Happy Birthday Summer!

My oldest daughter turned 29 today. Happy Birthday Summer! She is a super great daughter and I thought perhaps I would list a few of my favorite things about her!

1. The smile! Honestly, you just can't beat her contagious smile!
2. Generous spirit! She is really generous is her giving of time and talents to others.
3. She is a worrier! She worries about Reece. She worries about Joshua. She worries about our family. She worries about her Dad's health. She worries about her young women. She worries about her siblings. She worries about her nieces and nephews. It's all good worry. She just really loves her family!
4. She is a good good mom. Ms. Reece is really blessed to have her as her mom. She is so attentive. She is so patient. She knows hers limits and makes sure that she walks away when those limits are met. She just knows she has the most perfect, most beautiful, most wonderful daughter! She appreciates being a mom so much. After losing two pregnancies she really appreciates being a mom in a different way.
5. She loves to connect with our family. She calls often. She asks about everyone. She loves her sibs, their spouses, their kids, her parents, her grandparents. She writes her 95 year old grandpa who is......well, just really old....a card every so often. He so appreciates that.
6. She appreciates living a clean wholesome life. Nothing else to say about that!
7. She is a good daughter.
8. She is so talented. Crafty. Plays the piano beautifully. And she is the meanest soccer player I ever watched. Mean in a good way of course. I'm pretty sure she talked trash with the best of them in high school! I lived for her games!
9. She doesn't like confrontation. This is mostly a good thing I think!
10. She is so non-judgemental - to a fault! She just doesn't judge people by anything. I think she really respects others and their choice of life-style.
11. Strong sense of right and wrong.

Well, I could keep going with my list. And I'm sure my other kids will expect a list on their birthday too! I hope I remember! Remind me will ya?

Happy Birthday Summer! You are just a blessing in my life. I wish you lived closer. I love you as a daughter, sister in the gospel, and friend!

Love, mom

Not just surviving..........THRIVING!

I had forgotten how much I love being a mom until I arrived in Portland to watch two of my grandkiddies for about a week. I love taking care of them and figuring out what they need and how to make them happy! Here are some of the things we've been up to:

1. Going to Target for popcorn and toy isle looking. I love this because when I was a mom to a bunch of young ones, I could never really take the time to spend an hour just looking at toys. I LOVED it!

2. Playing with toys. I have eaten more meals of pretend food than you could imagine.

3. Playing super-heroes for hours on end. I made them superhero capes. Andi doesn't want to wear hers but Carter won't take his off. He actually wore it over his coat today and he got comments let me tell you! It was so funny. I made him a mask as well so the combination makes him invincible!

4. Going thru the bedtime rituals. Marching to the bathroom for teeth brushing.....singing the same four songs everynight while they fill in the words and run around me in circles. I get corrected if I get the order wrong! 'Grandma, what do you want to sing?' gets asked over and over. If I say the wrong song out of order I get, 'How about ___________'. We kneel for prayer.....this is just such a sweet time. then we sing I am a child of God. Then the lights get turned off, the fan gets turned on. I hear 'Make a silly face'. So I go out of the room and then I open up the door with a silly face. I hear laughter just spilling out of their beds. Priceless............

There are so many other things we've done but mostly it's just been about love. It doesn't really matter what we are doing or how we are doing it or where we are doing it. All that matters is that I am madly in love with my grandbabies - all of them!

Going to Target for popcorn and a lemonade: $3.00
going to McDonalds to play in the playland: $8.00
Buying new toys: $28.00
Being Grandma Z: Priceless

The Annual Palm Springs trip!

Me and Judes have begun an annual tradition of going to Palm Springs the week before spring break. The first year was under the guise of an art show she wanted to check out. However, we discovered that we had missed the art show all together. Now we just go to go! The pictures show you what happens on little sleep, late nights, crocheting, over shopping, and driving around in the convertible all night.............we put on these anti-wrinkle strips thinking we could erase our 'lines'. You be the judge.......

The Harmon Grandkiddies!

Paul had a meeting up in Portland for a day so I tagged along and got one day in with the Harmon family! We played hard for the day. Mac's is always a great place to visit. Carter just loved sitting in Ronald McDonalds lap. He figured out how to climb up all on his own. He was so proud of himself. I had a hard time getting a pic with ms. Andi! She's such a mover and wiggler. She did find a treasure or two on the floor of the playplace. She brought us a piece of chewed gum complete with the longest black hair you could find. For those of you who don't know our family, loose hairs are on the top of the 'nothing grosses me out more than this' list! Thank you to Carter and Andi for being such good sports about going to FAbric Depot. They were perfect angels. We also went to an old pancake house the next morning. It was soooo old. We dubbed it the breakfast shack. I'm pretty sure that the grease they cooked the food in was the original grease from about 1928. It was full plates of just good old food. I felt pretty yucky afterwards...........

The Stewart grandboys!

Ben had a hearing in Medford so he and his family came to visit. Ben's hearing got cancelled so he headed up to Salem until the weekend. So Sharon and the boys stayed and visited for about 5 days and we had such a great time. Ben came over the weekend so it was good to see him too! Never enough time with them! We went to the sports park open gym and let the boys run wild. They really enjoyed it. There weren't too many kids there so they got the run of the field. Grayson just loved the big yoga ball. He bounced and bounced on it. He bounced off of it. It was really funny to watch. Calvin just wanted to do what his big brother did. We went to Mac's and let them run around as well. Grandpa loves to meet up with us there for a little libation and a lot of his grandboys! Gray loves to play at the computer desk. He gets in the desk drawer and organizes things for me. Sounds a bit like his dad to me...........

The Andrus Grandkiddie!

I had such a nice visit with Summer, Joshua, and Reece and Sam and Nikki! I went to Utah in February and spent a weekend with Sam and Nikki and then up to Sumo's house and spent a few days there as well. Ms. Reece is just adorable and it was so much fun to get to know her better. I sure wish they lived closer! Grandkiddies and kiddies! Thank you to my kids and in-law kids and ms. Reece for a really great week. I am so bad at taking pics of them so I didn't get one single one of the grown-ups!

Fabrack Addict!

Paul has dubbed me a 'Fabrack Addict' This would be a play on the word crack addict. Only it's fabric. Has anyone ever been to Fabric Depot in Portland? It's the largest fabric store in the US. 7000 sq. ft. of beautiful, glorious fabric! Thank you Dani for introducing me! They have designer fabrics. They have designer patterns. I was truly shaking when I walked in! It is amazing! I also learned about the Puyallup Stiching Fair held in Puyallup WA every Feb. I just missed it. It's four days of demonstrations, designers, fabrics, quilting, crocheting, etc. I'm going next year - anyone coming?

Now the funny part of this story...........Paul was so excited for me to be getting fabric and patterns. He was excited that it makes me so happy to have a creative outlet. He asked me how much I spent - any of you who know Paul know that I don't really track what I spend very often and Paul is just happy to 'keep' me! I told him an estimate. He said 'Good. That makes me feel better.' I asked him why. He sheepishly told me that he won a bid on Ebay for a new set of golf clubs! I'm so happy for him! Just as long as he stays happy for me!