Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful....beautiful girl

I copied Kalie when it came to naming this post. She used these words written by John Lennon on an instagram photo. I love the words so much that I copied them.

 

So little miss Eva Joan was born on April 10, 2013 at 2:00 a.m. weighing in at 7 lbs and 8 oz.

 

Here are some photos of my latest love:

She has lots of dark hair!

 

 

Mama and Eva.

Grammy and Eva.

 



 

Great-grammy and Eva!

Two perfect little feet with ten perfect little toes.

 

Little Eva is surrounded by three generations of women who love her so much.

 

What a privilege for us to be a part of her life.

 



 

I am so proud of Kalie and the wonderful mother she is to

Isaac and now Eva.

 

I think my heart grew three sizes bigger the day Eva was born...same as when Isaac was born.

 

Hopefully my chest will be able to handle my heart expansions for future grandchildren.

 

#grandchildlovesquared

Blue and Gold 2013

I am the Cub Committee Chairperson in our ward.

 

That means I get the distinct honor and pleasure of planning and putting together the Blue and Gold Banquet every year.

 

In case you don't know, the Blue and Gold Banquet celebrates the birthday of the Cub Scouting program. I just found that out this year. I know. I'm a little slow.

 

This year our committee decided to celebrate with a pirate theme.

 

If you go online, there are many wonderful ideas to copy for pirate decorating.

 

This is what we did:

 

Streamers from the basketball hoop:

Setting up the tables to resemble the oars of a ship:

Decorating chocolate cupcakes to look like miniature ships:

 

And my most favorite...our cubmaster built a plank and the assistant cubmaster constructed a ship out of cardboard. The boys and leaders had to go through the ship and walk the plank in order to get their awards.

 

IT WAS AWESOME!

 

Please let me brag a bit...

And our boys loved the plank. It was the highlight of the night!

I could never have done this amazing Blue and Gold banquet without the help of wonderful leaders.

 

Thank you, thank you!

 

P.S. As a side note, if you ever want to do blue jello in clear cups with swedish fish inside to resemble water, don't. put. the. fish. in. the. jello. They lose their consistency and become super nasty.

 

Just to satisfy your curiousity and because I didn't take a picture of the food, we served sloppy joes, potato salad, fish and chips (goldfish crackers and potato chips) a veggie tray and fruit tray.

 

Super fun and super good.

Easter 2013

Easter Sunday sort of capped off a very busy week.

 

I was in charge of the Blue and Gold Banquet in our ward. We had a pirate theme and it basically turned out awesome.

 

However, when I have something rather large to work on like the Blue and Gold, I tend to have a one-track mind. I can't think about much else.

 

Except one thing, apparently.

 

A member of the bishopric asked me to speak in church on

Easter Sunday.

 

Wow.

 

That is a pretty dicey thing to ask of me.

 

I warned him that it could get ugly up there in front of the microphone. He seemed completely unruffled by the warning.

 

So then I had two things to think and stress about.

 

And then it was Easter.

 

And Brock's birthday.

 

And we needed to plan a delicious Easter meal.

 

And go shopping for all of the above activities.

 

Well, Sunday morning at church came and went and my part on the Easter program wasn't too frightening...for me or the congregation.

 

And then came the good stuff! Hiding eggs! Preparing and eating food! Watching Isaac search for his eggs (hidden by Alyssa outside)! And then watching my kids look forward to the annual money egg hunt!

 

This has become one of my favorite traditions. I know. It doesn't center much on the Savior. But we have a great time and that is important, too.

 

But first, a look at Isaac deep in the search for those eggs:

 

 

My favorite photo...

 

It was so fun watching him RUN from egg discovery to egg discovery. You just don't get tired of it.

 

And then we had the adult egg hunt. Basically we hide money in our eggs. And there is a gold and silver egg that has the big bucks inside. Well, not too big.

 

And I got the idea from my sister, Carolyn, to hide their Easter baskets as well.

 

It creates such drama at our house.

 

Here's Brock looking carefully for that golden egg or the silver one.

 

I missed this face while it was gone for two years. No one poses for the camera quite like Court.

 



And Alyssa could NOT find her basket. I didn't think it was in that difficult of a hiding place. But she was the last to find her basket.

 

I hid it behind the garbage cans in the island. I thought it would be found first. It seemed pretty easy to me.

 

 

Brock helped her to look at it from a different perspective...like down low.

 

The prize eggs were found last. And the thing I found most entertaining was the fact that their hiding places had been looked in several times by these children of mine before they were finally discovered.

 

So now, it is Spring Break and I have taken a mental break as well. I spent Monday pretty much staring at the computer and doing very little besides the laundry.

 

It was sort of my day to put my brain back together. And now I think it's back!!

 

Watch out!

Thirty

Thirty.

 

Thirty years.

 

A third of a century.

 

That's a lot of water underneath the bridge.

 



 

Boyd and I have been married for 30 years.

 

It's hard to believe that much time has passed me by.

Am I really that old?

 

Do I really have 4 adult children?

 

Have I really been married longer than I have been single?

 

Yes!

 

And I have the most awesome husband around with four of the most delightful children walking the earth.

 

And let's not forget the grandchildren...almost 2 of them.

 

They are the gravy on the mashed potatoes of life.

The hot fudge on a french vanilla sundae.

The heated mattress pad on a memory foam mattress.

You know, taking something great and adding to it.

 

Yes, it has been 30 years and I am blessed.

 

Thank you Boyd.

 

Thank you God.

Soldier Hollow

One day I got a wild hair. Why not try cross-country skiing? After all, it looks easy...kinda like walking with skis on.

 

Right?

 

Not quite.

 

I also had a secondary motive. I hadn't seen the sun in weeks and it was starting to get to me. I needed sun! Vitamin D! Shadows!

 

I called my brother, Jon, and we set up a date to go and take a lesson and try our hand at a new craft.

 

We took a one hour lesson with a great instructor and then she left us to our own devices. When she left us to go back to the lodge, I felt panicky. It felt like I was letting my mama leave. I wanted her to hold my hand, encourage me and make sure I didn't fall.

 

My confidence was shaken and I spent the next hour slipping, sliding and falling on my fanny. I was getting pretty frustrated.

 

Jon and I took a break and this is when we took a couple of pictures.

 

Had I been by myself, I would have gone home right then and there. However, since Jon had not only invested money, he had invested time, I felt I should give it another go.

 

Wow.

 

I did worse than before. I kept falling and my confidence was completely gone.

 

Jon suggested that we try skiing in the tracks to see if things would go better.

 

And then the day changed. I could stay upright for longer than 5 seconds! I was able to work on my form! I wasn't fighting my skis that wanted to point out instead of straight!

 

And I got the most serious aerobic workout of the winter. After an hour of practicing in the tracks I was exhausted and ready to go home. Plus I was so hungry I felt like I could eat the paint off the walls.

 

I am pretty proud of myself for trying something new.

Will I go again?

 

Most likely.

 

And Jon and I had a blast! Thanks for going with me.

Sweethearts Dance

Wait. When did this happen?

Alyssa's cute boyfriend, Nate.

Halloween? Really? Yes! Because I'm Awesome Like That

I decided to look through some of my pictures and rediscovered these from Halloween.

Such a wonderful day we had.

We spent the whole day playing and having fun and preparing for trick-or-treating that night. We carved pumpkins, made a spooky meal and got ready for the evening's festivities.

 

Here are some of our pumpkins. They turned out super fabulous this year. I have always wanted to try putting Christmas lights in my pumpkin. I cleaned the guts out of my pumpkin, got out Boyd's trusty drill and started drilling holes everywhere.

Then I stuck one Christmas light through each of the drilled holes. The effect was, in my humble opinion, simply marvelous.

Isaac was dressed like a skeleton this year. Words can't quite describe how adorable he was.

 

Just take a peek for yourself:

Sheer joy.

 

And a reminder note to self:

 

Halloween 2013, dog goes to kennel overnight. The barking at the doorbell got on everyone's nerves so bad we were ready to sell him.

 

Oh. And he HATES scary movies. He is worse than me.

 

Never. Again. Will. He. Be. Home. On. Halloween.

The Final Frontier.....A New Shed

Built exclusively by my amazing husband with help from yours truly.

This shed was a kit. We bought it from the Lifetime Store at the beginning of the summer with hopes of completing it before the snow began to fly.

There were four boxes in all, full of shed pieces. Instructions? Yes! A picture book. No words, just pictures. And those pictures required great thinking skills by all involved.

We started early on a chilly Wednesday morning thinking that for sure we would have the shed completed by early evening.  But when we couldn't figure out exactly how to lay the floor pieces...the very beginning of the shed, we got worried.

We called the customer service line, got some instructions and off we went. We were cruising along. However, these things take time and when it began to get dark Wednesday evening and we weren't done, we felt a little panicky. After all, there was a wild and wicked storm brewing.

Boyd made arrangements to take Thursday morning off so we could finish.

Thursday morning we were having problems with the roofline over the door. It just didn't fit right. My suggestion was to leave it and fix it after the storm was over. Boyd would have none of that.

He walked into the house and arranged for a couple more hours off of work and thought about our problem. He came outside with a solution. We had to unscrew some trusses and remove part of the roof and saw exactly what the problem was.

Once we fixed everything, the shed came together fast and almost perfect. I am so proud of both of us. And even more proud that I only said two naughty words to Boyd......

He didn't say any, which shows you what a better person than me he is.

Yet Another Home Improvement Project

In addition to putting a fence around our back yard, we decided to add some more driveway to the side of the house...an RV pad of sorts.

We offered all the grass on the side of the house to our neighbors IF they would come and get it themselves. Best idea ever. They cut it with a sod cutter and hauled it all over to their yard and we both got what we wanted.

Then we found an amazing company to pour our cement.

They prepped our back yard to pour a pad for our shed and also got the area on the side of the house ready...complete with a drain from the house and 4 inches of gravel.

The day finally came when they were ready to pour.

These guys literally wheelbarrowed the cement to the back corner of our yard, dumped it out and came back for more. It was grueling work.

Filling in our shed pad one wheelbarrow at a time.

Pouring the last of the side driveway.

The Paget brothers did such a great job. We love our driveway so much.

We went from one adult child living at home to three adult children, all with their own cars. We poured this extra cement just in the nick of time. There is room for everyone to park.

The only bad part is that it has tripled our snow shoveling this year. We have shoveled our brains out and are now running out of spots to put the snow.

We are so tempted to buy a snowblower, but then...it might never snow again.

A Little Reminiscing

We have waited a long time for a new fence.

The horrible wind storms a year ago made it necessary to consider this matter carefully.

I knew one thing:

I only wanted my brother, Jon, to do the fence for me.

He hesitantly agreed and began the arduous labor of preparing for the foundation of the fence.

He and a friend literally dug out BY HAND a one foot wide and 1-2 foot deep trench all the way around the side and back of our house.

He worked like a dog.

Finally the day came that we could pour cement.

The pump truck driver came first and began setting up his hose.

Then the cement truck came.

And finally, here is Jon, his friend, Trent, and my nephew, Paul setting the posts in the cement.

Jon made those posts PERFECTLY level.

It was a long, difficult process, but they got it done.

When there isn't 3 feet of snow in my backyard, I'll post a picure of the finished product.

It is spectacular and worth the wait.

In other news, I have loved going through my pictures in the fall and seeing green grass.

It gives me hope of spring coming....