For your viewing pleasure...

We all know that when we look at blog, we scan the pictures, and then read if we're interested. Well, i'm sure its true for those viewing my blog as well. It's okay, don't feel bad. The words are just for my kids, grandkids and so on. You don't have to read them, I won't be offended. With that being said, he's a bundle of pictures from the last few months that didn't fit into any of the other posts. And can I just say... Is Boston the cutest thing ever or what? His smile is ear to ear and so contagious. We just love this little guy!

Living Room Remodel

For the 3rd year in a row, the day after Chirstmas consisted of taking down Christmas decor and getting ready for another remodeling project. This time (the last time for this house) it was the living room, finally! Our poor living room had these not so beauiful wood floors, dinged up walls trim and mis matching doors. We installed the last few doors and textured and painted the walls. We had the new floors installed just after New Year's and then Doug finished up the trim work and we touched up and moved back into the living room.

I picked up that beautiful window pane "The Secret to having it all, is believing that you already do" at Traditions in Rigby (love love love Traditions) and found this cute fabric up in I.F. to put together some pillows. Don't worry, I didn't piece it together, it came looking like that. :) I still need to get some curtains hemmed and convince Doug to hang up a sign that I made at Super Saturday, but for now, here's the latest pics of the living room. (And yes, I did pick upws2x all the toys and cleaned up before taking pics, there's no way my house is this clean on any given day!) Do you love the new floors? I do!

Doug's Graduation

This is one of the last posts to get me all caught up and I've been most excited to write this post! Doug graduated from Idaho State University on Friday, May 7th 2010 with Bachelor's of Business Administration in Finance. The College of Business held their own seperate Graduation ceremony in Frazier Hall and the boys and I attended along with my mom and Doug's parents. It was a nice, short ceremony, and after snapping a few pictures we headed to a BBQ at Mike and Sheila's with our families to celebrate Doug's achievements. Doug will never brag about himself, and because of that... I must do it for him.

Four years ago, Doug was accepted to ISU and was offered a full ride scholarship because of his scholastic achievments in high school. He was also awarded other scholarhsips from businesses that put money towards College of Business students.

At the end of Doug's junior year, he was invited to be a member of Beta Gamma Sigma because he was in the top 5% of his College of Business class. In the fall of 2009, the beginning of his senior year, he was invited to a "College of Business Fellow," which consists of 12 students chosen by the college's executive committee to represent the very best of undergraduate business majors based on academics, leadership and attitude. Of 1200 business majors at ISU, the 12 fellows represent the best one percent of undergraduates.

Doug was one of six College of Business graduates with High Honors, a 3.90 GPA or higher. And just a few weeks before Graduation, he recieved a letter from the Dean of the College of Business stating that he had been chosen as the Department of Finance Outstanding Student of the Year! He was given a nice plaque at Graduation, and we can't wait to hang it on the wall along with his diploma when it arrives soon!

I am so proud of Doug and all he has accomplished the last four years. He has put his best effort into his classes and has worked hard to keep up his grades. Not all college students raise familes and carry on full time jobs while excelling in school. He is intelligent, hardworking, and always has a great attitude. We are so excited that he is finished with school and Doug is excited to use what he's studied to good work on the farm. Thanks Doug for all you do for Blake, Boston and I. We love you so much and appreciate all you do for us! Congratulations babe!

April 2010

The first weekend in April brought Easter and all the festivities that go with it. We colored eggs. Did an easter egg hunt and had a yummy Easter dinner, complete with an bunny carrot cake. I got the recipe from my friend Kaylynn a while back and had been dying to try it. It has applesause instead of oil and no other fat. So with the applesauce and the fresh shredded carrots, I'm pretty sure you could count it as a serving of fruits and vegetables instead of dessert if you wanted! We enjoyed listening to General Conference and I was glad to get the Ensign in the mail yesterday so I can read through the talks again.

Back in January, Doug was asked to be a soloist for the Snake River Community Orchestra concert. He went to practices here and there on Wednesday nights and performed with the Orchestra and the other soloists on April 24th. He sang "Toreador" from Carmen, as his solo and he also sang in a number of other songs as the chorus. His song was amazing as always, and guess who remembered to take the video camera, but forgot the memory card.... me. Bummer, I know. I'm working on finding a video of it and if I come across it, I'll post it. But here's a few pictures from the night of the performance as well as the poster with all the details. If you live in the area and didn't attend, you really missed out!

The last weekend in May was the Concert for the ISU Camerata Singers. Doug has been part of this community choir this semester to pick up an extra credit for school. They practice on Tuesday nights from 7:30-9:30 p.m., which meant late night Tuesdays for Doug this semester. They did the concert 2 nights, and were accompanied by the symphony. They performed a 70 minute requim by Brahms, in German. Quite impressive! This first picture is of Doug in his tux starting a pivot on our way to Pocatello for the concert. He's obviously a farmer at heart. And the next is a picture of the orchestra, soloists, conductor and choir. Can you see Doug? He's on the right hand side of the picture about half way up. In all honesty, this was the only elective class Doug has taken in all of his college. He's always been filled to the brim with business classes, so it was fun to see him make some time for something else.

March 2010

March consisted of only a few things, but oddly enough took up a large amount of time. I was on the Blackfoot Jr. Miss committee again this year and was in charge of the Self Expression routine (not just me, my friend Misti helped choreograph it too) and Ticket Sales, along with a bunch of other last minute things that seemed to come up. I helped the girls at their early a.m. practices, Monday- Thursday from 6- 7 a.m. They also put together a "Jr. Mister" competition this year, which Doug and I attended and helped a little with, and a "Little Miss Day Camp." The theme was "The Streets of Italy" and the program took place on April 10th. It was great group of girls and they all worked hard. I always enjoy getting to know the girls and not only working with them, but having fun with them, as well as the other committee members. Here's a group shot of the girls:

And I couldn't talk about March, without mentioning St. Patty's Day. That silly leprechaun turned our potty water and our milk green that morning and Blake couldn't stop talking about him all day. Our friends the Pearsons came over for a green dinner, which consisted of green wraps, green jigglers, green chip dip, green cupcakes and green frape! Yum! I'll admit, some food just isn't as appitizing when its colored green, but once you get over the food coloring, its just as yummy!

March also brought the 2nd Ward Pine Wood Derby, hosted by the Elder's Quorum. This is when I learned that there are callings in the church that you aren't set apart for. My calling was "Elder's Quorum President's Wife" and my duties consisted of making sure everyone had invites, a food assignment, and putting together the main course: BBQ pulled pork sandwiches. Don't worry, I had the meat catered. :) Anyway, we had almost 60 people there and everyone seemed to have a good time, especially those there to race their cars. Doug's car didn't get put together until the night before and then he ended up dropping out after the first round anyway, so another car could take his spot. That's okay... there's always next year!

Doug and I also celebrated our 4th Anniversary on the 31st of March. Boy, time flies when you're having kids, remodeling a house, going to school, working on the farm and having fun! Becki watched the boys for us the weekend before and we got to go out to dinner and then headed down to Lava Hot Springs to sit in the hot tubs to celebrate. It was a great date and I think we both enjoyed a few hours without the kids!

Let's Back Up a Little...

Boy, when you let your blog go for almost 4 months, it almost seems impossible to catch up. I thought about just skipping the last few months and picking up starting today, but then I'd miss blogging about a whole slew of events! Let's back up to January.

Boston Morgan VanOrden was given a name and a blessing on January 3, 2010 by his father, Doug, in the Blackfoot 2nd Ward. His unlces, grandpas and great grandpa all stood in the circle. He was given a beautiful blessing and looked so handsome. After church, we had a nice family dinner out at my parent's house to celebrate Boston's day. Boston started smiling when he was about 6 weeks old and hasn't stopped yet. He has such a sweet spirit and is such a calm baby. We are so blessed to have little Boston in our family.

January and February also consisted of a little thing we like to call Church Ball. Doug put his counselor Chad in charge of getting our ward's team together and mentioned "if you can't find enough players, call me and I could probably come." Well, putting a team together was a little harder than they thought it might be and Doug became a regular. Thursday nights after dinner, we would load up the boys and take them over to the stake center to watch a little church ball. Doug's comment after their first game: "I thought I was gonna puke!" and after the last "I know we lost, but that was fun tonight." I enjoyed watching Doug pretend to take the game seriously, so he wouldn't disappoint those that really were serious, and chatting with the other church ball wives. Sorry, no church ball pictures this year, maybe next winter.

And let's see... another big change in January. After 2 1/2 years, I was released as the Primary Chorister and they called me to be the Ward Choir Director. I wasn't extremely happy about the calling at first, but its not near as bad as I thought it would be. The only difference between the two callings is the level of music i'm conducting and my choir members listen to me and don't pick their noses while we're singing! We have a choir made up of 8ish faithful members and then there are those that read music well and practice with us once before we sing and help us sound beautiful. I attended a stake conducting class in April and I'm starting to feel like I know what I'm supposed to be doing. I'll learn from experience, right?

I'll post about the living room in another post, but I think that's it for January and February!