What a BUST!!!

I woke up at 6:45 am this morning and I thought to myself....hey - there were some sales at both Wal Mart and Kohls that I wanted to check out...

so I got up and dressed and even put on the makeup and headed out the door by 7:03 am and went to Wal Mart first of all. I must admit I didn't have a lot that I wanted to look at there - the ladies jeans that were on sale for $8 and maybe an Emma toy. Nothin, nadda, forget it. Couldn't even find the womens jeans that were on sale. Wandered all thru the store and looked at everything on sale - and there were some goooood sales. So I left without buying anything.

Headed to Kohl's - their toys were all 40-60% off and I wanted to look for a tie for Glenn and a nice shirt and tie and slacks etc for Edward.

The toys are in the back of the store on the North side and as I headed back there I realized that the 'crowd' (per se) was the line of people waiting to make their purchase. The line was 2-3 people wide and it ran all the way across the front of the store AND ALL THE WAY TO THE BACK!!!

Sorry, but I didn't want to wait two hours to buy something...so I didn't even shop!! I turned around and headed back out to my car.

The Grinch has spoken. This is the first year I have even looked at the Black Friday sales and it will be the last!!

I am going back to bed!!

He's HOME!!!

Dirk arrived in Utah shortly before 4 pm today - Hurrah!! He beat everyone - Melinda and I and grandpa Nielson and Ben and Simon got at the baggage area about 4 pm . We figured it would be about 15 minutes before Dirk got down to the baggage area. HAH!!! His flight got in early and the soldiers were the first ones off the plane. Melinda was just looking at the flight schedule and had turned to me to say - his plane has landed when I looked up and here comes Dirk just a truckin!! If I had wanted to I could have gotten the first hug!!


This is the sign I made with the help of Jeff and Teresa - I thought the vinyl lettering was really nice and they added the flags!! WOW!! Special Thanks to teresascustomcreations.com!! If anyone wants some awesome vinyl or steel signs and lettering that's the place to get it!

Melinda of course got the first hugs and she sobbed her welcome to Dirk in his arms. Then she turned to the boys and Ben was somewhat shy about going to his dad, but he knew his daddy and was glad to see him. He got big loves from daddy and then was more interested in the yellow balloons tied to Simon's stroller. (as is normal!)
Simon watched everything with those big blue eyes of his and didn't mind having daddy hold him. The picture above shows Ben pointing to the balloons again!
About five minutes after the joyful welcome Shawn and Cade showed up. I guess they would have made it on time but the airport police thought Shawn was traveling too fast!! Shawn gave him the "but officer, I was just hurrying to welcome my brother who is just arriving from Afghanistan!" The officer merely said " then I will hurry and write the ticket faster!"
Here Ben is playing with the balloons and by now Grandpa Ed has made it too. He had me come earlier because he had was teaching a class and couldn't get away early enough.
This is the cute sign Da made - the back of it says DAD! Ben thought it was great fun to play with and he also liked the flags - he had one for each hand.
If Dirk is looking a little spacey its because he left Kuwait 26 hrs before landing in SLC - longggggggg flight. He said that Dallas really gave them a royal welcome. As soon as they got to the window to connect to their next flight - they were told there was an earlier flight leaving that they could come on, and they were immediately upgraded to first class seats!! He said there were lines of people waiting to shake their hands and welcome them home. Of course, his luggage didn't make the quick connection so the airlines will deliver it in the middle of the night to his home.

We are sooo glad to have Dirk home for this two week visit. He looks really good ...I think he has put on 10-20 pounds which look good on him. WELCOME HOME KID!!! I LOVE YOU!!!

Fluff ball

A few posts ago, on Kecia's blog she showed you this cute dress that she got back from her sister Mauri and Mauri's daughter, Adrie Anna. I had given it to Mauri when Adrie was a four years old and Adrie was adorable in it. Then Mauri put it away until now. Kecia took the dress that was 24 years old!! home and washed it and put new ribbons on it and it looks like new in her blog. I have been hunting for THIS picture ever since because I thought it would be fun for all to see what a precious little fluff ball Kecia made - she would have been four years old the year this picture was taken. I can't wait for three more years until Emma is four - and can wow us all again!

Wasn't she a dolly?

Another visit to Provo and Lehi

I blogged about Wednesday - our Relief Society Visiting Teaching Conference (its two blogs down, just keep scrolling) and I blogged about Friday - going to see the movie Twilight, but I left off the most important day - Thursday. I drove down to Provo and then back to Lehi for my weekly playdates with my three youngest grandkids. I need to make playdates with my older grandkids too!


Anyway, here is Ben - and his new toy. I bought it for all the grandkids and accidently left it at Ben's house. I have now decided I want the green spiny ball back but I will find another worm to share with the rest of the grandkids. I am sure I can find one at Flying J. I bought it on the way to Beaver two weeks ago at a gas station. This spiny orange thing is about a foot long and has an lcd light inside of it that rolls from one end to the other. It turns on with action and if it sits more than a minute, then it turns itself off. When it is on, it flashes the light through the orange body and Ben loved it. He played with it for 20 minutes --- light on, light off, light on, he would say over and over again.


Here is Simon - he can sit up on his own very well. He is downstairs in the playroom - I sat behind him on the cushions for a half an hour until I realized he didn't need my protective arms close by ready to catch him. He is the sweetest little guy and his grin is just adorable - what is Dirk going to think when he sees and holds him ... don't forget the tissues on Tuesday!

We were down in the playroom so Ben could play with the play doh. Ben's idea of playing with play doh is to take it out of the can and put it back in and put the lid back on. He goes from one color to another to another. Of course he knows the colors of each - such a talented kid for only being 2 years old !!

I was playing with Ben and got out my camera and Simon grinned the cutest grin so I turned the camera on and started videoing Simon and Ben quickly brought my attention back to what he was doing. So here you have video of Ben and his play doh - you can hear him tell me the colors very quietly...and then I turn to Simon and got some really cute video of him. Now that he is sitting by himself he sees something he wants and stretches for it. I think he will be crawling in another month to six weeks. Lets hope for Melinda's sake he doesn't start crawling until after the Christmas tree is DOWN!


I have tried for six hours to download this video and its not working. I will try again another day.

O f course I got some cute pictures of Emma too - she was sleeping when I got there and I got to get her up from her nap. She was so excited to see grandma Susan. Her mama hadn't gotten her dressed yet and her hair wasn't in its normal cute bows but she was darling anyway.


I really liked this softness of this picture even though you don't have a good view of her face. Her hair is growing so long and is such a warm pretty color.


I also had a fun visit with Kecia and with Melinda that day. I hate the fact that Dirk is so far away but it is so nice to have a good excuse to drive down to Utah county and see the babies. They grow up so fast...I am thankful I have a chance to share in their lives.

Twilight

I saw it, I loved it, I want to go see it again!!

Relief Society's "Purse"onal Enrichment Night

Tonight at church we had our annual visiting teaching conference. It was so nice and since I was in the middle of the planning and the doing it made it even more special. We used the theme that Kristanne did in her ward a year ago. I am on the Home, Family and Personal Enrichment Committee and I was so excited when I heard that our ward was going to use that theme.

This is what the table decorations looked like. A couple of sisters in our ward are real purse-aholics and they brought purses for us to use as the main focus. I was in charge of getting the balloons and the tissue and completed the decorations. The little purses around the main purse were the favors that went home with each sister.

Here is a picture of the whole hall and it looked so cute.


The day before the big event Chris Balmforth called me and asked what decorations we were planning for the serving tables. I said NONE!! She suggested that I use a Thanksgiving theme and so I got to bring all my 'pretties' from home . We served fresh salad and homemade soups and chili's. There were some nummy ones. I brought my butternut squash soup. They had plenty of bowls so we could get a taste of several soups. Another sister in the ward made home made breads, rolls, and breadsticks. YUUMMMY!
These were the nummy pies and you will recognize my candlesticks on the table.

I stretched my autum leaves the length of the table and put more of the cute decorations I have at home on each end of the table too. We also had yellow, gold, and orange balloons at each end of the serving table, continuing the theme of the main hall. It looked so festive!

Last but not least before our planning meeting, Chris Balmforth had called me and asked me to "pick my daughter-in-laws' brain" for ideas for the evening. Which I did. The leaders had already decided to do a weigh in of purses (Stephanie Scholes won with her backpack weighing in at 14 plus pounds...and she had taken her computer out of it already! Her mom, Cheryl won the smallest weight category with her wallet...that is what she always carries.) I told them about how Kristanne's ward had slipped various items into the women's purses when no one was looking and then playing a game where Lisa would call out an item and the person that had it in their purse would hold it up and the first one in the air would win. Amazingly... when she called pliers, there were two ladies holding them up!!! One with a bewildered look on her face wondering where the pliers had come from, and Sue Ann holding her pink pliers up because she had gone to a friends house today and made jewelry and so had her pliers in her purse!! I had slipped my mini leatherman into one sister's purse, and Lisa Hatch also had a pair that she always carries!! So our odd items weren't so odd!

It was a fun game and lots of laughs. Then, I got to give a talk. Again, it was an idea from Kristanne's ward and as I told the committee about it they really liked the idea. They liked it so well that they assigned it to me!!!

This was my talk:

You know, we are all purse-ons. We all have things in common.

I remember looking at the grandma’s in my ward when I was a newly wed thinking how different they were...how little we had in common. Now I know that grandma’s are teenagers with grey hair and wrinkles....but we all love purses.

We all know how important a purse is – whether it is a simple wallet or a huge carry all– and we feel lost without it!

We start out as little girls with our first easter hat and purse.... then we move into our school years...and we are lost without our backpack— each year of school finds us packing more and more into those backpacks ---- not just papers and books, but ID’s, lip gloss, cell phone, ipods, etc. Of course in my day...it was a transister radio... but that’s getting off the subject

As we get to the dating age, we might find ourselves buying - with a thrill- a pretty little rhinestone clutch bag to go with our prom dress, but we quickly go back to the backpack for our everyday needs.

Finally as we graduate and start our first jobs we find everything being moved from that backpack to a briefcase - nowadays it would be on wheels as we also need to tow the laptop computer.

Then hopefully we move to the diaper bag and let me tell you, as a mother of twins I KNOW how much they can carry!

It is with a partial tear in our eye as we put away the diaper bag as our babies grows past that stage ...but yet with excitement as we peruse all the cute purses we get to choose from now!!

Each of of us moves at a different rate through normal purses, large purses, small purses, gigantic purses....

I used to go for the biggest one I could find until I realized that I was getting tennis elbow from carrying it.

I think it is important to realize that though we are each different, like all the different purses we find ourselves carrying through the years, that we are similar in ways - we are all daughters of God...and we all think we need all this stuff in our purses until they are too heavy for us to carry....But we need to realize that God gives us spiritually, the purses we need to carry. Not too big, not to small. He knows us and he knows what we can handle.

Another outlook on purses is in a cute story by Marsha Jordan called “I’ve found the perfect purse.”

The most important accessory in a woman's wardrobe is her purse. I spend more time purse shopping than I spend on shoes or clothes. As a busy grandma on the go, I spend much of my life in the car; and my purse provides easy access to many of the comforts of home.

I know women (my sister for one) who suffer from multiple "purse"onality. They have a different purse to go with every outfit in the closet. Not me. When I manage to find the right purse for my needs, I use it till the straps fall off. But finding just the RIGHT purse is no easy task.

In my purse I carry a supply of every medication in my cupboard along with a drink to swig with pills; cosmetics for touch ups; toiletries (in case I'm stranded overnight), books to read while waiting in line, and emergency snacks. I also stock my purse with plenty of quarters for video games (for my grandson, not me!) an extra pair of pantyhose (for me, not him) and a change of underwear (for both of us). My purse must be big enough to hold anything I might need as I travel: safety pins, paper clips, notepad, three different checkbooks, sunglasses, reading glasses, and driving glasses; silverware, straws and napkins (because fast food places often forget to provide them) and a sweater, an umbrella and a rain poncho for inclement weather. My purse carries eye drops, ear drops and gum drops, bug repellant, nasal spray, hair spray, and pepper spray, a first aid kit, a sewing kit, a tool kit, and a pool repair kit. Oh, and an inflatable raft (you never know when you might fall overboard).

After a tiring, three-hour search in Wal-mart, I was delighted to finally find the perfect purse. It has 327 compartments and it holds all my "necessities," plus a liter of Dr. Pepper. The only things this almost-ideal carry-all lacks are wheels to drag it along behind me. After filling my "dream purse" with all my treasures, I sadly discovered that I don't have the muscles to lug the thing around. I've developed tennis elbow, low back pain, and a perpetual stiff neck from hoisting the sucker over my shoulder; and I'm afraid I might need a rotator cuff transplant.

I was stopped by airline personnel on a recent cross country trip. They accused me of trying to smuggle in carry-on baggage that was too large to fit into the overhead compartment! I refused to give up my treasured, dog-house -sized purse; so they reluctantly allowed me
onboard with it - but only after I promised to hold it on my lap instead of trying to squeeze under my seat. Because the monstrosity weighs more than I do, my legs were asleep during the entire flight!

Well, I found the perfect purse that I'd dreamed of -- only to discover that it's not so perfect after all. Back to the drawing board -- or should I say back to Wal-mart's purse department?

Aren't you glad that God isn't like me with my purse? I search for perfection. He accepts imperfection. I look for something to fill MY needs. He looks for those who have needs HE can fill. And when we disappoint Him, He doesn't throw us back and start looking for
something better. God loves all the imperfect "purse-ons" of this world, no matter what our size, shape, or color. He doesn't care how much we can carry whether we can fill every need ourselves. He accepts us as we are. And He makes up for what we lack.

In Jeremiah 31:3, God said: "I HAVE LOVED YOU WITH AN EVERLASTING LOVE." Isn't that great to know?

Then I bore my testimony about Visiting Teaching.

It was a neat night and I enjoyed being a part of it. Thanks Kristanne for helping me with such a lot of fun ideas!

Another old picture

This picture is newer but still special. Grandpa Merritt is scanning his old slides in to his computer and every so often he emails them to me!! YEA!!


I would guess that this picture was taken on Feb 11 1983...the twins would be two and Mauri eight, Dirk 11 and Shawn 13. At least that is my guess...and it would be Jill's birthday party the year she turned 29!! She looks exhausted but I think it is just how she has her eyes looking down at something. It looks like she got a cute lamp and a pink care bear!

Old Pictures

My dad emailed this picture of our family to me just the other day. It is a treasure. It shows us on Christmas Day probably about 1956 or 1957. I would have been 9 or 10. Dad and Mom are behind my brother Bruce, my sister Merrilee and me with Jill sitting in front of Merrilee. The old chair in the side of the picture is the one that Merrilee and Bruce and I used to entertain ourselves when Mom and Dad went out on a date. We would run across the living room and hit it, landing in the middle/back of the chair so that the chair would tip all the way over. Great fun!! Usually we would take turns running with one person watching out the window on the South side of the house so we could see the headlights of the cars coming down Green road. When a car would come, we would set the chair upright and scatter to our beds!!

Mom and dad never could figure out why the chair didn't last as many years as they expected it too...dang, they just don't make furniture like they used to!

Dad added another story to this chair. Evidently one night they had a bunch of people over to the house and as one lady sat down in the chair, OVER it went. As dad was helping her stand up he said to her "You're the second woman to tip over in that chair, and both of you were wearing pants!" As he realized what he had said he went ever color of red!! I can just imagine his embarrassment.

Emma is ONE YEAR OLD

Video clip #1

Please ignore the lousy singing ...I should have just hummed... at the end when we are singing Happy Birthday like people sing it (as compared to kitties or hippopotamus's) you will see Emma bouncing. I am not bouncing her on my knee. She would start bouncing with the music as we sang Happy Birthday to her!




Video clip #2. It gets really wobbly at the end because Emma decides that she wants the camera and takes it away from me and I am trying to turn the thing off!!


Emma's birthday party was held in a giant fishbowl!! Mom and Dad had covered the floor with blue tarps and there were paper fishies on the wall and stuffed fishies on the floor.

Here we have Emma (whose face was slightly orange due to chewing on crepe paper!!) and Simon.

The birthday girl is dressed is a cute outfit made by her talented mom!








Here are all three of my precious grand babies...
my other grand kids are just that - kids!! But these three still qualify in the baby range.











After the whole group joined in singing a bunch of cute fun songs then they sat Emma down on the blue tarp and let her go at it!! Cute duckie cake had big blue bubbles that it had been sitting on - those were the cupcakes mama passed out to the friends who came for the party.







She went for the bright orange duck beak and after she had frosting and cake all over her and her dress Emma was stripped to just tights and shoes. I picked up the cake she had smashed all over the floor and put it in a cup. Now she is going after every last drop of that nummy stuff in the cup.








Anyone want to shake hands?? Note the cute shoes she got for her birthday.












Fun birthday Party!! Big GIRL

Emma's birthday party

This is the birthday girl enjoying her birthday cake - she loved it!! YUMM!

I'm only going to post this one picture tonight - I am soooo tired. I didn't sleep well last night and then I kept rolling all day long...from a walk to getting my nails done to driving to Lehi and playing with Simon and Ben and then to Provo for the birthday party and then driving back home tonight.

I shouldn't be this tired but I am....more to come tomorrow!

I'm an Esme too

Take the Quiz and Share Your Results!

Jamie - I need to borrow your Twilight books!! I can't even remember who Esme is!!

Does anyone know who these people are?

warning!!
warning!!
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warning!!

The following pictures are not for the faint of heart. Some crazy people got ahold of my camera and I am not responsible for the pictures taken. Anyone that can identify the culprits are welcome to come drag them away from my house. I am sure they must be dangerous!!

Emma ...Walking

Emma stars in this blog. This is my living room on Saturday night with the whole famdamily here to cheer her on. She isn't walking on her own yet and so I thought this was the perfect birthday present for her. It is a walker for her now, and then when she gets beyond that it turns into a riding toy. It's bright and colorful and she loved it.
Of course, anytime she is the center of attention she loves it also. In the first picture you could see Adrie and Kecia and the edge of Glenn and Ira with Caleb sitting on Ira's lap. In the second picture you can see Adrie's long pretty legs...in her heels that she had on she was as tall as I was!! WOW!! But, like I told Ed I got my height between 9th and 10th grades and she is a 9th grader now so I should have expected it!!




There are two video clips and I will post both of them as there is fun interaction on both. Again, you can see Kecia and Adrie and this time we have some good shots of Jerod sitting over in the corner. The whole family is cheering Emma on as she is making her walker work for the first time. We thought it was so cute as she turned to look at everyone for more applause and then you see her tumble and dad comes to her rescue. That's Jamie telling me to get a better shot of Glenn's rear end...and then away Emma goes, but she has to stop for the adulation she deserves!!




This is another clip of Emma walking but then I go on to get some good pictures of the family. We have Kecia and Adrie - Jerod is there but you have to look closely. Mauri is looking beautiful but she was feeling crappy - she had just been diagnosed with a sinus infection that morning. Then we have a good view of Caleb, Edward, Kelly. Then of course, Emma is waiting for me to look at her and tell her good job! I then get Glenn and Ira and then my attention is pulled back to Caleb who is showing me that he has learned how to tie his own shoelaces. The video ends there without filming HIS big milestone - grandma can't think and do at the same time. Sorry Caleb.

Happy Birthday To Mauri, Emma, Joshua and Caleb

November 1st was my twin grandson's birthday - Josh and Caleb turned SIX!! So we decided since that was a Saturday it would be a perfect day to celebrate our November Birthdays. AND since it was the day after Halloween we would have the kids come in costumes!! What Fun!!!

We celebrated Mauri's birthday, Emma's birthday, Joshua's birthday and Caleb's birthday. Poor Mauri was not feeling well but she came anyway and joined in the celebration. Kris was also under the weather and showed up in spite of feeling really rotten. I hope they are both feeling better now and that their kids don't get it.

The whole family was here except for Dirk...but he will be at the next party!! YEAH!

Shawn came early with his camera and I am sure we will have top notch pictures to enjoy of all the kids. But here are some we got with my little digital
Jace was Link and for some reason he must be a scary guy because everytime I would say, smile for the camera I would get the closed in eyebrows and the snarling look on his face and of course the fighting stance. But he looked pretty darn good. I got to make the tunic and hat and that was fun. And most amazing of all was that he wasn't Harry Potter!!!!
This cute policeman was Caleb. It was his birthday today - Happy birthday - he is one of my twin grandsons. He had a ball in this costume. We also discovered that he has a real talent for rhythm. Hopefully he will get the guitar or drums he wants for Christmas so he can progress in that area. I know his Uncle Glenn was really impressed with him. For a six year old his requests for birthday and Christmas gifts were amazing - a camera (grandma gave him a children's digital camera and he was thrilled with it and we all got our pictures taken by him) an ipod, a guitar....he doesn't really want toys - he wants things that he can USE! Smart six year old
Here we have Joshua (the other birthday boy!) who was dressed as a very bufffff ninja - pretty scary! He had muscles to die for!! I didn't realize that muscles were important for a ninja. I thought they were tough enough with their feet and their hands and their swords! But this guy was tough (and cute). Josh is all boy and is still thrilled with toys! I am glad cause the hot wheels set I gave him with monster dinosaurs looked like LOTS OF FUN!!


And Ben wouldn't look at the camera but he was just Ben. Some day he will think dressing up in silly costumes is fun!! Benji had a marvelous time at the party playing outside in the backyard -his older cousin Makae stayed out there with him for the longest time, keeping him entertained, so his mom could relax and visit with the rest of us. Thank you Mickey!While we have Ben, here is brother Simon - with Aunt Jamie. If you go to Jamie's blog she has the cutest video of him giggling and he does have the sweetest giggle. Since Brother Ben didn't want to have anything to do with costumes, Melinda just enjoyed the party and didn't worry about dressing this one up either. Thats okay - he is adorable without a costume!

Here we have Mario - I thought this was a pretty ingenious costume. We all know Mario and Luigi from the computer games - and with him came.....

Luigi!! Boy these kids are growing up!! Look at those long legs... somehow I don't think they have their mother's height (or lack thereof!)


Here we have missy emma - or better known as Donkey....part of the Shrek, Fiona and Donkey group. Kecia made the outfit and it turned out so cute. She didn't mind the costume at all - just sat and looked adorable in it. Her daddy makes this fantastic Shrek and so Kec and Emma get to dress up to go along with dad's costume. However, he didn't want to go green for the third night in a row and I don't blame him so all we got was donkey! I think they should have made her a baby shrek!! Last year Glenn was Shrek and Kecia was a very pregnant Fiona - this year we should have had a little green baby!!
Here is grandpa Ed with Missy Emma.and here is grandpa again with Simon with the donkey hat... other than the ears (!!!) and the blue eyes they don't look too much alike.

Adrie Anna was spongebob squarepants (a pretty sexy one too!) and Jerod was a scary critter with the neatest sweatshirt that zipped all the way past his face so he had a mask on. Those two were not outside when I was taking pictures. Sorry guys!! You will show up in the video of Emma playing with her birthday present. Makae was Little Dead Riding Hood for Halloween and didn't dress up again on Saturday night because the makeup was too difficult. I am anxious to see the pictures of her on Shawn and Kristanne's blog when they get them posted. I hope to add pictures of Adrie and Jerod and Makae all three to this blog when that blog is put up.


We had a fun time and a delicious dinner. Kristanne made her famous bacon carbonara and it was as good as it always was. YUUMMM!!

Since it was Halloween I went ahead and had some fun makings for the grandkids to cook. We made Frankie Fingers with blood sauce and boogers on a stick. What fun. The frankie fingers were bones (1/2 cheesestick) with muscle (one slice of thin lunch meat) folded in half and wrapped around the bone. Then we wrapped it all in the skin (pillsbury biscuits) and baked them with an almond placed for the fingernail. The blood sauce was salsa with cream of bats milk(ranch dressing) and deadly nightshade (cilantro) - you could also dip goblins teeth (corn chips) into it.

The boogers on a stick was made with yellow slime (cheez whiz) with three drops of magic potion (green food coloring) and booger chunks (bacon bits) all mixed together. We dipped pretzel sticks into this and it was delicious. Although Josh took one look at the color of the booger sauce and decided he didn't want any!

It was a fun wild family gathering. There was football games going on downstairs for the guys that wanted to watch and cheer and the little kids played and the big kids joined in with the regular conversation. We were glad to have Melinda come with the boys - I know it is difficult for her what with the drive and the noise and all.

After most everyone left, Kecia and Adrie and I sat on my bed and watched Sleeping Beauty. I don't think Adrie knew what to think of us - everytime "Once upon a dream" came on both Kecia and I would break into song...this is a favorite of both of ours and I was so excited to get the new DVD. After we watched the movie then we enjoyed the second DVD and watched the creation of the show. It was a great chance for female bonding....we scared poor Glenn off a couple of times.