We are Family!

Well, we've done it again. We have more pigs for the summer! It wouldn't be a summer without another family of pigs to take care of. These pigs are a whole new breed we had never heard of, Tamworth. The lady we bought them from says that her sow is one of the few hundred that is left in the U.S. They're almost extinct! These pigs are soo cute! They are a dark red, like a Duroc, and some of them have black spots across them. The litter also had a few runts, and they looked just like baby deer! Alyssa wanted one for a pet. They were really cute! Sadly, they were all spoken for or else we could have come home with A LOT of pigs... ;) In the past years, we had just built a make-shift shack for the pigs to stay warm in. Well, Allen decided to go above and beyond and build a house for the pigs. It looks pretty good and so far the pigs love it! It's really warm in there. When we brought the pigs home last night, they came home to a snowstorm! We brought them from Lava, so they had a weather change! Poor piggies. :( But, we have 4 bales of straw in their house, so they should be plenty warm. You can't see the pigs through the straw! As for the names of the pigs, Alyssa - Bambi, Lexi - Maximus/Flynn Rider/Rapuntzel, Mitch - hasn't thought of one yet... :)

The four-wheeler was COVERED in snow!

The house - soon it will be painted like brick house, windows will be painted on, and a chimney will be nailed to the top. :)

That little spot in the middle is a pig.

Random pig pictures:

What's New?

Well, it's been awhile since we last updated and trust me, we've been busy! School started for all the kids, including Lexi. I got her signed up with the developmental preschool on Mondays and Wednesdays. She loves it! Everyday she wakes up, "Can I go to school today, Mom?" and when I tell her it's not her day, she's very cranky the rest of the morning. Luckily, we have a great babysitter that always seems to cheer her up! Mitch also finished up his season of football. Since he is now a sixth grader, they had their own sixth grade team and he got to play most of the game. His position was quarterback and defensive line. He did excellent! Did we mention Allen was the coach?! Yes. Allen. Eric Olsen also helped him. It was quite the experience for them. Halloween came and went with Lexi as Snow White (but she said she wasn't the REAL Snow White because her hair wasn't black...) and Mitch went as a girl? We didn't know what he was. We just threw on a blonde wig, gave him a purse, and painted a mustache on him. You can figure it out. Sorry we didn't get any pictures. For the first time, Mitch decided he wanted to wrestle. We were a little nervous at first because he had never done it before and we didn't know how he would like it. Turned out, he loved it! He only won a couple times, but we figured it was good since it was his first time! Alyssa likes to think she had the influence on him because she does wrestling stats. She's way excited for high school wrestling to start soon so she can go hang out with all those sweaty wrestling guys... ;) Another grand moment in Singleton history, Lexi turned 4!!! She's growing up waay too fast. Some of the things she says makes us wonder how old she really is. Maybe 16?! Lexi was spoiled this year. Mom took her and her cousin, Kaden along with Grandma Williams and Grandma Singleton to Lexi's favorite resteraunt, McDonalds'. Then she came home and had cake and ice cream with the family. All she could ask for was more presents! :) The day before Lexi's birthday, Coda got hit by a car and died and Mom also ran over one of our cats that morning. We were all in an emotional state that night. We had pulled into the driveway and Coda always got excited and ran around, but this time a car was behind us and hit him as he ran out into the road. It's taking some time getting used to him not always being there to greet us, but don't worry. We'll have another dog pretty soon. Not too long ago, Alyssa got her... LICENSE! She is now a legal driver on the roads of America. Mom was so excited because now she doesn't have to drive her everywhere. The initiative behind it, her grades. They slip, the license is gone. We're hoping that will help her want to keep them up. ;) Well, we can't wait for Thanksgiving and Christmas! We love this time of year! The snow and all. We've only had 2 (TWO!) snowfalls this fall. We barely have any snow! ;) But, we can keep praying for more. Happy Holidays till then! :D

Mitch is #13 (towards the right)

Lexi's Cinderella outfit from Grandma Williams

Her cooking outfit (sorry it's sideways)

The snowfall this morning

A Little Update

Well Tammy, here they are. Alyssa actually DYED her hair BROWN! She fooled all of us. The immovable blonde has been moved. It looks really cute. Her Aunt Lisa always does a fantastic job on our hair!
The Blonde Days

The New Brunette Days
Monday was Alyssa's birthday. Can you believe she's 15?! Where has the time gone? She didn't really spend it with her family (the ones who actually gave her her day of birth! ;) Instead, her friends all gave her a "surprise" birthday party at their house. She had a great time! She's certainly got some AWESOME friends and family! :)

Alyssa at her party.

Some of the friends: Savannah, Alyssa, Jayci, and some of Lyndsey.
Also, school was SUPPOSED to start yesterday, August 17, but... it got POSTPONED! Before school even started, it gets cancelled. We now start school Monday, August, 23. Apparently, there was a water leak in the Ashton Elementary School, so the school flooded. Plus, the Student Identification System was down throughout the entire district! What a wonderful birthday present to Alyssa?! :D This year, Mitch will start Jr. High! How crazy is that?! He's pretty excited about it.. me on the other hand, I have mixed feelings. Alyssa will be a sophmore! A sophmore! Again I ask, where has the time gone?
Alyssa's friend's mom, Debi Womack does a fantastic job at pictures! Last year for school pictures, she took her and her friend, Alexys, out and did pictures on their own. They turned out so wonderful last year, that we wanted her to do it again! They were gone for at least 4 hrs and took over 500 pictures! We got some really, pretty pictures! Thanks Debi!

Girl's Camp!

Last week, Alyssa went to Rock Creek Girl's Camp. She had a blast! It's hard to believe she's a 4th year. She can't believe it herself! Since she was a 4th year, her and all the other 4th years go up a day early to get camp ready for everyone else to come. All the 4th year girls also get to stay in a cabin all to themselves! They're like the Jr. Leaders in other stakes. The 4th years are the "rulers" of the camp. The theme was "Sweet is the Work" and each ward was a different spot on the game 'Candyland'. Chester was the Lollipops and the 4th Years were the Mollasses Swamp. She got the best of both worlds! Chester's leaders were Jamie Olson and Cammy Potter. It was an interesting experience that she will never forget! Jamie was so not a camper. She didn't even own a sleeping bag! So, what did she bring to camp? a T.V. & movies, a microwave, a crock pot, and her case of Diet Pepsi & Crystal Light. I'm not sure if you could say Chester Ward was actually at Girl's CAMP?! Since Chester is so small, they only had 1 (one!) girl that went to camp! She was the only first year! But, to keep her company, she had two jr. leaders and our two regular leaders. 5 girls in a cabin! We were the smallest ones there! Surprise surprise? :) Alyssa's 4th year leaders were Sheri Davidson and Whitney Oberhansley both from Ashton. They were a blast! Well, Tuesday night a bad lightning and thunderstorm went through East Idaho. With the luck of the draw, it hit the girls at camp. It was so bad it knocked the power out! Jamie was devistated since she couldn't use any of her electronics... :) The power went out about 9:30 p.m Tuesday night and didn't come on until around 4 a.m. Wednesday morning! The girls were all hoping the food would go bad so they wouldn't be able to go on their hike Wednesday. They didn't pray hard enough. All in all, the girls had a fabulous time at camp! They can't wait for next year!

Alyssa and all her 4th year cabin roomates.

The 4th year flag! Some of the girl's picture's fell off. Alyssa's picture is towards the bottom. She has her tongue sticking out in a roll thing and is pulling on her ears.

Alyssa and one of her friends. They both did wrestling stats and had a blast!
The last day there. Can you tell they're a little tired?
The Chester 4th years being themselves... ;)Alyssa with one of the Chester Jr. Leaders and the only Chester girl.
Alyssa's 4th year leaders, Sheri (in white) and Whitney (in blue).

Look Who's In Town!

Warning: This post is very long and contains many photos involving screaming girls.

This past week we had a special vistor come to town... DAVID ARCHULETA! Alyssa was soo excited. She loves him. David came up to BYU-I again to sing for Spririt Week. Alyssa had such a fun time at the Christmas concert, she decided to wanted to go again. So, since we have connections, Grandma got Alyssa and SIX other friends tickets to go see him in concert. Grandma couldn't have gotten better seats! They were on the floor, seven rows back. They were absolutely in heaven! But before the concert on Saturday, he held a book signing at Deseret Book to promote his new book, Chords of Strength. It tells about his life before his muscial career and how it's affecting his life now. Alyssa and some friends really wanted to go, so I took them to Deseret Book in Rexburg and they stood in line for 1 1/2 hours... all for a simple autograph. They were in love. I also brought Lexi along with us, and I don't know what she was thinking. Before the concert, we took Alyssa and her friends to Twizzleberry. If you've never been there, I recommend it. It's great! After that we dropped them off at the concert, and let them go. She said it was AMAZING. She absoluetly had a BLAST. Between the seats and just being with a butt-load of friends, I don't think she could have had a funner time. She did give us a couple highlights of the night...

1) Her and a couple friends had glow bracelets on. So when he was looking their way, they all stood up and were jumping up and down, and guess what? He noticed them! He waved and smiled at them. They about fainted.

2) He did an encore for them. The last song really hit them, though. Before he did anything, he told the audience that he doesn't usually do this sort of thing but since he was at BYU-I, it felt apporopriate. He walked over to his bag and pulled out a Hymn book. The exact same ones you find at church! He told everyone that this is the song that has helped him through the whole American Idol and music journey, Be Still My Soul. He sang it marvelously! He even shed a couple tears while singing it. It was a great way to end the concert

3) David has a couple songs that Alyssa REALLY enjoys. One of them is Zero Gravity. She was waiting for that song the entire night. Finally, on the VERY LAST song, he sang Zero Gravity. It's an upbeat one, so they jumped the ENTIRE time plus jumping other times during the rest of the concert. So, guess what happened this morning... she can't walk. Her calves kill! It's funny to watch her try to walk.

Well, that's about it. I'll just let you enjoy the pictures... :)Alyssa and Lyndsey waiting in line at the book signing. Alyssa and Lexi waiting in line at the book signing. That is David's new book.

David Archuleta

Alyssa and Lexi with David. He's signing their book. Sorry, I cut off their heads. It was a really fast process and I kept getting pushed out of the way. Alyssa with David's car.
The autograph in Alyssa's book. It says, To Alyssa & Lexi. David Archuleta. They are pretty excited!
Alyssa and her friends before the concert. There's one less friend because she's taking the picture.
David Osmond was David Archuleta's opening act (the concert was nicknamed the "David Squared Show". But, not only was there David Osmond and David Archuleta but a guy in the band was also named David!). David was on American Idol the same time as David Archuleta but he went home once he got to Hollywood because he got Laryngitis (spelling?). He is also Donny Osmond's nephew. :D
Alyssa and Lexi during the concert. They're pretty excited.. can you tell? Alyssa and some friends with their David Archuleta shirts. David Archuleta!
David again...
And once again...
David singing Be Still My Soul. It was really heartfelt!