I really really appreciated your thoughts and your comments and your feelings and your ideas. They were great. It is midnight and I am up with illness again - I will be so glad to have this all fixed!!!!
I heard you all and it looks like we aren't going to all agree with everything but that is a normal family so this is what I have decided - (this is not a democracy, it is a benevelant (sp?!) dictatorship!)
1 - we will have the Sunday or Saturday evening dinners with just a couple families at a time - that seemed to be a positive for everyone. I will probably pull names out of a hat to see who gets invited with whom. I agree that smaller groups means better conversational flow.
2 - Gifts - Mauri hit the nail on the head with the thought that a gift is my way of saying I love you. I enjoy finding things that will be appreciated and enjoyed. I disagree with Kris that you can't buy a decent gift for $15. I hate giving cash....that to me is no gift at all even though you may disagree with that. I will go ahead with doing it my way this year at least and see how it goes - spoiled aren't I!!!
3- Family parties - we will continue to have them...it is totally up to you whether you come or not. I will not stress or be upset if you choose not to - that is your right and your decision.
I loved the ideas of others taking the chance to be the hostess or to plan 'activity' type parties - I think that the hostess should be in charge of the paper goods and the drinks and then that leaves enough of the rest of us to have a good meal.
-We will continue to have our annual Easter Party, Mothers Day Party, Kris always does her kids's party since she has 3 birthdays in June, our 4th of July party, our day after Halloween party (that way you can trick or treat with YOUR kids in your neighborhood and then come celebrate the twins's birthday on Nov 1 and show off your costume that night too!), and I will continue to have my Christmas Eve party - we will have the nativity... I hope... I missed it so much this year. That takes care of birthdays for April, May, June, July, November and December. We WILL not leave out February, August and September....maybe we can combine the August and September birthdays - we will see how it goes.
We will attempt to keep things to a low roar and learn to use our indoor voices when we are all in the same room with each other - that goes for adults as well as kids. I feel it is important to share these times together as family - to let the grandchildren enjoy their cousins.
It seems that If I don't plan the parties, they don't happen (it is almost April and we haven't gotten together since December) - I love it when you guys say - "we need to have a party" ....we need to get together -
I guess in reality Kecia is in charge of our first organized activity party - we will call it a moving party! She just needs to tell us when they figure out the date. (Glenn will really need family to help with this one as he can only sit and tell us what to do and where things go - he will not be able to lift or carry or anything like that. He will probably lose his mind!! )
I love you all so very much and I thank my Father in Heaven for each of you every day - I am thankful for the friendships and the love - and the joy you add to my life.
Hummingbirds on the Mountain
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Monday, March 29, 2010
Glenn's truck
I tried to download this video to facebook all evening last night once I realized I hadn't posted it correctly in the first place. That didn't work so I decided to blog it and then once its on my blog I can facebook it from there. This is Glenn's truck after the accident. Kelly is taking the video and you can see Shawn taking still pictures. Glenn is very blessed to have survived this accident. The Lord was watching out for him that day.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
If Ever I start to feel better
I've been gonna write this post for weeks but I haven't felt good for weeks and so it keeps getting put on the back burner.
There are a couple of changes that I am thinking of instigating so I want to put them out there for all of you to read and think and pray about.
#1 - due to the fact that within the next year Ed is going to be retiring we are actually thinking about being a little bit more thrifty. Therefore I am going to be cutting down the amount of money I spend on birthday presents to about $10-15 per adult each year. The grandkids will get a little more - $25 each since the family keeps adding a couple more of em each year. I love to buy gifts ...but I have to learn to spend less. Sorry
#2 - Because I have been either out of town or SICK I have missed our family get-to-gethers for birthdays so far this year. I apologize to Glenn and Melinda so far...however, again, due to the size of the family getting together is getting somewhat out of hand.
I have been contemplating different things that we could do and the idea that keeps coming back and back in my mind is having Sunday groupings of Ed and I and a couple of the kids and their families at a time. In the summer time having the whole family over at one time is fine cause there is lots of room to spread out but in the cold weather or rainy weather we are sitting on top of each other trying to listen to five conversations at one time.
So how about if I pull two names out of a hat and call them up and say you and yours are invited to dinner at grandma's house on either a saturday or a sunday afternoon. If that date is not a good date for one of the families then we would put your name back in the hat and invite someone else. That way we could have a much calmer relaxed visit with all of you over a period of a couple of months.
What do you think? Let me know. I really wanted to do this for Glenn and Melinda since they had birthdays in February but we were gone the first half of Feb and I started getting sick the first part of March and I'm still sick. I wouldn't just do birthday combinations but to me that was a good way to start it. Once I got sick the last thing I have wanted to think about was having people come over so I could cook for them - unless of course you want to have a cup of spearmint tea and a piece of toast with me!!! Then come on over.
I love you all - I know that we love each other and want to see and visit and talk to each other and I am trying to figure out a way to do that that doesn't drive us all batty.
with all my love
mom
ps - Easter is coming up and Grandpa Merritt is going to have his annual easter egg hunt in his back yard on Saturday April 3 at 1 pm. Shawn has agreed to take family group pictures to replace the pictures on Grandpa Merritts walls with some up to date pictures - for Instance, Jeff and Teresa and Skye and Katy as a group - Tonya and Brett just had a new family portrait done but it is already a year old - another one would be fun and we could coordinate the sizes of the pictures. In my family Kelly and Jamie are the most up to date but my grandkid pictures need to be done individually - for MY wall. So lets all plan on showing up looking pretty and get some good pictures taken that day. We are even trying to figure out how to photoshop a picture of Cade into the group picture!! Whatever works!!
There are a couple of changes that I am thinking of instigating so I want to put them out there for all of you to read and think and pray about.
#1 - due to the fact that within the next year Ed is going to be retiring we are actually thinking about being a little bit more thrifty. Therefore I am going to be cutting down the amount of money I spend on birthday presents to about $10-15 per adult each year. The grandkids will get a little more - $25 each since the family keeps adding a couple more of em each year. I love to buy gifts ...but I have to learn to spend less. Sorry
#2 - Because I have been either out of town or SICK I have missed our family get-to-gethers for birthdays so far this year. I apologize to Glenn and Melinda so far...however, again, due to the size of the family getting together is getting somewhat out of hand.
I have been contemplating different things that we could do and the idea that keeps coming back and back in my mind is having Sunday groupings of Ed and I and a couple of the kids and their families at a time. In the summer time having the whole family over at one time is fine cause there is lots of room to spread out but in the cold weather or rainy weather we are sitting on top of each other trying to listen to five conversations at one time.
So how about if I pull two names out of a hat and call them up and say you and yours are invited to dinner at grandma's house on either a saturday or a sunday afternoon. If that date is not a good date for one of the families then we would put your name back in the hat and invite someone else. That way we could have a much calmer relaxed visit with all of you over a period of a couple of months.
What do you think? Let me know. I really wanted to do this for Glenn and Melinda since they had birthdays in February but we were gone the first half of Feb and I started getting sick the first part of March and I'm still sick. I wouldn't just do birthday combinations but to me that was a good way to start it. Once I got sick the last thing I have wanted to think about was having people come over so I could cook for them - unless of course you want to have a cup of spearmint tea and a piece of toast with me!!! Then come on over.
I love you all - I know that we love each other and want to see and visit and talk to each other and I am trying to figure out a way to do that that doesn't drive us all batty.
with all my love
mom
ps - Easter is coming up and Grandpa Merritt is going to have his annual easter egg hunt in his back yard on Saturday April 3 at 1 pm. Shawn has agreed to take family group pictures to replace the pictures on Grandpa Merritts walls with some up to date pictures - for Instance, Jeff and Teresa and Skye and Katy as a group - Tonya and Brett just had a new family portrait done but it is already a year old - another one would be fun and we could coordinate the sizes of the pictures. In my family Kelly and Jamie are the most up to date but my grandkid pictures need to be done individually - for MY wall. So lets all plan on showing up looking pretty and get some good pictures taken that day. We are even trying to figure out how to photoshop a picture of Cade into the group picture!! Whatever works!!
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