Christmas Memories 2008

This is for everyone who couldn't be with us on Christmas this year. We love and miss you.
On Christmas Eve, all the family came over for dinner and games. I've posted a lot of pictures, trying to get at least one shot of everyone who was there. Here, we're playing the "Famous Names" game :)

After the game was over, we went into the living room to sing Christmas songs.

I think I took these pictures after singing and didn't get a picture of Calvin and Josh shaking the sleigh bells for the songs. They were very cute!

Ben and Carrie played a medley of Christmas songs for us. It was so beautiful!

This is Josh on Christmas morning on his new "snowmobile". He got to go sledding later in the day.

The Busy Ball Popper was a big hit.

There was a major snow storm on Christmas Day. It snowed all day---about 18 inches. Melece, Tyler, Nate and Courtney Jones had to build a snowman---tractor style :) I'll have to post a finished picture later. (See Tyler's blog)

In spite of the blizzard, Charlotte and Jon made it home Christmas night for Sammy's birthday party.

Sorry, this is the only picture I got of Charlotte and "Livi" :)

The boys playing with the busy ball popper.

Sam playing with the toy vacuum :)

Thanksgiving 2008

I haven't been able to download any pictures since my external hard drive died just before Thanksgiving. But Tyler finally helped me re-install the driver or something to make it work, so I just got these pictures.
It wouldn't be Thanksgiving with out the Ribbon Jello salad!

Visiting in the office---the kid's art table in the background :)

After dinner, Grandpa, Tyler, Melece and Felicia went out to work on the house. Everyone else went across the street to play Frisbee on the soccer field. Actually, I think Todd was watching a football game :)

Char and "Livi" :) It was a beautiful day----hard to believe it was the end of November.

After playing Frisbee, we all went to the park. Sammy loves a good swing!

Ben, contributing to the delinquency of minors :)

See what happened? :)

Carrie and Josh enjoying a turn on the slide.

Ben and Carrie brought me this matching necklace and bracelet for my birthday. I pays to post your birthday outfits on the blog!

Blast from the Past Photo of the Day

Happy Birthday Tyler! 29 years old today!

Lee's Holiday Food Show Nov. 2008

Dad hauled our 2 life size Nutcrackers to help decorate the store. First I went around without a cart to sample everything. I was just "here for the food". I actually went for lunch---very good!---then I got a cart and did my shopping. All in all it's not a good day to get groceries. You've never seen a store so crowded. But hey, I had to support the event :)

The deli served soup in a little bun, so dad was busy keeping up with the little bread bowls.

This is Dad bagging/baking french bread which was on sale that day and going fast. He worked all the night before to keep ahead of the sales.

"Extras" were hired for the 4 hours of the food show. Joyce did a great job with the breads and jam and honey butter :)

The chandelier is from props from the theater. It added a festive touch to the displays :)

Painted

Work on Tyler's house continues----this is what dad looked like after painting the prime coat on the garage, laundry room and bonus room last week.

Birthday November 3rd

We went out to dinner for my birthday, but of course I forgot to take the camera. So, I had dad take this picture after we got home-----I guess that's as good as it gets :)

Dad surprised me by going shopping for my birthday without me knowing it. He gave me this skirt, top, and sweater. I don't have anything in those colors so it was fun "fashion showing".

After dinner we went to the mall and found this jacket and shell to make another outfit. I was most excited that the jacket fit without any "fixing" :) Also, the top shrunk so I don't have to fix it either!

Halloween

I took this picture of dad at the bakery, after he'd been up all night. He's just getting ready to dye this dough orange for pumpkin bread bowls.

Josh wanted his hair pink like grandpa's.

May-Bell, the substitute school secretary, stopped by Halloween evening. What you can't really see is her great halloween socks and her new shoes with the strings still attached :)

Happy Halloween! aka "Donut Day from Hell"

I went to 6 stores today after work, trying to find pink hair color spray. All the employees at Lee's are supposed to dress up for Halloween and Dad decided to be "Pink Floyd". I dyed his clothes and he painted an old belt and shoes this evening. It's 11pm and he just left for work, for a graveyard shift after working all day today. Happy Halloween!

Past Events

I haven't blogged for awhile because I didn't get any pictures of Brayden's baptism luncheon with all the relatives, and I forgot to take pictures of the Laurel Conference dinner that dad and I had to do last Friday. But here's some past activities that no one blogged :)

Tyler invented this mortor squirty gun thingy to squirt the wet cement into the cracks between the rocks.
He shoveled the cement into the tube, then packed it in.

Then he hooked it up to the air compressor and squirt it in. I think the other option was a "pastry bag" set up. I think Tyler's invention worked better :)Here's the detail on the front porch posts.
Melece put a lot of work into our Relief Society Super Saturday. Here's the pumpkin centerpiece she made for the luncheon table.

My Vacation!

I got to spend almost 2 weeks with Felicia's family. We worked cleaning and organizing the unfinished basement. Here's the boys just before going to church the first Sunday. So handsome!

I took a break from cleaning one day and came upstairs to find this---one picture is worth a thousand words :)

I cleaned up the downstairs bathroom/laundry room by finding a folding door in the back room, setting it on the vanity box, and covering it with a vinyl table cloth. Now there's a place to fold the laundry.

The previous owner left a lot of stuff including this mirror which goes to the head board of the bed frame. Felicia and I set it on the door, so now I had a place to do my hair! (The little legs fit nicely in the groove of the door to keep it from slipping :)

Here's Todd "messing up" my clean bathroom/laundry room :) Actually he worked very hard one Saturday framing in the shower and window wall. He did a nice job cleaning up also :)

By the time I left, Dilly was very good about playing with a toy, then putting it away in the bin and asking for another toy while we were working :)

Here's the finished ceiling in the quilting room. The hard part was I had to use both hands to use the staple gun, so I had to let go of the fabric. But we got it up as best we could. At least it's better than before!

Here's the Roman shade I made for the back door.

This is a picture of the boys the morning I left. It was hard to say good-bye!