Christmas 2009

We had a fun Christmas Eve with all of the family last Thursday evening. Jamie and Kelly came late because of other family parties and Melinda didn't get to come at all because she had bronchitis - we missed her. We tried our hand at fondue and decided we need a lot more practice - I over heated the chocolate and the cheese was stringy ... so they didn't look very pretty but they tasted good - and I MISSED the yummy artichoke dip that Da was going to bring. It was an interesting Christmas Eve - every year I work hard to find just the right story or program for our family Christmas Eve and then every year we have the Christmas Story done by the grandkids. Well this year I just plain couldn't think of anything to do program wise, so we decided that we would just get together and eat and visit and then do the reinactment of the nativity.

We waited for Jamie and Kelly to bring their babies so we would have a baby Jesus and then we decided not to do the nativity at all - we had a fun time visiting and eating and thought that would be sufficient. But we missed the nativity --- it isn't what you call spiritual because the kids don't practice it in advance or anything - but it is definitely one of our family traditions... and it was missed. It also is a break in the talking and eating and I missed the chance to stop and take a moment and appreciate the reason for the Season -- the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The evening felt incomplete because we didn't 'do' the spiritual part of it!

Another reason that the evening was incomplete was because we were missing Makae. We did get to see her though - a bunch of the family all headed down to North Salt Lake for a 2 pm visit with her. It was a wonderful chance to hug her and talk to her and watch her get excited over seeing many of the family that she hadn't seen for two months.

We also got to see Makae on the Tuesday before Christmas - her whole group put on a very fun musical program for us - This is Makae singing with the girls at Lifeline. She seems to enjoy the staff and the students and has adjusted to their routine very well. She is learning to make some good decisions with her life right now and she is in our every prayer.

It was so fun watching Shawn and Kristanne's boys lovingly hold their new little cousins. All three of them were so excited to be holding a baby. Of course the babies were the hit of the party with everyone - here we have Ethan and Cade holding Taylie and Brayden. Taylie even looks a little bit like Ethan!
Here's Cade - in his fancy new jammies which he LOVED!! With a sweet Brayden
Taylie and Brayden were held and held and held that whole Christmas Eve and Christmas Day - they had to be exhausted after having to entertain all their aunts and uncles and cousins and gramma's and granpas!!
Jace was really excited to try and hold Brayden. At first I held Jace as he held Brayden but it didn't take me long to realize he did a good job holding the babies. So we sat him on the floor and let him go solo. We had a fun evening with everyone - there is nothing I love more than spending time with my family. It gets a bit BUSY in my little house when all of us are there but there is no cure for that problem - its only going to get worse as the families get bigger. I am still waiting for my kids to buy me a bigger house!! ;-D


But we had a lovely evening and then the next day Ed and I got up early and were on the road to Lehi by 6:45 am so we could be there when Ben and Simon came down the stairs to see what Santa had brought.

This picture of Benjamin is priceless - the look on his face is exactly what Christmas morning is all about. The excitement and thrill of a new train set! One that he could make go all by himself!

this is our own version of Godzilla - as soon as Simon realized he could make his train go foward and back, he had to get in the middle of things - literally!
Here's Ben watching Da as she sets the train back on the track again - I bet Dirk and Da wish they had a nickle for every time they have had to do that in the last week!
Benji got a normal looking train and Simon got the 'front-runner'....it didn't take him long to figure out how to get the little person in the train out and then he discovered he could make the train go on the carpet as well as the track...the rest of the time we were there he was driving his train all over the carpet. We tried to get Ben and Simon interested in their gifts but nothing doing...all they could see was TRAIN!!

After we had spent 45 minutes at Dirk and Da's house we got back in the car and headed to Provo where Kecia had been waiting patiently (???) for us to arrive. She woke up Glenn when we pulled up (he was glad to get to sleep in an extra hour!)
this picture should be very last --- I had been taking pictures of Emma and her trucks - there she was running back and forth in her jammies and her high heels and watching the trucks go = she was sooooo excited. Then I looked over at her mommie... sitting there with her hat and scarf on, her stack of presents in front of her and holding up her new saute pan in HER jammies and with her new high heels on too! Like mother , like daughter!
Note princess Emma's glass slippers - she didn't want to have anything to do with her new princess dresses and jewelry and crowns but she put on her new high heels as she chased back and forth watching the trucks going.
She didn't touch the trucks or the tracks - she just ran back and forth and back and forth saying truck truck truck
Like Ben and Simon - Emma was so excited about her tracks and trucks she was not the least bit interested in the presents we brought or any of the other presents under the tree - she would look for a second and then back to the 'truck, truck, truck'.
This was what was waiting for Emma when she first came into the living room - a whole box full of princess dresses and high heels and crowns and jewelry ... NO THANK YOU, NOT INTERESTED.....TRUCK ......TRUCK.....TRUCK!


Thank you Kecia and Glenn and Dirk and Da for sharing Christmas morning with us. Ed just decided on Christmas eve that he wanted to watch the little ones and see and feel the excitement of Christmas morning. I wasn't too sure about it (after all, I didn't get to open my presents until 11 am when we got back home!!)

Christmas Day was a fantastic day as we got to spend it with the people we love, watching the excitement on their faces as they opened the gifts that we had lovingly picked out to give them. Christmas is such a special time - as we drove down South that morning we saw a cross walk above the freeway where someone had taken cups and created the message in the fence that said "HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESUS"

Mauri and Ira and their sweet kids got to our house about 12:30. Grandpa was anxious to give them all rides on the RZR but it was sooooo cold and his hopes of pulling them on their sleighs over behind the church house on the lawn there were dashed because of the ice mountain between the lawn and the parking lot. After they left I got a half an hour nap (which is a good nap for me) and then Shawn and Kristanne came with the three boys. While they were still here Jamie and Kelly and the twinners showed up. We had lots of good food all day long and again, lots of love and laughter. About five pm we followed Shawn and Kris down to Kelly and Terrie's house to see grandpa Merritt - All of Kelly's family were there plus Jeff and Teresa and Skye and Katie Jo - so again, we enjoyed the love and laughter of our wonderful family. Teresa and Jeff added so much fun to the group.

Ed and I were getting ready to leave when the phone rang and it was Chase calling from North Carolina. Kelly put the phone on speaker mode and we all sat around the table for an hour chatting with Elder Nielson. It was great - and it was a marvelous ending to a marvelous day. As he bore his testimony of Jesus and all that Christ did for us I couldn't help but feel an even closer tie to my Savior.

People complain about how commercialized Christmas is but I love it because it gives me a reason to put smiles on the faces of the people I love the very most. Christ is the reason - we ARE celebrating his birth day - Thank you Jesus for inviting us to such a wonderful birthday party!

Emma and family came to visit

The day of Kecia's (and Kelly and Jamie, but they were otherwise occupied) Kecia and Glenn and Emma all came to visit. She thought this made a pretty good seat!!

This cute picture of Emma is being blown up to an 8 x 10 to put on my wall of grandkids !! I cropped Kecia out (sorry Kec). I also took some pictures of Kecia and Glenn but they took off their sunglasses and all the pictures are of them squinting - so I won't post them

A play day with Emma

Today (Tuesday) Mauri and Ira and kids are heading to Lagoon and they invited Kecia (and probably Glenn to come with. Glenn has to work so Kecia asked me to babysit....So I get a play day with Emma Lynn!! We have had a good time - and my house looks like it. The magnets from the fridge are decorating the kitchen floor, the toys that were stuffed in the 'trunk/seat' of her pooh train are decorating the living room floor and all the necklaces that I gave her to play with PLUS two of the necklaces on the table that I was working with (!!!) were packed in the trunk. Downstairs she has burb cloths (extra ones for new babies in our ward) strewn across the family room and toys from the toy room. She has been busy. Kecia thought that maybe if I wore her out she would take an afternoon nap...NOT!!! She has entertained herself for over an hour with a tupperware container full of decorative marbles ... Grandma is ready for a nap!

We have been playing outside too! She loves to play in the water and so I got out the fun play pad and she decided it was fun to splash grandma. I finally ran in the house and grabbed my camera and took a video Then I tried to download it to my blog for over 13 hours - finally about 4 am this morning I stopped the 'upload' and quit. If you want to see the video you will have to go to facebook!! It uploaded there just fine!

Cute grandbabies

Okay - my last two posts have been serious - this is a fun one!! I finally got to go visit my youngest grandkids on Thursday of last week. I am going again this week. The kids were happy to see me but not real sure they wanted me to hold them right off but they warmed up real fast. After all it had been weeks since they had seen me.
Once Emma decided that I was actually her FAVORITE grandma (grin) she warmed right up and started talking to me. She is a serious conversationalist. Even though you may NOT have the slightest idea what she is saying you can carry on a wonderful conversation. We talked and talked - she would jabber at me and I would jabber right back. I haven't the slightest idea what I was telling her but she loved it!! And so did I!!

She was on my lap most of the visit though she would get down and walk over to something else and then come back. One time I was talking to Kecia and she was standing like this wanting to be picked up and put back on my lap and I swear she said ga-MAA , very loudly, demanding that I look at her and not at her mama and put her on my lap like I should have done two minutes ago!!

Then, after a couple of hours at Kecia and Emma's house I headed back north to Melinda's house to see my boys. Ben grinned at me but wasn't too sure about letting me pick him up and give him a hug . But he was happy to let me sit at the table with him and play with his play dough cookie cutters. I have never seen such a huge bag of cookie cutters - I think it said there were 100 of them!!!

I thought this serious picture of Ben was really sweet. I gave him a candy heart and he licked it for 45 minutes!! Until it was finally down to nothing. It would take him weeks to eat a bag full! Simon woke up and mama went off to do some exercise and go to the library - just some 'me' time for Da. So grandma took the boys into the living room and got out her balls of yarn.

Up to this point they have been Ben's delight. I get a ball of yarn out of the bag and hand it to him. He identifies it - i.e., Big blue ball; little yellow ball. The medium sized balls he just tells me what color it is. Then he hands it back to me to toss it and I usually toss the ball of yarn so it bounces off his head. Well, Simon was sitting on the floor quietly playing while Ben and I tossed all the balls all over the floor . What a surprise when we finished tossing all the balls and looked down at Simon and there was Mr. Simon having a ball...with the balls!

Yes - it took me 15 minutes to untangle that mess. What fun!
Here is a cute video of Simon - he was really laughing and playing and tossing the balls and having so much fun until I got the camera out. It takes about 30 seconds before he starts getting excited again.

Finally - here is Benjamin again - showing us what he candy looks like - I put this one in for Dirk so he could see how cute both his boys are.


Melinda got back just in time for me to head out the door. I didn't tell her in advance that I really needed to leave at 6 instead of 7 - I didn't want her to worry about hurrying back. She had gone for a nice long walk and then went to the library where she was able to sit and relax and read and enjoy some quiet time of her own. It tickled me to know that I was able to give her a little bit of 'down' time.

I don't know why I hurried so fast - I should have called Amee - one of her clients showed up almost an hour late and she was running behind all evening. If I had called her then Melinda and could have visited more. Oh well - maybe this week. I won't set another appointment for Thursday night, I promise.

Thanks guys for making grandma susan feel so loved.

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.

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.

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 ...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.

Cute babies

I went south again yesterday to Lehi and Provo. Fun visit with Kecia and Da - and lots of play time with Emma and Simon and Ben.

Benji is growing up so fast. I love how green his eyes look in this picture. Must be the shirt. He was having a rough day today - he is trying to get three new teeth at the same time. OWWW! We got to watch the second DVD of Monsters Inc - it was fantastic. The outtakes were hilarious and all of the information on the story line and story board. It kept Simon and Benji and I entertained for the couple of hours that we watched. Melinda had a chance to go to the temple and I got to play with the boys.

Simon was sitting in his Bumbo just grinning at grandma. He is such a sweetie. While we were watching the movie he just got softer and softer as he lay his head on my shoulder and slept for about an hour. I don't think there is ANYTHING more precious than the feel of a sleeping baby in your arms.


I hit Provo first and spent a couple of hours with Kecia and Emma. Kecia and Glenn have been busy painting the lower cupboards and haven't replaced the magnetic closures on them yet. Emma has a favorite cupboard that she empties out for her mom on a regular basis. She was so excited to see Granma and was just full of her cute grins. Her mom and dad have just discovered how much fun playing with bubbles can be. Thus the video

A day with Da

I spent Thursday and Friday in Lehi visiting with Da and playing with the boys. We went to Thanksgiving Point where Ben got to ride on the ponies (new word) and laugh at the goats. He played with the goats for 30 minutes - running back and forth between the two cages and laughing at them . He was totally unimpressed with the fact that it was the "Halloween Boo" with fun clowns making balloons, ring tosses and free cookie decorating booths. The weather was great and Mr Simon really enjoyed his afternoon out in the sunshine. That night I got to watch the boys while Melinda got cleaned up cute and headed out to book club. She brought me home a delicious hot cinnemon roll which I gobbled up - half that night and half the next morning!


Friday morning the boys slept in. We sent Melinda off to get the oil changed and make a few other stops (it is SO much easier just getting one person in and out of the car, rather than trying to buckle and unbuckle two cars seats plus your own,,,right DA? ) I called her while she was out and sent her to a few more spots looking for surgical tubing. When I first told her what we needed she said "WHAT?" I thought - she's been married to Dirk for almost THREE years and she doesn't know what surgical tubing is??? WOW!! We needed it for the juicer but none of the three drugstores she went to had it. While she was gone, Kecia showed up with Emma to bring back the canner (Emma's drum!) and we proceeded to can 8 qts of tomatoes and 6 qts of grape juice.

Here you see Simon helping with the canning. Ben was taking a nap and Simon wanted to be a part of the fun. He is demonstrating the proper way to insert your foot into the rack for best tangling purposes. You will also note the firm hold he has on the rack and he wasn't really happy with grandma when she decided she needed to use the canner and didn't want to share her toy with Simon any more.


This week Melinda got to keep the tomatoes (last week they were Kecia's and the two of them each got 3 qts of grapes - thanks to Kristanne for her grapes. The juice ended up being a real pretty purplish pink because they were a combination of concord (purple) and red grapes. We were able to pick out the green grapes and eat them. I cut up a whole plate full of green and red grapes for Ben and then he decided he didn't want them. So I fed them to Emma. She liked em!



Finally - I took this video of my youngest three grandkids. Ben had been tossing Elmo around saying Melmo, Melmo so I got out my camera. Of course then he stopped and got really interested in the movie he had been watching. No grand pictures but cute kids anyway!!

Visiting the Grandkids

In the last couple of days I have gotten to see almost all of my grandkids and I have loved the hugs!! I missed Jerod when I stopped at Mauri and Ira's and poor Mickie was too sick when I stopped at Kristanne and Shawn's house. In fact, they say she is really contagious so I am extra glad I didn't go give her a hug.

Today I drove down to Provo and had lunch with Kecia and Emma at their house. Kec had leftover bacon carbonera and it was delicious. Of course Emma was full of smiles and laughs. She entertained grandma for a good hour and a half. This is a picture of the newest Mary Kay representative demonstrating how nice the skin creams are!! (Also great for chewing on!!)

Then I headed for Lehi where I got to play with Simon and Benji - Simon is so responsive and has the cutest grin and ...GREAT BIG BLUE EYES TOO!!!

What is it about this latest batch of babies and blue eyes??

I took my bag of yarn balls with me because Ben just loves to play with the BALLS - he spent a good hour taking the balls out of the bag one at a time and tossing them and then bringing then back and putting them back into the bag and then repeating it all over again. Also, every time he brought a ball back I would pick it up and rewind the hanging string ...after a while Ben starting 'rewinding' the balls of yarn himself - only he failed to realize that he was supposed to be winding the yarn AROUND the ball!! It was so cute watching him wind and wind and wind!!

Then he decided that the balls needed to bounce down the steps. But HE wouldn't toss them down the steps - that was grandma's job. So, he would bring the ball to me and then say 'stairs' and run over to the steps where I tossed the ball so it would bounce down the stairs.

Note all the balls of yarn all over the floor. While I was babysitting the boys a neighbor child brought over some zuchini and cucumbers for Da, and he asked me WHY there were balls of yarn all over the floor. :-)

I must apologize for the poor quality of the picture taking...I need to practice this art a lot more !!

Videos from the swim park

A day at the water park

I drove down to Lehi today to pick up Melinda and Simon and Benjamin so that we could head into Provo and meet Emma and Kecia at the Veteran's Park. Da wasn't feeling really well so Ben and I went by ourselves and Kecia and Emma met us there. It is a really really fun water park in the middle of Provo. Nice and clean and BIG. It had a beautiful swimming pool, water slides and a fantastic area for little ones to play in the water. Ben and I sat and splashed in the wading pool waiting for cousin Emma to show up and then all four of us had a great time.





Aunt Kecia took Ben over to the deeper water (all of five inches) and let a bucket of water spill over the top of both of them. Benji loved it.
meanwhile Emma is having a great time herself - look at those teeth!!
By the time they closed the pool at 4:45 Ben was soaked head to toe. He didn't give me a minutes trouble all afternoon - never once cried for mama, and just entertained himself either splashing in the water or running under one of the little fountains. It was a special day. Every so often he would run up to me and say "malmo" which is his name for grandma. I loved it.

We went back to Kecia's house for dinner and I returned him to his mom safe and sound about 7:30 that night, a teensy bit sunburned and one little scrape on his toe that I have no idea where it came from. We made some memories this day.