I think I will actually watch a football game.....

We lived in Arizona for almost 20 years. The entire time we lived there the Cardinals didn't do very well. But a couple of months ago we heard they had been winning games. We were shocked!
I always felt bad for them, they lost continually. But now all of the sudden they are a championship team. We are really excited for them. Mike heard somewhere, I don't know if it is true, but they haven't won a championship for 61 years. So I miss Arizona right now. I know there is lot's of excitement in the air. And I am rooting for the Cardinals!

I also have to teach the Relief Society Lesson tomorrow. It makes me nervous, not so much tonight but tomorrow during church my stomach will be in knots! It doesn't help that we have a very full room now that we have our new people. Who don't know me and understand that I'm a dork. I can have the craziest things come out of my mouth. And to make matters worse I just started reading this great book. So I haven't read over my lesson all day. I read it all week, but just not today.

The kids have been very sick, so they have stayed with us for a while. They decided to go home tonight. I'm worried because Erin is just not looking good. But they haven't been to their house for so long their neighbors were getting worried. In remembrance of spending the past week and a half with the princess here is a great shot of "baby bum crack"

And when I went and bought my great book I'm reading, she was with me. She saw books and wanted them. But then she saw the puppy, white with red hearts. I gave her a choice and she wanted the puppy over a book. I'm sad she is gone. Chris misses her so much when she is gone. He has spent most of the time he has been home around her. I need anybody who is reading this to pray for her and the rest of us. We didn't get sick, I hope none of us do, but the Princess is going to be home alone with 2 super sicko's. We all got blessings before they left. Chris and I are feeling a little icky. So prayers are appreciated!

fun times......

Well it was Thursday again, and Erin had to go back to the hospital. She felt just awful and she was having contractions, it was 6 1/2 weeks early for her. We watched the Princess. Quickly to fill you in about her mom. She was running a fever and they said that could cause contractions. They kept her there for a few hours and ran bunches of tests. They concluded that the baby was fine so far, but Erin was going to have to suffer and be on some bed rest. So they spent the weekend with us.

Chris is like the rest of us, very taken with the Princess. He just loves her, and loves to play with her. Poor girl has 3 uncle at her beck and call, it's a hard life for a Princess:-) This picture was later in the night when she got her jammies on.
But first we introduced her to a new movie. Toy Story, she really liked it. She still trashed out the room with all of her toys but she liked the movie. The only problem is she loves, loves, loves, dogs. So when the mean doggy came into the movie she was excited, she missed the part where he was "mean."

This was in the beginning, when Buzz showed up, it was a little scary for the Princess so she snuggled into grandma:-)

We have had what they call an inversion for a few weeks. It was simply high pressure encasing the valley like a big dome, and that needed a big storm to come and blow it away. It trapped air pollution, and cold air in it. Finally a storm came this weekend and moved it out. Some heat got in, and we got snow yesterday. But when we were running by the bank I saw 5 little birds feasting on the berries in this tree. They had defrosted and those little birds were going to town on them. This must have been a female bird because some of the other birds had red marks on them. You know what they say the boy birds have to be fancy so they can catch a girl bird.

Friday night the Buchanan girls came and visited. It was so fun to have them. It really cheered Erin up. We ate and watched a chick-flick and talked a lot. The guys went out for a guy night too. We all had a very good Friday night.

Then Jerry came over and he and Mike worked on a project. These guys are such great friends they don't let a small thing like a 20 hour drive stop them from hanging out:-)

And to finish the weekend out. The princes made a fun face. That's for my parents, they love it when I put her pictures on my blog.

Information and firsts.......

So we as a Releif Society Presidecy, were out visiting the new women in our ward, and she happens to be a blogger. As we were talking Laurie who is also a blogger knew where the word "blog" came from. Now this is important to me because, I have 2 family members who hate the word "blog." Therefor they resist anything having to do with blogs. Because they don't like the word. I myself have often wondered and even ask people what does "blog" mean. Nobody I ask ever knew, but finally Tuesday night Laurie knew. It is short for "Web Log". Like the ships log, or the flight log, or even in Star Trek the "Captains Log." I wonder if they knew what it meant, if they would still hate the word. I guess they will never know because, they will never read my "BLOG":-)

Also Issy said her first sentence to ME! I was babysitting her Monday while her mom was at the doctor. She said "waw-e", so I said "do you want to watch Wall-e?" She shook her head yes. I said "OK". Then she said, "e-mo, e-mo, e-mo." I said, "oh you want to watch elmo". I picked her up to the high shelf so she could find the elmo dvd. She got excited and grabbed it and said, "see it's e-mo." Later after her mom got home we were eating lunch, she was in her high chair, and said "get me down." Then the next day her mom put her down for a nap and said, "when you get up daddy will be home." she said "daddy come home mommy." She hasn't said a sentence since. But it was fun for me to hear her first 2 sentences!

All about the Princess......

I haven't had a post with a lost of pictures of the Princess lately. So I put a lot of pictures of the Princess on today. Last Thursday night Erin called in tears she was going to the hospital for pain and needed us to come and get the Princess. The kids neighbors were sitting with Issy while we rushed over. We packed her up, got her out of her bed, put her in the car, and drove her home. Mike said, "do you think she wonders why Grandma and Grandpa stole her in the middle of the night?" We put her to bed but she was fairly awake so she slept with us. That was so fun! Oh, they said her mom had a kidney stone, they got home around 3 am from the ER. Mike brought Erin over the next day, and the kids spent the weekend with us. So I played with the princess and put rollers in her hair. She was so cute. She started to spray her little puppy toy like Grandma sprayed her. The problem is she just doesn't have much hair in the front yet.

Then the next morning we were playing on the floor and the dog "Bea" was playing with her stuffed rabbit and the Princess wanted it. Bea took it out of her hand and she made this awesome sad face:-)

We made her happy again. She loves apples and her shirt has apples on it. So she was happy every time she looked at her shirt.

Then yesterday morning I drove Nathan to school in all white it's been crazy foggy every morning. I told Mike I drove Nathan to a square blob I think it was his school. This is the view from my back porch.

It has been very cold every morning. When I drove Nathan to school yesterday my car told me it was 3 degrees. When it is that cold a cool thing happens, all of the trees get covered in frost. The frost is so pretty. This is an up close picture of the frost. Sunday it looked like it was snowing out of only one window, so we walked over and the sun was coming out and big hunks of frost were falling off a huge tree.

This is a tree covered in frost, they really are pretty, especially the really big trees.

Yesterday morning as Chris and I were driving back from the clinic, Erin called crying and ask if we could come over. I'm afraid she is getting another kidney stone. We were right by her exit so we headed back over. I stopped and got doughnuts on the way. I had to take the Princess something fun:-) And she picked a chocolate one and she loved it. I'm a fun grandma, no carrot sticks for her!

Is that a dog?

Chris said he would cut his hair if he could move back home. I took him up on it. Only the poor woman that cut it actually, gave him like 7 different cuts. This was the first cut. I said it could be kind of long. And after she was finished and his hair looked great he decided he wanted to go shorter. So by the time he was done we swept up his hair and it looked like a little dog! That is one of the long hair stylist combs on the ground next to it. That was a lot of hair!!!

Now he has a nice short cut. It looks great, but after growing it out for years it will take him a little time to get used to it:-)

Big changes.......

Well we had some big changes in our life last week. Chris came and visited us at Christmas and there was a whole lot of talking and thinking going on. Then he left last Friday morning an he called an hour after he landed and said, he really wanted to come back. He wants to make some changes in his life and needs our help. We talked about it and felt pretty good about it, so did the other kids. So on Thursday morning Mike flew into Phoenix, rented a van, and drove Chris up here. They had a great trip. They said they just talked about all kinds of things for 10 hours of the 11 hour drive. Chris just can't get enough hugs and kisses. He gives me sneak attacks, I'll be doing dishes or sitting on the computer and he will just walk up and kiss my head or hug me, it's pretty nice. Also I think he missed his mom:-) He hasn't lived with us for about 4 years so we are a little anxious, but really hoping it turns out well. We are working on a hair cut, do you think he would go for a flat top?:-)

Last week before Chris came I went and spent the day with the girls. I made a Wii Fit character and found out even in as bad of shape as I am in my Wii Fit character is only 2 years older than me. I was afraid it would read me into my 80's! That Wii Fit thing is really a cool thing, and I can see how a person could get in shape doing it. I might ask for it for my birthday. Oh and we also watched a fun "chick flick" in their theater room. that is a lot of fun too, their screen is so big it's awesome.

The Princess got a camera for Christmas. She decided to take a few shots while I was there. I love how she does it. But do you think Grandma looks like this to her when she is taking her picture?

Resolutions.....

Mark Twain said: New Year's Day… now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.


That is how I feel about them also. But it occurred to me that years ago I gave a talk on goals in sacrament meeting in January. As always by researching my talk I was very enlightened. I learned that we should always have goals set and be working on them. Also if we don't write them down we probably won't work on them. So I set a few goals to hopefully improve myself.





I visit taught a lady who was amazing. She was older, wiser, and sweeter than most of us. One thing she did that I really want to do, is to write notes. If somebody did or said something that touched her she wrote them a note. Maybe they made a comment in Sunday School, or gave a talk or something to that effect. Every Sunday she would send out a note to somebody. So I think I better go buy some notes to have on hand. I have this past year felt at times like I should write to a few people that have touched me, and didn't do it. So this will make me feel better.

The best thing I started doing last year was reading. I always liked reading but only read 1 to 3 books a year. I never knew how to find good books to read. But last year I was introduced to sites on the web that helped me see what books are really good. So I read 37 books last year. I have to to admit I finished the last one 4 minutes before midnight, on New Years Eve. But I want to continue to read. I'm at a stage in my life that I have some down time and reading is fun way to fill it up.

And the not so obvious: Cooking (you probably thought I would say loose weight:-)

This cracks me up, nutritious Velveeta casserole? Are those deviled eggs, slathered in velveeta!?! ughhhhhhhhhh!

They did make things easy for the housewives back then. They spelled it out for you.

Actually things in the grocery stores have changed because people don't cook anymore. Like bullion cubes, they used to come in huge jars. Now they are sold in much smaller quantities for the same price, because they aren't used as much.

I have a million cook books, (those are not mine in the picture) I need to make use of them. Poor Nathan has been raised on processed and fast foods.

When my kids were little I MADE dinner every night. We were to broke to eat out all of the time. Homemade food is usually healthier than anything you buy at a fast food place, and tastier than a frozen processed dinners. I decided this year I really need to start cooking more often. And now it looks like my almost empty nest, is going to fill right back up. So this would be a good time to start up again.

Anniversary sign........

Mike couldn't be here tonight on our anniversary. I knew it was going to be this way a long time ago. Still it feels a little weird. Oh, and for the past few weeks people have been randomly turning around in our driveway. I looked out the window tonight and had a special anniversary sign. When I took a picture with the flash you could only see the snow falling down. Without the flash if you look really hard you can see 2 hearts. Somebody randomly turned around in our snowy driveway and it snowed more and made me 2 hearts. It cheered me up!

Happy Anniversary Baby!

Well today is our Anniversary 78 years! Hahaha No just 26 years. Twenty six years of wedded bliss. How can one man handle the joy and excitement of being with me for 26 years? I want to joke that I was 10 or 12 years old when we married. But now that I live in Utah, where there are some sick-o people who do that, I have decided against it:-)





We had a little crazy weekend. We sent Chris home on Friday morning, so of course, we drove to the airport. Then Friday night Jessica came in and we traveled through a crazy snow storm to get her. The problem here when it snows or rains at night the lines on the road disappear. You end up driving in what you hope is a lane. We also had the princess with us. She was so good just stuck in her car seat for 2 hours. The next day I realised that Nathan had been sick for well over a week and wasn't getting better. I took him off to the urgent care. We found out he had a throat and ear infection plus, something else I don't even remember what it was. Mikes nephew flew in while Nate was at the doctors office. Off Mike went to the airport for the 3rd time in 2 days. We got James here, but I started crashing from all of the celebrating over the past month and I took a long nap. Thus setting a precedence for the rest of the weekend. Mike entertained his nephew. Generally when we have company I make sure everybody is fed and entertained. But Mike did it this time. I enjoyed watching him, and he enjoyed his time with James. This morning James and I got up and headed back to the airport. To get him on a shuttle to BYU Idaho. We started out about 5 minutes late and then ran into stand still traffic. I was saying prayers we would make it to the airport in time. And we did, he was only 5 minutes late. I took his picture for his mom and told him to hop on the bus and sit by a pretty girl. There seemed to be quite a few kids on the bus. He was off and happy, but I felt like a creepy aunt because I didn't send him off with any food. Like a lunch, some cookies, or even fudge. I just hadn't had time to regroup after Christmas. Poor guy left empty handed!

And this is just a shot of the princess eating mac and cheese and watching Wall-e at grandmas. She was very happy. My camera takes so long to shoot that she quits smiling by the time it takes.

A new perspective......

So we went and saw Valkyrie last weekend. We really did like it. We didn't know anything about it. But by the time it was over we had a new perspective. There were several plans to kill Hitler from the Germans, but as they said in a documentary,"he had Satans luck." After we saw the movie the history channel ran a 2 hour special on it. After seeing that and the movie, Mike said "Satan was protecting him." But the movie itself, made me really think. I have heard my entire life that the German people have suffered a horrible shame for what happened during the Holocaust. So I have just thought "what a shame." But now I think deeper than that. Most of these men had families. Their wives supported them, knowing that their husbands could die and themselves and their children might be taken also. One line in the movie hits you. They knew they were going to loose the war, so they wanted to kill Hitler themselves before it happened. Because they loved their country, but knew if Hitler was still in power when it ended it would always be "Hitlers Germany." And they were right.



According to the documentary we saw, including pictures and film clips the movie is very accurate. Some of the actors look exactly like the men, who they were portraying. Even the film sets were replicas of the pictures. They had a clip of one of the men on trial. The judge type person said, "What were you thinking!" He replied "I was thinking of all the murders." Then the judge just mocked him. Also they started killing anybody involved in this attempt. But they realized that they weren't getting any information. They were killing them to fast. So they started taking them and torturing them to get info. Many of the men killed themselves for fear of giving their friends names during the torture. Then Hitler had the men on trial hung by small wires so their deaths would be slow and painful. They show the thinner wire nooses in the movie. And they finally sometime in the 50's decided those men where heroes and made a memorial to them, where they were hung. I have always known there were Germans who didn't like what Hitler was doing, but I never realized that there were people risking their lives to stop him, wives and children were giving up their fathers and husbands to make things right. The thing about the Valkyrie plan was they knew you couldn't just kill Hitler and it would be over. They knew somebody just as crazy would take over. So they plotted to take over the entire military.



The most surprising thing to me about this movie was this particular attempt happened only 19 years and 11 month before I was born! I had no idea it was that recent! When I was a kid, it seemed to me that WW2 was something like 50 years before I was born. But it was less than 20! Then you fit in the Korean War and Vietnam. I'm older than I think!:-)



Anyway I suppose the movie opened my eyes to some very brave people in Germany who risk their lives to try to stop such evil!