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:-)

the internet in our hotel was terrible. I had lot's of time to blog, but I couldn't load pictures, I was very frustrated. I got these few pictures loaded so I'm now going to tell you about them.

I went to the M&M store it was big and cool, I was so hot and sweaty, I stayed for a while to cool off.
This was my first day, I walked down to central park. Being alone I took a picture of myself in front of the cool rocks that were all over the park.
This was 2 days into our trip. We had eaten and we were sitting on a fountain talking and watching people. We noticed people going into a building across the street, we wondered what it was. We also talked about how far down Rockefeller Center might be. We finally walked across the street and read the plaque in the front. It was Rockefeller Center! About a 3 minute walk from the hotel.
We were also on a street that had FOX news, CNN, and this sports news channel. This is a horrible picture, but Mike's face is on the left side of the black banner.

oh man......

I'm stuck in my hotel room this afternoon. There is a huge storm here in New York. ton's of rain thunder and lightning and tornado warnings in surrounding areas. I went on a tour bus today, and when I got off and came back to the room it was pretty dark. I assumed it was around 5:30, it had been overcast all day. But when I got to the room it was just after 2:00. I ventured out into the rain, with my Amsterdam umbrella and got Mike and I lunch from the street vendor. they have chicken or lamb
gyros or salads. We had the chi ken gyro it was yummy. I can see that cart from my hotel room and it always has a line, at night a very long line! But in the rain I walked right up and didn't have to wait in a line.

I drove through Time Square, past the round building at Madison Square Garden, past the Empire State building, China town, Wall Street, Brooklyn Bridge, Statue of liberty, Waldorf Astoria, and got off at Rockefeller Center. All in 3 hours. Oh and my camera battery died so I did get pictures of everything. Now I'm stuck in the hotel room soon to read a book I just got called "The Hunger Games." So far I'm really enjoying the book.

I'm so bummed that I can't upload my pictures and really blog about each day. I don't love going back and filling in the days I missed.

I am enjoying my little vacation i have to admit:-)

I'm trying....

I want to blog about New York. I want to put up lot's of pictures. But our hotel connection is lousy and I can't upload even 1 picture! Technology is so great and so annoying at the same time!