A Valentine Sunday!

One of the things I like to do is make Valentine gifts for the Grandkids. I keep trying to simplify, but it is so hard. At least I am getting to where I can do mostly the same for each child with a few differences pertaining to age and gender. Anyway, here are my packages made up. Doesn't it look festive. Since it was Sunday this year we had them all come to our house for a dessert and visit.All my Girls and their bright faces. They were so excited to open their bags.Then there are the Grandsons. Aren't they all a good looking lot.I love them all and isn't Valentines Day a good way to show it? My Mom came over too and we all got valentines from each other. It was way fun. I got flowers, chocolate covered strawberries, a plant and cookies. It was a fun evening. Here's Mom showing off the Chocolate Covered Strawberries that she got from Jacqui. They were scrumptious.Next we piled all the kids on the couch with me and got some pictues. It's always hard to get squirming kids to settle down. But I wanted one with just me and my Grandkids. I should have grabbed Derek to come in, but alas it didn't happen. Oh well, another time.

A Whole New Look!

Well our poor little sofas in the Front room had taken a beating over the years from our dog and time. Anyway, we have been looking for months trying to find something we liked, but everything out there was overstuffed, brown or tan sofas. I really liked the look of my sofas. So one day, Derek came home with a solution to my dilema. We should reupholster them. I was a skeptic, because they weren't really expensive sofas when we bought them and I didn't think they were worth it. So we had the people who would do the job come and look at them to see if they were worth doing. They said the frames were good and sturdy and since they were the style we wanted, why not. So the next objective was to find a fabric we wanted. Guess what! Dark green is not in style right now. I could have gone for a moss green or a light green, but that is not what I wanted. So after much deliberation we went in a whole different direction than what I was expecting.We went blue. Now that was a whole different direction. Now I am in the midst of making everything go together. I hate decorating. But the reupholsters did a great job and they feel like brand new couches. I just have to get used to the new color.

January Birthdays!

So we gathered on Derek's birthday to celebrate his and Alan's birthdays. I felt bad because I was pretty laid up and wasn't able to do much. It fell on Family Night so we were able to order pizza, so nobody had to do any cooking. Others helped out with salad and cake, so it made it an easy party.Alan checking out his presents. The kids are so curious too.Papa investigating his gifts with the grandkids help. I think they all want to open the presents too.Lex expressing his joy because Papa brought out presents for everybody else.All the grandkids got something from their Grandpa - He likes to give on his birthday. And of course everybody loves that too.Happy 25th birthday to Alan - I can't believe is a quarter of a century old. I won't mention how old my Hubby is, but he is still young at heart:)

A Stupid Accident!

So as most of you all know I hurt my ankle. I was just going down the stairs in the garage on my way to fetch my Mom to go to the Temple and as I put down my foot on the floor it just rolled and then I turned the other foot at the same time and completely fell on the Garage floor. Thankfully I had my phone in my purse and was able to call my Mom and have her come over and help me. I was afraid to move (I was a little hysterical because it hurt a lot.) Jeph was in the shower and wouldn't answer the phone and Derek was out of town. Mom came quickly and Julia was with her and they fetched Jeph out of the shower and He ran over and got a neighbor to come help me into the car so they could take me to the Hospital.Well, I didn't break my ankle, but I did have a fracture, which happens when the tendons and ligaments pull a piece of the ankle bone away. Thank goodness I didn't need to have surgery to put it back, because it was still in place. They fitted me with a boot and sent me on my way.It was pretty ugly bruising and it took awhile for me to be able to put some weight on it, but it took a couple of weeks for me to feel like going out and still some more time to get the boot off.I am still healing, even after 2 months it is still really stiff, but I am walking on it alright, but I am really careful how I walk on it.I am doing excercises to strengthen the ankle and I am hoping things will get better. I am sure they will, but I also know it will probably take a while for it to be back to normal. Oh well. I had a lot of things on my plate when it happened and I had to just let it slide and let others take care of things. That was hard.

Connor Turned 6 Years Old!

Finally it was Connor's turn for our Date. He was ecstatic. We got our Ice Cream and I enjoyed our talk there.I asked him where he wanted to go to get a toy, and he was very insistent that we went where there were toys in front. At first I wasn't sure where he was talking about, but then I realized he wanted to go to K-Mart where they have the rides out front. And he wanted to go on all of them.Me and Connor. Aren't we cute? Hee HeeSeriously look at those eyes. Doesn't he have my blue eyes?He knew exactly what he wanted, when we went searching for toy. I think he got the same thing last year or something like it. Too funny.The boys showed me their bears in the Star Wars outfits.Grandma and Grandson. Happy Birthday Connor. I love doing this with the grandkids. It is so nice to get to know them better.

New Year's Eve

We started out the evening going to eat Chinese. We had Dan & Alicia's family and Jeph come with us, and we were able to have Denise & Don and family and my Mom. We have tried to make this a tradition for New Year's eve, ever since we were married because the first time my Husband met my family was at a Chinese Restaurant on New Years (which my family started doing way before I was married) So we thought we would make it a tradition, even when it was even just Derek and I.Dan, Alicia and the boys.Garrick just barely peeking over the table top.Denise, Don, Matthew, Robert and Mom. Of course we had to get pictures with the hats and horns.

Birthday Celebration on New Year's Eve
Since Haden and Connor both have birthdays so close to the New Year, we took the opportunity to give them their gifts and sing Happy Birthday. Haden got his Star Wars outfit for his Bear.Connor's birthday was coming up, but we celebrated early and he got his Star War's outfit for his bear too.Blowing out the candles.After the restaurant and birthday celebration, we settled down and played some games. It was a lot of fun. Garrick was just starting to get around on the floor and he found his dad's leg under the table and it was just so cute, I had to take a picture.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
Toasting to the New Year. Hope it is a good one.Denise and Don enjoying a little bubbly (sparkling apple juice)A kiss for Good Luck for the New Year.Hope all of you had a good New Year's Eve and hope it has gone good for you so far.

Haden turns 4!

Haden was happy to go out with his Grandma for Ice Cream on his birthday. He got the first Ice Cream he tried. He didn't even want to try anything else. I just love to have some one on one time with my grandkids. They just open up a lot more when there is no competition.The kids always want a turn on the ride in front of the store, even though it is freezing. Funny thing about Haden was as soon as he got on one and it started he was finished and wanted to go on the next one. I made him finish out the ride though.We looked high and low for something he wanted that fit in the budget I set. He found these cars and was delighted.
As soon as we got home, Connor was into the bag to see what Haden got. You see when I picked up Haden, Connor wasn't too happy to be left behind and burst out with the most unhappy face and wail I had seen. He didn't realize that in only a couple of days we would have our date.I just love my Grandkids. They are so cute and fun.

Disney World!

Right after Christmas Derek and I decided to get away from the cold and Derek needed to get some miles so he could be bumped up to the next level on Delta. Anyway, we decided to fly to Florida and spend a couple of days at DisneyWorld. We started at Disney's Hollywood Studio. The Magic Kingdom was closed because of the crowds by the time we got there that day. Doesn't he looked good with his hat.
The first thing we did was go to the "Tower of Terror". I had never been there before, so I wanted to try it out. Loved it. I kind of like that stuff. I laughed so hard.Of course we did the tour and that is always fun. They like to show the special effects. It was so crowded that we had a hard time getting into some of the shows and rides, but we got to see enough.We weren't exactly warm though. As the sun went down it got a little cold.They had one show called the American Idol experience. People try out during the day and if they make it they get to perform in one of the shows, the audience immediately votes and we know the winner instantly at the end of the show and then at the last show of the day all the winners perform and the grand winner gets to perform in front of real American Idol judges at one of the auditions. Anyway, it was fun.Right before we left for the day, I dragged Derek back to this area where I had seen all these lights draped on the buildings, and I knew they would be lit up, and boy they sure were. In fact it was a light show.Here is a little video to show you.


The MAGIC KINGDOM
The next day we got up extra early so we were sure to get into the Magic Kingdom part of Disney World. We forgot that you had to ride a ferry over from the parking lot to the actual park. We were on one of the first ferry's over.
We rushed in to get our fast passes to Thunder Mountain and while we waited we ran over to Space Mountain and there wasn't much of a wait, so we went on that. A nice guy in line who was a fan of Disney, gave us some much needed advice on how to navigate the park. He was kind enough to take our picture. Of course I had to get a picture with the castle.After Space Mountain, we ran over to use our Fast Passes at Thunder Mountain and found out it was closed, urgh! Well, since Splash mountain was right next to it, we decided to go on it because the wait time was only 20 min. We didn't know we were going to enjoy one section for 20 minutes. The computer went out while we were inside and everything came to a halt, thank goodness they turned the music off, because after about 5 minutes of that I was about to tear my hair out. All the logs jammed up and we just had to sit there. But we did get an extra fast pass out of it (which we didn't end up using, Oh well)
Thunder Mountain finally opened and we got to enjoy that. By now my poor feet were developing some blisters and it was excruciating. (Never wear new shoes to something you have to walk a lot in.) We had seen everything we wanted at Magic Kingdom and since we didn't have little kids with us, that was just about what was left to see.

EPCOTT CENTER
So we took the Monorail over to Epcott. It was way crowded there too, so we didn't get to go on some of the most popular rides, (2 and 3 hour waits) but we saw enough in the half day we were there. One of the coolest things we did was go on this thing where you designed your own ride and then they put you in this machine, the seats were like this below. The seats were hooked on a hydrolic arm and it just swung you around up and down and upside down however you designed your ride. You were looking at video representation as you moved so you felt like you were really on a ride. It was way cool. When we were about to step in the guy looked at us and said "You do realize that you are going upside down 4 times" He must have looked at these old people and thought we were crazy. But I loved it!
Well, by the end of the day I had 5 blisters on each foot and was ready to collapse in a nice hotel room, which I did.
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The next day we slept late and went shopping at some outlets and then took off to go home. It was a quick trip, but it was fun.?