Blondie

I am a crafty person. I love to create things, step back and look proudly at them and pat myself on the back and tell myself how great that item turned out. Sometimes I think myself untalented so I need to do this once in a while to make myself feel like I'm accomplishing something. On one of my daughter's friend's blogs I saw a picture of a maternity shirt that said "I'm crafty. I make children." Exactly my feelings! My greatest creations (and I'll admit I've had lots of help) have been my children. Mark and I have often talked about how we kind of feel, sometimes, like our children are our science fair projects, and we are now at the stage where you are arriving at school, walking proudly into the classroom carrying said project with an immense sense of accomplishment. Allison is one of those projects and I am immensely proud of her. She started out as a colicky baby with a heart defect and required extra attention in those first two years. But almost as if she's been apologizing since then for taking up some extra time, she has been one of the easiest children to raise. In a family with 3 redheaded girls and two dark haired boys, our Blondie sometimes got overlooked by outsiders. Some people didn't realize she was part of our family. She's so quiet, they'd say. Umm, no, you just have to get to know her. She's funny, smart, quick to help anyone, shies away from conflict, huggy, always wants to do what is right, and is a wonderful mother to her own little blonde bombshell. She made up the word "stonks" when she was two years old. As in, "I have stonks in my nose, will you blow it for me?" A fitting word, I think. And the beginning of her own creativity. Happy Birthday, Allison. You will always be our little Blondie.

Silliness

Mark and I are looking forward to our 35th wedding anniversary in August. As a gift to ourselves and our children, we are taking the crew (6 children, 2 spouses, 4 grandchildren) to Orlando to celebrate. We went there 10 years ago just before our oldest child was married. Sort of a "this is the last vacation we'll be taking as a family." Ha! We just like each other too much to not go on family vacations. Anyway, last week Sarah and Allison were talking about the silly poses we would do on rollercoasters after we knew where the cameras were. Jeff, I believe, took the lead on this one and made the suggestion. I'm sure I'll be corrected if I am wrong. So just to remind us of how we looked then: What cracks me up is that David was 7 years old at the time. Ainsleigh's age. What an actor! I mean, I expected it with the older ones, but I'm amazed at his expressions (click on the pictures to see them better, although they've deteriorated somewhat.) We'll have to try to top those in August.

This is RIDICULOUS!

I came to Denver expecting it to be cool, but not this. The first day (Tuesday) it was warm and the kids enjoyed playing outside and jumping on the trampoline.

Yesterday we woke up to snow, and it continued all day long. The picture on the left is how it looks this morning after ANOTHER night of snow. The kids are ready to go out and play in the snow. The kids had a blast (and so did the adults!) Except maybe Sarah who was doing all the hard work. Sledding fun:

Emaline (above) and Allison (below)

Ainsleigh (below) Donovan (below)

Happy Birthday, Jeff!

Twenty-eight years ago at 12:37 am, I gave birth to my first son. We had been at the hospital for about two hours when he made his appearance. He weighed 8 lbs. 7 1/2 oz and was 21 inches long, had dark brown hair and dimples! After having two girls, I wasn't sure about having a boy, but we were delighted when he arrived. Jeff has brought a lot of fun and games to our family. One of our favorite family phrases, "I bet you five bucks" originated with Jeff. He has always loved money and loves it more when he is right about something. He also likes to be first at doing things, which has brought a lot of laughs to us. So, this is a shout out to Jeff. Happy Birthday! We love you!

Having Fun With My Grandchildren (and two of my daughters!)

For a combination birthday present for Sarah and Allison, I decided that it would be fun to fly Allison and Emaline to Sarah's house and fly myself there to join in the fun with my four darling grandchildren. I arrived Tuesday at the Denver airport just 20 minutes or so before Allison's and Emaline's flight arrived. After a joyous reunion, we met Sarah at the curb and with much hugging and cheering we were off to Sarah's house. One of the things I was excited about was a quilt I had made for Donovan's birthday, but hadn't finished it until just before I left home. He was so cute about it. He told me he loved it and has thanked me for a number of times since then. Here are some pictures:Here is the back side:I also embroidered the dinosaur on a shirt (from Target) for him. He really likes dinosaurs!

Last night after an early supper, we took the kids to the Rec Center for swimming. Ainsleigh, Donovan and Emaline enjoyed pushing Gemma around in her boat.Emaline relaxes in the waterPensive Donovan

Three cute kids waiting for the rest period to be over.

I Survived Easter!

That may be somewhat over-dramatic, but hey, it makes me feel better. Saturday morning before Easter, I got up about 5:00 am to pull cinnamon rolls out of the refrigerator so that they could finish raising. I returned to bed for a few more hours of sleep. I am the choir director and we had a 9:00 am practice for our two musical numbers for Sacrament Meeting the next day and I had promised my choir warm homemade cinnamon rolls if they would please, please come to practice. They came and I was relieved... until that day I had had no sopranos and I was feeling desperate! After choir, Mark and I jumped on our bikes and rode 50 miles. We wanted to go a little farther, but we couldn't get off until 11:00, so time was a factor. Because of bad weather last week I only got in a total of 80 miles. Sunday was not all that relaxing. Since we had two choir numbers and two speakers, and I was one of the speakers, I was a bit stressed. After the sacrament, the choir sang the first number... I turned around and gave my talk.... and then turned around and led the second choir number. When I sat down, I must have visibly sighed in relief, because a few people mentioned it! But the choir sounded good and several people said some nice things about the music and my talk. I'm was just glad it was over with. Then I trotted off to Primary to teach my lesson. When I got home, I certainly enjoyed my nachos and a nap!

Happy Birthday, Joel!

Joel has been married to our daughter, Sarah, for almost 10 years. He's a great father, a patient and loving husband, a responsible provider, and an all around good guy. He wasn't exactly what I expected Sarah to choose for a husband, but I just want to admit publicly that I was wrong. Dead wrong. He is exactly right for her. She is the oldest child and can be, at times, shall we say a little on the bossy side? Joel rolls with the punches, and can be accommodating but always knows what he wants to accomplish and does it. He has a great sense of humor (something highly valued in our family) and a good conversationalist. He is genuinely interested in other people and what they are doing and that is sometimes lacking in other people. I like the way that he is so good to take the kids with him on outings and wants to be part of their lives. After a long week at work it would be easy to feel like he needed a little "me" time, but he takes time for them. He is very creative and brings out, encourages, and appreciates Sarah's creativity. He's just plain fun. We love you, Joel. Thanks for being part of our family.

Explanation of pictures that follow!

During the week, I ride with an awesome bike group made up of 16 terrific, funny, and kind women. We ride mostly on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but not everyone rides every time, so we have anywhere from 4 to 12 women on any one ride. Recently I took my camera with me as we did a ride up Calaveras Road past the reservoir. It was a fabulous day and I wanted you to see some of the beautiful scenery. And our lovely bike group... really, who can look good in spandex and a helmet? I assure you that they are all great looking chicks when properly coiffed and attired. We range in age from 35 to 55.... I'm the oldest, or at least tied with Sue.

Pictures!

I Can't Believe I'm Doing This

My kids blog. My nieces blog. I blog stalk. Until my 5th child was born, I kept journals... starting when I was in 6th grade. So I decided maybe it was time to start recording my life again. It won't be terribly interesting to anyone but myself, and I'm not even sure if *I* will find it interesting. My 6th grade journal consisted mainly of the friends I played with and the TV shows I watched. I'll try to do a little better this time around. Today Mark and I went out on our bicycles for our Saturday Ride. We are preparing for the Wine Country Century on May 2. It was a beautiful day and we rode 60 miles. A bit of a head wind going out, but that meant a tailwind coming back, so yea! for that. We rode out into Livermore, crossed under 580 onto Altamont Pass Road. When we were almost to Mountain House, we turned onto Patterson Pass Road which took us back up and over a steep climb into Livermore again. We were up by lots of windmills, the views were gorgeous and I could appreciate them when I wasn't gasping for breath. The hills are so green right now.... they look like green velvet. My total mileage this week: 150 miles. When we got home, the smell of a delicious pot roast in the crockpot greeted us. Sarah had mentioned making shredded beef enchiladas and I thought that sounded good, so I got a pot roast (chuck roast) from Costco, threw it in the crockpot with some onion soup mix and some salsa... maybe a little more than the 1 Cup Sarah suggested, added a little water and cooked it on high for 8 hours. After shredding it, I took 3 Cups of the meat, put it in a pot on the stove, stirred in 1 can of refried beans, a small can of chopped olives, and about 1 Cup (maybe more) of jack cheese. I cooked up some of the uncooked flour tortillas from Costco, rolled about 1/2 C of the meat/bean/olives/cheese mixture in each tortilla, put them in a 9 x 13 pan with some homemade enchilada sauce (thanks, again, Sarah) covering the bottom, topped with the rest of the enchilada sauce and some cheddar cheese. I covered it with foil and baked it for 45 minutes at 375. Delicious! And made chocolate chip cookies. And watched a session of conference we recorded earlier. Whew! I'm tired. And frustrated from trying to figure out how to post words and pictures in the same blog. I'd ask my kids, but they don't know I'm doing this blog yet and I was trying to surprise them with my cleverness. Guess that blew up in my face.