Granddaughters

Dinner & jamas

Christmas Eve

There's not a snowball's chance

that winter will be over soon. My blog has gone to the beach. Someone should be warm somewhere.

Snow White's house and the Beast's Castle

Mickey

Disney village

Disney Village

The Tree

Clock works, the radio warns "Santa is coming"

Santa's office on the mantel

The tiny TK houses

Thomas Kincade minatures

More Santas

Santas

Village Windows

Santa and friends

Tiny Village

10 Reasons Why My Blog is from November

1-Thanksgiving

2-Getting out my 20 boxes of Christmas decorations

3-Unpacking my 20 boxes of Christmas decorations

4-Packing up my pictures, knick knacks, etc. that aren't Christmas

5-Setting up my Disney trees

6-Setting up my Santa; Mary Englebreit; Mickey collection

7- Setting up my Thomas Kincade minature houses

8-Setting up my villages: Snowmen/animals; Disney; Ski Lodge

9-Decorating my 10 ft tree

10-Spending about 60 hours decorating/shopping/etc.

Tagged

Ok, this is weird but interesting to read about from others. If Susie did it, I had better get to it.

8 Favorite TV Shows (in no particular order):
Dancing with the Stars
Boston Legal (Denny Crane)
NCIS
Grey's Anatomy
Lipstick Jungle
CSI Crime Scene
Private Practice
Eli Stone

8 Favorite Restaurants:
Red Lobster
Johnny Carinos
Cheesecake Factory
California Pizza Kitchen
Mimi's
Texas Road House
Cafe Rio
Little America Cafe

8 Things that happened yesterday:
I slept 11 hours (long Saturday)
Put contacts in for the 2nd time in years
Went to church
Signed up to decorate a table for the social (what was I thinking?)
Worked on my lesson
Read more Mormon Myths
Fed Ashley a bottle
Watched more drama of the Walker Family

8 things I look forward to:
DisneyWorld in '09
Lasik surgery (am I crazy?)
Retiring
Getting out my Christmas decorations
Finishing my Work and the Glory scrapbook
Seeing my grand kids anytime
Wearing a size smaller
Christmas

8 Things I love about Fall:
The smell in the air
The beautiful colors
Pumpkins everywhere
Halloween
Enjoying the harvest
The crisp mornings
Thanksgiving
The Harvest Moon

8 Things I wish for:
To wear a size (or two) smaller
To be healthy
Lasik to be perfect
To stay home
To travel more with Kent
Happy children
Healthy grandchildren
All my family together for Christmas

It was a Happy Halloween

Thanks to Susie for putting this cute picture together. I need her to work on my blog more often.

Braden the elephant

Scary Stuff

Purple People Eater

Sammy the Tigger

Pirate Daniel

Princess Allie

Ashley the Ladybug

Jordan the Dragon

Bryan the Storm Trooper

Zach the Lion-Hearted

Happy Halloween

I love Halloween. Must have started with getting all that candy when I was a kid. I don't like to dress up, but I love to see those that do. I love to go to Albertson's and other stores where the employees really dress up. And just seeing "Little Bo Peep" on Boston Legal makes my point. I love the decorations and the fun stuff, but not the scary nor the bloody. My favorite thing is seeing what my grandkids will be every year. Lynsie is at the creative state, last year she was the "Twister" game, this year, she is the "Purple People Eater." I've had the singing purple little guy for years, he has sung his song since Lynsie was small. I especially love the little ones, how fun they are. Going to Grandma's house before Halloween and showing off their costumes days before Halloween is a tradition. It's hard to get them all in the same place at the same time though.

Bye Bye Flowers

It's time, the flowers are freezing. We can't put off any longer than summer has gone. I took one last picture of my flowers. The tomato plants have frozen and I have a bag of green tomatoes. Halloween is next week, Thanksgiving the week after that and Christmas is right around the corner. I see no reason to complain of Holiday items in the stores, time flies so fast we need to get started as soon as possible. To get the election over and out of the way is one reason I am glad for time flying. But look out world, there is nothing going to be easy coming up. We need to buckle up and get ready for the ride.

R & R

This weekend we were able to take a break at one of our favorite places. We go to Park City in the off season of skiing, as the ski season is $$$$ and summer is $. We have been going to the Silver King since the kids were young. We found it by accident one year when the place we wanted to go was booked. The Silver King is a condo/hotel so some of the rooms are owned. So it is a new adventure everytime we go to see what kind of room we get. They all have jetted tubs, full kitchen, washer/dryer, fireplace. They are nice big rooms. And we get away from the real world and enjoy this old mining town. This room was exceptionally fun, and we were able to participate in the first snowfall of the season. (big whoop) I am so not ready for winter.

Family Pictures

In the role of motherhood, the first major goal is potty training, the second is getting them to stay by themselves in the Primary nursery. Third is the dreaded Family Pictures. When you are a young mother, you worry about clean clothes, spit up, and no one crying. As the family gets older, you worry about clean clothes and everyone showing up. When they grand kids start to come, you worry about clean clothes, spit up and everyone showing up and no one crying. We haven't had an official family picture since 2000. We've added nine more bodies for a mother to worry about, now it's finding clothes that match, so that those who don't know your family as well will know who belongs with whom. Then when you decide to have them outside, you worry about the weather. We have had the driest summer in Salt Lake in my memory. The only other days of rain were the times we tried to go to the zoo as a family. Last Saturday was beautiful. Today it rained until about 7:00 pm, about 12 straight hours. The ones who were on time had exhausted children but the time the whole family was together. And when we did the grand kids, they were all about crying. A typical snapshot of the end of a family get together. So watch for it this Christmas, we'll see if we can find one where we are all reasonably respectable looking. : )

CAROL AND NEIL

SISTERS

It was time for some one on one with my sister. We can go without seeing each other for months but it is like we saw each other yesterday. My big sister is very special to me. (I won't say my older sister, hah). Friday night I flew off to California for a weekend of our favorite thing, shopping! I know, no one is surprised! The great thing about blogs is now you want a picture of the moments of life to save it for yourself. This was a very fun weekend and we literally shopped until we dropped. We then met Roger and Kathy for dinner at Mel's diner, which did seem right out of "Happy Days". We all felt so wild we ended with chocolate cake and sundaes, don't laugh, some days you just need carbs. Neil is a good sport and lets us do our thing, he even ran me back to the store when I had to check out "one more thing". I love their new home, it was the first time I had seen it. I have my own room there and an invite to return anytime. It's a beautiful spot. The weekend went way too fast.

Harmony

Harmony and Tyler came to dinner Sunday. In order to get Abbie, we had to invite the parents. It was great to see them. Tyler is in the waiting game now to see which medical school he will get accepted to. Abbie is 8 1/2 months and a real sweetie. Her and Sammy had a conversation together. She tried to play stacker cups with the boys but couldn't understand why they kept taking them away from her. Abbie was also not used to the noise of 2 other babies and a bunch of cousins. Even though we were missing the boys and their families, everyone had a fun time.

Rexburg Temple

We recently went to Rexburg for a funeral. Kent's sister Corine's husband passed away unexpectantly. We had been at their home exactly one month ago for a Hinckley Family Reunion. Little did we know we would be back in 30 days for Blane's funeral. One of the things we had wanted to do in August was attend the new Rexburg Temple. There just wasn't enough time. We were able to go up in the evening to snap a few pictures, and we remember when it was just an empty lot, and now this beautiful buiding is there. This time we were able to get up early and go to a session before the funeral. This is one of the most beautiful temples I have been inside of. Everything was so beautiful, every detail taken care of. A peaceful slice of heaven on earth.