Happy New Year

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Christmas Wishes

This holiday season has been very dear to my heart. I have had a chance to contemplate the birth of our Savior and all that He has done for me - and for you. This holy birth was the beginning of the most marvelous and wonderful life ever seen on this earth. The suffering, the crucifixion, the resurrection of Christ did happen and I am so thankful for it. I am thankful for a loving Father in Heaven that allowed his son to come to earth to teach us and show us a life of love and giving - and yes, even the pain and agony that came with his death. Both our Father in Heaven and our brother, Jesus, knew that there had to be a way to allow us to come back to Them in the end - and so the events unfolded. Everyone complains about the selfishness and the materialism of the Christmas Season - I don't look at it that way - I find that the Christmas Season allows me to think more of others - especially those I love. It gives me a chance for my heart to grow a little larger. I love the music, I love the lights, I love the gifts!! I even love it when someone wishes me a Happy Holiday - I simply thank them and wish THEM a Merry Christmas.


Take a moment and appreciate the beauty of the ecard that Ashland University has prepared. Let the Light of Christ feel your hearts this Christmas Season ... and all year long. I love you.

http://ecard.ashland.edu/index.php?ecardYear=2004adm

Things I have done

Things I Have Done...

To participate just copy and paste in your own blog, and bold all of the things you have done.

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
7. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept over night on a train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23.Taken a sick day when you're not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo's David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone Deep Sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the changing of the guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone's life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee

December Update

Last Sunday Dirk and Da invited Kecia and Glenn over for Sunday dinner (since they didn't get to see each other on Thanksgiving). They invited Ed and I too and we went down to Lehi for a delicious dinner (you should try her cinnamon lasagne!! DELICIOUS!!) Then we moved downstairs to visit. Pretty soon we found outselves in the playroom so the kids (??) could play.

Grandpa Ed is the designer and builder of the fancy towers seen in the foreground of this picture.


Here's Simon enjoying all the attention!!
Ben and Glenn were fascinated with the dinosaur puzzle - they played with it for a good 30 minutes!



Emma is enjoying the family party too - (take note of the cute outfit - how many babies do you know that wear satin onesies!!

I gave Kecia her birthday present that night since I had already given Kelly his and we wouldn't be having a birthday party per se for them until Christmas eve.

Now we are back in Layton - this is my tree this year... and who needs Santa to come with this load already under the tree!

We bought this cute display after Christmas in 2006 and then in 2007, since we were in New York for ten days from the 10th through the 20th of December we didn't set up our outside decorations. So this year we had a NEW decoration to our front yard !! And it is sooooo CUTE!! The picture doesn't really give you the full effect. They are much brighter and more sparkly in person.


Here is my cute snowball - sad to say it doesn't blow the snow too well anymore but its still cute.

Here is a full view of our yard this year.

And finally - last but not least - here is what it looks like all together.

Merry Christmas

Another video of cute grandbabies

I went down to Lehi on Wednesday to watch the boys while Dirk and Da had a short getaway up at Park City. I knew that Wednesday would be easy because Simon and Ben are used to me watching them all afternoon, feeding them supper and then putting them to bed. What they are not used to is waking up to grandma the next morning and I figured that it would be a difficult morning. So I invited Kecia and Emma to come play that day.

The boys slept till 7:10 am and that was great. I walked into Simon's room and he was just a grinning at me. I thought - okay one down, but Ben was the one I was most worried about. I walked into Ben's room and he grinned and said "Grandma" (or at least his rendition of it!). It was so easy. The boys didn't mind having me for 24 hours at all. They were sweethearts and they napped when they were supposed to and played like the cuties they are and all was well. Kecia and Emma showed up about 10:15 or so, figuring that they would be walking into a screaming mess. NOPE!! We were downstairs watching Mama Mia (we have a new ABBA fan on our hands and he's only two years old!) We started the movie over for Kecia so she would know what was going on. I had been just about ready to take Simon upstairs for a nap cause his eyelids were getting heavy.

But when Cousin Emma and Aunt Kecia showed up he was ready to play again - for maybe ten minutes. Kecia wanted hold him and he just cuddled up under her chin and lay there like the softy he can be. After about ten minutes we decided we better go ahead and put him down for his nap or else he would be falling asleep on Kecia...which she didn't mind but we were afraid that he would wake up when we transferred him to his crib.

So Emma and Ben played (rather well as long as Emma didn't play with any of BEN's toys!!! Or even grandma's yarn balls that she had brought for Ben to play with!!) - she was allowed to play with Simon's toys!

So - Kecia and I watched Mama Mia (I had seen it in the theatre, had seen it once the night before, and had already watched it through once that morning plus the restart for Kecia - but I love the movie and it wasn't a hardship to watch it again.

As soon as the movie got over Benji was saying 'again, again" but I talked him into going upstairs for lunch. He ate a carton of yogurt and then wanted me to fix him a quesadilla but then he decided he didn't want it. That was okay - Emma ate it. He ate Emma's raisins. Kecia and I ate Melinda's wonderful homemade pot pie. All were happy.

About 1:00 Ben started getting tired so I put him down for his nap. Simon was just waking up. He had been sleeping for 2 1/2 hours! So I gave Simon a bottle and then sat him on the floor to play with cousin Emma and he thought she was great fun!

Kecia was all excited over Emma's newest "word". All morning she was trying to get Emma to tell her what a duck said. Emma wasn't about to perform on command. Actually I had the camera on and Simon was being just darling for the camera and then I panned up to Emma and she said 'quack quack quack" and then she hissed like a snake.... her two newest tricks. Then I panned back to Simon who was laughing so cute....and then I realized I had the video on 'standby' and missed it ALL!!!!!




So here you see us being ignored royally by Miss Emma and some darling grins and laughs by Simon. Of course, Ben isn't in any of the pictures cause he was upstairs sound asleep.

As you can see, Emma still has her jammies on. Kecia did bring clothes to dress her in but she looked so dang cute in her jammies with her pink bows we left the jammies on. Here is another video of Emma ignoring us and Simon bobbing his head in excitement but it is kind of fun to see Simon just learning how to creep... it won't be long and mom will have to get out the stair guards cause he will be moving all over the place!



Dirk and Da came home about 2 or so on Thursday and they seemed to have had a great time. Thanks guys for letting me play with the babies !!! I sure wish I hadn't been working full time when my other grandbabies were this little! Now they are big kids.

Festival of Trees

After I left Lehi today I headed to South Jordan to the Festival of Trees. As always there are more gorgeous trees than you know what to do with. Sad to say, as I wandered through the trees I still had my camera on video.

Go ahead and play this video - it shows the tree and then garbledygook and then focuses in on the statues in the front of the tree.



So you will need to go to the end of this blog to see the rest of Randy and Colleen's tree. The tree was purchased by Robert Allphin and if I remember right, they run the mortuary in Beaver. When you get to them don't play the video...just look at the still picture. And yes, I know they are sideways but I still don't know how to turn a video. Treat all the rest of the video's as still shots!!

Now for a glimpse at the a few of the other trees.

This was a fascinating tree. It was made out of glass - blown glass and cut glass. The presents are stained glass with lights inside.

The real trees on each side of the glass tree were full of beautiful glass flowers. They were even more gorgeous

This was the tree decorated by the people of Beaver to honor April Yardley (if you remember, she was Colleen and Randy's friend that was killed in the same accident that they were It was a lot prettier than my picture shows - the photo is kind of washed out.


This doll was part of a Victorian Christmas and I thought she was so beautiful - she probably stood four feet tall!

There was a twilight tree!!! Fun!! The lady I talked to said that it sold for $4000 and it was a neck and neck auction between two buyers!!



The people that decorated it went to the real town of Forks, WA and bought a sweatshirt from the Fork High Spartans and then went to La Push and bought another sweatshirt. Of course the four novels are part of the gift.

There are presents under the tree for the different people in the movie. For instance, there is a black bear rug for Emmett, and a camera and scrapbook for Bella. An "operation" game for Carlysle, a Risk game for the Volturi - Edward got the keyboard. The lady told us the tree also that the 'tree' included a bracelet for Bella and also a diamond ring! The tree was donated and decorated by a Jewelry company.You can see Jacob's gift - a took kit. And the cute plate that says "Dear Santa, Vampires Believe!" Jasper's gift are the books about the Civil War (isn't that about the time he was "born"?










You will need to turn the video on this one so you can see the picture of the St George Temple