Blessings

What a lovely holiday this has been. The greatest joy is my wonderful family. We had a lovely Christmas Day. Everyone came between 10 and 11 am on Christmas day. We talked about Christmas and what gifts each family recieved. Then we had a delicious breakfast of potato casserol ( which I am still eating for lunch today), ham, juices and aebleskivers with buttermilk dressing. It was fun having Adam make them with me and twice as nice having two aebleskiver pans instead of one.

Then we proceeded to open more gifts and just generally enjoyed one anothers company.

Oh, how I love my family. We did miss Grandma Lucy and her phone call to talk with each person and share Christmas with us. That is going to take some getting used to.

Love and kisses to everyone.

LIFE CHANGES

Sometimes I wish I could slow down or even stop this train we call life.

Sometimes I wish my children were little again and we could have family gatherings with Aunts, Uncles, Cousins and Grandparents.

Sometimes I miss old friends that time and circumstances have made distant.

Sometimes I wish those same children were small and home with me again so that I could hug away their sorrows and kiss away their pain.

Sometimes I wish people I love would never leave! I wish they could always be near me in this mortal world where I can see them and speak with them at will.

Sometimes I wish.....

But the reality is....

Children grow up, have families of their own and they inturn hug and kiss away their own childrens sorrows and delight you as a parent with their strength, love and parenting skills.

Extended families still love each other, stay in touch but sadly time shared together becomes less and less.

Friends are still treasured friends, always within the warm hidden recesses of our hearts. But busy with their own growing families.

and...

sadder still....

Beautiful people that we have always depended upon, loved and admired, laughed and cried with, respected and cherished.....

Grow old...

Leave us....

and move into the next realm of eternal existence.

They leave us with loneliness and a broken heart at their passing that will only heal with time.

They leave us with beautiful memories, joyful lessons learned, and hearts overflowing with love and appreciation.

They leave us....

And yet....

They will always be with us. Always a part of who we were, who we are and who we will become.

Last and most importantly...

We will be with them again because of the infinite Atonement and Resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Until then....

I will trust and be patient.

I am saddened with the loss this week of a beloved Uncle and cherished friend and "mother" of almost 35 years.

I was born on Uncle Gordon Homers birthday, creating a special bond between us. He always called me his girl. It made me feel special. I remember his hugh warm bear hugs, his beautiful tenor singing voice, his positive loving demeanor and love of life.

Uncle Gordon..you will be greatly missed.

And now comes the hardest part.

My precious Mother-in-law (mother Lucy) passed away.

Lucy was my dear friend. She always had words of encouragement and made me feel like I was a good mother and a better person then I really am.

Just a few of her wonderful attributes: She loved gardening and knew the names of most flowers and trees. Her clothing alteration skills were amazing. She loved the missionaries in the MTC. She was a beautiful speaker and loved to teach the spiritual living lessons in R.S. She was always interested in others and enjoyed visiting with them. She loved knowing the meaning of and using unusual words. She liked to learn and understand everything, thus keeping her mind alert. She was very refined in her dress, speaking, actions and loved a beautiful home . She was a perfect hostess to countless numbers of people in her home. She knew the lost art of conversation and preferred to converse with others rather then watch TV. And above all she loved her husband, children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, her Father in Heaven and her friend and Savior Jesus Christ.

It has been my blessing and priviledge to be her "daughter".

You have probably seen this before. But I love it and thought you might like to see it again.

Enjoy

Kaden invited me to come to his school and see the Halloween Parade. I remember when my children were young and walked in the parades at Park Lane Elementary and Highland Elementary. Oh for the good old days when my children were little.. Ah such fun ( a lot of work) but such good memories.

Our family Halloween party was so much fun this year. Thanks to everyone!!! The costumes were awesome, the food was delicious and very creative (I wish I took pictures of the food). The games were totally fun and the decorations were creative and really set the mood.

So here are a few pictures. I know you have already seen the same pictures (but not from my camera, so that makes them special).

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Don't you just love Autumn!!!

Autumn is....

A chill in the air

Mischievous bipolar winds

Whirling dancing impish leaves.

Blazing golds, reds,oranges, yellows and greens

Roses, amazingly, still on the stem

Snow capped mountain tops

A glowing hunters moon sheathed with ghostly pearl mist

Crisp crunchy golden delicious apples (straight from our tree)

Stretched nights and shortened days

Giggling, squealing, excited children

Halloween frights, candy delights..

Cool, invigorating, mysterious, eerie, magical... glorious AUTUMN!

Givers of life...Mine!

I have loved reading updates of the blogs that I follow. I want you to know that you make me smile with delight, laugh heartily and sometimes even cry a little.

I LOVE YOU ALL.

Thanks for sharing your lives with me..

Then I realized that MY blog is seriously delinquent. But alas, BRAIN CRAMP (not permanent I hope). It would require me to think and my brain is fried. I'll try again next week.

So I will leave you today with two of my most favorite people in the whole wide world to admire and reflect upon. Have a beautiful weekend and visit these sweet and wonderful people soon.

I need a vacation...

The time is 5:22, I am sitting at work (wishing I was home) and our computer system has been down most of the day. It's difficult having your computers down when you deal with newspapers. If they call in and their systems are down (which means they have to print their newspapers NOW to meet their deadline for delivery) we can't help them and that makes them frustrated. So all but one of the help desk guys have gone home to use their computers.
So I send the caller to the help desk guy here and he sends the call to the guys at home on their cell phones and HOPEFULLY they can help them..
I'm glad it's not yesterday because we had major problems with a couple of newspapers...their systems were totally down..

I need a vacation to somewhere with no phones, no car sounds, just peace and quiet and the beautiful moon and stars. Maybe Lake Powell (1 L or 2?).... Awe, I miss those days! I think I would even like the cars and sirens of Capistrano along with the sound of the waves on the beach..."Aarrgghh" maybe I just need a smoothie and a good chick flick.


30 minutes until I can go home (of course everyone else has gone home because of the computers, except me and Russell on the help desk). What a lonely office :(

OK, I'll stop complaining now and count my blessings. Yea, here comes the weekend:D

Jealous

PS: The great guy at the end of 2 blogs ago (pictures of my family) is none other then my handsome hubby. So far he has shed an amazing 37 lbs . I am so proud of him.

ok, so this picture thing is driving me crazy. As you can see below, I posted pictures of the people that I love the most. Not only do I have pictures but I also had names and really cute captions. Every time I wrote something new the pictures would move and so would the captions (aarghh).

Nothing would line up!!! (and by the way Adam, I need a family picture). So I finally just erased the captions.

Just know that I love you all

Mom

"I feel certain that if, in our homes, parents will read from the Book of Mormon prayerfully and regularly, both by themselves and with their children, the spirit of that great book will come to permeate our homes and all who dwell therein. The spirit of reverence will increase, mutual respect and consideration for each other will grow. The spirit of contention with depart. Parents will counsel their children in greater love and wisdom. Children will be more responsive and submissive to that counsel. Righteousness will increase. Faith, hope, and charity-the pure love of Christ-will abound in our homes and lives, bringing in their wake peace, joy, and happiness."

(Marion G. Romney)( I think President Benson said something similar to this also)

COULD YOU USE ANY OF THOSE PROMISES?

President Boyd K. Packer has asked us to spend less time on things of no importance and more time doing things of eternal value. This is REALLY HARD for me because I am an evening TV addict. I used to ask my kids "Can you tell the Lord what is in his scriptures or can you tell him the lines from all the sitcoms and movies you have watched?" (OK I didn't say that word for word that but it was close).

So as I go through withdrawal, the shakes and extreme nervous irritation, just bear with me while I cut back ( I can' t go cold turkey) on the amount of TV I watch.

I love you all, thanks for listening to me rant :D

Can you believe it?

It has taken me hours to figure out this picture thing and I'm still totally confused. I thought you might like to see where I spend 6 hours each day...My office! Note Skippy.. he is the office mascot and surprises everyone who walks through the lobby door.

Maybe soon I will be able to put comments next to the pictures instead of in a new blog.

ps I know the pictures of me are goofy but, an apple is still an apple no matter how you try to change it :o)

I just have to say " My hubby is my hero, he is my knight in shining armor. He defends me and protects me from the fire breathing dragons". I love you honey.

An extraordinarily beautiful day!

A great big thank-you to my wonderful and amazing family. Coming soon to a blog near you, will be PICTURES...thanks to everyone who gave me a camera for my birthday. I am so excited...taking pictures of everything I see (even pictures of pictures )my feet, the fan on the ceiling and everything else that catches my eye. I love this camera!!

My birthday was amazing. First of all my family tricked me into thinking (as I requested) that there would be no birthday get together for me. Greg took me to dinner at "Johnny Carino's" and low and behold...there was my family waiting for us to come. Surprised? Yes, totally!!

Then we all congregated back at the house for yummy chocolate cake with raspberry filling (made by Kristiena) cards and yes the camera.

Thanks for being the wonderful family that you are. I am so blessed!!

Top 10 Marriage Mistakes

Top 10 Marriage Mistakes

So I'm brain dead right now... At least I'm enjoying it :)

ummm...chocolate:)

What a fabulous weekend!

My sweet hubby went to Ohio to "Boot Camp". Training for his new job. He has once again gotten his insurance license and will now be selling Final Expense insurance to people 50 years and older. It's a great company loaded with integrity, good customer service and mounds of friendly enthusiasm. A great place for him to be!!

Well, since he was gone I decided to take 2 days off of work. A vacation? No, not really, but to me it was fabulous. I cleaned, cleaned, cleaned, and I cooked, cooked, cooked (What else would I want to do with a new kitchen range after not having one for a couple of months?) Try cooking everything on a little camping one burner stove powered by butane and the joy of cooking fades , poof, into thin air. But it sure makes me grateful to be able to cook again.

The sad thing is that our "enormous gerth" does not need to expand any more and boy do I love to cook.

Krystal, Annie and I had a great girls night out, we went to a great boutique, and boy have they changed from the ones I used to go to. We also had went to dinner at the pizza factory and I really enjoyed watching my girls have fun.

Saturday was theeeeee "Highland Fling" ! Our own family reunion (along with the Greens and anyone else invited). I think everyone was really tired when they came and they wished they could just stay home. But then the family moved outside to the front lawn and a few games of horse or pig basketball helped everyone to liven up and enjoy the evening.

We ate loads of good food... expecially the zuccini, fruit and marshmellow brownies. YUM..

Off to the fireworks. Laying on blankets with pillows under our heads. A beautiful darkening sky above us and BAM.... the first firework.

We love these fireworks, they are right over our heads and we feel like we are apart of them.

Highland does the best fireworks show every year. I was sorry to hear that they may be cutting back next year (so sad).

I love watching the little ones as they run about tossing their light sticks in the air. Glowing circles of colored light hooked into their hair. Giggles and squeals of laughter all around us. Clapping and cheering, oohs and aahs and occasionally someone laughing and telling the people under the blanket next to them to "get a room".

Oh how I love my family!!!

Please bare with me, I am trying to change my blogspot..eeek...

Don't worry, Be happy!

Thanks to all for a lovely Valentines Day, we appreciate the treats, love and kisses and just being with you and your families.