Birthday, Birthday, Birthday

Can you believe it is birthday time AGAIN! ALREADY!! AND....can you believe she is 11!!!

This year we had something neat happen. Oakley's very best friend Alicia (one next to her on the left) called me about 2 weeks before her birthday and asked if she could PLEASE do a surprise party for Oakley. I seriously had to hold back the tears as I talked to her on the phone because I count Alicia as one of our greatest blessings. She is an AMAZING friend to my sweet Oakley and I was thrilled that she wanted to put together a party for her. When Oakley arrived at Alicia's all these super good friends were waiting in the back yard to surprise her. She had NO IDEA and had a BLAST spending the afternoon with them! Alicia thought of everything....she even had them all dress in purple because it is Oakley's favorite color. She did the party for her on Saturday so she got to celebrate her bday twice this year!
This morning we opened presents! SUPER FUN!! And then after swim lessons we went to lunch with Grandma Hawkins and her Hawkins aunts and then her and I went to town for pedicures. It was Oakley's first pedicure and she LOVED it. She especially LOVED the massage chair. :) So cute!! The little Chinese guy that did her pedicure found out it was her bday and gave her a few little flowers on her toes as an extra special deal! Fun!!

Tonight was Oakley's 4H Modeling. She was in tears twice today over this. She didn't think having to model on her bday was any fun! She looked GORGEOUS though and did amazing. She was speedy and we were pretty far in the back so all I got were fuzzy pictures. Sorry!!
After modeling we hit Chinese food dinner with the family and then home for candles in chocolate pudding pie.

As I tucked Oakley into bed tonight I couldn't help but cry a little (I KNOW I am a baby) as I explained to her the feelings I felt 11 years ago as the doctor placed her in my arms. It was the 1st time in my life that I realized what this whole "plan of salvation" thing was....I finally understood eternity and the importance of living righteously so we could be together forever. I understood for the 1st time just how much my Heavenly Father loved me because he gave me HER! I can't even image life without Oakley!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BIG GIRL!!

Dallin and His Space Rocket

This past week Dallin had his first space rocket derby. (Our ward decided to do this instead of a pinewood derby this year...kinda hoping to do the pinewood derby next year!) This is Dallin and his Derby. He went with the Amercian Theme this year! :)
Here is one of the races!! SOO EXCITING!

Just one little side note: ISN'T HE SO HANDSOME....I SURE LOVE HIM!

This space rocket thing kinda ended up being a joke. The rockets kept falling apart and they had all sorts of issues with the wire track etc., etc., etc.!!! There were no real winners or losers....which was a nice thing. They boys were all just excited for the one or two times that their rockets actually stayed on the wire and made it anywhere! Dallin did come home with something however........two bloody knuckles and about 6 small cuts on his fingers. Those space rockets were DEADLY! If you let go of the propeller mid-turning WATCH OUT!! Dallin (and Ryan) did great on the making of the space rocket and he was happy with the night, so all-in-all it turned out great.

4-H

This summer Oakley signed up with a few of her clogging buddies to do 4-H. We had never done 4-H (since I was little anyway) and so this was definitely ALL NEW to us. She signed up for a sewing, bread making and cake decorating class. The sewing made me a little nervous because I knew she would be relying on my sewing skills to learn her sewing skills and.....I am not gonna lie to you.....I suck at sewing. My sweet mother is an AMAZING seamstress and has tried over and over to teach me to sew. I have learned several things from these classes, but not enough to help my sweet daughter sew this skirt she chose to sew.

I was however pretty proud of myself with the fact that I figured most everything out except the bias tape by myself. Thank you mom for the lesson on bias tape! :) Oakley, however, WAS AMAZING! I couldn't believe how quickly she caught on. She has also had a few small sewing classes at grandma's house, so this wasn't her very 1st, but for what she did she blew me away!Do you see what I am talking about?! She sewed this super cute zebra skirt with a tie-dye hot pink overskirt and a tulle petticoat. It is SO STINKING CUTE!! She gets to model it for the judges at the fair next week. She is also suppose to make some bread of some sort.....thanks to grandma Hawkins for already agreeing to help with that. (I also suck at making bread....SORRY MOM! I know you tried!) And she is suppose to turn in a dumby cake that is decorated using frosting tips. This is one of the 5 practice cakes she had to do for the class. She LOVED the cake decorating and has gotten pretty good at it. She may now be this houses official cake decorator! Oakley AND I have both learned SO MUCH from doing 4-H and I am especially glad she decided to take part in it this year just because of the few things I learned along HER 4-H journey. Love you Oakley and I AM SOOO PROUD OF YOU!!

Jacobson Family Reunion

The day I got home from girls camp (next post will update you on that!) I headed right to my parents for the annual Jacobson Family Reunion. Every summer at some point or another my parents gather all my siblings together and we just enjoy being with each other. Every year we do something different..........no matter what it is it is ALWAYS a good time! This year the girls did some Jacobson Cheerleading! :)
We also did some "tenting!"

If you look really close you should be able to see 2 little heads. Dallin on the left, and Laiklie in the middle. Rhett's head is there also - but you can't see him. They LOVED sleeping in the tent. My kids and I ended up sleeping in our 4 man tent because one of the poles for our larger tent got stuck in with another ladies tent bag at girls camp. We actually slept nice and cozy all squished together!

Saturday we hit the splash park. All kids enjoyed!

We also rode the carousel.

We infact filled the ENTIRE carousel with just my parents grandkids. We had almost every horse filled and it was seriously ONLY Jacobsons on it! SO MUCH FUN!! Where ever we go we are a CROWD!

We stopped to feed the ducks. We actually scared them all away....so, we weren't there long.

Then we hit the sanddunes for a bbq and a good time. YES....WE WENT HOME WITH SAND IN ALL THE CRACKS AND CREVASSES! :)

I love the sanddunes and made all my sisters and a brother and a couple adult cousins climb to the top of the HUGE dune and do some hand-holding-jumping of our own. Of course there are no pictures to prove this, but it was a BLAST and made me feel young again!

It is always so nice to gather with my family. We love getting together and look forward to many more fun summers to come!

Girls Camp

And....once again I had the opportunity to go to girls camp. This year was a little different than other years, but good all the same. (I don't know how girls camp can't be good!) It was ward camp so we took our girls to a Boy Scout Camp for the week. All I am going to say is 'THOSE ARE SOME LUCK BOY SCOUT TROOPS!" The girls had a BLAST!! I got to go to this same camp as a teenager and LOVED it, so I knew the girls would love it too!

There was rock climging. By the time I got to the top my legs were shaking so bad I could hardly stand-up. Ah!! And repelling! This is me on the left and Madison (little Miss No Fear!) on the right. We were racing - I WON!! only because I had longer legs! :) I braided and braided and braided hair! I swear every girl left there with cornrows THANKS TO ME!! They all looked SO SUPER CUTE!! We also got to do something called High Cope. It is an obstacle course 35 ft in the air. It was INSANE!! All the girls learned alot about themselves and things that they are capable of. I was SO PROUD of each one of them. We had 11 girls there and they all did it without complaining or "freaking out!" The way to get off the High Cope course was a zipline. SUPER FUN!! This is me in the picture - I PROMISE! Ah!! This is me, Madison and Haylie. I LOVE getting to know the YW in a different way thanks to girls camp. We had a blast and I can't wait til next year when my sweet little Oakley gets to go. (DRYING TEARS THINKING ABOUT HOW OLD SHE IS GETTING)

Fourth of July 2011

This 4th of July we spent at the parade in the morning and then the ranch in the afternoon. The kids LOVE going to the ranch and especially with cousins.

We spent hours on the peddle boat. By the end of the afternoon my legs were burning from so much peddling. We had SO MUCH FUN! We watched fireworks with my parents because the kids spent the night at their house because I left for girls camp early the next morning. The fireworks were REALLY GOOD! The kids LOVED them!!

4H Camp

I got to take Oakley, a couple cousins and a few friends to 4H Camp last week. OH MY WORD!! I was glad I survived. The girls were all 10 - 12 years old and SO MUCH FUN!! They kept me going all day and all night long! :)

Cousin Ali, Oakley, Clogging friend Whitney, Kyla (in front), Clogging friend Brooklyn (in back), Ciara, Cousin Macady and her friend Jessica. This was infront of our 1st cabin. Thats right 1st cabin.....on night #2 as we got back from the square dance and ready to tuck in I headed to the bathroom with a couple of the girls and a few minutes later the rest of the girls came busting through the door with the announcement of "A MOUSE IN THE CABIN!!" For those of you who know me you know I DO NOT DO MICE!! I seriously was ready to check into a hotel or drive my bum home. I was brave though and we moved cabins at about 11 pm. The girls were WIRED after all the craziness and didn't go to sleep until sometime around 1 am. I am still exhausted!!This is on the hike. Brooklyn (in pink) had some issues with lightheadedness and so her and I only made it 3/4 of the way there. The other girls all did fine and made it to the top and back. It was a pretty steep hike. We had fun even if I didn't get to the top.These are 4 of the cute girlies at the gun shooting range. Oakley is the closest to the camera. Oakley was the best shooter for the girls in her group. She was pretty excited about it. I was pretty proud. Getting a 22 for Christmas this past year sure helped with that! Here she is showing her shooting skills! The last night we were there they had a carnival/rodeo for the kids and their new stick horses. I also took t-shirts for the girls in our cabin to decorate. The girls came home with stick horses, picture frames they decorated, candles they made and a ton of little things from the carnival. They also got to make homemade ice cream, learn a square dance and do archery and rifles. They had a great time and we are already planning to go back next year!