Your are never too old to:

No you are never too old to: 1-have your hair done by your daughter while watching the First Presidency's Christmas Devotional 2-Make a nativity out of playdoh 3-get 16 bday spanking from your Dad :) 4-and you certainly will never grow up too big to wish for rain gutters and heat tape from santa, thank goodness Brooke isn't too old to hear the ringing of the bell......Merry Christmas all!

Bret's Bechtel Christmas Dinner, I felt like Cinderella

Every winter we have a formal dinner to attend for Bret's Company, Bechtel Bettis. This year I got all gussied up and had fun doing it. I curled my hair for an hour!!!! I haven't dont that for a few hundred years. Do I need to remind you of how crazy I am about my husband? Teee....... notice the foot....:)

I opped to put in this picture of him looking up as opposed to the 10 of him looking down.....

We took these at home after we got home, the streamers are for Jessies bday party that would be held the next day. I love this dress on me, it was a little low in the front tho....

Happy 6th birthday to our little Jessie bear!!!

How does a girl acquire 18 my little ponies in 2 hours? She invites 10 girlfriends, and 2 of her older brothers cutest friends to a "My little pony party!!" Man did she score.

She had a loose tooth she really wanted to lose before her bithday. She prayed everyday that it would happen, and just like the prayers work, the night before her birthday her first little tooth came out. I love how little testimonies grow.

Her party was so much fun, friends of ours have minature horses, the vary from about 24inches to about 36 inches! They are very strong and trained to pull pony carts, her friends and her had so much fun taking turns riding in the cart. We love you so much little J, you are a ball of determination and smiles, coated with a perfect topping of freckles :)

Sweet 16 and never been kissed?????!

Happy 16th to our oldest son Austin, we are super excited for him, he's a great teen and we love spending time with him! We really shocked his shorts off w/ a surprise party, a ton of friends, great food and I invented a texting game! They all loved it. One friend of his I saw after the party told me how refreshing and innocent the party was, how sick she is of going to parties w/ alcohol. Hmm, yep even in Idaho. Austin now has his liscence and his Dad and I LOVE not having to keep up with his busy schedule. HAPPY BIRTHDAY SON WE LOVE YOU!!!

Happy Birthday to my favorite Texan!!!!

Happy Birthday to you Leslie, I wish I could be there to spend your birthday week as you called it yesterday. I love being your friend, I know it is a very long list and I feel blessed to be on it. I am super sorry to miss your pj party as I know it will be a total blast. Thank you for teaching me how to be a girlfriend, for teaching me to take time for friends and to love the little moments w/ my kids. You do all these things naturally and love learning from you. You also shared your love of scrapin w/ me and I love it now too. I love this journey through life that we are all on together, the Lord has blessed me in so many ways and one of them is you. Happy Birthday Les, 34 is my favorite number!!

Crosswalk buttons, sign shakers and NO MORE BUSY DAYS!!!!

Bret has become quite driven in the Idaho Potato market, he watches the weather, helps me plot the spot to sell from and now this......We cleaned out Mr. Farmer's garage full of potatoes, taking the last 50 bag to sell, I felt like the Grinch stealing Christmas as I even swapped the bag he had set aside for his family, to exchange it for a bag that was ripped. I figured he didn't need that beautiful unripped bag of spuds sitting there in his garage when I could SELL IT!!! Everyone was once again involved in this weekends sales event, our goal not nearly as exciting tho, as we only had about 30 left by Sat to sell. At one point and this will make you laugh.....Bret, Aust, Hunt, and Dakota were minding their post in front of Lowes. Bret told the boys once these last 7 bags were sold they could go home. Aust and Hunt grabbed 2 of his signs and start shaking them at the road, 2 cars pull in, next Bret tells sweet little innocent Dakota to run down the street and push the "walk" button on the stop light, then run back to the next one and press it too!!!! Bret had traffic backed up for 3 intersections!!! Ko loves his dad so much he will do anything he says and he kept up the button pushing until Bret asked him to stop!!! They sold 7 bags in 30 minutes!!! SO FUNNY! They packed up and were done, Aust and Hunt zipped over to me and grabbed my signs to shake them! We sold my last 5 bags in 30 minutes too! Jes was by far the happiest among us to see the last of the bags go, as she has spent to most time in the truck waiting for them to sell. I taught her to play checkers and she is getting pretty darn good, lots of practice. I hated to tell her today that I ordered 4 more pallets full of spuds.............$$$$$ i like it.

The Princess wedding photo!

April Sargent and Me, at the princess wedding photo booth, I think she is triing to nab my suitcase......not a chance lil sis

A Princess Wedding.....

A few weeks ago my sweet niece Jenna Andersen became Jenna Andersen Biadfrjeiworufjklw sp? tee ......She married an awesome Polish young man. I love him. She had planned her wedding since she was in 8th grade. The highlights were the formal well practiced dance in Hotel 1000 in downtown seattle, a harbor cruise, a ring ceremony for his parents to see as he is the only member of the church in his family. I was charmed by her preparedness for her big day, the love I saw in their eyes for each other and and romance of the dinner in the beautiful hotel 1000 reception area. The bride even thought of a dress up photo room for us to "play in"....thus this silly picture of me and my lil sis April :) I love you Jenna and Swavek, I have no idea how to spell your name.

Potatoes in the News..............

Excellence news on the potato front! We raise the bar this weekend, with a goal of selling 50 bags on Sat. Ya that is double our goal for last weekend, I love to set high goals,ones that scare you a bit!! We told the kids that if we met our goal we would go to dinner, something we NEVER do!! They were so excited. We divided to conquer our goal this weekend, Bret went to the Lowes parking lot and me, Brooke and Jess to the regular Toy R Us location! Bret wore his Austrialian hat and out sold me!!! He swears it was the hat. For about an hour and a half we planned to be gone and let the kids sell as Bret coaches Dakota's bball team and I wanted to watch him play. Aust took over the Lowes location , Brooke and Hunt the other. All was well until we recieved a call at the game from the POLICE!!!!! Talk about a heart stopper, no fun here. I left the game in a huge rush! Just down from were I had been selling was 3 different sets of puppies for sale, in front of Petsmart! Petsmart got annoyed and asked us all to leave. I felt so bad for Hunt and Brooke as the Police officer asked them if they had their liscense and asked them to pack up! When i arrived they were all packed up and waiting in the truck, I pulled in and saw the police a little ways away and decided to go talk to them first. They told me the dogs were actually the problem and there was another guy selling down at Lowes and wasn't having any trouble!!! Infact the police were wanting to buy some potatoes from him but didn't have any $$ w/ them!!! I ended up asking where they thought I should move to and they gave me some ideas!! Funny huh!!! We moved 2 more times only to be asked to leave each place!!! It was about 4pm and we only had about 10 bags to go, I debated on giving up on our goal and calling it quits but then why? I thought I should teach my kids that it's not always easy to reach our goals and adversity always comes to try and stop us from reaching them. We decided to join up with that cute man in the hat selling down at Lowes instead. By the time it was time for me to head to work and still have time for going out to dinner we had sold.......................47 BAGS!!!!!! Oh my!!!!!! We were so excited. That beats last sat by 14 bags! We made enough to pay off the rest of one bill we were working on and put $100 in the Christmas fund & dinner was delicious! Bret has next weekend all planned out, he has Friday off and is planning on a 2 day event! We have already checked the weather and we are gearing up for some Christmas savings.......sorry that was a loooonnnggg blog:)

DC, Virginia Beach, Oregon Coast and Christmas 2007?

Virginia Beach, VA a great place to spend a week!
We went there to visit Bret as he spent 5 LLLLOONNGGG
month doing some training at the Navy Base this
summer.



Look closely and you can see the Washington Monument!!! June 2008

Merry Late Christmas. Have you ever had good intentions of a really great Christmas card picture!?? Here is the one you were supposed to get in the mail last YEAR!!! HA!!! We will try again this year........Christmas 2007

Just before Bret left for his Virginia trip we met the Bergs in Oregon for a weekend get-a-way. Bret and I took a long walk down the beach realizing what lay ahead of us, much worry, much work, a few tears and some anticipation at his leaving me. I am totally nuts about my husband and sending him away ment not only missing his presence in my day and night but being single mommy of 5, young women's pres, working nights at the airport and learning how to do our books.....I know the Lord helped me thru this crazy time. I am soooo glad he is home.

School Pictures of the Yorgesen Clan 2008

More Fun Pix for the Fam DVD

Jessie age 5, this is her Kindergarden picture!

Hunter age 13, an 8th grader.

Dakota, age 8 he is a 2nd grader this year.

Here is Brooke and her horse Bubba...true love...

Austin age 15 and 7/8! 16 in only 3 weeks!!! He is not excited

or anything. He is a Sophmore.

Photo's for the Family DVD

Just Pedalling.............

Awesome week on the potato front!! I paid Mr. Farmer his $600 i owed him w/in 6 days of getting the spuds :) He was super impressed, and I love that. I sold the next 30 this past week and then get this yesterday I set a goal of selling 25 in one day...call me crazy, we all know that is true, but I sold 16 in my first hour and ended my day w/ selling 33 bags in 4 hours OOOHHH YYYYYAAAA!!!!! Mr. Farmer gave me his sweet truck to use for the day and then decided I could use it for the next 2 weeks. Just a little less red neck than my Mini Van and I love the look of a brand new truck w/ 30 bags of potatoes in it. He is leaving for Isreal and told me the I am helping him pay for his trip, the more I sell the longer he and his wife get to stay!!!! I am super looking forward to this week, I hope the weather holds and I can keep up the sales. Today I pay my tithing on my earnings and tomorrow I pay a wooping $700 on my debt!!! I can't wait, the coolest thing is none of that $700 was not from our regular income, we won't even miss it. Today my fast is for gratitude, I am just so thankful the Lord is helping us reach our goals, I can't thank Him enough. The book that has made us crazy over this goal is called the Total Money Make Over by Dave Ramsey. It has totally changed us, Jenna I wish we would have read this book as newly weds, I am super excited about your budget you wrote up....go get this book and read it together.....HURRY! :) Brooke is becoming quite the saleswoman, I we fight for the cars as they pull in. She made $15 off me yesterday. I am going to have watch it I see....more to come..............yum yum Idaho Potatoes.................tee

Did you hear i am a Potato Pedaller???

Last Tues I became the proud owner of 60 50lb bags of potatoes!!! I bet my parents are so proud!! Tee, actually it is super fun. I bought them from a farmer in our ward, they were straight from his farm last week. He sold them to me for $10 per bag and I sell them for $20 per bag. Tonight Bret loaded up my van after the open house and I sold for an hour in the Toy r us parking lot-- my new regular spot. I always pray before I start to sell. Today I prayed and explained to Heavenly Father that I had brought 10 bags and wasn't sure I could sell all 10 but how about 5 bags in an hour. Sure enough, the clock ticked by and in an hour I had sold my 5th bag. I got all choked up about it and thanked Him, then I sold one more, 6 w/in and hour. That is $120 in an hour!!! My profit is $60 in just an hour! Holy Moly way more than I make as an airplane janitor!!! I haven't paid my farmer friend for the bags yet, I will be paying for them after I sell the first 30 bags. I will pay the farmer $600 I owe him then I will keep the 2nd $600 as a profit. As of tonights sales, I have sold 27 bags!!! That means , next week I am in the money!!! I am not planning on buying anything new or fun, this money is for our goal to become debt free. All of it will be added to my debt snowball, our goal to have no payments other than our home is driving me to some crazy things and I love it. I must admit this is the coolest job I have ever had, I mean I am reading Eclipse, sitting along a busy street and people just stop and pay me MONEY!!! And it is legal!!! The worst day I had I only made $30 an hour poor me that is only 3 times what I make at the airport!!! Looking forward to next week......I wanted so bad to stay along the road and sell my last 4 bags tonight, but when some scary guy yelled something yucky at me I decided to head home.....maybe daytime sales are a better idea. More to come....

Falliday Open House

Today we had our 3rd annual Fall Open House. I think it is so fun to host parties, this one is one of my favorites, I invite my friends who sell things and we open our home to our neighborhood to come and shop, so fun. 2 of my good friends make amazing jewelry and they are sure to put up a dazling display, my other good friend sells Mary Kay and we spral her goods across our giant island and it looks so pretty. This year I also invited my niece who is a new photographer to display her talents and offer her services. Finally a friend who sells "layers clothing" also added her stuf to the mix. I think Brooke had the best sales percentage of the day, she baked cookies, cupcakes and cinnamon rolls and sold enough to purchase herself 2 sets of earings and some lipgloss!!! I was a nice day but I wish sales were a little better for my friends selling their wares....there is always next year. Let me know if any of my WA girls want some amazing jewlery!!!

My 37th Bday!!! Hmm, very close to 40.....

So I think I stink at this blogging stuff. I want to be good at it but I have a horrible time sitting down to do it!!! I loved My bday here is a little bit of it.............. My kids and Bret did something fun for me. I sent them to the $1 store to by gifts for me! It was great. Bret gave me a halarious card and a water bottle for the gym, Aust gave me 2 jars of canned mandrine oranges? Hunt a plastic braclet that says, "3-a-day-of-dairy!" HA! Brooke found a card that made me cry, Ko my fav. candy bar, and Jes a pink teddy bear she needs to help me take care of! I loved it all. Some friends took me out to Johnny Corino's for lunch and then Tiffany and I went to Ross to spend gift card from Julie. Very fun, since I have become the budget natzi I haven't shopped anywhere except winco for a long time. I think my fav parts of my day were my parents called and sang "happy bday" to me, a huge rarity, my mom constantly saying, "sing Dwain" was the best part! And I loved the phone calls from friends and relatives, I feel blessed by you all, I hope I can remember to share the love on your bdays!!!!!!

3 Saturdays

Cool weekend this weekend. The kids had thurs and fri off, Bret had fri off. I lved the time w/ each other. Conference wkend is always awesome, i lve it so much. Can you believe we are building a temple in Rome!!! Now that is cool. My favorite story was the one about the catcus one of the apostles just bearly brushed up against while golfing. He said the needles really just shot out at him, he just bearly touched it too. He likened this to how we sometimes react to people in our lives, we should not be like the cactus and attack others. I know I have done that, I am guilty, that was a good lesson.

Last night we went w/ a friend of Austins and her family to the LDS visitors center here in town. There is a beautiful Christis there and we showed them the movie "the Testament." We all cried. The sister missionaries were there and are teaching them. Kellie the 15 yr old is really leading the way for her family.

You know, from back in the 80s.....

Yesterday Dakota and I went for a horseback ride in the canyon near our home, we saw a huge jack rabbit, and elk tracks, this was his first ride out of our yard. We rode for over 2 hours, just him and I, he on Lightning and me on Bubba. Ko did fantastic, what a superstar. My saddle has a riffle holder on it. It is a ropers saddle, personally I use the holder for the fall colored berries I find and leaves I can dry for our home! In his 8 yr old wisdom he was informing me that the riffle holder was for the deputies, when they needed to carry their guns, "you know Mom, back in the 80s when the deputies used their riffles alot...................." Thankfully I was ridding ahead of him and he couldn't see my face cracking up. I did however inform him that I was a teen in the 80s!

Made in China ??

So the other night Austin and I were the only one's left up, he had one of those plastic braclets on his wrist. He had pushed on it really hard and now the impression of "made in China" was on his wrist. He said look mom, "I was made in China," I looked at it and laughed a bit and said, "No, Aust, you were made in Provo!" Every mother knows the look of a discussed teen when she sees it. He just shook his head, turned to walk away, "Ugh, I am going to bed." So funny, I laugh about it when I am all by myself sometimes!

Shel

The 2 Cheeked Kiss

Jess started school this year and she is loving it. Finally, for whatever reason she feels like she has waited the very longest to start. I try to explain to her that everyone starts school at 5 or sometimes 6, but no matter, it is finally her turn. There is something wonderful about her kiss goodbye, it is never missed. Yesterday the bus was waiting she tore off across the flowerbed only to return for THE KISS. She will not leave me without pressing extra hard her little lips to both of my cheeks, bus or no bus the second kiss on the other cheek is never forgotten. Being the mother of 5 i realize the timeframe i have of enjoying this little tradition, and I never take it lightly. :) Lucky me. Isn't she adorable, thx for the picture Tasha!

On Saturday Brooke my 11 yr old daughter and I went for a ride in the canyon near our home. What a blast it was. We climbed steep hills and galloped a ton of the way. Lightning is the brown horse and Bubba is the white one, I actually rode Bubba and she Lightning. As we were galloping along I would hear sqeals of delight from behind me and then...."This.......is.......the.....best......day.....of......my.......life......." Cool, a couple hours well spent, I think I have throughly made her love riding. Sorry Brooke, hope I don't ruin you, I guess I should appologize to her future hubby for the expenses I will cause him!!!

I love fall, it seems to feel slower than the rest of summer. The flowers r blooming, the garden is at it's height, and we here is snow country just seem to really relish in fall. I am busy making my kitchen hot with canning jars and i love the feeling of preparing for winter. Maybe I am like a squirel, packing in the nuts for winter. Funny huh.

My First Blog...

Here we are. This me and Bret. I love this picture because it shows our personalities so well, he is the calm that evens out my crazy....