Gingerbread graham-cracker houses

We did our annual decorating in shifts this year, pre-schoolers and schoolers. It went much smoother.- But it could be that making the houses ahead of time (with a hot-glue gun) facilitated the ease. Notice Hannah's house. The crackers from W..... brand were all warped. Covered by frosting and candy - no one would ever know. Hallie, McKayla & Hannah.
Tyler Christy and Jake showing Oma Great their fabulous constructions.
Aspen's beautiful house
Gung-ho Carter -we even had a couple of guests. This little girl licked every single piece of candy she put on her house. The other "smart" thing we did this year was give each of the little ones their own bowl of candy- no mixing licked candy with the unlicked!
Tucker built a car on a "rocky road" Emma is gettting ready to start.

baby it's COLD outside

On Monday (Dec 7th) this is what we woke up to. And even though it was just a skiff, it's still all here because it's so cold out side!
This morning it was 1 degree. Beautiful, but too cold to give us any more snow :(

Actual Thanksgiving

It has been so much fun having Thelma here. She relaxes in her chair and watches the action in the kitchen and the living-room. Sometimes with a lot of littleones here, there is a lot of action! When they are gone, it is really really quiet.

This year we had Kurt's family and Oma Great (Gil's mom) here for Thanksgiving day- so it was pretty low key-Christy and Tyler were great help with the relish dish.
Gil bought some new to us games and the kids had a ball learning and playing them. This slider Tic Tac Toe evens the odds for the little ones because when you slide the bar, it changes the placement of the discs.And this picture is for the smile value.
Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving too.

Happy Thanksgiving

My thankful list is really long- and family tops the list. It has been a sweet year to have first Kurt's family living with us, and now Kim's family. Gil and I enjoy getting to interact with the kids on a daily basis and it fills our lives with laughter. Too bad we don't have a "Clark Street" like Ezra T had in Farmington. I would love to have all my children as my neighbors. We started the month with the thankful twigs and every day added a quote, and thanksgiving symbol. This is Bree at the beginning of the month.Ellie keeps us laughing. She loves to drink out of a straw and we are thankful for her hugs and personality plus!
We are thankful that the leaves have finally fallen off the big trees in back. Carter was a terriffic help to Opa by helping to rake up those leaves.
We are blessed to have Oma Great here for a month. We enjoy her. The little ones love her and we get to have her here for Thanksgiving!. Aspen and Kristen with Thelma.

So this Thanksgiving day, may our hearts be full of gratitude for the adventures and blessings we enjoy. May we cherish the ones who enrich our lives just by being part of us and may we give thanks to our Creator and Lord from whom all mercy and blessings come.
Happy Thanksgiving!

Salt Lake Adventure

I had the opportunity to visit my Jessi and family in SLC/Ogden area. Thanks to Craig & Ariana we had a wedding too. There are lots of photo's here, but I missed lots and lots of photo opportunities because I got so busy visiting I forgot I had my camera.
Doesn't Jessi look wonderful? She picked me up on Thursday night then Friday we started our adventure. WE went shopping of course. Just as we came out of a store- look who was coming in. My brother David and David & Kim & baby Logan. They were killing time before heading to the airport. How often do you meet your brother from California when you are visiting in UT?
Friday evening we went to the Bountiful Temple and then up to Ogden for the family dinner.
I love my family, and you will just have to imagine how wonderful and precious they are- in other words- fun time, no photos. Saturday morning we drove to Ogden (twice) to go to the sealing of Craig and Ariana. She is beautiful. He is handsome. My photos do not do the occasion justice.

Notice the pepper plants and kale in the landscaping. These are some candid snapshots. Mom, Barbara and Trevor- See the cute GP grand kids playing in the back-ground.

It was so fun to have Landon here. He got permission to end his mission in SLC so he could participate in the festivities. Dave, Teresa, Lexie, Landon, David & Kim Price
I met Brett's wife Tammy and Chad's wife Kelly for the first time. This is Brett and Tammy. Please don't be offended if I didn't get your photo - I intended to.
Jessi, Glen, Cody, Keri, David & Kim. Babies are Scott's Maddox and Logan
By the way, Cody is engaged. He left after this to go take engagement photo's. His sweetheart says it's ok to be fuzzy for the photo's. We'll see if he really keeps the beard.

My little sis Lynnette and Chelsey. :) above, below JB, Erin Jessi & James

This is one of my favorite moments. Scott and Dad holding Mom's hand as they left the temple heading for the parking lot.
In the afternoon we went to the "stump" artesian well for Jessi and James to fill up their drinking water jugs. It tastes so much better than city water. No reception photo's either. See Erin's blog for some great photo's. We had a wonderful Sunday. Went to church and helped in the nursery with Jessi. Then drove to Doug & Barbara's for dinner. So yummy. Sorry, no photo. Monday Jessi & I puttered around SLC. We went to the Joseph Smith movie, the museum, shopping, lunch and wound up at the SL Library. James found us there. This is from the roof ramp looking up to the University of Utah.

And then, we had dinner, went to the craft stores and to the airport - where serindippity I sat next to a family in our ward who were returning to Eagle from N.Carolina and another couple from our ward - I must not be a good blogger, I didn't take photo's again.
And Gil met me at the airport so another good trip was completed. Thanks Jessi & James & family = I love you.

Pumpkin Pumpkin Would You Like a Pumpkin?

This year, Gil and I decided to plant a couple of pumpkin plants for the kids to have this fall. What we didn't know is that we would have volunteer pumpkins all over our back deck. That mass of pumpkin vine behind Jake grew up to our sliding glass door.
This beauty that Ellie is checking out was green when it's momma plant died. (In August) Gil put it up by our front door and it ripened to this gorgeous orange. Carter chose it for his jack-0-lantern.


In September we started harvesting. By the wheel barrow full! Stella was helping with these that we picked after the first frost blackened the vines.
We used pumpkins as a back-drop to take birthday photo's. Ellie is checking Bree's pony tails as they played in the pumpkins. In all, we had over a hundred (from big to small) We gave them away, we took them to the office, we insisted all the grandchildren have at least 3 apiece. I started cooking the little ones- we've had pumpkin muffins, pumpkin bread, pumpkin stew, pumpkin dessert, pumpkin dip, pumpkin in the freezer...On the day before Halloween- we carved pumpkins- big and little - happy and sad, scary too. Visiting friends got to carve pumpkins too. (and take them home)

Emma and Aspen helped show off the pumpkins - they lined both sides of the sidewalk.
McKayla chose to be a chef for Halloween. We told her she could cook pumpkin pie!
and now Halloween is over, Bree wouldn't get any closer to the pumpkins than this. Would anyone like a pumpkin?

A Song in My Heart

So my latest favorite hymn in a long list of favorite hymns is How Firm a Foundation. It must be because I have come in contact with it a lot recently. At the Relief Society broadcast when they sang it with the congregation- I teared up especially on the 4th verse. If I knew how to put in links I would link you to the song. For the conference music menu, go to: http://www.lds.org/library/display/0,4945,8261-1-4988-1,00.html
Then we also sang it in conference and the kids have been learning it for their primary programs. It is so fun to have 7 and 5 year olds sing it with gusto. And of course, in our ward, they had the 11 year old boys and their fathers sing the song. It was tender to see these young men on the verge of becoming deacons singing with their dads. Maybe I just haven't paid attention before - It's written as though the Savior is talking to us. (to me)

In case you were wondering, some of my other favorite hymns include: Master The Tempest is Raging (we learned it in Sunday School when I was young-) The Lord's Prayer, The Lord is My Shepherd, O Devine Redeemer, How Great Thou Art, There Is Sunshine in My Soul, etc. etc. Now you know what songs to pick for my funeral.