Thursday, December 31, 2009

40 years later...

40 years later and this is all of our family (Neil & I). Neil's mom is on the far left. There are 25 of us all together! Whooppee! We have 11 grandchildren. This is how we celebrated our 40th anniversary! All our children and families came together for Christmas and we spent it at Neil's mom's home. What a blast!
Top row on wall left to right-QuintinWard, Tyler Gleed, Adelaide Newby & Brynnly Ward, Braxton Ward, Lauren Gleed
2nd Row-LaRue Newby, McKenna Gleed, Brooklynn Gleed, Matilda Newby, Zachary Ward,
3rd Row-Valdine Guptill (Neil's mom), Douglas & Ashley Guptill, Neil & Diana (Mom & Dad), Lisa & Jordan Newby, Angela & David Guptill, Julie & Bob Ward, Michelle & Chris Gleed
Chair-Kirsten Guptill
This is a recent picture of Neil at his cousin's daughter's wedding.



This was taken earlier this year.


This was taken at our wedding reception a few weeks after we were married, way back in the day, 40 years ago!


A lovely picture of this very young couple, 40 years ago!





A picture I took earlier this year for Valentines Day. Yes! I kept the wedding cake top piece! The decoupage plaque is of our wedding invitation. It was 'the thing to do' back then to decoupage your invitation.


As you can see, 40 years later, the cake top piece shows signs of wear. Ahh, so does the bride and groom! :o)




December 24, 1969 Neil and I were married in the Arizona Temple in Mesa, Arizona. I remember the day vividly! It was Christmas Eve and the weather was 75 degrees, sunny, clear and gorgeous! It didn't feel like Christmas! Neil was in the Air Force. He did his four year tour and in 1970 that ended and we moved up to Oregon to be near his family. He went to college and I worked.



We have 6 beautiful children. All, except Kirsten our special needs daughter, have married wonderful spouses and 3 of them have beautiful children. The other two have only been married just over a year. We're blessed to have Kirsten still with us. She turns '20' on April 2, 2010.


I don't know where those 40 years went! Some times it seems like it's been forever and other times I can hardly believe it's been 40 years! We are happily married and hope to make it to our golden anniversary, ten more years from now.


What have I learned over the past 40 years?

Gravity takes over, curves pull downward and are not as firm! Wrinkles come more often!

Marriage takes work, every day of your life!

You learn to compromise. Neil is my other half. We are not the boss over each other.

Being 'right' is dumb. Agree and move on!

Forgiveness is divine!

See the best in each other. That takes work!

Be a cheerleader for each other.

Be selfless, not self absorbed.

Never take each other for granted.

Somehow our personalities reversed! I am like he used to be. He is like I used to be. Hmm. That's a good thing.

Forgetfulness occurs. I sure wish our brains had 'instant reply' when I've lost something I'm looking for!

Our mountains have turned into molehills.

You spend far less time worrying over mundane things!

It's dumb to be mad and pouting, uses too much energy. Just move on!

I've learned to just wait until the final moment for events to occur, his mind changes often like a revolving door. Just stay tuned in because at the last minute things fall into place.

The garage is my husband's lair. I have right of passage...to go through it!

Live, love and laugh a lot!




Sunday, December 6, 2009

Tillieisms!

Tillie, the Official Quality Control Tester! She loved eating the peanut butter ball dough!

LaRue did a great job with rolling out her peanut butter balls. She also loved eating them too!

This is Adelaide and her cute little self and smile! She left no cupboard door unexplored!

The finished product! We made advent stockings.


A Christmas Advent Stocking. I printed and cut out all the ornaments and put them in a snack size Zip Lok baggie. I stored it inside the stocking, good please to keep it and not lose it! In the above picture I had laid out the ornaments for both sides of the stocking to see if they would all fit!
Tillieisms...
Lisa and her three beautiful daughters spent a week with us following Thanksgiving. Jordan was at home working, going to school and doing clinicals. Our week was full of laughter and of course a few tearful moments, and sibling rivalry, the norm. Tillie just turned '3' in November. I had forgotten what a 3-year old is like. I never laughed so hard in my life. It was so funny and enlightening! :o) Here are a few Tillieisms. Tillie talks with a lot of 'enthusiasm, diction and drama!' :o)
'Grandma! Your toys are wonderful!'
'This is awesome!'
Mom told her to pick up a Hello Kitty Bingo game...there were a lot of discs...Tillie: 'This is going to be difficult!'
LaRue and Tillie are in the backseat of my van. Tillie does not want to hear her sister LaRue anymore...Tillie: 'La, la, la, la, la, la, la..then bursts into song...Rain, rain, go away, rain in LaRue's eyes! La, la, la, la, la, la, la. I'm not listening to you!'
Another ride in the van...Tillie to LaRue...'No, no, you don't understand, I want my privacy!'
Same ride in van...Tillie: (she's talking away to herself and ends with this...) 'but you don't understand me!'
Me (grandma) to Tillie...'Tillie, you have to pick up all the game pieces before you can plan another game, okay?' Tillie: 'No problem Grandma!'
Mom (Lisa) telling Tillie on several occasions to do such and such...Tillie: (With total body language, eyes rolling up and exasperation in her tone) 'Aaahhhh!' She then marched off and did whatever it was her mom told her to do.
NEXT-
LaRue is in kindergarten and doing so well! She missed this past week being up here but had a journal she was to keep. Her mom would write one sentence of what laRue wanted had to say. LaRue drew a picture of what that sentence was about. She is reading more and more every day. She takes the time to sound out the letters, figure out the words and then say them. I was quite impressed! She was quite helpful in the kitchen too. It was fun watching her and Tillie help Lisa and I make my annual Christmas peanut butter balls. I dip them in chocolate after a few days. They were my volunteer work crew getting them all made! LaRue did her best to roll her little peanut butter balls. I gave both her and Tillie their own little pan. It was a bit much for Tillie to roll them out. I gave her a new job description, Official Quality Control Tester! Tillie: 'Oh Grandma, this taste sooo good! This is sooo yummy!' She ate handfuls!
Adelaide is such a cute cherub! She has the cutest little chubby body! She smiles a lot! She has her mom wrapped around her finger. I'm sorry to be a tough love grandma sometimes. Sometimes kids just need to cry it out and figure it out. The minute Lisa picks Adelaide up, it's a miracle! No tears, no crying just pure satisfaction that she has conquered all and is quite happy to be carried around by her mother! Adelaide can stand up and balance herself and can take two steps before 'bottoming out!' She is just so cute!
I made Christmas construction paper chains with LaRue and Tillie and attached the chain to a large paper bell. They enjoyed making the chains and also taking off a chain link each day. I also made Christmas Advent Stockings for them. I glued the edges together and then punched holes down the sides for them to lace up with yarn. I made 24 paper ornaments from my pccrafter clipart program and cut them out. I put an 'x' with a number for days 1-24. It took both sides of the stocking. Each day they glued on an ornament. LaRue and Tillie, with help, sewed the yarn around the edges. They did a great job! They liked gluing on their ornaments. I sent their crafts home with them to continue until Christmas.
It was fun having them all here and we'll see them soon. Lisa wants to come up for a few days when Bob and Julie and their kids arrive. It hasn't been dull at Grandpa and Grandma's home!
(I still haven't figured out how to separate my paragraphs, everything runs together. I put paragraphs in but they never show up! Grrr!)


Monday, November 30, 2009

I'm Changing My Blog...

There's going to be a small change...
I've been giving this a lot of thought lately and I have decided that I am going to change to 'Invitation only' for readers to read my blog, not that anyone outside my family would be interested in it.

I am not a paranoid person. I just think that with so many weird people out there doing crazy things, you have to think about how safe you want to keep your family and your information.

I will be making this change in about one week and I'd love for you to be included in that invitation. I may not have your email information and now would be a good time to send that to me.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Disney's Pixar movie 'UP' :o)


We bought this movie yesterday and watched it last night. It is so cute! The cashier was telling me what a wonderful movie this was. She was right! It's fun to watch! The animation team actually went down to South America and researched and took pictures, made drawings, paintings, etc. They went to Angel Falls. I think that's in Venezuela. So when our kids come up for Christmas, they can watch it! :o) And in case you are wondering, yes, it is in Blue Ray, and yes, dad has a Blue Ray VCR thing. Ed Asner is voice of Carl (the old man on the cover) and Carl reminds me so much of Spencer Tracy! One of the other voices in the movie is Christopher Plummer (Capt. Von Trapp on Sound of Music) and it always throws me that his voice is more gravely. He makes it that way.

Friday, October 30, 2009

The Blessings of 'Small Miracles'


Today, this afternoon, I was listening to the BYU channel and there was a fill-in of 10 minutes before the next program started. It was a concert pianist with a full orchestra. They were playing classical music. I was preparing homemade vegetable beef soup in the kitchen and enjoying the music. I love classical music. I noticed that Kirsten was shaking her rattle to the rhythm of the music. As the music increased in tempo so did her rattle. I peeked around the corner and she had the happiest smile on her face. I kept an eye on her to make sure I wasn't imagining what I was hearing. She kept her rattle going to the tempo of the music and when it ended so did she, right on cue! I was so touched by this 'small miracle'! It was a joyful experience!


I got a quick shot of her here. When she sees me with the camera, she stops and drops her rattle and her performance is over! So I had to be quick! My camera has a few seconds of delay and I was trying so hard to capture her in motion! Got her! :o)


This was Kirsten when the music ended, no more rattle. She had finished!


This is a small frog that loves to 'sit' on my roses. He or she usually hides inside the rose petals and peeks out. This was taken a few days ago when the sun was out and I guess froggie decided to sun him or herself!




Friday, October 9, 2009

Mt. Rainier with its 'fun' clouds!

This was taken just as the sun was going down. I took it as a close up.

Same picture only at regular distance.

This was taken one hour 'before' the sun went down.


Same picture only a close up view.
I love the fact that all we have to do is walk out our front door and look a little to the northeast and 'click!'
Sometimes there are some very interesting cloud formations. Sometimes there will be a single cloud to the left of the mountain that make s a dead ringer for a flying saucer. Other times it looks like the mountain is wearing a beret. Other times it's a messy haystack. It's always fun to look at from early morning until sunset. When it snows and the day is clear and the sun is about 4pm the mountain is stunningly beautiful!




Wednesday, September 30, 2009

My new tote bag :o)


Tah - Dah! My new placemat tote bag! My camera doesn't do the color justice, but it's a pretty fall color! I have made several place mat totes from '1' placemat. The one above is made from '2' place mats sewn together. My scripture tote for my seminary edition quad is now just for my scriptures, minus lesson book, small hymnal ,etc. That has moved into the 'bigger'tote and my small scripture tote inside it! :o)


Side view. I added trim and ribbon. The trim covers the straps.

Bottom of the tote.



Straps for tote made from grograin (sp?) ribbon. I used my sewing machine to add the decoration on ribbon.



Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Book - The Lost Symbol

This book'The Lost Symbol' by Dan Brown was released last week. What can I say?
AWESOME! RIVETING!
A must read! If you read Angels & Demons and The DaVinci Code, you'll want to read this one!
It's 509 pages and it was an awesome read! I read it in 2-3 days! I can now get back to getting other things done! :o)

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Twilight Tours

'Twilight Tours' an illustrated guide to the REAL Forks by Underwood Books.
This was just released August 2009. Today is September 13, 2009. The mayor of Forks declared today as the official 'Stephanie Meyers Day.' Stephanie Meyers thanked Forks for using 'Bella's birthday as 'Stephanie Meyers Day' today.

Neil gave me my birthday present last night, a few days early, because today he left for Edmonton, Canada on business for 5 days.

I didn't even know this book was published. It's only been out for about one month. It takes you on a tour of Forks.


The book has 112 pages. It is a soft back book. The pictures are gorgeous. David and Angela went to Forks back at the end of April (I think) and he posted a whole bunch of pictures. Some of the ones he took look a lot like the ones in this book. Hah! We got a sneak peak from David several months ago!
I'll have to read this and let you know how I liked the book! :o)




Saturday, September 5, 2009

Paper Dolls! What fun!


Notebook to hold the paper dolls
Pocket pages that close and keep in the dolls, clothes, etc.
I have a piece of velcro on the back of the doll and on the page above the pockets that holds the doll in place.

I made 4 girl dolls and 4 boy dolls. They came from pccrafter.com of which I am a member. I love that program! It's so much fun! It has clip art, etc.

Two of the boy dolls.

A portable way to carry a few dolls, in a coupon folder.




When Lisa came to visit we made these paper dolls. I loved paper dolls as a child. Lisa and I were deciding how to 'store' the dolls. She came up with the 'coupon folder' and I came up with the notebook with pockets. Both work beautifully!
Lisa and Jordan were out to dinner last night for his birthday. She put a few of the dolls in two coupon folders, one for LaRue and one for Tillie. She said that it was great entertainment! Since they were laminated, the food smudges wiped right off!
I thought the notebook would work for your lap. The dolls are velcroed and the outfits velcro to the dolls. This might work for church. This was a fun project. Lots of cutting out though!



Tuesday, August 25, 2009

A little Monet or Rembrandt???

Lisa and I and LaRue and Matilda have been doing some mural artwork on our fence in the backyard. This portion of fence runs along the back. It's the only one we have not stained. It was stained that red color before we moved in. We did a nice oak color on all the other fence inside and out. I bought some sidewalk chalk and let the girls color, draw, be creative, etc. on the back fence. Someday we will pressure wash this portion of the fence and re-stain it to look like the other fence. In the meantime . . .


The blue vertical color is waterfall that LaRue drew this morning. She was quite pleased with her work. :o) I had drawn the cartoon car and flower a few days ago.


Today I drew the train and some flowers below. LaRue wrote her name above the train.



A work in progress. I drew mountains, trees and that is supposed to be a river and a waterfall cascading down...use your imagination! :o) There is a Little boat on the water. A kitty cat down below.


Lisa did the entire alphabet complete with drawings! LaRue starts Kindergarten in a few weeks and practiced her letters and numbers.




Another view of those magnificent letters and numbers!




We all added to this..hearts. I tried to draw trees, rain, sun, birds, swings. The girls had their requests going!





This is a clown and a lollipop and cartoon car and sunflower.


LaRue and Tillie were running around playing choo coo train. They did this after I had drawn the train.


This was taken after Tillie decided it was a lot of fun rolling and playing in the dirt strip by the fence. Her hair had tiny dirt clods in it. Er... her mom was NOT happy about it. They got instant baths and were not allowed to play outside for the rest of the day. Saturday night bath time was early afternoon time!


La Rue was not fond of the taste of the dirt her sister were freely tossing around!
Hope you enjoy our little art display! It was fun and each day we added to it. The fence is now completely full of budding artwork from budding artists! :o)









Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Dragonflies - big or small?






This was on our fence in the front yard near the gate. It had a 4-inch wing span and it's body was 3.75 inches long. This is the BIGGEST dragonfly I have ever seen! I took LaRue and Matilda outside a few days ago to take a look at it. They were not at all excited to get up close and personal to it!
I think it was stuck and couldn't get off. A big dark rain cloud rolled in so I lifted it off the fence with my flyswatter and set it down in the grass. Half an hour later the rain poured. I later went outside to see if the dragon fly had flown away. It must have because I couldn't find it where I had set it down.
I looked up dragonflies on the internet. I think it is a Darner Dragonfly. They grow up to 4 inches and live about one to two months. The DON'T bite people. That seemed to make LaRue happy.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Summer Road Trip Fun!


The whole reason for our trip was to attend Doug's graduation from BYU-Idaho with his Bachelors degree. He is holding it up in the air, "Done!" He was so ready to be done!



Bishop Edgely was the speaker, far right, and gave an awesome talk! Doug is shaking Pres. Clark's hand. He is the President of BYU-Idaho.


Douglas and Ashley after graduation on campus. (A personal 'thanks to Michelle' for the pictures as mine didn't turn out well at all, too dark.) Michelle came up for Doug's graduation.

This is the official pace car-Chevrolet Impala- for the NASCAR race this labor Day 2009 at the Atlanta Motor Speedway. When we were in GA we took a tour of the Speedway. It was fun. We rode in the 8 passenger tour van. We did not ride in a race car.




Dad got out of the tour van and stood 'on the official track' and took a picture of the victory circle.



Dad took this of the pit row stop.




This was a vignette of Joseph and Emma and Lucy Mack Smith. It was letters from Joseph and Emma. It was very nice!


This was a scene with Joseph and Emma. On the stool you can see a wooden box and in that was the letters Lucy Mack kept from them. The actors were so awesome!




I believe that the two young men are this gal's sons. They played bagpipe music and it was so nice, if you like bagpipe music, and I do! They were playing all throughout Nauvoo at different times and places.





This is a church about 2 or 3 blocks down from the Nauvoo temple. It's a Catholic church, St. Paul and Peter.




This is that same church with their front corner foundation. (Not mockingly but in fun) I made a comment to dad, Doug and Ashley..."Hmmm, it looks like Peter and Paul knew where the 'true' church was and left and went down to the temple. That left this church with a crumbling foundation...they have no authority.' (Hee, hee.)



This is a bronze statue of Joseph and Hyrum looking back at the Mississippi. It was the day they left for Carthage Jail, a driving distance of 20 to 30 minutes, by crow, 5 minutes. This area is just across the street in front on the Nauvoo Temple. One thing the guide told us, which I did not know, was in one night the river froze completely over, the temperature was -30 below zero. The river had a swift current, but through the hand of the Lord, the river froze over and the saints were able to escape across the frozen ice to the other side in Commerce. This was known as the 'Trail of Tears' as they went down to the river and looked back at the temple they had to leave behind. Now it is renamed the 'Trail of Hope.'


Another thing we did not know was that a few years ago when the Mormon Tabernacle choir was on tour, they charged a very minimal one time fee for their performance, which is normally free. They raised $75,000 and Pres. Hinckley presented a check to the mayor of Commerce. When asked why such a huge sum of money, he told them it was a small recompense for the mercy that the people of Commerce gave to the saints when they were forced out of Nauvoo. (That puts a lump in your throat!) They were not members themselves, but showed mercy and compassion for the saints. The saints outnumbered the whole population of Commerce 3 to 4 times!




Douglas and Ashley as they came out of the temple. Dad and I had gone the previous morning and they went the following morning. It is a beautiful temple!




This was taken at one of the restored homes in Nauvoo. Ashley and I commented what a great idea this little bench was. A place to place your baby and sit and the baby not fall out!




This is Ashley in the Printing Office where they published the Book of Mormon.



This is Douglas in the same office.




This flower looks just like a Hibiscus. The bloom is the size of a saucer. They are huge! They were growing around the temple. This particular bloom was near the temple parking lot across the side street from the temple.



A brief shot of the temple from the carriage ride we took a ways from the temple.




This is a view of the upper window where the prophet Joseph Smith fell at Carthage jail. We took the tour the day we left Nauvoo and drove to Georgia. It left you with a somber feeling.



This is taken at Carthage jail. The building is original, the little wooden addition is new and was a summer kitchen. They cooked over a fire in the summer kitchen as it was cooler than in the main building.

It reaffirmed our testimony of the life and mission of Joseph Smith.
Our trip began on July 21st. We rented a 16 foot Penske moving van to help Doug and Ashley move to Georgia after gradation. We packed for two days and got all their worldly possessions in the van with room to put all our luggage for all of us. July 23rd-Graduation was wonderful! We were so happy for Doug and Ashley! Michelle attended the graduation and we were so glad she and her kids came. Chris had to work.
We drove to Malad to stop in for an hour and visit Darl Gleed, Chris' dad, and had a wonderful visit. We then drove to Orem, Uah and got in Friday night and stayed until Sunday morning.
July 26-Drove to Platte, Nebraska and spent the night.
July 27-Drove to Nauvoo, Illinois. We stayed there for 3 nights and two days. We toured all the sights, took a carriage ride and wagon ride, saw demonstrations, collected souvenirs, attended the temple and had a wonderful time! The pageant was awesome! The actors all did such a fantastic job! We loved it!
July 30-We left Nauvoo and stopped in Carthage to see Carthage jail and did that tour. It was very somber. It really tugged on your heart. Joseph is such a wonderful man and prophet. He gave his life for the gospel. We drove 17 hours to get to GA. Ashley was really anxious to be home.
July 31-3:15AM we arrived at our motel and went to bed!
July 31st at 11:15AM drove to Ashley's parents, where Doug and Ashley stayed, and unloaded the van! That took 20 minutes with all the help! Dad and Doug turned the van in. We had dinner at her folks and had a wonderful visit.
We went to Stone Mountain Park and saw a wonderful laser light show. If you google Stone Mountain Park, Georgia, you can see what it looks like. It wouldn't let me copy a picture. It is a mountain face with Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and I can't think of the other person at the moment, carved into the face of the mountain and they have a laser light show combined with fire works and music. It's quite spectacular! It lasted about one hours and was well worth it!
Aug-1st- We picked up a car rental at the Atlanta airport. Dad and and Kirsten and I went to the Atlanta Motor Speedway and took the tour. It was fun! Dad really enjoyed it and bought himself a hat. It was like a woven straw hat dipped in something that made it firm. It was chic looking! He looked quite dapper! Doug was on errands with Ashley and their family and missed out so dad bought him a ball cap hat that was black and had orange flames on the bill with Atalanta Motor Speedway on it!
Aug 2-went to church with Ashley's family and Ashley and Doug. We had dinner with their family again.
Aug 3-Flew home! We enjoyed our trip and had fun! It was so enjoyable being with Doug and Ashley and we miss them already!
Aug 6th-I drove down to Oregon City, Oregon and picked up Lisa and her 3 girls and turned around and drove right back. They are here visiting for two weeks! Fun times!