2nd Half of June

Warning: long, picture-filled post (pictures are SOC--I'm too lazy to edit my pics)

A week after camp, I watched Belle & Brenna one day and we had a lot of fun watching "The Incredibles", playing my marimba, trumpet, and piano, waving pom-poms and playing with Praia:
{Belle was playing outside with Praia and watching the koi fish; Brenna wanted to go outside but it was WAY too hot!}:

{A cute clip of Brenna being amused by big sis}:

The next day (6/20), we had a ward talent show. I was in a skit with the young women (the same skit we did for camp), I played the piano for one of my young woman's vocal solo, and I played my marimba. It all went really well and the ward activity was really fun! We, the Young Women, did the decorating and it looked so good, if I do say so myself! :)

The next day (6/21), we went to my parents' house after church for Father's Day. My dad smoked some chicken and Mom made baked beans and potato salad, yum! I made brownies. We watched Glen Beck's conversion story, which is really cool. He's a great speaker! We gave my dad a Valkyrie (sp?) DVD--he loves that movie.

{Brenna really enjoyed the food!}:

{And Belle was posing for pictures}:

And the next day (6/22--we had a lot of stuff all in a row, huh?), my family came over to our house to watch LSU play the first game in the College World Series Championship and to celebrate my birthday (early, since I'll be in Utah on my birthday). We made ham poboys and had chips and cake. I got some great presents: LSU flip-flops and an LSU baseball-style t-shirt from Ben & Becky; money from my parents; Wii Mario Kart game from Jared.

{Brenna wore the pink LSU outfit we gave her for her birthday}:

{My awesome LSU birthday cake}:

{My new MarioKart game}:LSU beat Texas that night but lost the next night. Then, they beat them again Wed. night to win the national championship. GEAUX TIGERS!!!

That Thursday (6/25), I took one of the young women to the LSU Baseball National Champions Celebration. It was hot as heck but pretty fun to celebrate with all the other Tiger fans. Some of the players spoke--one from each class: Mikie Mahtook for the freshmen, Anthony Ranaudo for the sophomores, Jared Mitchell for the Juniors, and Louis Coleman for Seniors. And the AD and Coach Mainieri both spoke, as well.

{Me & Alyssa}:

{Louis Coleman}:{Coach Mainieri}:{The new (6th) National Championship banner was raised. Woohoo!}:{And of course, I HAD to buy a t-shirt!}:

That sums up the end of June. The past week, I've mainly been getting stuff ready for our trip to Utah (and having a couple over last night for dinner and Guitar Hero). We leave tomorrow afternoon and I can't wait! I probably won't post anything until I get to my sister's house on the 12th. We'll spend the 1st week with Jared's family, except for Sunday--we're going to Kiki's house for my birthday. On the 4th, we'll be at a family reunion (Jared's dad's side of the family). The end of next week, we'll be camping with Jared's siblings and all their kids. I can't wait!

I hope everyone has a safe and fun 4th of July!!!

Girls Camp!!!

As the ward camp specialist, I got to go to girls camp last week with our Young Women. We only had 6 girls attend out of 11 or 12 of our active/semi-active girls. The first day, we took the traditional camp pictures in our ward camp shirts (one of our girls didn't get to camp until the second night):Here's what was on the back of our t-shirts:

Our group on the hike (the girl on the far right isn't one of "my girls"); one of the girls didn't have to go on this hike because she went on the overnight hike the night before most of us went to camp:

OUR SKIT!
We did a cute little skit about being virtuous, with all of us as bugs. Our characters were (left to right) Caterpillar, Lady bug, Spider, Grasshopper:
Worm, Ant:
And me as the Bee (you can't see the big stinger on my butt, which was pretty funny):

We haven't had much rain down here lately so the river was too low to go canoeing. Everyone was super bummed about it. Instead, we brought the girls to the water park. We didn't stay long, as it got pretty crowded with little kids and the girls got bored after only 10 or 15 minutes.

My SIL, Becky, was our camp nurse. It was so fun to have her there. We hung out a lot and even stayed in the same cabin.

Other things we did:

• Attended a lot of classes (first aid, fires, survival, sanitation, etc.)
• Family home evening lesson and game
• Went to our stake president's house for water balloon volleyball, water relay games and pool games (only the girls participated but it was fun to watch)
• Craft time (made cute little holders for pass-along cards)
• First Aid Olympics
• Used buddy burners to cook bacon and eggs (ours worked really well this year!)
• Sang "Get Your Elbows off the Table" a LOT, as well as "Here we sit like birds in the wilderness waiting to be fed" for our cooks!!! I got caught with my elbows on the table twice and had to stand up and run around the table. When I was a YW, we'd have to stand and sing a song in front of everyone.

It was an awesome camp--I just wish it could have been up in the mountains, without the heat and humidity. :)

Brenna's 1st Birthday!

Jared had to work but I went to Brenna's birthday swimming party on 6/6. There was tons of food, including a huge three-layer strawberry shortcake from Cocoa Bean in Hammond (awesome!). The kids and some of the adults swam; I did not. There was also an inflatable water slide for the little kids. Brenna was over-the-top cute, especially eating her own Mickey Mouse birthday cake. Here are some of the 300 pics I took that day (yes, that many pics just in just the three hours I was there):

{The big girl in her birthday shirt--it had Mickey Mouse on it and said "Happy 1st Birthday Brenna!"}:

{Havin' fun in the pool with her daddy and Uncle Tim}:

{Just floatin' and relaxin'}:

{Me & the birthday girl}:

{She was so ready for the cake she started grabbing at it before Becky even put it down!}:

{Getting a little more messy}:

{And even more messy! Totally demolished the cake!}:

{She even got icing in her eyelashes}:

{Opening presents. Someone gave her that headband and she KNEW she was cute!}:

{How cute is the look on her face?}:

{"Talking" on the phone she just opened}:

{Paw-paw (my dad) put that bow on her head}:

{Big sis was there to help celebrate, too}:

It was a really fun party. I can't believe she's one! She should be walking before too long. She'll walk if you hold both of her hands and walk behind her. If you let one hand go, she looks up and you and fusses and waits for you to hold both hands again before she'll take another step. Silly girl! She really couldn't get any cuter, though--especially with a bunch of teeth coming in, ha ha!

Catch-up #2 {May}

First off, I have to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Jared! I love you, babe! He had to work today but he was able to come home a little early. I've just let him relax and watch TV since he got home and now he's playing Lego Star Wars. I'm making a special dinner (a cheesy shrimp pasta) and some dessert for him. He got his birthday present early--something he bought for himself, ha ha, which is good 'cause I would have had no idea to get him that--a wicked awesome drill kit (it hammers and screws at the same time?). He seemed pretty excited about it so I'm really glad he bought it.

OK, back to catching up. May began with a youth dance--our 2nd one since being called to Young Women and Young Men. We have fun dancing together!

That first week of May, I was visited by an old friend of mine:
We were friends throughout jr. high and high school; we both played clarinet in band and both played percussion in the same drum & bugle corps all four years of high school. Then, we roomed together our freshman year at LSU and were in the Tiger Band together. We had so much fun! We lost touch after that first year of college, however, when she left LSU. After college, she ended up moving to Colorado and getting married and I moved to Utah and got married. We had both searched for each other online but were never able to find each other...UNTIL we both joined Facebook. I was so happy when I got a message from her! She ended up flying to Louisiana to visit family and go to the Jazz Fest and she came to my house to see me. It was so cool seeing her again. She is truly one of the sweetest, most genuine people I have ever known. Not a mean bone in her body. Anyway, I'm thankful for Facebook for putting back in touch with so many people I hadn't talked to in years. Really cool!

My dad's and brother's (Tim) birthdays are both the first week of May and our family went out to eat to celebrate them both. Tim is now 30! Some pics from the restaurant:

On Mother's Day, we had my parents over for lunch; I made a really yummy crockpot chicken dish over rice and cupcakes for dessert. Dad had to leave for work a short while after we ate but Mom stayed for a while. That night, Ben, Becky and the girls came over and we played Guitar Hero.

{This is the picture blanket Kiki and I had made for Mom with pics of all her grandkids; she loves it.}:

Last week, I had some of the young women come over to watch the American Idol Finale results show. We had all kinds of snacks and had a blast watching it together. The video of us screaming when Kris won (watch below) is hilarious!


The next night, Jared and I drove to Hammond to go to Belle's pre-school graduation, then we went to my Mom and Dad's house to eat dinner and see Maw-maw (she stayed at my parents house for a few days). We all hung out for a while, then we drove home.

{The girls sure did love the spaghetti my mom made!}:

Not too much else going on the rest of the month. I just have Enrichment tomorrow, we're having a family over Friday night, and we have a wedding reception to attend Sat. night. I'll post next month! :)