Johnson Family Blog

Girls Camp

noreply@blogger.com (Ayrial Johnson) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:23:00 +0000

I bet you thought we died! Well not to worry, we're still hanging in there. We've just been really busy. Now that I'm in the stake young woman's presidency I get to go to all the activities. I was so excited to go to girls camp this year. I didn't get very many pictures, so you'll just have to use your imagination.

The main group of leaders and young women went to camp on tuesday. They drove for a few miles on a bumpy dirt road hoping to get to our stake campground. Unfortunately, there was a misunderstanding of schedules, and the road was torn up, and new gravel and dirt blocked their way.

I'm not sure what happened exactly, but I know there were some very upset leaders. Our stake YW secretary sent me a text warning me to wait because, 'tensions were high'. Luckily, we had a back up campsite. So our secretary made some calls and the girls were off once more to camp.

I got to camp the next day, after everyone was settled and feeling better. (Everyone liked the new camp spot better) I left Amora with Grandma and Grandpa Johnson, and Aleksia got to come with me. We had so much fun together. There was a small playground by our site so Lexy hung out there most of the day. And, of course, the young women adopted her almost immediatly. Someone was always willing to take her out into the sun and play for hours and hours.

The first night, Lexy was so tired from playing in the sun all day, she could hardly keep her eyes open. I was holding her while she attempted to each lasagna with a spoon (not enough forks). She probably would have done just fine, but every time she tried to get the spoon to her mouth, she'd fall asleep and dump it over her shoulder! When she did fall asleep, I put her on the table to rest.

Lexy and I put Amora's twin size mattress in the suburban and slept in the car. It was great! We were cozy, no bugs and we were safe from pranksters. Almost, one of the wards snuck out at night and TP'd the car, and all of the other wards. (We weren't really asleep... Lexy is good at pretending.)

The food was great. All the wards are assigned a meal to feed the stake leaders, so I didn't have to make anything. I just had to show up. This helped so much, since sometimes making food makes me sick because I'm pregnant.

I love my calling. I had so much fun getting to know the girls. I can't wait to go back next year.

Mom's Day

noreply@blogger.com (Brandon Johnson) — Mon, 11 May 2009 23:40:00 +0000

I want to wish all the mothers a Happy Mother's Day, especially those mothers that are important in my life - my own mother, the mother of my kids, and the mother of my wife. I sent the following video to my mother for Mothers' Day and wanted to share it here for fun.

Inauguration

noreply@blogger.com (Brandon Johnson) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 17:49:00 +0000

I thought this was a pretty funny comic on the day of the Inauguration of our 44th President.

The big #5!

noreply@blogger.com (Ayrial Johnson) — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 23:40:00 +0000

I know it's really late, but we celebrated our 5th anniversary last month! Since it was the big 5 we decided to do something really fun. We went for 2 night to a condo in Heber, right next to a beautiful lake. It was very romantic. We watched tons of movies and spent all day Saturday at the Park City outlets window shopping. It was so nice to be kid-free for the whole weekend.

I still can't believe we've been married for five years already. Then again, as I think about all that we've been through, I'm surprised that it's only been five years.
So what have we done? Brandon finished school, we had our sweet Amora, then two and a half years later we got our little love, Aleksia. We've lived in two different apartments and two years ago, we bought our first home. We've had large incomes and been super poor. All the while enjoying the journey Heavenly Father has blessed us with. Life is so wonderful! Brandon and I look forward to where tomorrow will bring us, and spending forever together.

Piano Recital

noreply@blogger.com (Ayrial Johnson) — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 21:51:00 +0000

I had my winter piano recital last week. This was Amora's second recital! She was so darling. She went up to the piano, and got too shy to introduce herself, but once she sat down to play, she did great! It was her best performance. She played 'Once there was a snowman" from the Primary songbook. I changed the key to make it easier for her, and we played it as a duet. All my other students are getting good. It's so much fun to finally feel like my teaching is paying off. I love having intermediate students. I think overall it was a wonderful recital. Everyone worked very hard on their songs and it showed.

The Making of 'Gingerbread House'

noreply@blogger.com (Brandon Johnson) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 19:06:00 +0000

Needless to say, we have not been keeping our blog up to date very well recently... There are a number of things we still want to blog that happened a while back, but we just wanted to get this one out there even though it is much more recent. And since I had all the pics and vids on my phone, I get to be the one to post it...

Ayrial wanted to do something fun with a Christmas theme for the girls, so we decided to get some stuff to make a gingerbread house. We figured it would be much cheaper to get all the stuff separate than it would be to buy a packaged kit. So we got some graham crackers, cake frosting, licorice string, dots, life savers, and some other candy. Well it came out to be a little more expensive than the pre-packaged gingerbread house kit. So much for trying to be frugal, I guess... But that's okay, because they had all sorts of fun making this gingerbread house.

Ayrial had a lot of fun starting a sort of food fight with the girls. She kept smearing frosting on their faces and sticking candy on them...

Amora kept saying that she was going to be the "Gingerbread girl" and mommy was going to be the "Gingerbread mommy".

Lexy kept trying to eat the candy off the house before it was finished.

I contributed to the project by putting some half-eaten candy (okay... I was the culprit) on the top and also helping to eat the thing when it was all finished. Hey, that was the hardest part of all...

THE END

Lexy on the slide and more pics

noreply@blogger.com (Ayrial Johnson) — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 18:55:00 +0000

Amora in this cute cow car. Amora had fun on the train.

My sister Taylor, and Lexy in the pig. Lexy loved the train ride.

The girls just got their pumpkins, and we're on a tractor ride through the farm.

Lexy is buried in corn kernels She thought it was really cool. It freaked Amora out, so she refused, hence, no pic.

Lexy followed Amora up to the slide, but panicked when she got up there. So we helped her out. Once she went down, she had fun. I couldn't stop laughing as I watched her go down, cause she looks like a rag doll.

Amora going down the Slide

noreply@blogger.com (Ayrial Johnson) — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 18:48:00 +0000

This slide was on the farm we took the girls to. Amora had a ton of fun going down this slide over any over.

Halloween

noreply@blogger.com (Ayrial Johnson) — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 17:50:00 +0000

Happy Belated Halloween! We had a lot of holiday fun this month. Here are some pictures from our adventures. I'm a little irritated with myself, as I look through the pictures, because we didn't get any pic's of Amora in her costume, or full body Brandon and Ayrial pics.

Oh well, you'll just have to use your imagination.

This is one of our pumpkins. In case you can't tell, it's a silhouette of Batman in front of smoke. I had way too much fun carving this year. Amora actually helped clean out her pumpkin. Last year she was too scared of all the goo to help out.
We took the girls to a kids corn maze. They had lots of activities. This is a pic. of Lexy picking her very own pumpkin.

Here is a really cool haystack maze. You could only make left turns to get out. I guess I'm not smart enough, cause I couldn't get out. So I sat Lexy on top of the haystack,

and took a pic. instead.

Brandon is so hot! He's helping the girls pick more pumpkins out of Mom and Dad Johnson's back yard. They had tons this year.

Lexy found this tiny little pumpkin, and she carried it around like a baby all evening.

Amora is helping Daddy.

Lexy with Uncle Zack. Mom, Dad, Taylor, and Zackary came to our ward party. Zack is a homeless kid. His cardboard sign says, 'will work for candy' Cute Huh?

This is the only pic of me. I'm a devil. I really liked my makeup this year. I used liquid eyeliner to draw the design around my eyes.

Lexy started the day out in this bear costume. I took the girls to work, and since I'm the only one on my team w/kids, everyone was gaga over them. They thought Lexy was so cute, that she got way too much candy, and her costume was very sticky by the time we left. So, we raided the dress-up bucket and found Amora's old Minnie Mouse costume.

My friend took a pic. of me and the girls at work. Part of the reason I didn't get any good Amora pics, was because she was in a bad mood most of the day. They had to get up earlier than normal, and their only naps were in the car. As soon as I get more pics from my friend,

i'll post it. Also, Brandon was a blind referee. It was very funny.

Watch Out For Zombies!

noreply@blogger.com (Brandon Johnson) — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 17:05:00 +0000

My Purse

noreply@blogger.com (Ayrial Johnson) — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 16:36:00 +0000

My cute sis-in-law did a post about all the stuff found in her purse. It's very true what they say, you can tell a lot about a woman by the contents of her purse. I think mine says, I'm a busy mom, who collects too many things.

First, I've got a new book I'm reading. LOVE IT! My planner, and diet help booklet.

Here, I've got two sets of headphones, for work. Three keys, but I only know what one of them go to. Two batteries, I think I put them in there for the camera. A dirty headband for Lexy, I really should wash it. And a pencil sharpener, but I don't have any pencils that need to be sharpened in my purse.

Next, I have three fruit leathers. These are my healthy treat. I love them! Three mechanical pencils and a pen. Most days, I never have anything to write with, but today, I've got a surplus of writing utensils.

My wallet, and some tissues. You never know when you need them.

I forgot I had these, it's candy, and dress-up jewelry. Remember that game, pretty pretty princess, well, that's what these go to. I don't know why I had them in my purse, so I put them back in the game where they go.

A girls' gotta have her lipstick. I love this lip plumper/gloss. Although, after getting my teeth pulled, my lips are huge! I won't need to wear my gloss for a while. Wouldn't it be cool if the swelling in my cheeks went away, but my lips stayed big. I'd love that!

So this is my purse, and all the stuff inside it. There was also some garbage and old coupons, but I didn't think anyone needed to see a pic. of that. What do you think? I showed you mine, now lets see yours.

Surgery

noreply@blogger.com (Brandon Johnson) — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 00:26:00 +0000

Ayrial had her three wisdom teeth pulled today. She was so nervous the last few days, and especially the last hours leading up to the procedure. She had a lot of worries about breaking her jaw, or having to leave the roots in her mouth, or not being able to sing any more because of the changes in her mouth, etc. The doctor said she did an amazing job though!

The doctor also said that the procedure went very, very well. The only problem they had was when they ran into her sinus a little when pulling her top tooth. So she has to be careful and she can't blow her nose, or suck through a straw, or put any pressure on her sinus.

Since the surgery, Ayrial has been getting a lot of rest, taking the pain meds the doctor prescribed, watching a few movies, drinking liquified fruits and vegetables, and eating yogurt and popsicles. Thanks to Brandon's mom, dad, and sisters for taking care of the kids so there has been a lot of peace and quiet for Ayrial to get some rest!

Amora's Birthday

noreply@blogger.com (Ayrial Johnson) — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 23:44:00 +0000

Well, I was hoping to have all the party pics from Amora's party, since my friend had to use her camera to take most of the pics. (Still waiting...) Anyway, here are the pictures I have, I'll probably post more when I get them.

Amora had so much fun at her party. It was a spongebob, luau theme. So I hung paper fish on the walls, and decorated pink balloons to look like jelly fish. I also painted a 10ft. by 5ft mural of the spongebob characters, and two small pic. of bikini bottom. We had a bubble blowing contest, limbo, (Brandon was amazing! I didn't know he could bend that way) and we searched for Mr. Krabs treasure. It was so much fun, and worth all the hard work.

Play date

noreply@blogger.com (Ayrial Johnson) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 17:31:00 +0000

I took the girls to Liberty Park the other day. It was so fun! They loved feeding the birds. Lexy kept waving at them, and trying to pet them. It was so cute. After we finished feeding the birds, we went to the rivers, and the girls played in the water. It was refreshing after all this hot weather.

Memories of Us

noreply@blogger.com (Ayrial Johnson) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:37:00 +0000

I'm stealing this idea from my darling sister-in-law, who stole it from a friend, who probably stole it from someone else, and so forth. Anyway, what you do is leave a memory you have of any of my little Family, (brandon, me, amora, or lexy) . It doesn't have to be silly, or serious. And it doesn't matter how long ago it was. Anything works! If you end up loving this idea, copy it on your own blog. I'd love to give all of you my fav. memories. I look forward to reading our comments.

Time For Some Campaignin'

noreply@blogger.com (Brandon Johnson) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:55:00 +0000

I found this funny political video online and thought I should share it. If you have never been to jibjab.com, this is a good time to try it out. I have used it a few times to send eCards videos with my face in it... The video takes about ten seconds to load, so be patient. And now for the moment you've all been waiting for........

Happy 4th, (few days late)

noreply@blogger.com (Ayrial Johnson) — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:51:00 +0000

We had such a fun 4th of July weekend! Normally we'd just sit at home until fireworks time and that's about it. This year just about killed us off!

Fri. we went to the zoo w/several of our friends and their kids. It was about 100* outside and we stayed there from 2-6pm! We didn't even see everything. Someone would stop, then all of us would stop and talk for about 20 min. Then, finally, we would start walking again. (It really was fun!) We were the last people at the zoo. That night we were all so tired, we decided to invite a bunch of friends and family over to our house. Everyone bought their own fireworks, and we had our own private show! The kids loved it! My favorite part was watching all the husbands/guys lighting the fireworks. They had to organize from smallest to biggest and plan it all out. It took over 1 hr to see our fireworks. :) After the food was eaten and the fireworks were done, most everyone left. Around 12:30 my family was still hanging around w/Jon Woods, and they wouldn't go home! My poor Dad had been asleep on our couch for the last hour. So I got into my PJ's and said goodnight. I think they left about 1.

Sat. we slept in 'til 10. I normally wake up around 7 w/o my alarm, but Sat. I was so tired from walking all day Fri. I just couldn't get myself out of bed. All of us, including the girls, were zombies all morning long. Around 2 we finally got dressed and went to the grocery store. Afer that we went to Raging Waters with some friends. We all had a blast. I was so scared to go on the water slides. My friend and I got a 2-man tube thinking if we went together we wouldn't be so scared. We got in line thinking we were in line for a small slide. But no, it was a big, scary slide. We were such nerds screaming all the way down! And again, we were almost the last people left when the park closed.

That night, Brandon took the girls and went to Lehi to watch a UFC fight w/the guys while my friend and I went to see HANCOCK. I loved it!

she's walking!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Ayrial Johnson) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 21:00:00 +0000

Lexy is finally walking! She would stand up to things and hold on to chairs to move around, but taking that first step without any help was so scary for her. Last Monday, Brandon and I finally encouraged her to walk by herself. Once she realized she could take a few steps without dying, off she went.

Brandon went on a scout camp that week as well, and when he got home, Lexy was a pro walker. He could hardly believe his eyes!

Daddy-O

noreply@blogger.com (Brandon Johnson) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:11:00 +0000

Relief Society & President Bush

noreply@blogger.com (Brandon Johnson) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 17:57:00 +0000

I think it is so neat that whenever the President of the United States comes to Utah, he makes it a point to recognize/visit with the General Relief Society President of the LDS Church. That has been a long tradition ever since President Wilson visited Utah in 1919 and insisted on calling the Relief Society president, 91-year-old Emmeline B. Wells, "to thank the Relief Society for providing more than 200,000 bushels of wheat to the government during World War I" (http://www.deseretnews.com/dn/view/1,5143,700230552,00.html).

Each president since Wilson has continued the tradition of recognizing the Relief Society President. President Bush visited Utah last week, and upon landing, was greeted by dignitaries Gov. Jon and Mary Kaye Huntsman, HHS Secretary Mike and Jacalyn Leavitt, along with General Relief Society President Julie Beck. Sister Beck was also invited to a very rare tour of Air Force One along with Church President Thomas S. Monson and his second counselor, President Dieter F. Uchtdorf.

The women of the Relief Society throughout the world have offered numberless hours of service to people throughout the world and their service has been recognized once again by the most powerful position in the world. I feel lucky to know great women in the Church who are part of the Relief Society, and to see their examples of service. I have benefited greatly in my life from the service given by these wonderful women.

PASTA

noreply@blogger.com (Ayrial Johnson) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 23:25:00 +0000

We had some yummy ravioli for dinner. Since I was in a hurry, I took off Lexy's clothes, and let her feed herself. Luckily, I have to leave for work, so Brandon gets to clean her up! I might help, I haven't decided yet. Maybe we'll take her out back, and hose her down!

Piano Recital

noreply@blogger.com (Ayrial Johnson) — Fri, 30 May 2008 15:10:00 +0000

On Tuesday I had my first Piano Recital as the Teacher! It went really well. All my students worked so hard, and they did a great job! My Bishop has all three of his kids taking from me. They are 12, (girl) 8 and 6, (boys). They've only been taking for 3 months, and they can all read music. Even the 6 year old! Their Mom and Dad both commented on what a great job I'm doing. They said all of their kids love coming to their lessons, and they love to practice!

Even though all my students did such a great job, one of my students stands out to me so much more than the rest. That's because that student is Amora, my little 3 year old. She also participated in the recital. It was her very first, and she did great! She was so excited all day long before the recital. She kept saying, "Mom, today is my recital!" and "I need to get my pretty dress on for my recital." When it was her turn to play her song, she quickly jumped up and found her finger position and sat up so tall and played her song. I think she really impressed the other parents, they were all asking me how old Amora is, and how long she's been taking lessons.

(I've got to brag a little. Amora has been so easy to teach because she has great pitch. I sing the song I want her to learn, then play it, and repeat. Then she does the same thing. That's how she learns her songs. If I sing her song in a different key, she tells me, and fixes it! It's amazing. (When she was little I'd sit at the piano with her in my lap and play middle C and sing C C C C in her ear so she could hear. When she was a little older, she would sing the note also. I'm starting to do that with Aleksia now too. Lexy thinks it's funny when I sing in her ear, but she loves it!) During the recital, Amora heard one of the students songs that she really liked. After everyone left she figured out how to play it all by herself. She had the correct notes, and rhythm. I love it!)

Our Camera died, so we only got the one picture of the recital. It was a wonderful experience, and I'm looking forward to planning the next recital in the fall.

Piano Students

noreply@blogger.com (Ayrial Johnson) — Fri, 16 May 2008 02:11:00 +0000

I'm so excited! I have a new piano student starting in June. That's 9 students! (including Amora) I'm hoping to get a ton more. If I can get around 15-20 students, i can quit my job. That's my goal. If any of you have some good advertising ideas, let me know.

Painting Amora's Room

noreply@blogger.com (Ayrial Johnson) — Sat, 03 May 2008 13:41:00 +0000

I found this really cute quilt for Amora's bed on clearance a few weeks ago. It looked so cute with her furnature, but it made the rest of the room seem boring. So I bought some paint, and Amora helped me paint her room. We had a lot of fun doing it. I gave her a little paint brush and she's try to draw her 'letters' on the wall, then I'd paint over them. She felt like such a big girl helping mommy paint. After a while she got bored, so she went in the other room and found a movie to watch while I finished her room.
When it was all done, Amora came in and said, "Wow! Do I really get to sleep in here?!" It was super cute!
(amora and I made the flower stencils, and all of her furniture was either given to us, or we found it at D.I. and painted it to look like a matching set.)

Lexy gets a good pick

noreply@blogger.com (Ayrial Johnson) — Fri, 02 May 2008 04:33:00 +0000

Aleksia figured out how to stick her finger in her nose today. She thought it was so funny! Every time I'd say 'EWWW!' she'd just laugh and laugh. The gross thing was she had mashed up food on her finger, and I'm sure some of it is now stuck in her nose. Oh, well it'll come out eventually.