New Year's Eve 2021...

It was a fun New Year celebration! We had lots of good food! Bill made such a good prime rib for everyone to enjoy! I had lots of snack foods and Martinelli’s on hand to ring in the New Year. We finished a puzzle Brooke had started earlier and played Code Names all before the stroke of midnight. It was drizzly and VERY cold and windy outside when we set off our fireworks! We started a movie, but I headed to bed around 2am! I was too tired to stay up with everyone!  Bring on 2022!

Katelyn's Special Day at the Gilbert Temple!

It was a beautiful day! It was overcast and cloudy and threatening rain, but it was beautiful! It was such a neat experience at the Gilbert temple. Katelyn and I had to leave at 10:45 to be there by noon. We had a nice visit on the way over! It was so nice to have over an hour to just talk about the temple and how special it is! We were able to have a really neat talk together about the importance of what she was about to do and how well she has prepared. When we got there, we had enough time to walk around the grounds and take pictures together. She kept wanting to walk around due to the nerves, but at noon it was time to go in! Everyone was so friendly and helpful. I especially enjoyed talking to the matron—Sister Hill. She was so sweet and explained things so very well! She wanted to answer any questions that Katelyn had, and was so attentive to her needs. I appreciated her kindness and excitement that she felt toward Katelyn! The session was beautiful. I felt such a strong, peaceful feeling. I felt so much love and such a strong sense of peace. I didn’t want the session to end! I remember just wanting it to go on forever. Having all my children together inside the temple was such an amazing feeling! They were ALL there!!!! I am so grateful to have kids who desire righteousness and understand the blessing of the gospel in their lives! That in and of itself is a blessing to me and brings me so much joy and happiness! I felt that in the temple! After the session, we went into the Celestial room and had such a good talk about many of Katelyn’s questions--which she had many of. I felt such a sweet feeling as I pondered the blessings of all that happens in the temple and how the Lord only desires our happiness—to bring to pass our eternal progression and exaltation! It was hard to leave, but after a really long while of talking, we decided we’d better get going. Shelby watched Luke for Megan and Todd and they needed to get back to pick him up. We took a picture outside the temple and headed over to Deseret Book to check on garments for Katelyn. We were only able to get her 5 pair due to the shortages. Turns out this Deseret Book didn’t have ANY of her sizes! She’s going to have to get them up in Utah. I feel really badly that I’m sending her up to school with only 5 pair. She’s going to have to do laundry a lot until she can get a few more!

Katelyn chose BJ’s for dinner! It was soooo good! We went there for both Brooke and McKenzie's endowment too-- I guess it's tradition! It was such a nice day to celebrate!  I love to see the temple, to be inside that holy place and to FEEL the peace that is always there!  (PS: the Phoenix Temple is closed for 2 months for renovations... Katelyn wanted to go through that temple and was disappointed it was closed, but chose Gilbert instead.)  It was a beautiful day! 

 

Skiing in Flagstaff!

Bill, Todd, Megan, Brooke and Katelyn all went to Snowbowl and skied all day today! Our big gift to the family this year was a trip up to Flagstaff to play in the snow and boy did we get snow! We got in yesterday and we leave tomorrow. We are staying in this cute little VRBO rental house! It has literally snowed nonstop since driving into Flagstaff yesterday afternoon! It is so beautiful and so cold. McKenzie and I stayed back at the house and watched Luke all day! I was feeling very under the weather (I caught what Todd had...) and so McKenzie mostly took care of him while I slept all day! I felt so much better by 3pm and got up and helped with Luke. McKenzie was so good with him all day though... I heard her talking to him so sweetly! He was so good for us all day! He ate and slept the entire day and was never fussy! Everyone else had so much fun skiing! It snowed literally all day and they had to take a shuttle up the mountain due to poor roads in the canyon. (They were requiring chains or snow tires--which we don't have!) They were cold out there but had a really good time! I’m so glad it was a fun experience for them! They all came home tired and HUNGRY! After much debate about where to go to dinner, the girls won and we decided to go to Olive Garden, but when we got there it was an hour wait! So we went to DiMarco’s Pizza, which was fast, but pretty heavy! It tasted good though and everyone was so hungry! Went to Target after to get some more medicine so I could keep taking Todd’s concoction. I used up all of his medicine today! We came home and watched Ant Man—it was pretty good. There were some board games at the house, and the girls played those for a bit. It was fun to all be together up in such a beautiful white wonderland-- cold wonderland!

Luke's Blessing Day!

Well it was a beautiful blessing day! Todd gave a beautiful blessing to sweet Luke and he just stared at his Dad during the whole thing—no crying or whimpering—just staring at his Dad as if he was listening to every word he was saying! (Of course he was!!) So cute!

Todd led the choir in Away in a Manger that we didn’t get to perform last week. After church we took a bunch of pictures. Then I headed home and got the rest of the food and a few things and headed for Megan’s house. It was a yummy dinner! Todd’s recipe for pulled pork was AMAZING! I really like it! We all visited and we played a short game of Shanghai and then a lot of Code Names. Robin left to drive home around 4 when Shelby, Brent and Conner left. We stayed and helped clean up. We left just before 10pm. What a fun day visiting and just being together. Luke is such a sweet little addition to our family! I am grateful for such a wonderful day with family! Luke is a lucky little guy to have the parents he has! It’s been so fun to watch Megan be a mom! Everything is like 2nd nature to her! She is already a wonderful mom! I am so blessed!

Christmas Day!!!

We got to sleep in this morning! Megan and Todd got here around 9 and we took the “peeking” picture before we started opening presents. We had such an enjoyable morning opening gifts and laughing and enjoying being together! We finished opening presents around 11 and had our traditional German Pancakes or “Hootnanny”. We enjoyed doing a big puzzle, which ended up missing 2 puzzle pieces, and Dad got everyone these really hard puzzles in their stockings—so they enjoyed trying to put those together. Katelyn finally looked up a clue online and was able to complete hers first for a $10 prize from Dad. Later on after we ate leftovers, we went over to Megan and Todd’s to help Megan get the food ready for the luncheon tomorrow. When we got there, she’d already gotten a lot done! Later, Tanner got there with Jim—he flew in tonight for the blessing and leaves tomorrow evening. He didn’t want to miss it! Robin, Shelby, Brent and Conner are also coming to the blessing tomorrow!  Well, it was another fun Christmas in the books!!

Christmas Eve and Luke is 1 Month Old!!

It's Christmas Eve! It rained ALL day! I was planning to do a 9 miler, but it rained too hard and it’s not fun to run in the rain! We did go play pickle ball at the church though, so that was some exercise. We had fun playing "horse" and then "pig" afterward! We got some CUTE 1 mo. pictures of Luke!  I can't believe he's already 1 month old!!  We had a quiet but yummy Christmas Eve dinner just our family and Grandma this year… Robin is with Shelby and the Baldwin’s this year over on that side of town. After dinner, we acted out a live nativity with Luke as baby Jesus! He was perfectly behaved during the whole thing and we got some cute pictures!