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!

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)

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.

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!

Gratitude Journals-My grandchildren

Tyler and Lauren's Gratitude Journals

McKenna & Brooklynn's Gratitude Journals

A page from McKenna's journal.

A page from Tyler's journal.

I did a 30 day project with my grandchildren that were old enough to understand about being thankful for things. Each day for one month I had them write '3' things that they were grateful for. In turn each day I sent them '3' things that I was thankful for. If I were to do this again I would only ask them to write '2' things they were thankful for. It's kind of hard to think of '3' things everyday. It's not hard for an adult.

It was a fun project and I looked forward each day reading an email from them. Some have completed their 30 days and some it is a work in progress. I told their parents that I would type up all their entries and make up a journal for them and send it to them for a keepsake. I typed them just like they wrote them, no spell check or punctuation. They were precious the way they were! I hope they will save them and read them 5 years from now! That will be fun for them! :o)

Holy Mole Hills! :o0

This is a picture of Spearmint Gum with one stick outside the package. The package holds 15 pieces. On the left side of the box of gum is a very small mole hill. That is because the larger side is on my neighbor's side of our fence.


When we moved into our home last October there were two large mole hills along the dirt berm by the backyard fence. I never bothered them. The mounds would get large, but they didn't seem to multiply.

Over the winter the two mole hills went away. I flattened them and they didn't come back. However, this past week two new ones popped up. Hmmm. My neighbor said that he has not had moles in his front yard until recently. He thinks they came from his neighbor on the other side of his home. Well, I think they migrated into my backyard! This next door neighbor went away for 4 days and asked if I would take care of all their outside hanging plants, 22 of them. I was happy to serve!

My niece Angela Kenner said that using Spearmint gum helps get rid of moles; she had first hand experience with success. So I put a stick of gum in both mole holes. Well yesterday I went out to check on things and whoa! I had '8' new small mole mounds! Holy mole hills! I guess they didn't care for the Spearmint gum as they moved 10 feet farther down the fence line away from the gum! So I put a stick of gum in each of the 8 holes and covered them back up. I sort of flattened the dirt so if any new ones popped up I could tell which were the new ones.

Today I went out there and 'no new mounds.' However, I did notice that the neighbor had '2' that must be on his side of our fence and the small mounds crested onto our side. I will watch and see if they grow bigger on my side and put 'more gum' out there. I'm going to have to buy another pack of gum. I only have 5 sticks left! I sure hope I won't need anymore! I guess it is true...moles don't like Spearmint gum! :o)

Grandma Valdine's new picket fence!

Grandma Valdine's home with her new picket fence.

Another view of the fence.

One more view.

Kirsten's favorite place to be---in her Grandma's lap! :o)

We went down to Oregon for the 4th of July weekend. Jordan and Lisa had a special occasion. Jordan blessed Adelaide at church today. Adelaide was good for the most part. She is sooo sweet! Jordan gave her a beautiful blessing.

Kirsten always gets so excited whenever we go down to Oregon. Kirsten just loves her Grandma Valdine soooo much! It's her most favorite place to be! :o)

Grandma got a new picket fence! We had taken part of our picket fence out along one side of our backyard. The developer told Neil he could have the picket fence at the model home just across the street from us as he liked how we were having a taller backyard fence put in and he wanted them to match. Neil took out both lengths of picket fence and took them down to Oregon.

Out with the old rail fence and in with the almost new picket fence! It was only 6 months old.

Scott, Neil's brother, hired a college student working a summer job at PGE to install and paint the picket fence. When Neil took the fence out, it got a few scratches and where he dug out the posts, it needed repainting. The young man Scott hired didn't have quite enough fence to finish along the side yard and had to buy materials and build the last section. He installed and repainted the entire fence. He did a wonderful job! Grandma's fence is beautiful and she loves it! She's already had several people stop by and tell her how nice it looks. Grandma wanted the corner left with the ivy covered brick. When they had the other rail fence in several people had backed into that corner and Darrell used to have to repair it. He fixed that problem by putting brick there. I like the green colored ivy there. It looks nice.

If you notice, Grandma's roses and Rhodie plants looks so nice. Neil had cut the Rhodie's back quite far. They were just too huge. They are coming along nicely and next Spring she should have some beautiful blooming Rhodies! They will be much more manage to trim.