Johnson Family Reunion 2011

Every other year my immediate family gets together for a couple days. This year we were at my parents house. My brother Dustin came up from Texas late Sunday night and we were able to go to dinner with his cute family on Monday. It was so fun to see them! We don't get to see them nearly enough. Here we are eating at The Pie.

Kelly, Tim and I were in charge of planning it this year and it all came together so well. Our reunion started Thursday night with dinner. We had our traditional Christmas Eve dinner, Christmas Eve sandwiches and Christmas Eve cookies. It was all so delicious. Having this only once a year is just not enough. Kelly and I spent all day in the kitchen on Thursday making the sandwiches and cookies, but it was all worth it. Everyone loved it!

Bailey and Jackson, they just love each other

After dinner, the kids made t-shirts and cup holders. We do t-shirts every time and the kids love it. They paint them, color on them and then they go around getting everyone to sign their shirt. It is so fun to have this tradition and the kids wear them all the time. The boys went to a late night of Thor and the rest of us played games until they got home.

After breakfast on Friday we went to Wheeler Farm to get family pictures done. This will be the last year for a long time that we will have everyone together. By the next reunion, we will have two boys on missions. I can't believe that I have nephews that old. We will miss them dearly, but are so proud of them that they have made that decision to go. I know they will be able to do so much good work for the church.

Looking at our family pictures and how much our family has grown has made me realize how lucky I am to have such wonderful parents and such a good family. My parents have so much to be grateful for. They raised us kids to be strong in the gospel, to rely on the Lord in all things, to stay close together as a family no matter what and so much more. I really am so lucky to have such a good family. We are always there for each other and we love each other no matter what. I look at how my parents started with 7 kids and now they have 13 kids and 24 1/2 grandkids all with such strong testimonies. We are truly blessed to have a unified family. I love my Mom and Dad so much and am grateful for all that they have done for me.

Grandpa and Grandma with all 24 grandkids

After pictures we headed home for lunch and started our service projects. The girls made burp cloths and two baby blankets for a women's shelter. The boys helped Grandpa with things that he needed done around the house.

The boys helped wash the trailer, fix the grass around the fruit trees, paint the swing set and a dresser, and put together a saw holder.

My brother Scott wanted a turn to feed Jackson his cereal. What a good brother to help out his baby sister. I love the face that Jackson is making.
"Why are YOU feeding me?"

My sister Holly and I were in charge of Minute to Win it games. I am missing all the pictures from this, but it was hilarious watching everyone. In the game below you had to put vaseline on your nose and stick cotton balls to your nose and carry them across the lawn and put them on a plate. Some of the cotton balls just didn't want to come off.

Friday evening we celebrated all of the July birthdays with cake and homemade ice cream. It was delicious.

After we had cake and ice cream, my Dad gave a little Family Home Evening Lesson around the camp fire. It is so great for all of us to hear my Dad bear testimony of the gospel and the importance of family. He did such a good job. I have the best Daddy!

Afterwards we roasted smores and starbursts. Everyone was so ill from all the junk that night, but it was so fun! The boys stayed up to watch Iron Man and everyone else went to bed. We needed to rest a little to get through the next day!

On Saturday we went to Classic Roller Skating. We rented out the rink so it was just us and it was awesome. We had so much fun. The little kids tried to skate, but it was too hard so they got scooters to ride around. I think that is the smartest ideas we have ever come up with. Everyone absolutely loved it and it was something that everyone could do. This was by far the highlight of the whole reunion.

We liked to make one person do all the work, it was so much easier for the rest of us to just hang on while we were being pulled.

We only had a few injuries... A lot of people fell down actually. One person would fall and someone would start laughing and then they would fall. It was human dominoes. Later they pulled out a ramp for people to go off of. Some were brave and tried it, but most of us liked to keep it safe and just skate around and watch.

We did the hokie pokie and the bird dance. The DJ lady who was doing it said that we were the most energetic group that she had ever hosted. That is my fam, always having a good time.

Sad to say that after skating, my brother Dustin and his family had to start heading back to Texas. We were all very sad to see them leave as it would be a whole two years before we see them again.

Cute cousins had so much fun together and sweet Ben and Andrew were so upset that they had to go.

We all lined up in the circle to say good bye as they drove away

This is a priceless picture of Bailey and Jackson. It is so sweet that they are holding hands! They will be best buds forever.

Saturday afternoon we did the Ding Dong Olympics. Kelly made signs for each family of where they are from. We had them set up around the backyard and each kid had to run with the torch from their sign to the next sign and pass the torch off.

We were separated into four teams and we had to come up with team names and a little cheer.

The Snowflakes

Flynn Riders

The Vectors

The Knee-kickers

We kicked off the Olympics with a three legged race...

This is the orange game that you have to hold an orange with your chin and pass it off

Pie Eating Contest

Transfer a life-saver using a spaghetti noodle to each player on your team

We had four people from each team and each person had to hammer in a nail into the piece of wood.
Bubble gum blowing contest

At the end of all the games there was a tie. So the Knee-Kickers and Flynn Riders had to do a tie breaker. C.J. and Payden were doing so well...

They didn't quite make it, but it was fun to watch!

The Vectors with their Silver Medals. Oh Ya! Everyone got medals and the color of ribbon showed what place you took. They were ding dongs tied to the end of the ribbons.

The Flynn Riders with their smolders...

Morgan and Camille taking such good care of Jackson

Saturday night we watched Tangled on a giant projector screen in the backyard. It was so much fun! I think the only way to watch a movie is outside on the lawn. I don't know why, it just makes it so much better.

To end the reunion we all went to church with my parents to our home ward on Sunday. I love going back to the home ward. It is so fun to see everyone and my parents were so excited to have almost everyone there. (We missed you Dustin and family) It isn't very often that we have that opportunity so we have to take advantage of it when we can. The whole weekend was an absolute success and I have the best family in the world.

A Weekend of Firsts: Rice Cereal and Swimming!

Jackson had a very adventurous weekend! We thought we would try some rice cereal at night to see if that would help him start sleeping through the night. It was very messy, but so fun to try. I went with the directions on the box for babys first try and it was really runny so it didn't help him sleep through the night. He did really well eating off the spoon though, he ate quite a bit. We will keep trying!

We both had to hold his hands down. He kept trying to get the bowl and then he would stick his hand in his mouth and we had to pull it out and shove the spoon in there. Then he would grab the spoon and not let go. It was a lot of effort trying to hold him down. He is a strong boy. He was making us laugh so hard.

I had to move the bowl so Jackson couldn't grab it so I put it on the counter. Next thing I know it was all over me and the counter. Jackson had kicked it over with his foot. Little Stinker!

Our fun friends Ryan and Amber invited us to go swimming with them at Amber's parents house. The water was so warm and perfect for Jackson. It was his first time and he loved it. It took him a while before he learned that he could splash in the water. He just chilled while we held him, but once he realized he could, he splashed the rest of the time. It was so fun to watch him play in the water. Our little guy is getting so big. I wish he would just freeze where he is now and not get any bigger.

Jackson loved watching Logan and Luke play in the water. They made him smile.

Even though we had woken Jackson up from his nap to go swimming and he didn't eat until an hour later then he usually does, he was still a happy boy. We have been so blessed with a good baby.

Harry Potter

My brother Tim and his wife Ashli have been to most of the midnight shows when the Harry Potter movies would come out. CJ and I went to the sixth one and we swore we would never do it again. We got home around 3:30 am and then had to get up for work. Not fun. So when Tim called to see if we wanted to go to the last Harry Potter, the last midnight show that he was going to go to, we HAD to see how it all ends, the last big hoop la, of course we were going to say no! For some reason we decided to go. It was probably the last midnight show we will ever go to, so why not? We hung out at my mom's until 11:45 pm and then left. My mom was nice enough to let us all have a sleepover and to watch the little ones while we went to the movie. We got home close to 3 and poor CJ had to get up and go to work, but he didn't have the 30 minute drive so that was nice. Little Jackson slept in late that morning so I was able to catch up on some sleep. It was actually a lot of fun and I am glad that we went. Life just wouldn't be that exciting unless you do crazy stuff like this, right?

Ashli's nephew had a death eater mask, wand and Harry glasses so we all took turns playing with them. CJ just had so much fun casting spells on Wyatt.

Jackson really just wanted to eat the glasses, he didn't really like them on his face.

STUPIFY!

Ashli always makes a yummy treat for the midnight shows. This time she made butter beer. It tasted like butterscotch. It was too bad. Ashli said the butter beer at Universals in Florida was much better, but I thought she did a great job making it.

Cheers!

5 Months Old

My Baby is growing way too fast. I always have to add a ton of pictures because he is just so stinkin' cute and makes the cutest faces.

Weight: 15 1/2 lbs.

Height: 25 3/4 in.

At five months, Jackson is sitting up pretty good. He leans forward a little sometimes and can usually sit for a while before he falls over. He gets excited when he is sitting up and able to look around.

He holds onto things a lot better. If you hold it out for him, he will grab it from you. He reaches for whatever you have in your hand now, it makes it a lot more difficult to do things while holding him.

He still doesn't sleep through the night. He has been waking up an extra feeding again. He goes to sleep around 9:30 pm and wakes up between 1-2 and 4-5 and then is up at 8. This past week I have been trying to get him back to sleep in the night without feeding him. When I hear him stirring I hurry and give him his binki and he usually falls back to sleep. He takes awesome naps though so I can still catch up on my sleep. He takes a nap at 10 for 1 1/2-2 hours and then again at 1 for the same length of time. He will fall asleep later in the day, but that isn't a set nap time.

Jackson is in 6-9 month clothes and even wears some 12 month clothes. He is getting pretty chunky and I can't do up some of his 6 month pants because they are too tight. He is in size 3 diapers. He has been for about three weeks now. When I could hear him talking in the morning, I would go into his room and pick him up only to find that he had pooped all the way up his back and his sheet was soaked. After finding these lovely surprises multiple times and having poop up to his arm pits almost every time he was going poop during the day, I decided to save the rest of the two diapers and just move on to the threes. I am very happy I did. He now only as about three onsies that are not stained yellow.

We are borrowing this toy saucer from our neighbors and Jackson really likes it. He will sit in it for quite a while before he gets upset. He is slowly learning how to play with all the toys on it. There are about two things that he plays with now.

Jackson loves to stand up, he would rather do that then sit. He loves to bounce up and down also. He will do that forever. You will sit him down on your lap and he will straighten his body so you can pull him up to stand.

Jackson loves his Daddy. When CJ gets home from work and starts talking, Jackson will turn his head all over the place until he finds his Dad. It is so cute. If he is not facing him, he will keep turning his head to see CJ. Even if I am trying to get Jackson to eat and he hears his Dad, he will stop eating and find him. He will hang his head upside down to see CJ and sit like that forever.

Hanging his head upside down has become a new thing that Jackson really likes to do. He will be lounging on my lap and hang his head down. I will start to tickle his face and he loves it. He just hangs out like that until I pull him up. I keep thinking all the blood is rushing to his head, this can't be good to do this so I pull him up and then he goes right back down.

Jackson has rolled over multiple times, but now when we put him on his stomach he is happy for a minute and then gets mad. He won't roll over, he just lays there until I roll him over. Usually after that he is fine. He will only roll over when he is laying happily on his tummy.

Friends

Natalie Wall, Allison Dame, Sara Howarth, Debbie Perkins and me

I have to just brag about how awesome my friends are. We have stayed in touch since High School and every time we get together it is as if no time has gone by at all. We pick up right where we left off. On Saturday we had a BBQ at Debbie's house. I wanted to get a picture of everyone, but didn't pull out the camera until only the girls were left. Minus Sarah Karl, we missed her. Natalie and Bretton live in Mississippi now and are here for a month so we had to get together before they left us again.

In high school we would get together every single weekend, there were six of us girls and five boys. We had so much fun just hanging out. And now some are married, some have kids and we still love seeing each other. The girls get together at least six times a year for birthdays and we usually get together with the boys once a year. I really think that if we weren't together every weekend in high school we wouldn't get together still. I love it though and am so grateful that I have the friends I do.

Zoo...Again, 4th of July, Toesies, and Sitting up!

We went to the zoo again! This time with Holly, Tyler, Brooke and Jacob! The kids had such an awesome time and so did we! Things are always more enjoyable when it is free. We will go many more times this Summer. This time we were able to see Zuri. She is cute and fun to watch.

Tyler, Holly, Brooke and Jacob taking a ride on the train

My Little Angel sleeping. Looking at all the animals must really wear him out.

For the 4th of July we hung out all day. We had been at a family reunion for my family all weekend in Star Valley, Wy so it was nice to just relax. We sat outside for a while and our little guy sat up! We were so excited. I sat him up and he stayed like that for quite a while. I was so shocked that he sat up that long. Needless to say, we are proud parents! Jackson is getting so big and we can't believe it.


Jackson and I just hanging out and enjoying the warm weather

Our neighbors Dad bought $300 worth of fireworks so we and all our neighbors headed to the circle to watch as they were lit off. They were awesome! I thought for sure someones house was going to catch on fire. They had aerial ones that made me a little nervous, but no harm came to anyone or anything. It was a very fun night hanging out with our fun neighbors. I love our street, we have so much fun together.



Jackson discovered his toes on July 3! It is so fun to watch him hold on to them. I was wondering when he was going to notice he had feet he could play with. I love his big grin!

We went for a walk and Jackson stayed awake the entire time and then as soon as we came into the house he decided to fall asleep. I love my Little Chunks!