Happy Birthday, Dad

I miss you......

God saw you were getting tired

And a cure was not to be.

So he put his arms around you

And whispered, “come with me.”

With tearful eyes we watched you suffer

And saw you fade away;

Although we loved you dearly,

We could not make you stay.

So when we saw you sleeping

So peacefully from your pain;

We could not wish you back,

To suffer that way again.

A golden heart stopped beating,

Your hard-working hands were at rest.

God broke our hearts to prove to us

He only takes the Best.

Author Unknown

Happy Mother's Day!

 

Happy Mother's Day to my wonderful Mom.

This picture is one of my favorite memories growing up. When lilacs were in bloom, I would come home from school and there would be a lovely vase of lilacs in my room. They smelled so fragrant and made me so very happy. To this day, whenever I see or smell a lilac, I think of this memory. In fact, as I look at the picture, I can almost smell them. Thank you, Mom, for being the sweet, thoughtful, caring Mother that you are. I love you and wish we could be together today.

Temple Pageant

Ty and Tiff invited us to go to the Mesa Temple Pageant with them. It was a perfect evening, with a slight breeze - and of course, the pageant is always fabulous, especially at Easter time to remind of us of the true reason we celebrate Easter.

Elk in Pine

A couple weeks ago, we were at our cabin in Pine, took a little drive and saw these Elk. There were about 8 of them grazing away in this grassy area. We sat and watched them for quite awhile and they were patient with us while we took some pictures.

 Then we drove into another area of Pine - right across from the Ponderosa Market on Hardscrabble and Highway 87, in a big open field, there were about 20 Elk grazing. People had pulled their cars over to sit and watch them. It was an amazing sight! Here's a picture I zoomed in on.

Sadie's Bake Sale

Yum Yum! Sadie had her pre-school bake sale and we were able to go buy some of the delicious cookies from her. She is in the middle with the heart on her shirt - there is quite a glare from the window. The kids looked so cute in their Baker hats. Tiff does this every year for her pre-school. So cute!

Easter 2011

Here are the local grandkids waiting at the back door for their Easter Egg hunt.

Let the hunt begin!

Kylie

Lexi

Sadie

Sam

Brodi

Hannah in her Easter dress

Claire and Ethan weren't in Mesa, but they had an Easter Egg hunt in Iowa. You can see they have coats on! Holly said it was sooooo cold. Claire makes me laugh so hard with her reflector vest. She had it on in every picture, but that's our cute Claire!

And, here is Mr. Ethan with his baseball cap and hood on. So cute!

(His picture turned out blurry because I had to increase the size)

Cute little Madie had her Easter Egg hunt in California - a little bit warmer, but still jacket weather. She preferred eating the candy as she went along!

Hannah's hospital pictures

Here are some pictures of sweet little Hannah at the hospital. Brodi and Sam see her for the first time.

 Papa and Hannah

 Nana and Hannah - or as Brodi calls her "Baby Nana"

 I LOVE THIS HAT that Aunt Megan gave her!

Kids Clubhouse

Welcome to the Kids Clubhouse!  We've had this little house in our backyard ever since we moved in 7 years ago. That's where we stored our Christmas Tree and some other items. When our family was all coming here for Thanksgiving, we decided the kids would love using it as a clubhouse, so we emptied it out and Tiffany found a nice piece of carpet to put in it and walla - the kids clubhouse was created.

The kids had so much fun out there, we wondered why we hadn't done it sooner! At Christmas time, Kylie, Lexi and Sadie decorated it with a Christmas tree, garland, a fireplace - and we put lights all around the outside of it and ran an extension cord from the playhouse to the bedroom window of our house. It was so pretty seeing it lit up at night and the girls were so excited! The girls made a chore chart and all of the older grandkids have a chore - even Claire and Ethan - who live in Iowa. I wish they could be here to play in it with the other kids and do their chores!

At Easter time, the girls were cleaning it up and playing in it. Here is a picture of Sadie washing the windows.

And they even put a note in the window for the Easter Bunny so he wouldn't forget to stop at the Clubhouse.

We love that they love the Clubhouse! It will soon be too hot to play out there, so we'll look forward to next fall when they can create some more fun memories!

Here is a picture of the inside and couldn't for the life of me turn this picture. The garland is still up and so is the fireplace. On the board above the fireplace is where we hung Christmas stockings and Santa even put a couple of things in the stockings! The Easter Bunny didn't put anything inside the clubhouse, but there sure were a lot of eggs hidden around the yard - see next post.