Results

Well, the results weren't quite as I had hoped, but I am proud of USA regaurdless. Chaunte placed at 6th. Not a medal, not great, but she jumped well, and for just having a baby last year...I think she still ROCKS! Tia Hellebaut took the Gold, Blanka Vlasic took silver, and the girl from Russia that I thought would win actually took 4th, and her teammate Anna Chicherova took the Bronze. Still, high jump is the best, and totally exciting!

Shout Out

Just giving a shout out for the Olympic's Women's High Jump Finals going on tomorrow evening, the 23rd. I can't help it, I am a Swimming and Track and Field junky to the end!!! For some reason the two sports have stuck with me, and I love them ever so much!
USA competitor Chaunte Howard stands a good chance at medaling this year. I am her #1 fan routing for her to the end. I especially like her because she is a mommy...how cool is that?! You go girl! She is actually the same age as me, same height, and weight too(when I'm not prego that is). She competed in High School like I did, and sprinted but really had a love for the High Jump (who wouldn't?) and was really great at it. Too bad I never got to compete against the likes of her. Who cares if I would have been smothered by her....what a story to tell that would be! The first time she ever jumped she cleared 5 feet! AMAZING, first time jump ever...5 feet?? AMAZING!
Her biggest competitor I think will be one of the Russian jumpers Yelena Slesarenko. She's GOOD! She won the Gold last Olympics, but don't give up hope for my girl Chaunte!
Good Luck USA!!!

34 Weeks along

Well, for all of you family and friends that have been asking for an update on the big 'ol belly, here it is. For Family far away like Cory and Kristen, it really is me, not a cow, or a whale, or a hippo...it's me, Ashley. :) Mom, I know you were teasing that I was huge before...well take a look now! Where am I going to go these next 6 weeks?! Straight out I guess huh? With Adi I didn't even have the belly button pop out or anything, but not this one...oh no!...it's already popped out! Anyway, to appease all of you non-pregnant folk who still think pregnancy is "oh so cute" (I know, I do too when it's not me) here is a picture. Oh, and as far as everything else goes, I feel great and apparently am doing really great too. Hey, I just put the picture up, and maybe I ought to stand that way instead of sideways for pictures more often?! It doesn't look so bad that way, right?
Well, just for kicks here is another cutie tootie picture of the babes sitting on the stairs wearing a shower cap. Hehehe, she always makes me laugh!

Cousin time

Saturday night we got the chance to have Nadia, Adelynn's cousin over for the evening. When Nadia was dropped off she was sad because her daddy was leaving, and Adi wasn't awake to play; so we played outside for a bit. But when it was time to go wake Adi up from nap, they were both thrilled!
They had a little munchie on some cereal together and were very excited to share with each other, as well give BIG kisses for cousins!
They had a good time jumping from Adi's toddler bed to a mattress on the floor. They were doing flips and dives, and all sorts of crazy things, all the while laughing like the silly little girls they are and just enjoying being together.
So we decided to take them to Leo's place for dinner. We'd never been there but had heard good things about it, so we decided to give it a shot. Even the drive into town was a hit for the two girls. Laughing still... and clapping and singing and dancing.
Leo's place had lots of fun instore! We were there for 2 hours, and even then the girls didn't want to leave. They played on toys, and in the arcade, but most of all in the big jungle gym area. Adi enjoyed climbing to the top and coming down the big slides. Nadia enjoyed going under the nets and hanging on for dear life like a monkey. It was a hoot!
The girls kept trying to still balls from the other kids bowling in the arcade, so we let them do one round of "bowling" (if you can call it that) themselves. Nadia was a crack up trying to copy the other kids and stick the token in the ticket slot...oops! So we helped her get it in the right spot and the balls came tumbling down, and oh boy were they thrilled! They started throwing them right away. It was quite scary, but they were thrilled. They even won themselves 5 tickets and they each got a dinky little ring! Hooray!
But all good times eventually come to an end, much to their dismay!!! Fortunately after some calming down, and a nice book and prayers from Daddy/Uncle Caleb, they went night night.

Thanks for the awesome times Nadia. We love you, and Adi had such a great time with you over to play. Come again soon!

Dress up!

So Adelynn has started to hit the phase where she loves to undress and redress herself. She loves especially to get into the box of clothes that is full of old stuff, or stuff we haven't used yet, or will never use because it's just down right ugly. So the other morning as Caleb and I worked on his book blog, she was getting herself dressed for the day. This is what she came up with....the girls got flare, what else can I say?!Ensemble is completed with a pink onesie, a purple shirt that is way too small, (but by-golly it has a kitty on it!) a red kilt of some sort, and notice....Yes, those are brown gloves on her feet!Needless to say we went upstairs to her room and redressed with much cuter clothes, (she still got to pick) and then she hit the accessory mode and pretty soon we had pigtails complete with matching hair ribbons, and earrings too. See, she has it in her...just needs a little guidance every now and then!Man I love this girl!

Scentsy Convention 2008, and a great big surprise!

...First of all I will talk about convention, and save the surprise for the end. Most of you know that I sell Scentsy wickless Candles for fun, and I REALLY love it because the product is AWESOME! Well this year I had decided not to go to convention because of the pregnancy and possible moving situations. My best friend Crystal was going, and I was driving over with her to see my family, and so with one week left to decide, I went ahead and made the decision to attend too. Thank Heavens I did!!! It was such a blast! It was held at the Boise Grove Center, and we stayed with my parents. We stayed up late every night acting like 13 year old teenagers again, and had loads of fun at the convention. They gave away tons of free giveaways which of course went over well with all of the women there. Oh, and there were over 1,000 women in attendance which is awesome considering Scentsy is only 4 years old. They have had 724% growth this last year! Isn't that amazing? Even crazier is that I was the 1338th consultant to sign up (which was just over a year ago) and now there are over 11,000 consultants spanning the entire U.S. The best part I think of the convention was the motivational speakers. They weren't just motivating you to sell, they were motivating us to be our better selves(haha, sure that's not a word, but bare with me). It was inspiring I thought. Anyway, I won't ramble, I just wanted to say I had the best week ever, and completely enjoyed myself. P.S. The new Catalogs are full of AMAZING new scents and products!!! Can't wait to show you all! Now check out some highlights below. This was the main speaker of the whole event. She was AWESOME! She has climbed all 7 summits with her husband, and they were the first couple from the U.S. to achieve Mt. Everest together. She talked about all of the trials it took her to get there, and she was not only a wonderful speaker, but completely inspiring!
A picture of me and Pearl (my best friend Crystal) after the first day.
This is a picture of game time on Friday morning. It was so fun. They had games going on the entire time to win AMAZING prizes. This particular game the first team to finish a bowl of trix won. Hilarious!
This is a picture of Orville Thompson, CEO of Scentsy. He's a great guy. This was taken during opening ceremony of Team Spirit day. What a kick that was!
This is team spirit day as well. This is a picture of Orville with Scentsy's first deaf woman telling her "aha moment". They had these throughout the week, and anyone who wanted could go up at the given times to tell something that inspired them could. Some of them were really great! And her story was amazing.
A picture of the crowd going crazy over some more free giveaways! We did not leave emptyhanded this weekend, that is for sure!
This is Me, Crystal, and another team-member named Crystal as well. She was a hoot dancing to Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers! (she has a teenage daughter!)
Crystal and I thrilled Silly over our new Room Sprays!
A picture taken the last day outside in the grove with our Superstar Director Becky Preece. She is...just WOW! Talk about a go-getter!
And then finally the Banquet. It was gorgeous. They had everything lit up so beautifully, and we all were dressed in semi-formals. The dinner was great. I had the Halibut, and Crystal had steak. I won't mention that some wierd guy at our table offered to finish her dinner for her, and not only offered, but DID!!! because that was weird....

Anyway, it was so so great, and I am so so motivated to keep this up because I really do love it. It's more fun than anything half of the time! But now it's time for the surprise....drumroll....while I was there my sister who has been trying to adopt for a while now got that very special phonecall, and she was told she was getting a baby boy!!! Not only that, but 27 hours later she was holding the special guy! And I thought I wasn't prepared after 9 months! Anyway, he's beautiful. They named him Jedadiah Steven Mortensen, and he is just sweet. I forget how tiny and frail they are. I got to stop by the hospital for an hour before I hit the road, so here are some pictures of my adorable new nephew!
He was so cute just sleeping all tightly swaddled.
Adi wanted to hold him, and she gave him kisses. Too cute. She'll be a good big sister. She loves babies. Since we've come home she keeps talking about "baby Jed" and then she says "hold, baby, Jed, hospital, waah, waah." It's pretty cute. We've always wanted to have cousins close together in our family, and now we finally are. Adi and Mitchel are 8 months apart, and Jed and Emerson will be just 8 weeks apart. Let's keep it up guys!!! :)
And here is the beautiful and happy family. Don't they look great? It's like looking at them you just know that he was meant to be there all along. Like that little tiny hole we didn't really quite realize was missing is finally filled with this big beautiful spirit! I'm just so happy for them, and I'm already missing him. Congrats you guys, you have the best family!