Sweet Eden's #8

Had a fun evening celebrating with Eden up in Cedar.  Can't believe she's getting so big and so girly. Jewelry, clothes, boots, and fake nails and something cute to keep them in and all wrapped up so prettily.  And there was a cute flower cookie/cake frosted pink, of course!  So glad we could join your party Eden.  We love you gobs!

The birthday girl gets a special plate, glass and giant silverware too.

After the birthday dinner it was time for presents! Zion loved helping out with all of the wrappings.

Making the frosting and decorating the cookie/cake and the traditional candle blowing picture!

Happy 2015!

Life has been pretty restful around here since Christmas...and I'm not complaining.  We've just been chilling (literally since we are heating only with the fireplace which works really well in the kitchen area but leaves the bedrooms just a bit cool) and recuperating.  Paul is doing really well and has even finished up his physical therapy in record time.  Many blessings in that area.  We ate some treats and played some games with Ferf and kids until they left to take Brynnli to her first New Year's Eve dance.  She was so excited!  I can't even remember if we did anything great on New Year's Day, but I am happy that during this time off school I have caught up on almost all of my paperwork and got the house cleaned!  Paul has been doing little honey dos around the house too. We didn't make it to Aunt Venna's funeral - just not a great time for a very long drive for Paul nor a very long drive for me with no relief driver.  We went to a good movie that we had read the book of.  So, tomorrow it will be time to get back at it.

Bean left a surprise greeter for us for New Year's Day (and we snuck it down into his closet to greet him when he got out of the shower!).  And snow that started the evening before brought us a white surprise in the light of day.  

I met Kenny Poulsen (Venna's grandson) at a stake baptism here in St. George the day after her funeral.  He shared this program.  We will miss Aunt Venna, but at 103 I'm sure she was glad to move on to the next chapter.  

Stoning the Smiths!

Juge, Lance, Moss, Supe and Paul spent some time helping Weed and Derek with their stone project during the Christmas break.  They made really good progress!  Kaebri, Tasia and Eden kept the younger set happy inside.  Great work everyone!  (I stood around watching and taking pictures and then got leftover Christmas stuff ready for lunch.)

Weed, Juge, Paul, Weed and Supe, Moss, Lance, Supe, Paul Supe and Derek (doing his trademark nosepicking pose).  

Christmas 2014

The Christmas Eve dinner - the Lillywhites and Grandma

Christmas day at the house 

Supe and Beacher

Grandma, Bean and us
After presents and breakfast we took Grandma and went to visit the in town families.

The Smiths

The Lillywhites

The Borrowmans

In the afternoon the Weavers braved the snow and came down from Cedar to visit
join the dinner get together.

We had planned to drive up to see the Randall's Christmas day, but a snow storm kept us away.   The day after Christmas when the snow had slowed down Lou came down with the kids and we got to give Afton and Ellie their gifts.  Brady, Lou, Joel and Bryan had already gotten theirs. 

Update from Oregon

We sure miss these two, but they seem to be enjoying the adventures of being newly married and living in a new place together! In Beacher's words, "I had the day off today...so Supe and I spent the day dying and weaving these sweaters from the sheep in our backyard."  Can't wait to see these two for Christmas!  

Knee #2 - no more please!

Once again we went to Park City for Paul to have partial knee replacement surgery - this time the left knee.  It was good to do it this year insurance wise and good because when they got in there it was bone on bone again.  Paul is doing amazingly well already and never complains or takes out his pain on anyone.  He was a model hospital patient laughing and joking with all of the staff who worked with him.  (He is trying so hard to make things easy on me.  Again, I am so blessed to have such a wonderful, unselfish man to be married to.)  Things went well and the recovery is looking good. Looking forward to him not having to endure that pain. We are very thankful for the priesthood blessings given and how well things are going.  This one seems to be going even better than the last one so far.  Some of that is experience, but we also need to give thanks for the blessings we are receiving.  So thankful for all of the prayers in Paul's behalf from those who love him.   Hope to be out hiking some again next summer!  

Waiting to go in, after surgery, working with a very enthusiastic PT and the gruesome, stapled incision.  

  

Christmas with the Lillywhites - early!

Jay and Brynn were wonderful hosts as usual.  We stopped in to spend the night on our way up to Park City for Paul's knee surgery.  And, since they can't come down after Christmas with Jay getting his wisdom teeth out the, we decided to bring our Christmas to them early.  They brought theirs to us during the Thanksgiving fun.  They brought us wonderful stuff like homemade fudge and a new State Park's pass, along with a fun handmade Christmas decoration by Brynn a new set of unsticky Rook cards.  They also gave Paul his birthday - an Outback gift card that we used for b-day/anniversary dinner feasting.  Thanks so much!  It was fun to open presents with them up there too!  A few too many surgeries for the normal holiday routine this year for either of us.  

L to R - We met Ella the bunny this time and she got involved by trying to eat gift bags, Jay and Brynn, Tahlia, Essie, Paul and Bonnie with Tahlia and Madi and Madi.  

Happy 40th Anniversary!

As usual, we didn't celebrate our anniversary too much on the very day...November 23rd fell on a Sunday.  We did make time amid the Thanksgiving, Christmas, pre-surgery rush to spend some time together remembering and having fun together.  The evening of the 23rd we decided a good way to remember a wonderful 40 years together would be to look back through pictures from the very beginning.  It was such a fun activity and made us realize what a wonderful 40 years it has been!  We also took time to go out to dinner one evening - kind of a Paul's birthday/anniversary feast thanks to a gift card from one of the kids.  We knew that after Paul's knee surgery he wouldn't be feeling all that great for celebrating, so we planned ahead and went up to a generous friend's cabin at Pine Valley on the Friday/Saturday before the surgery.  Lots of stress from work nearly caused us to cancel, but we were so glad we didn't . It was wonderful. We had such fun spending time together in such a beautiful place.  We walked, we biked, we ate good food, we relaxed!  So thankful for Paul.  He is such a loving, giving, unselfish, makes my life wonderful man!  Of course there have been challenges, but facing them together has made them doable.  So thankful for the blessing of eternal marriage.  

December birthdays!

We have quite a few December birthdays in this family.  First we celebrated Brynnli's #15.  She was a really good sport when one of her presents came in a bacon scented dryer sheets box.  She did seem happy to find that the box actually contained some cash instead!  It is amazing that sweet Brynnli, our first grandchild is already a beautiful 15 year old.  Sort of hate seeing them grow up and coming to that age of so many important life decisions.  But we also love to see them becoming wonderful grown ups making good decisions and developing their character and talents. Keep on being awesome Brynnli.  We love you!

Next in the line up were Paul and Gaige.  We had to do Gaige a little early before Paul's surgery, but I don't think that was a problem for him!  Happy # 62 and #9.  We love you guys!

And we can't forget our Noah boy.  He turned a handsome #6!  It was fun to go up and celebrate with them in Cedar with the Sheffield grandparents.  Noah was excited about his light sabers, Legos and the treasure hunt for his new bike!  Happy birthday Noah.  We love you!   Joel also has a December birthday. The day after Christmas he will be 1, but they have decided that they will celebrate it in April or May I think.

Thanksgiving 2014 - expansion to the church

The time has finally arrived.  We have come to the point where we thought it was time for a bigger venue to enjoy our Thanksgiving feast.  It was hard to take it out of the house, but I think we all pretty much agreed that it was a good thing with a few improvements for the next session in 2016! We had great food and a great time.  We had to leave a bit earlier than we might have liked for another big family to come in, so we did go back to the house for our pie.  It was a fun, and very filling day of it! Of all of the things I am thankful for, this bunch of people is the very top thing on the list along with the blessing of a forever family!  We missed Supe and Beacher, but they were off getting to know a different part of the family!  

Started the day off with a ride on West Canyon Road at Snow Canyon - beautiful and a chance to
pre-burn some of those calories?  

Bryan and Gaige, Derek and Essie, Sarai and Zion, Juge, Brenden and Christie.  

Let the feasting begin!  Eden and Madi, Ellie, Brady, Koen, Trigg and Zade, Ferf,, Torin, Ryan, Kennis, Gaige and Tasia, Kennis, Brenden, Tahlia, Sarai, Brynnli, Tavin and Kaebri.

The feast line up, Eliza and Christie, Essie, Zion.

Fun in the gym, Supe and Beacher, Ahh - time for pie! 
Below - We had our little feast at school on Tuesday.  The kids gobbled it right up!  I am also thankful for the great people and kids that I work with.  

Tavin and Brynnli played at the Santa's Workshop and some of us got to go down and listen to their beautiful music.  We also had a fun day at the park during the Thanksgiving break. It was such nice weather!

Zion, Moss and Eliza, Jay, Brynn and Tahlia in the background

Paul, Madi and Eden, Tahlia and Sarai, Kennis and Gaige, Madi, Eden, Sarai, Gaige, Noah and Sienna, a Sheffield cousin