Grandkids - It's What Keeps Us Young

I had a goal this last weekend: to get a NICE picture of all 5 grandkids to use on our Christmas cards - now really, who was I kidding????

Before Aleah was born, it was exceedingly difficult to get a good picture of the 4 of them - add one more (and a BABY at that!) and I think it's nearly impossible!! Because Rayna had to hold Aleah, there was no one to hold Mackenzie!!! And there was no way she was going to sit still on that step!

Below are the 2 BEST pictures of the bunch - can you imagine what the others look like?? Kylan and Evan just crack me up - in the first picture, Kylan LOOKS like the perfect poster Sunday School kid!!! And I'm not sure WHERE Evan is looking........... Evan's expression on the 2nd picture is hilarious!! SO needless to say, there won't be any pictures on our cards of the grandkids!

A funny story that happened at Brad's graduation - it was VERY difficult to try and keep the 4 kids QUIET and entertained during graduation. When one of the speakers got up to speak and stepped to the microphone, she said "Hello Everyone" and Evan (who happened to be listening at that point) waves his hand and yells out "Hi" to her!

A little later Evan was not being very quiet so I grabbed one of the books out of the diaper bag and started slowly turning the pages of the book - Evan would look at me, then down at the book, then back at me and finally he yells out, "TALK" "TALK"!! Jessi and I got the giggles and couldn't stop laughing, especially when Kylan leans over from his mom's lap to grab the book and toots!! Then Jaime joined us in our silent laughter - oh my, what a night..................

Aleah's Baptism!

IF Saturday was beautiful, Sunday was PERFECT! It was Aleah's Baptism Day!

Little Aleah looked so precious in her baptismal gown - and the special part ? It was the same gown that Jill wore when she was baptized, 29 years ago!

Jaime, Brad, Jessi and Gary were sponsors but unfortunately just the girls could be here as Gary was working and Brad was hunting (he left right after graduation on Friday night!) It was a wonderful church service and Aleah was an angel during her baptism!

After church several friends along with all of our family headed back to Jill's for a great meal and some fun fellowship! The little ones could even play outside due to the nice weather which helped the noise level somewhat in the house!

I couldn't believe how FAST the day went, in fact the whole weekend! And before we knew it, it was time to drive back home after another fantastic weekend!

Ft. Collins Fun!

After Brad's graduation on Friday night, we headed on up to Ft. Collins for the weekend! It was time to spend some quality time with Aleah!

Saturday dawned just beautiful! You would have thought it was the middle of summer! So while Jill worked in the back yard, I brought Aleah outside to enjoy the sunshine! She loved being outdoors lying on her blanket in the grass!

Bathtime was fun! Aleah was all smiles when I was snapping pictures and as you can see, she's at that cute chubby stage! Half the fun is picking out an outfit for her to wear - and yes, most of those outfits hanging in her closet are pink!!

Grandma Bev babysat Aleah so we could take Jill and Robby out for their belated anniversary dinner! They chose Texas Roadhouse which is one of our favorites too and we all pigged out and ate way too much! So how could we possibly eat brownies and ice cream while we later watched a movie??? I have no idea............

Congratulations Brad!

We're so proud of Brad who graduated Friday night from the Denver School of Massage Therapy! He's been hitting the books hard for an entire year along with doing lots of clinic massages for practice! We all cheered loudly when he was handed his diploma! Great job Brad

Pajama Party

It really WASN'T a pj party but it sure looked like it!! Glenn and I are heading to Mexico in 10 days and needed a little "color" before we headed out!! Our neighbors graciously offered to let us use their stand-up tanning booth which is set up in their garage - since we're so close to leaving, I'm sure the little bit of time we'll spend in the tanning booth won't do a lot of good but just a little tan will at least help!

So picture this: Glenn and I in our bathrobes and flip flops, traipsing across the back of our property to the neighbors house with flashlight in hand (as it's dark), tapping on their sliding glass door to let them know we're headed to their garage, and the neighbors who are in THEIR pajamas greeting us! Like I said, it certainly LOOKED like a pajama party but in all fairness, it wasn't!

Pumpkin Fun

It was Pumpkin Patch Weekend in Denver - and Jaime needed a babysitter for Saturday so I headed to Denver after work on Friday! I can't believe what good time I made - for ONCE the traffic was light!

But the Pumpkin Patch was NOT to be - we all woke up to very cold and snowy weather! Just the thought of dressing kids in heavy coats, mittens, and hats (not to mention us ADULTS dong the same) and walking around in 19 degree weather made me cold!! So Jessi and her kids came on over to Jaime's and we had our own pumpkin party!! We dressed the kids in orange, decorated pumpkins and made a pumpkin cake - yes, it was YUMMY!!

The boys had a ball painting on the pumpkins, even though the paint didn't stick very well, but at least the clean-up was easy since it was washable paint!

I spent a nice afternoon with Kylan and Rayna and was ready to hit the road by 5:00! I went out to start the car early since the ice on the windshield was about an inch thick and started packing up when I realized there was a message on my cell phone - it was Glenn - telling me the roads in Colorado Springs were NOT good - in fact, there had been a 50 car pileup on the interstate that morning and when Glenn left to go to Colorado Springs, he counted 20 cars in the ditch on the way down the pass!! Goodness - there was NO WAY I was starting out in that kind of road conditions! So another night spent in Denver which was fun since I got to spend some extra time with Jaime who had worked all day!

Sunday the roads were better so I met Glenn in the Springs and we headed to Pueblo - our grandchild Nedelle from Iowa was in the area for a week so we picked her up and took her to a movie that afternoon, Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs!! It was a cute movie and she enjoyed it - the movie is 3-D but the theater we saw it in wasn't - but I can sure see how fun it would have been to do that! After a stop for some ice cream, we delivered her back to her mom and headed home - only to find a message on our recorder that our seasonal neighbors had invited us over for wine and dessert!! They were heading out the next morning and wanted to thank Glenn for draining water pipes a couple of weeks ago so we headed across the road to their place and spent an hour with them! FINALLY we were home to stay - with another fun weekend under our belts! But unfortunately with the knowledge that we would have to work ESPECIALLY hard this next week to catch up before the next weekend rolls around!!

A Weekend At HOME!

It's getting bad when you're totally excited about spending the weekend at HOME! The past few weekends have been so busy that I was extremely content to know that there were no major weekend plans - or so I thought!

Did I accomplish anything over the weekend? ABSOLUTELY! I had my list made and I crossed off those items just as fast as I did them! Besides the dozens of little things that I did, the major accomplishments were:

1) Defrosting the freezer (even though it's a self-defrost, it had ice built up from Glenn freezing tons of ice for his hunt) and re-organizing

2) Cleaning out the pantry

3) Putting the summer clothes away, winter clothes out, and cleaning out our bedroom closet and under the bathroom sink

4) Dusting and vaccuming all 3 levels

5) 4 loads of laundry

6) Re-organizing the storage room (because you couldn't even walk in it anymore!)

If it sounds like a lot, believe me, it WAS!! But it was done over the course of Friday night, Sat. and Sunday!

Glenn was doing a granite job at our neighbors' and since he had the kitchen tore apart, she couldn't cook so brought home KFC and invited us up to eat with some other neighbors - all right, no cooking THAT night!

Saturday night we had made plans to go with 7 other couples from our subdivision to Colorado Springs for dinner - we rode with neighbors and ate at Edelweiss - a German restaurant - excellent food - a very loud and boisterous place!! So again, I didn't have to cook!

And Sunday evening, we were invited over to Martin and Joleen's for a turkey dinner - can you believe it, again NO COOKING!

I did make a pot of chile and a dessert during the day on Sat. since we had help hired Saturday for the granite install. And the leftovers tasted just great last night! I really should break down and cook dinner tonight but since it's "girls night out", that just isn't going to happen!

A Not So Great Way To End The Month!

September 30th kept creeping closer and closer - it was the day I had booked for the dentist to pull my tooth!


I don't have good teeth at all - not that I don't take care of them because I do - guess it's a hereditary thing. But needless to say, at my last dentist appointment a couple of weeks ago, I told the dentist that I had a tooth that was bothering me when I drank or ate cold and hot things! He took an x-ray and informed me that there was severe bone decay around the tooth - darn it anyway! Of course at this point there are 3 choices: pull it and do nothing, do a root canal and try to save the tooth, or pull it and do a dental implant!

The tooth was at the back of my mouth so that was a good thing! At least it wouldn't really affect my smile if I pulled it! And there was no doubt in my mind that it WAS going to be pulled because I was not going to do a root canal - to me, with my history of bone decay, doing a root canal (which might not even take) was not worth the money! So the decision was made to just pull it and at a later date, think about doing an implant!

So the day arrived and I was more nervous than ever about this tooth being pulled - you see, I've had several teeth pulled ( I wear a partial where the missing teeth were) and I don't usually do very well with them - I almost always ended up with a dry socket and those were painful!

But it actually went VERY well - it's been many years since I had a tooth pulled and I guess with new technology and all, it was a whole lot better than before!! It was fast, easy (the tooth all came out in one piece) and painless - that was the best part!! The dentist showed me the tooth and commented that I made the right decision as the tooth was bad enough that it wouldn't have made it through a root canal - whew! For once, I was right..............

I spent the evening on the couch catching up with some shows and actually watched a movie too! I slept great also and even though I'm not moving as fast today as I normally do, I know I'll be back to normal in a few days!