldn't take much for the puppy to get annoyed with a nippy little toddler:

I am pleased to say no puppies were harmed during the filming of the puppy wrangling.  Mostly.  Probably just emotionally scarred.

Now on to the BIG DAY!  

The heavens were so thrilled for the newly created eternal family, they were weeping.  Literally.  Yep, it was a bit rainy.  Okay, fine, it was really rainy.  But even rain can't damper such a beautiful event!  Here we are waiting for the happy couple to come out of the temple:

Kenna and Grandpa trying to stay dry:

Jacob and Seth taking shelter.  Look Seth, you made the blog again!  You handsome fella, you!!  Attention all single ladies!!

This dapper young man is available and quite a catch, so get in line!  He he he.  We love you Seth.  Not so sure you'll feel the same after that (insert big smiley face here).

 Not even rain can get Aunt Julie down:

These wonderful ladies all have smiles too.  And take note of Grandpa who is so darn proud to be standing there with all those wonderful ladies:

Here they come!  Such a beautiful bride!

Hooray for a beautiful new family!  And new cousins too!

After a few quick pictures at the temple we all headed down to the Coppermill for lunch and some more (dry) pictures.  Here are all the siblings...

...minus 2.  Andrea and Ben came down for the big day but ended up in the hospital with sweet little Aleah who had a nasty virus making it difficult for her to breath.  Second was Elder Benson who is so dutifully serving down in Mexico.  But have no fear, we still got to love Uncle Benson a little bit too!

Uncle Benson has done a really good job randomly moving about the house and giving everyone a good scare now and then.  


We love you Marlene and Jesse! (Shout out to G&G Otte who took Lexi Lou back to their house for a nap.  It really was best.)

Ty Man and Mommy waiting for some of that delicious Coppermill grub:

Marlene is known for being such a giving person, and her wedding day was no exception.  She had a little thank you to hand out to everyone.  She doesn't ever stop!  All the kiddos loved helping to pass out her sweet little gift:

 

 All in all it was a perfect day. 

C-O-N-G-R-A-T-U-L-A-T-I-O-N-S to the new eternal family! 

We were so grateful to be part of your beautiful day!

A New Post

Wow.  I am so impressed with my extremely creative title for this entry.  That one is going to pique some serious curiosity.

I'm not sure I'm quite convinced that it's already May.  Not to mention that May is nearly half over.  The past month has passed at mach speed and once again, I need to update!  I have a LOAD of pictures and all sorts of excitement to catch up on like a wedding and a trip to Hawaii (yes, I know it's awesome!), but I guess I have to go back to Easter....


Behold the yearly egg dye:

A few things to note here:  First, Lexi is not a part of the egg dye.  That is called nap time strategy.  Second, Ty and Allie have their glasses on upside-down.  Don't ask questions.  I sure don't.

Back by popular demand was an Easter scavenger hunt.  The debate is still out on who exactly the Easter Bunny is and just how much interaction occurs between Mom and the Easter Bunny.  I do not divulge.  But when there is candy and a scavenger hunt, sometimes you just have to be satisfied with the fun of it all! 

Yes, Kenna has a basket on her head.  Once again, sometimes you just have to be satisfied with the fun of it all ( I remind myself often of that).


Maybe the biggest Easter surprise came later that afternoon when we got a new arrival at the farm.  We proudly introduce to you the new horse, Lightning:

And of course a beautiful Easter Sunday.  I am really digging the backdrop of the chain link fence.  I have some mad photo skills.  I'm just glad they all are looking at the camera.  That is picture success to me!

This was the other option:

Ha!  Good thing they're so darn cute.

I also need to document Kenna's performance for the Second Grade Talent Show!  And thanks to my lack of arms, I opted to use the camcorder so here is the only measly picture I got.  But now we can forever remember Kenna played the piano at school on April 22, 2014!  She did a great job.

THIRTY FOUR!

In honor of my 34th birthday, (YAY!  HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!) I thought I'd share with you a few gems about yours truly.  Get excited, this is some good stuff!

Ready?....

Here we go....

Aaaaah, what a coot widdle chubby wubby!

 I'm pretty sure I never did lose a few of those chins.




Seeing as though I entered the world with little to no hair, it's obvious I overcompensated throughout the years.  Let's have a look.

Here we are just a few short years into my life.  It's obvious none of my children:
 A) look like me when I was a child (probably an okay deal)
-and-
B) definitely didn't get my dark brown eyes I had as a wee one

 I think maybe I was entered to win the tightest curls competition.


 Like a lot of little girls, I enjoyed a few years of dance lessons.  This one in particular has to reign supreme among all my dance pictures.  Why's that?  Well, you see, I was certain I would look so very cute with dimples.  Here is my darndest attempt at trying to have a smile with dimples:

Ahha ha haa haa haa!  Seriously classic!  That is dismal dimple failure.  I think someone upstairs took pity on me for this one and blessed me with children who have naturally cute dimples so something like this would  never.  happen.  again.



Moving right along to 5th grade.  I am a product of the 80's!!!!  Hence the neon and the hair.  Jacob captions this with simply,

POOF!

 I think my theory of overcompensation has been proven.  Allie was sad to hear I no longer have those earrings.  Darnit.  And Kenna keeps asking me if I really did that on purpose.  I quote exactly from Kenna, "Mom, did you really know that was happening?  You meant to?!"  I have to be honest.  Yep.  Sure did.




Perhaps I had some post traumatic stress disorder from my fifth grade portrait, because here's what happened in 6th grade:

Puberty is kind to no one.  NO ONE I tell you.  HA!  Love it!


This last pic, however, is a culmination of my thirty four years of life.  I think it's pretty obvious I am one blessed individual.

 So grateful to have these ones by my side to celebrate my day because, well, it just wouldn't be me without them.  The first thirty four years have been awesome (despite a few hair mishaps).  Can't wait for thirty four more!

I looked out the window and what did I see........

.......Well whaddaya know?  It really does look like popcorn! 

I LOVE this tree in our backyard.  No, it's not an apricot tree.  Perhaps the song is a bit biased.  Spring must be here!

...If not for blossoms, at least for the anticipation of Easter.  Here is Ty fresh off the bus from preschool with all his Easter loot.  Oh, excuse me, here is the Easter Bunny fresh off the bus from preschool:

Apparently when you catch the Easter Bunny in a photo he pulls a really crazy face.

Speaking of Ty and crazy, here is what happens when he and Lexi come across a stray marker:

Hence the reason markers stay waaaaaaay up high in the cupboard and require a fairly large amount of begging and pleading for me to get them down.

Speaking of Ty and Lexi, I caught these two snuggling on the couch the other day.  It was one of those sweet little mommy moments that makes my heart just beam:

Of course when I pulled out my camera to sneak a picture Lexi jumped right up, but fortunately I got them to recreate the moment.  I love these moments.  Especially to help counter the moments when Ty thinks Lexi is his WWF opponent.  She is so patient.  And yes she managed to find a binky.  Fortunately she could care less if she loses it.

We had our first full family campout in the camp trailer!  Okay, so it was in the backyard.  Baby steps folks, baby steps. 

 I don't know about you, but it looks as though Kenna is picking her nose.  Maybe our backyard adventure wasn't as fun as we thought it was...



We even watched a movie on the large screen iPad.  Oh yeah.

Good thing it was only in the backyard because one certain little toddler decided she needed to roam the entire trailer while everyone else wanted to sleep.  Needless to say, Lexi and I ended up back in the house for the night.  I can happily report, however, last weekend we had our first official away-from-home campout in the trailer and Lexi did much better-- many thanks to the pack-and-play.  This time we even managed to get 10 miles away from home!  We are big time.  Sorry, no pictures.  But it was really fun!

And one last pic to send you on your way-
Ty has had a fascination with guitars lately, and would find anything he could to pretend to be a guitar.  So he earned enough stickers on his reward chart to go and pick out a guitar.  It's pretty much just a glorified noise-maker, but he's a happy camper with his guitar!  Rock on buddy, rock on.

Uncles, a Sleepout, and a Recital

So you heard my lament about not getting any pictures with Aunt Marlene and Aunt Maria when they came to visit, so I am pleased to say I did not repeat the same offense when Uncle Daniel and Uncle Seth came the following weekend!  Yes, we somehow managed to get family to come down and visit two weekends in a row.  We loved it!  When someone will drive 5 hours to come see us, we feel pretty darn special.  And when someone will drive for hours through less-than-scenic central Utah?...

  

Well, that's love folks, love.

Okay fine, I actually only got one picture when the Uncles were here.  And it's fuzzy at that.  Better than nothing, right?  Besides, if Uncle Seth found out he didn't get on the family blog, he just might disown us.  For life.  We can't have that.  Of all the projects they got up to over the weekend, this is the only measly picture I came up with:

 yippee!

Contrary to the vibe coming across in the picture, we really did have fun!  Jacob kept them busy with tractor work, vaccinating cattle, hanging up a basketball hoop....and who knows what other little projects I never heard about.  Ty loved having some extra testosterone in the house for a while too.  Thanks Uncles for a great weekend!

 ----------------------------

So we recently added a new addition to our backyard in the form of a travel trailer.  We haven't taken it out for an actual campout yet, but hopefully will soon.  In the meantime, the girls decided to take it upon themselves to have the very first sleepout in the trailer.  Of course they had to take out every pillow and blanket they could find in the house.  Don't forget every girl has to have a change of clothes available at all times, so they had to take out a new wardrobe as well.  After all, those closets in the trailer aren't there just for looks!  I honestly thought they would only last about 10 minutes out there before they were scared out of their minds and wanted to come back in, but those two ladies stuck it out the whole night.  They proved me wrong!  Here they are getting all settled in for the night-  with their reading material, of course:

Sorry Lexi, you have a few more years before you can stay with the big girls:

---------------------------------

 Kenna started taking piano lessons last October, and Sunday evening had her first piano recital.  Thank goodness she was third in line-  that was about the max amount of time we could keep Lexi and Ty quiet before they had to be politely excused.  Oh the joys of having young children...

Kenna did a SUPERB job!  Here she is performing:

     

And here with her fellow piano students- she is the really really cute one in pink on the far left:

And with her great teacher:

Way to go Kenna!  We are so proud of you!

The Past Little While

What have we been up to, you ask?  Well here's a little update for you.

KENNA
Kenna got an outstanding student award for the month of February at school and Jacob and I got to go and beam with pride as she was presented in front of the school...with about 15 others, but she most definitely was the awesomest!  Not a real word, but just for now it is.  Behold, the Tiger of the Month:

She also likes to let the creative juices flow and came up with her own creation.  In a very Kenna-like fashion she left a note with it (we get many notes from Kenna).  The note says:

Do not

throw

away!

To:  Dad 

and 

Mom

My secret 

sauce 

ingredients

honey

&

mustard!

I think she's on to something.....


ALLIE
This little lady finally lost her third tooth.  It wiggled and jiggled for almost a week.  She refused to let me tie some floss up to it and hook it to the door knob.  What?  Trust issues?  It was literally hanging by a mere thread of skin.  Here she is demonstrating the old push-your-tooth-out-with-your-tongue trick.  A clear indication it is time to just yank the dang thing out: 

Thank goodness for goldfish crackers which finally facilitated the popping out of the tooth!  I love her new toothless grin:

And that wonderful, beautiful, awesome, talented, beloved tooth fairy is so wise, she brought Allie a new toothbrush instead of money.  It even had Hello Kitty on it.  It was a win-win situation.


TY
Ty man is so funny.  He says the silliest things!  He is so full of life, it is so incredibly enjoyable.  Of course let's not forget he is definitely ALL boy and comes up with some of the craziest, rowdiest things as well.  He LOVES his daddy and wants to be just like him.  Jacob found a pocket knife sitting around that, thank goodness, mostly just folds out into a pair of pliers.  It even has its own little case just like Jacob's does.  When he gave it to Ty, it was almost as though Jacob handed him the moon!  He was so excited!  He even had to sleep with it that night.  Here he has on daddy's shoes and a belt with his knife and case attached, just like daddy:

We got him this belt when we were down in Vegas and it has his name on the back.  He always manages to lose it for a week or so, but then we he finds it again he gets so excited and says, "Hey, it's my T-Y belt!"  Not his name, just the letters, T Y.  You can take a wild guess what his two favorite letters are.

The other day I was cutting up some strawberries and he grabbed a strawberry, looked up at me so serious and said, "Hey Mom, can you cut the weeds off?"  Ha!  So here he is demonstrating strawberries with and without the "weeds."

LEXI
Last but certainly not least is Lexi.  Ty's little sidekick.  Those two are quite the combination.  However, when Dad is around, she loves to be right there with him.  He took her out for a little 4-wheeler ride the other night and she could've stayed on that thing forever!  She was in heaven!

Friday night at our house has become "Family Movie Night."  Here the kiddos are getting ready to settle in for another rockin' Friday night at the Israelsen Home:

Kenna and Allie are practicing their acting skills by pretending to be less than enthused.  Sometimes a mom just doesn't ask questions.  No acting here for Lexi, she is overjoyed to snuggle in!

And I am so ashamed to say that I didn't even get a single picture from last weekend when Aunt Maria and Aunt Marlene came down to visit.  Such a shame!  We had such a fun time with them.  Please come back!  We need some picture redemption!