Amazing! This is Jen and I actually learned how to post on my blog before the year ended...barely! We have had a wonderful holiday season. While I got the house lights up at a respectable time, near Thanksgiving, I didn't get the tree up until December 18th. Not at all respectable. I realize now that even real trees must be up and decorated before the school concert season, or there just is not time. The problem I ran into is a 2 year old who loves to explore and examine EVERYTHING! I think I must be a real wimp, because I didn't hear anyone else having the same problem... I ended up putting it all away on the 29th. It just makes life easier. Besides, I have all my helpers home to ,well, help:)
I have to tell you all how much I love our new family pictures. They were super long overdue, and Jana did an amazing job! You can all find her at forgetmenotbyjana.com. WOW! I just sat and cried as I looked at them the first time. Ron found a site online that puts photos on canvas and made one 18"x40" for above our fireplace. It is amazing.
December is major birthday season for us. Troy turned 2 on the 13th. We ate at Mc D's and let him play in the thing for the first time ever. I know, I think it's gross, too, but we bathed him in hand sanitizer afterwards. Ron turned 41 on the 22nd. Karli is so disappointed that her parents are getting sooooo old. We all went to Chuck E Cheese to play games. You are right. We are easily entertained and don't get out much. Ron loves angelfood cake, so his candles couldn't be bunched up in the middle. Only my cake set off the smoke detector this year. Luke's birthday came on the 27th. He turned 8, so he got to be baptized on that day, too. By then we were all caked out, so he was fine to not have one. We played all day, saw all the grandparents, and had fun.
The highlight of the season for me is hearing from so many loved ones who are far and near. Thank you for the cards, notes, photos. Karli has written one for me to send, so that is next on my list... oh, after a phone call I almost forgot. Have a very happy new year!

November was a good month. I guess it's already half-way through December. This picture is from Mom's birthday on the 19th. Luke decorated the cake and decided it would be easier to light the candles if they were all close together. Introducing...

FLAMING CAKE OF DEATH!!!

...muah-ha-ha-ha-ha...

Good job, Luke. :) and then 2 days later my mom and me and Kaylani and a bunch of girlies from our ward went to Twilight. I know a lot of people didn't think it was that great, but I knew what to expect and loved it. I saw it 3 times in the first week, which is a lot, but no where close to how many times some people saw it. Haha :)
I finally asked someone to Winter Formal. His name's Nathan Holt. I've known him since I was 10 from doing gymnstics with him and his younger sisters. I'm glad I can go with him so it won't get awkward or anything. It's ridiculous how much effort some girls put into this thing.

Anyways, tomorrow is Troy's 2-yr-old birthday, and family pictures!!! and the ward party.

Happy Holidays!

No sleep

i should be asleep but oh well. :) 5 more days people!!! Ahhh! i think I'm going to explode! And I'm running on no sleep...especially since we had baptisms this morning bright and early. I have so much to do. In English right now, we're in the middle of constructing an analytical essay that superimposes Machiavelli's ideas in The Prince onto Chinua Achebe's novel, Things Fall Apart. Both brilliat books, but my brain is going to literally explode! Anyway, Troy's doing better now. (He had to be re-circumcised on Wednesday, cuz the doctors did a bad job when he was born...he has not been a happy camper). But like I said he's doing better. We're all enjoying the Tylenol With Codiene immensely :) Life's stressful, but good. Speaking of which, I have no idea who to ask to Winter Formal. I'm like the only girl I know who hasn't asked anyone yet...even though the dance isn't even until the end of January. Girls are so obnoxious. Talk about territorial...:/...haha:)

Twilight Info...!

Ok...so for those of you who don't know, the official Twilight Movie Soundtrack can be found in stores TOMORROW!!! yay! It's way awesome and everybody should get it. Haha! And still for those of you who are really this slow (and obviously not a devoted fan...haha jk) tickets for the midnight showing WENT ON SALE AT CINEMARK a week ago tomorrow. So everyone should totally be there and be decked out in all the Twilight paraphernalia they own! Haha! You're welcome for the information. :) I'm basically known as a Twilight encyclopedia so if anyone ever has any questions, you know where to come...or you could just go to the Twilight Lexicon. I love that place!

Happy November!!!

It's Fall!!! Well... I guess it's been fall for a while but now it's actually starting to feel like it :)
Our family had a pretty good Halloween. I went to a lame party but 2 of my good friends were there and I dragged along a third, my friend Nathan, so it wasn't too bad. We played catch with the popcorn balls no one was eating and read Laffy Taffy jokes. Layton went out with his friends too and we also went to the ward Trunk-or-Treat. Here are out fabulous costumes...

I was a pretty freakin awesome rock star...

sad froggy... happy froggy...

Jace was a vampire...I tried to convince him they don't really have fangs...

zombie...

good witch...awhhhh :)

I'm not really sure...maybe a cyborg...

Anyway, we had fun. I had AllState Jazz and Show Choir auditions yesterday. I'm sure I didn't make it. I should've put more effort into learning the music. Oh well...there's still next year :). Speaking of auditions, I didn't make the Christine thing. I'm not too bummed though. It was a lot of fun to do all the recording for it though. And at the end of this month, I'm in a musical theatre competition call NATS. That should be fun too.

And incase you haven't noticed, I added all the missing pix to the previous posts. Yay!!!

SAVED!!!

Update on the pictures. It turns out the last 4 years of our lives have not been completely lost. Thanks to our good friend Mike Tyler, our pictures have been recovered. We're working to transfer them on to dvds now and then get our computer running and then I'll be able to post pictures again. THANK YOU BRO. TYLER!!! YOU SAVED US!

Sorry for no pictures. Our other computer is possibly crashing and all of our pictures from the past 4 years may be gone. We're working to see what we can do. Some things on the internet say it may be something else, so we're hoping. But as of now, no pictures. :(

We're Back!!!

Sorry. We've been out of the realm of blogging. The last couple months were super busy. We went on vacation to Sedona with Dad's friend, Jeff and his daughter, Gabbie. School started, which of course is hectic. Jace leaves for band some days at 6:30 am, Luke leaves at 7:30, Layton leaves at 7:40, I leave at 7:50, and Dad leaves around 8. During the month of September, Dad had the possibility of being deployed to Texas for a couple of weeks to help with the hurricanes. In fact, he got orders 3 different times, but they were cancelled because Mom was so close to having the baby.
Speaking of which, Tressie Joely West was born September 18th, 8 lb 1oz, 21 in long. As you see from the pictures, she has lots of dark hair and we think she'll have blue eyes. We thought Troy would have a hard time, but he is the sweetest new big brother you've ever seen. He always wants to hold her and gives her random kisses on her head and sits and talks to her. It's very cute. He suddenly does seem to want bottles and pacifiers a lot though.


I recently found out about a really neat opportunity. The Phoenix Symphony is bringing in Franc D'Ambrosio, the world's longest running "Phantom", to perform at their annual New Years Fundraiser. And they're having auditions for Christine! They're looking for a girl 8-18. I recorded some music yesterday after school, but when I listened to it, all the high notes are distorted so I'm going to record again tomorrow with more high quality professional equipment and maybe again on Tuesday. We'll see how it goes. They may just pick a really young girl because it would help with the fundraising. I used this picture for a headshot; it's from Homecoming. And speaking of which, Homecoming was just on Saturday! It was so fun. I went with one of my bestest friends, Tucker Denton. We kept joking that we obviously won the "Most Attractive Couple of the Night" Award. :) On Friday, instead of going to the game, we went to our friend Joe Zeigler's house and played "capture the flag" on the golf course behind his house. Then we had a huge SuperSoaker war and then went inside and watched Princess Bride. very fun. On Saturday, all the guys in our group went to the priesthood session of conference at our stake and then picked up all the girls afterwards. We took pictures at the Denton's house in their front sitting room and on their grand entry staircase so that we didn't have to pay for the ones at the dance. Then we had a delicious dinner provided by the moms. After that we went to the dance but left as soon as we could. School dances are pretty scary. We then went to the Duncan's house to watch a movie, but it was already 11, and Tucker was adamant about having me home when he told my parents we'd be home so our carpool left around 11:30. I'm so glad I can trust him. It was very fun time. My group of friends seriously rocks!
Anyway, we should be getting family pictures in the near future, which is why this blog looks all mismatched and everything. Sorry about that. :)

On Thursday after my voice lesson, mom had another ultra-sound because the doctor thought the baby was measuring small. According to the ultra-sound, she's (yes, it's still a girl :) ) actually measuring a week bigger than they thought. She's due September 26th and as of now, weighs about 3 lbs 5 oz. This is the best picture we could get of her head because she had both arms over her face and the umbilical cord was all floating around up there too. That's what all the bubbly-looking stuff is.

This morning was the grand opening of Mike Naddour's new gym, USA Youth Fitness Center. Mike was Dad's coach when he was younger and I also used to go to his gym so he's an old family friend. While we were there, we saw lots of old friends, coaches, and teamates. Dad couldn't help showing off a little... This is him on the pommel horse.

here he is doing an iron cross...

and here he is with old gym friends...

Jason Gatson (far left)- 2004 Olympic silver medalist

Mike Naddour (4th from left)

Jason Brown (black shirt, middle)

Ron (striped shirt, middle)

Eric Sulkey (white shirt, kneeling)- Steve Carrel's stunt-man in Get Smart

My friend, Nathan Holt, and I also finally had our 16th birthday party last night. It was tons and tons of fun. Thanks, you guys who were there and helped.

Happy Fourth!

Monday 6.30: I got my license! Woohoo! except Mom and Dad have yet to insure me, so i'm still not allowed to drive. :(
Wednesday 7.2: Some friends and I went tubing at the river while Mom took the boys swimming at Granny's. I didn't even get the slightest bit burnt... not even a tiny little tan! What's up with that? We had a pool party for mutual and ate icecream and lemon bars and brownies. it was awesome!
Thursday 7.3: We decided to go up to the Layton cabin up in Pinetop for the 4th. We were packing all day and we were finally ready to leave at 9 pm. Mom and Dad decided it would be best to just leave friday morning.
Friday 7.4: We all woke up at 4:30 to leave. Unfortunately, we didn't leave until 6:15 and the parade in ShowLow started at 9. We stopped at McDonald's in Payson for breakfast and we've never seen it so crowded! In the next little while, both Luke and Jace got car sick. 2 in 1 trip!!! that never happens to us. Both times we had to stop and the same trailer kept passing us. Thanks to Dad's mad driving skills :) we made it just in time for the parade and found spots by David and Kathy Palmer's family. It was very cute when Troy discovered why all the kids kept running out into the street after the floats. Soon he was running out with them, so proud of his loot of dumdums and now-and-laters. Finally, we made our way to the cabin, where most of us took long naps during the afternoon rainstorms. 70 stinkin degrees outside! That night we went down to Pinedale for dinner where Dad's brother, Scott, lives with his family. We drove back to ShowLow with them for fireworks that night.

Saturday 7.5: Layton, Jace, Luke, and I played Monopoly all morning while Mom and Dad made a trip to Safeway. That afternoon we had a huge hail storm, afterwhich, Dad took me, Layton, Jace and Luke fishing at Silver Creek. We didn't catch any fish, but we did catch about 20 crawdads. Mom took Troy for a walk around Woodland Lake while we were gone and had dinner waiting for us when we got back.

Sunday 7.6: Dad, Layton, Luke and I attended the 9 am ward (Mom stayed home with Jace and Troy because both had been sick all night). We saw many friends: the Fish family from our old ward (Andrea Gunnel's uncle), Dad's dad's cousin-Norman West, Dad's cousin-Mindy Noble and her girls... That night we walked over to the Palmer and Farnsworth cabins and visited and played with family.

Monday 7.7: We cleaned the cabin and were on our way by 10:45. We made it safely home in just under 3 hours and can't wait to be back for reunions in a couple weeks. We miss the weather, the 70 degree temperatures, and the rain.

This week has been going by so fast! Dad and Layton have been having so much fun at Scout camp. They've gone canoeing, ridden horses, gone shooting, etc. And of course they have been loving getting to eat anything Brother Burrel cooks. Aida has been going well. We had a full house opening night and that never happens! Of course, we had all the technical difficulties that come with opening night as well. Tuesday, unfortunately, we didn't do so well. For some reason the professional live band wasn't staying with us and everyone kinda got thrown off. Wednesday and last night went awesome though. And after last night's performance, the whole cast went out to see Get Smart at Harkins. The movie was very very funny. I was laughing the whole time. Yesterday, mom also took Jace, Luke, and Troy to the circus. I was bummed I had to miss it, but they had tons of fun. I'll try to post pictures when i have the chance.

Introduction

Alrighty. So our family finally has a blog. I (Karli) have been given the main job of updating it, but I'm sure my mom will start posting sometime too. For the most part, our summer has been pretty busy.
I leave for summer school PE every morning at 7 and I get home at noon.
Jace helps with the karate classes every morning over at Field Elementary and just finished summer band; he started trumpet and is loving it.
Layton takes Luke over to Poston in the mornings and watches him dive for the dive team. Luke likes it, but is always changing his mind about whether he would want to do swim team instead.
Mom goes to work over at the medical billing office in the mornings, usually from 10:30 -2ish. Most of the time she takes Troy with her.
For the past 3 weeks, I've had musical practice in the evenings from 3-6 for Disney's Aida. The story line is similar to Romeo and Juliet and the music is by Elton John. Performances start this week at Legacy School. Tickets are $12 at the door. Come if you can; it's going to be amazing!
This week, Dad and Layton leave for Scout camp up at our Huber family cabin in Heber. Dad also recently got called to the High Council in our stake. He's a little overwhelmed with all the responsibilities (Primary, Scouting, etc...), but we know he's got it covered.
Well, there's the first post. Hopefully I can keep it running!