A couple of days with the girls.....

First off I had to show you how well the couches match Bea. She appreciates being able to blend in. I got to spend 2 days with the girls this week.


Issy has been working on her smile and I think she is getting the hang of it. Elizabeth has the smile thing down pat.

Don't you just want to eat em' up!

Elizabeth is starting to really be social. She gets so excited about little things. Pumping her arms and legs. This day I was holding her and I squeezed her little foot. That made her look down and see her foot. Then she stared at it for a while while it was wiggling around, to funny!

Then I went over the next day and hung out with them they all 3 weren't feeling so hot. Maybe little colds or allergies, their mother has it too. I'm hoping I didn't get it from them. But if I did it would be worth it, because I love to be with them!

This is Issy all set up to rest and recuperate.

And this is the sweet little smiling girl! Love them!!!!

A farewell.......

Last week I had a fun "family" girls night out. I got to go out with my cousins before they all started to leave. It was a very sweet thing. When their dad was diagnosed with cancer they all rallied around and spent the summer with him. Alli was in the middle of a move from England to France, but put it on hold. I felt bad for her because we were super wild and stayed out very late, and she had to fly out very early the next morning. she had to fly to France so she traveled for quite a long time that day. Bridgette left for Alabama and her family 3 days later.We all had a great time. We had Aunt Brenda and all of her girls, Uncle Jimmy's sister, and one of Allison's very close friends. It was a really great and fun night. Stacy got left out of this picture, but it shows a few of us.

Then this picture has everybody in it. Aunt Brenda seems to be doing well now. She has had such drastic changes to her life in the last 4 months. She sold her home and moved from her friends and ladies clubs, came to Utah and lost her husband. The little routines that she has done for years and years are going to have to be different now. Her situation has really made me think about getting older and the things we will have to deal with. I have just decided when I go to "my great reward" I'm just going to take my entire family with me. Nobody left behind to be sad or to worry about!

The kids were over this weekend this is Issy making a sad face for Gamma, staged so really cute.

This is Issy with a snack out of Gamma's garden. She picked lot's of things and was so excited.

This is Elizabeth having her first taste of red velvet cake.

Despite the face she made in the picture, she really liked it.

After Issy had her cake she posed for a few pictures, I loved this little kissy face!

Oh and Mike bought me new couches. We were in desperate need. Our old couches were 10 years old and super worn out. They were leather so they still looked great. But when you sat on them you sunk down to the ground. (Plus the leather was cold to sit on in the winter!)

The kids......

I haven't blogged much lately so I am behind. My parents are missing seeing the kids. so here is a bunch of pictures of the kids for my parents:-) We watched the girls a couple of days last week. They are always so fun. This is Elizabeth chewing on her thumb. Hopefully she won't be the "thumb sucker" her sister is.
Isolde likes to play a lot of games. Of course she is only 2, so we make up our own rules. We all enjoy playing with her.

No, Gamma didn't feed her cookies! Why would you think that?

She got a new soccer outfit and she was twirling to show it to us.

Elizabeth is at that stage were she LOVES her mommy. Erin makes her little eyes light up.

Issy is having some jealousy issues with her new sister. But she really loves her. Ever so often she just has to give Elizabeth kisses.

Issy is so good the share. She will even share her extra thumb with who ever needs it. This time it was Papa.

This was Nathans first day of school. I had to fight to get this picture he thinks it's a pain to have his picture taken.

We have some dear friends here in Utah, Skip and Cindy. We have been friends with them for over 20 years. They were the first ones to see Chris when he was born. It has been quite a while since we have seen them. Life got crazy for them and got crazy for us. We have been thinking of them a lot lately so we called them and had dinner together Friday night. It is good to have old friends. It was like riding a bicycle we just picked up right where we left off.

a bittersweet time.......

This is Aunt Brenda and Uncle Jimmy in Feb. I took this picture of them when I went to Gilmer. I believe it was at the end of April or begining of May that Uncle Jimmy was diagnosed with terminal cancer. We were all so sad. But their kids are great and rallied around them. They went to Gilmer from Alabama, Utah, and Europe. They helped them pack up and move to Utah. They moved in with Stacy, and Allison and Bridgette came with their families and spent the entire summer with their family. They had lot's of quality family time together over the summer. Uncle Jimmy was happy and active all summer. Then as the summer came to an end, and the grandchildren had to leave to go back for school. His health quickly declined. He still got up and went outside and enjoyed the beautiful weather. But his body was not able to keep up with his spirit. He passed away Friday night. It was a very sweet experience for his family. They were all around him and touching him as he very peacefully passed.
We went to his graveside funeral yesterday. This is one view of his final resting place. The other side is a very pretty view of the mountains.

His family took great care of him, and kept his personality in mind for the services. On a side note, Aunt Brenda is going to share his plot. Mike and I had never heard of that, and now we want it that way ourselves. Uncle Jimmy had a great sense of humor. Aunt Brenda will be buried on top of him. So he told her he was going to have them cut a hole in the top of his casket so he could reach up and tickle her fanny. That's the part of his passing that has been so hard for me. He has been such a sweet husband to Aunt Brenda. She has had some health problems later in life and he has taken such good care of her. Now she is on her own for a while. She will be fine, her kids are amazing. But I'm so sad that she has lost her sweetheart.

All of his kids shared stories about their dad.

And his brother officiated it.

Two of his granddaughters played and sang a sweet little farewell song.

Then of course Mike took a picture of my granddaughter and ...... the battery died! No more pictures were taken. We went back to Stacy's house and visited and ate and it was a very good day. But I got no more pictures of it. So I was bummed.

Uncle Jimmy had a very loving send off. He is very loved and will be missed. But it was such a blessing that he went so quickly and he felt no pain.

Goodbye Uncle Jimmy, I love you!

Food arghhhhhh!

While I was walking around Manhattan I passed several "Deli's" that had yummy things showing through their windows. Like these chocolate croissants.


Or these yummy looking things. Are they canollies? they were everywhere. They also had cheese cakes in the windows like 6 to 8 different kinds. I loved seeing them in the windows. But I did not indulge in any of them.

But I did on the last day indulge in this pizza. Can I just say that the slice with tomato and basil was the yummiest every! It was the only crisp thing I ate on that trip. But the flavor was amazing. It was a good thing it was the last day, or I would have had a slice every day!

I met with a Nutritionist this week. We talked about the way I eat and I should eat. I eat because I'm bored, so she said I'm going to have to find activities to do at night (that's when I eat out of boredom) that keep me from eating. So I'm really trying to come up with something I would enjoy doing that would keep me busy. I don't eat when I'm reading. but I don't want to read every single night. I enjoy watching TV so I need something to do in front of the TV. I now understand why they say only eat at the dinner table and never eat in front of the TV. Because I mindlessly eat at night.

I even went to a movie this week. I told myself I would not get popcorn (I LOVE, LOVE popcorn). I sat there waiting for the movie to start and people all around me were eating popcorn. I could smell it and it was kind of hard, but I put it out of my mind. Then I chuckled to myself because I realized that I had come to see a movie about cooks, so food would be involved! Sometimes you can't win for loosing! I actually did just fine:-)

The nutritionist told me I need to have a 7 inch plate. then half of the plate needs to be vegetables, and 1/4 carbs and a 1/4 should be protein. She even said I should try to eat breakfast that way. Do you know how small a 7 inch plate is? If I could eat like that just 3 times a day I would be skinny!

I wonder if this is a seven inch plate!:-)

I also met with a psychologist this week. I am actually doing something right. I'm not a stress eater. When I am stressed I have to vent! Thanks to all of my friends who let me vent. Evidently that is very healthy! But I'm having to take a good hard look at myself and when I am home during the day I am a grazer, I just eat little things throughout the day with out even thinking about it. It's not always bad stuff that I eat, I eat a lot of fruits in the summer (I like summer fruits better than winter fruits) and I eat carrot sticks and celery sticks, and potoato chips those are bad I know:-) It's just that I'm unaware that I'm doing it.

This is more like the plate I'm supposed to eat. Actually it's probably to much meat and not enough vegetables.

I could only find 8 inch plates at the store. So I got on line trying to find 7 inch plates and found this diet plate. It's more than the nutritionist told me to eat. But I thought it was kind of funny.

A zillion picture catch up.......

So I am so far behind on my blog. I'm going to cover a few things with a zillion pictures so hang on!

First off last night the kids came over Elizabeth was crying so Issy moved up and shared her pinkie with her baby sister, to quiet her down. It was to cute. Ok now to go back a bit........ While we were in New York Issy started being afraid of the dragon in her room. Her parents did all the right things...show mom were it is and she showed her. Then they told her the dragon was her friend and nice. She still was using it as an excuse, but seemed pretty scared. So here in Time Square there is a 3 story Toys R Us. I decided to go over there and find her a dragon toy.

This Toys R Us is pretty cool. It has a 60 foot ferriswheel(sp?).

They only had 3 dragons in the store. One was a scary boy toy, and these were the other two. I chose the purple Webkins.

Issy really liked it when we gave it to her. Plus it is a Webkins so she and her mom get on-line and play with it. So far so good.

We brought Elizabeth an octopus I figured she could hang on to the tentacles and I was right.

The day we came home from NY getting up at 3:00AM to leave the hotel by 4:00AM (that is 1&2AM here). Nathan came home from a Pioneer Trek that night. They spent 4 days walking 27 miles following in the old Mormon handcart trails.

There was a welcome home dinner at the church, they figured the kids would like pizza.

Then I had a busy week and Ana came to visit for a couple of nights. This was the only picture I took of her, sorry Ana. It's ok she doesn't read my blog:-)

Issy is finally getting some more teeth. She is working on getting all 4 canine teeth at once. But it will be fun when she finally has teeth!

The girls came to visit me last week and I was a little naughty and gave Elizabeth a little taste of hot dog. Erin had a cow but I told her she was just sucking on it, not eating it:-)

She can have her fussy times, but she can be so super sweet that you just want to eat her up!

I love how big Elizabeth's eyes are here. This was taken just after her sister stuck her pinkie in her mouth so she could suck it. It worked she quieted down:-)

Issy has made up a special pose for the camera this is it.

So she got in "her pose" last night when I pulled out the camera. To fun!

So this is very random but this is a very expensive purse I saw in Vegas in April. I don't remember the designer but it's a big one. I thought it was a little different and love red so I took a picture of it.

Well on my tour in NY we passed a bunch of bargain kind of shops and guess what I saw. The knock off. I was so proud that I knew exactly what purse it was knocking off. I just don't keep up with that stuff:-)