Tribute

My dear sweet grandpa is very close to being able to return to his Father in Heaven. He is excited to reunite with his loved ones who have passed before him and is at peace with what is happening to his poor, tired body. I just wanted to pay tribute to him and hopefully find some peace of my own in doing so. He has always been one of my biggest fans when it came to music. It was a passion for him, and he passed that along to several of his grandchildren. It didn't matter what I played, or what I sounded like, I always knew he appreciated it. He has been so crafty his whole life. He found joy in making projects that he then would pass along to others. Woodworking, plastic canvas, painting.....the list could go on and on. One of my most treasured possessions is my hope chest that he and my father made for me, by hand. I remember visiting Utah as a child and sitting by the kitchen window with him, looking for deer, or enjoying some popcorn or chocolate. I remember when he used to come visit us, we would climb into bed with he and Grandma and giggle while they argued about which one kept the other up through the night with their snoring. I remember him being there when I was sealed to my wonderful husband in the Nauvoo temple. He made sure to remind the sealer to speak loudly enough so that everyone could partake of his words of wisdom. He's been there when we needed him, he's helped us out when life got tough. He's such a sweet man and he has passed on an amazing legacy. We sure love him and hope he continues to be with us in spirit forever. I love you Grandpa. You are in our prayers.

Celebrating the true meaning of Christmas

After reading Mary's blog today, I was reminded of a post that I had wanted to write after reading the Dec. Ensign earlier this week. I was so touched by Elder Neal A. Maxwell's talk/testimony from right before he passed away. He said everything so eloquently, and it says everything I have ever felt and more. It's the way I wish my testimony of our Savior sounded (which could maybe happen someday if I didn't get so darn emotional every time.) I love that he says his testimony is the verbal equivalent to a child's finger painting, because to me, it compares much more to a beautiful painting that you can't take your eyes off of. If you would all take the time to read this, I think you will be touched. This is my testimony also........

http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=5e1241dc0d186110VgnVCM100000176f620a____

Dancing Queen

Sorry the video is sideways. Our quick time video player didn't give an option for me to rotate it. So you will have to suffer through with your heads turned. This video was too cute not to post. Lainey loves to dance, and here you get to see some of her best "moves"! Enjoy!

Checkups

I took Aleece and Madelaine to their new pediatrician yesterday. We kind of found her by default, after Aleece ended up being in the hospital for the first week we arrived in Memphis. Aleece had to be rechecked since she has now been out of the hospital for about 5 weeks. She is picture perfect, much to our relief. Lainey was there for her 12 month checkup, a month late I know! I was crossing my fingers that she was going to have grown exponentially. (One can hope!) Well, our little peanut is a whopping 15 lbs 10 oz and 27 inches long. Luckily she is very healthy and has even hit all of her milestones early. She's just a little nugget! She is just barely wearing size 6 month clothes! Oh well! It is much easier to carry her around! She also recieved 4 vaccinations, which I was dreading. I always feel like you are completely helpless as a parent when your children are getting shots. You have to stand there and help hold them down, all the while looking into their eyes, telling them everything is going to be okay. Lainey only cried for about 20 seconds though and then she was back to her happy self. She is such a joy to have in our family! And Leecy T is such a great big sister. She was right there with me, helping tell her sister what a big girl she was and that she would feel better soon! She loves to "show Lainey the ropes". Mind you this involves everything from jumping on the bed, to yelling, to hiding, to pretty much anything you can imagine! They are the best of friends and I feel so blessed!

Vamanos

Aleece loves to play make believe, as everyone who knows her is aware. She has a phenomonal imagination. Well, today I caught her playing make believe bi-lingually. Yep, that's right, she was pretending in both English and Spanish, and was using the terms correctly. I mean I have never studied Spanish, silly me took Latin in high school, but I have seen Dora and Diego enough to know the basics. What's great is that she was playing with Madelaine, and kept using the words vamanos and delicioso and Lainey seemed to understand each of the commands given. For those of you that aren't proficient in Spanish that translates to let's go and delicious, respectively. Leecy T would say vamanos, and Lainey would follow. This was really pretty amusing to watch. I'm so grateful for such smart little girls! What would I do without them? I sure wouldn't laugh nearly as much as I do now!

Thanksgiving 2007

The Thanksgiving feast!
We actually got us all around one table!
The girls!
Sweet Leecy T and Sully dog.
Little Lainey bug--happy as always!


Here are the Thanksgiving pictures I promised! We had such a great time, and wish our visit could have been longer!

ElfYourself

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=9609657433

Okay, this is too funny. I copied it from the Mauri's site and couldn't resist posting it on here. It adds a little holiday cheer, don't you think? :)

And if you are not feeling that holiday cheeriness, maybe this next site would be more suited for you! It's equally as amusing!

http://www.scroogeyourself.com/?id=9607748580

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was so much fun this year! It was nice to be with our family, and to create some very fond memories. Here are some of the highlights.....

-Amazing food! Grampy never can make too much stuffing!
-Fantastic company!
-Surprises!
-Games....Balderdash is always a good time. How can you not laugh when you are playing that! And Apples to Apples...need I say more?
-Nice long visits and being able to catch up and reminisce.

We all have so much to be grateful for and family is always number one! Thanks to everyone for all of the good times! We love you all! Pictures will follow shortly! :)

Navigation system

Aleece has become quite fascinated with the navigation system in our car. It is really quite amusing. The woman's voice will come on and announce where we are supposed to go and Aleece will repeat it verbatim. Ie "Mom, the lady said to stay to the left and follow the signs for 40 East." Occasionally she will ask if we should go where the lady says. Ie "Mom, should we really go that way?", like the voice is completely untrustworthy. It makes me laugh every time. She's just way to smart for her own good! :)

Things that make me smile...

Aleece and Madelaine make me smile every day. They are getting to be so grown up and I cherish being their mother.

We had a family home evening last night about being thankful. We explained why we celebrate Thanksgiving, what we are thankful for, etc. At the end of our little lesson I took our corncopia and emptied it of it's fruits and veggies. I then asked Aleece to tell me one thing she was thankful for, for every item I put back in the cornocopia. The first thing out of her mouth was "that Jesus is in my heart". Okay, how precious is that? Val and I looked at each other and said, okay, how can you top that? Some of her other answers included family members, Pres. Hinckley and his counselors, and the Nephites. She is one smart cookie.

Another quick story......we've always known Aleece has a love for music. Madelaine has proven to enjoy music just as much as her sister. We were in Target the other day, back by all of the Christmas paraphanalia, and someone pressed something that played music. Madelaine had been down walking around, and stopped abruptly once she heard the music. I looked down at her to find her standing their TAPPING HER TOE! It was too cute for words. Another shopper noticed this, informed me that I needed to videotape this and make millions off of it! If only it were that easy! I mean, she is that cute......anyone interested in hiring her out? :)

No more monkeys jumping on the bed!

I couldn't resist blogging about what happened the other night. It makes me smile every time I think about it. I went into the girls bedroom, to retrieve something from their closet, and left the girls in the living room. It was super quiet and I totally thought I was by myself, until I turned around and found Madelaine had climbed onto her sisters bed, had a HUGE grin on her face, and was jumping up and down! She is so little, she wasn't even making a noise as she jumped! Mind you, I don't encourage jumping on the bed. It's quite the opposite, but who wouldn't smile at a barely one year old, trying to copy her sister. She stopped when I saw her, and I would say, "Are you jumping on the bed?" and she would jump some more! I'm trying to get a video of her doing the jumping thing, so stay posted!

Visit from Granny and Grampy!!!

We really liked this quote. It reminded Mom of Bubba!
Granny and Leecy T on the carousel!
Grampy and Lainey on the carousel!
The leaves were gorgeous! We had so much fun at the zoo!
What a great day!

We had such a good time with Granny and Grampy this weekend. It was so nice to have them here for Lainey's first birthday and to let them see our new home. We love every minute we are with them, and wish our time together could have been longer. Thank you Mom and Dad for driving all the way down here and for all that you do. It meant a great deal to us! There is no greater gift in this life than family, and we have truly blessed!

Halloween!

Look how grown up she looks!!!
Cheese!!!
They were having such a good time! They are definately best friends!
Mom and her girls!
Daddy helping the girls trick or treat!

Leecy T as Glinda!
Gorgeous!
Lainey bug as a munchkin!
I don't want to wear a hat and you can't make me!
I don't think we got one of them both looking right at the camera and smiling, but they are cute no matter what!!!

We had such a good time taking the girls trick or treating this evening. Their costumes turned out pretty well, I think! Aleece made a beautiful Glinda and Madelaine was an adorable munchkin!

Carving our pumpkins!

Make your own slide shows and scrapbooks

Recap!

So we are finally to Memphis, attempting to get settled. We are busy unpacking boxes, finding a place for everything and recuperating from the past two weeks. Here are a few tidbits, until I have time to write in more detail.....
1. We were in the car for approximately 30 hours. With 2 children that is a ridiculous amount of time. It doesn't really matter how good your children are..... and our children are excellent travelers.
2. Tumbleweeds do not cross the street one by one. They cross in what we have determined are herds. You can't miss them and some of them are the size of small cars.
3. We arrived in Memphis, were here for about one hour, and then spent the next 4 days in the hospital. Poor Aleece was quite sick when we arrived, she was having a hard time breathing, and did not look well at all. They believe she has asthma, which leads me to point 4.
4. Asthma medication is ridiculously priced. I would pay a million dollars to know my children were healthy, but seriously, it can not cost THAT much to make it.
5. Aleece is an excellent patient. The poor girl has veins like her mama, and they never could just stick her once. She has so many bruises on her poor arms, hands and feet.
6. Madelaine is more curious than ever. While in our "hospital suite", she learned how to open the door, and would make a break for it any chance she got! I can't believe she will be one on Friday! Where does the time go!
7. We are currently living in what we hope is a safe area outside of Memphis. We love the home we are living in, and hope this brings us a little stability, for a while at least! Any and all visitors are welcome!
and
8. We miss our family terribly. Sunday dinners just aren't the same with only 4 of us instead of 9! We love you guys!
Thank you to everyone who offered their love and support! We don't know what we would do without you. More to follow!
I will post some pictures as soon as 0ur new place looks presentable! :) Give me a little more time to put everything into it's place! It won't be long, I promise!!!

Lainey bug walking

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWlu4NrFuQA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhJ6jD4FneE


Go here to see a video's of Lainey bug walking!!!

Couldn't resist....

So the other night we were sitting in our living room, trying to relax. Aleece was not having any of it! She had a ton of energy and was talking non stop. Val finally told her to "zip it", to which she responded, "no, shh it." When she first said it, it totally took us by surprise. We didn't know where she learned a word like that from. Well, she said it again, and when we finally figured it out, we couldn't stop laughing. How thankful we are she doesn't have a potty mouth, she's just a child who hasn't learned proper grammar skills yet! :)

Some zoo pics

Granny and Lainey bug
Trey and the girls!
Mommy and her girls!
the end of our zoo adventure
the infamous white alligator! It was awesome!

We had a fantastic time!

Oxymoron

Aleece loves the show Go Diego Go. Mainly, this is because she loves animals. It doesn't matter what kind, she loves them all! One of her favorites to talk about is the pygmy marmoset. Well, all of her aunts and uncles love to hear her describe them, and so they always ask, "What is a pygmy marmoset?" She will then respond, "they have really sharp teeth and are really tiny and big." This cracks them up everytime. It took us awhile to understand what she meant, but every time it showed a picture of the marmosets, there was a baby marmoset with it's parent. Hence, the tiny and big part. Uncle Trey was out visiting us this week, and asked the above question and Aleece gave her typical response. To this Trey said, "You know that is an oxymoron." Aleece looked him straight in the eye and replied, "No, that is a monkey!"
Kid's say the darndest things! I love it!

We don't know where she gets this stuff from!!!

Aleece continues to crack us up on a regular basis. This week she has caught me off-gaurd a number of times with some of the things she has been saying. Among my favorites are.....
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" (to Granny on the phone)
"Pardon me, madam." (in church)
"Do you want a piece of me?" (to Daddy-visualize her with her hands in fists! Like when she used to pretend to be the cowardly lion.....put 'em up!)

She made Sunday dinner a circus act for all of us this evening as well. She amused everyone by pretending to be Diego, from Go Diego Go. She began this ruse once she found out we were having turkey for dinner. She then used her pretend video watch to alert Diego's sister Alecia that the turkeys were in trouble and they needed to be rescued! Mind you she ate every bite of turkey on her plate! She then went on to show of her pretend Rescue pack and made us all repeat the noises she did on her search for the endangered turkies.

How can two little girls bring us so much joy?! It doesn't matter what kind of mood I'm in, all I have to do is look at our two beautiful girls, and I realize how incredibly lucky I am to be a mom! I am so glad I had such a wonderful example and someone I always wanted to emulate! Thanks mom!

Lainey is still all smiles, all of the time! She is such a happy baby. She is also a mama's girl, and doesn't like me to be out of her sight for even a moment! I have to be completely honest though and admit that I really don't mind. Leecy and Lainey are so much fun to watch. I love to see them interact! I know I won't go a day without laughing!

Val is still on the job hunt. One of these days we are bound to find a good job. In the meantime keep us in your prayers!

I am just busy loving my girls! I tell you, there is no better job!

Leecy T and her sparkler!
All done! That was fun!
Fun in the wagon with Bruce!


Leecy T is getting to be so grown up!!! She has such a great vocabulary and a fantastic sense of humor! She always makes us laugh!

Lainey climbing the stairs!

Lainey bug climbing the stairs!
Look at me!
She is pretty dang quick!
Cheese!

Madelaine Grace sure loves the stairs now! Luckily we have a gate to block her from climbing them herself, but she sure loves it when we let her climb!
She is so sweet and is growing up way too quickly!

Pioneer Day 2007!

Mommy and her girls!
Lainey enjoying the fireworks!
Leecy and the hamster she affectionaly renamed "ratatouille"
Daddy and his girls!
Leecy loving Jaden! So sweet!

We had a fun 24th of July (I'm not sure why the pictures say the 23rd!) that began with the parade in Ogden, followed by a visit to Katchie and Jeff's new home to help them paint, and then we did some fireworks with some of the extended family. The girls had a very busy day! They were definately exhausted by the time it was over!
It sure makes us grateful for all that our ancestors did for us and that we can be a part of this glorious gospel in these latter days!

Here are a few pictures for you to enjoy! Aren't these the two most beautiful girls in the world?! Madelaine smiles like crazy and loves to be held. She still hates her bassinet, much to our chagrin! Aleece loves to hold her and help out. She is also getting way to smart for her own good! Val has introduced her to some new movies, which I thought would scare her, instead she loves them. They are Jurrasic Park, Willow, and Batman! Who would have thought?! Val has had several interviews. Now we are just playing the hurry up and wait game! We are trying to learn patience, and are hoping that this journey in life will be over soon, and we can have a little stability in our lives. But we are blessed with a wonderful family, our safety and health, so I guess we really can't complain. We are happy. But we miss everyone and hope to be together again soon! Love to everyone!

Christmas eve night, our cute family!
Mommy and the girls on Christmas morning!
Mommy and Lainey-bug at the Henderson family Christmas party!
Lainey smiling on Christmas day.
Leecy T looking beautiful in her Santa dress!

The holidays sure were wonderful! Here are a few pictures of some of our memories! More to follow!