Holiday + kids + fun = :o)

A trip through the holiday -
WARNING! Lots of photos! Enjoy! :o)

The kids saw Auntie Angela Guptill 'kissing Santa Claus'!

Grandma (Great Grandma too) Guptill visiting with Santa! She's been a good girl this year!

Chris with two of his girls, Brooklynn and McKenna-it's early on Christmas morning!


Our grandson Tyler-not too big for Santa!

Our granddaughter McKenna busily working on her gingerbread house!

Some of the grand kids enacting the 'Nativity'. I have to say that 9 mo. old Adelaide (oops, she's a girl!) was good as gold playing baby Jesus!

Bob & Julie's family were at our house a week prior to Christmas. We had an Erector set and the kids loved making things!

The instruction booklet!

Waiting to leave for church, they were building a tower with blocks.

Our granddaughter Brynnly trying to make the tower higher!

Brynnly made this robot! It was great!

Grandpa (dad) had this train that ran all over and when it ran into an obstacle, it reversed itself to get on its way again. The kids loved it!

Our granddaughter Matilda taking a turn pushing grandpa's tractor!

Our grandson Braxton watching Grandpa's 'Mr. Machine' marching along the floor. Grandpa got this over the Internet. He had one exactly like it when he was a little boy.

Kirsten on the floor playing with her nieces and nephews. She had so much fun and laughed so hard. She loves kids!

Bob and his son Quintin (Zachary is observing) playing with dominoes and seeing who can knock down each other's walls.

Some good fun playing Phase 10!

Braxton giving his cousin Adelaide and hug and kiss! She survived!

Lisa brought a gingerbread house for the kids to work on. They had so much fun! They would put candy on the house and then take it off and eat it and add more candy!

It's almost finished!

The builders are finished!

Now for the good stuff. Let's eat that left over frosting! Yum!

Julie was given this 1,000 piece 'Manti Temple' puzzle from her sweet mother-in-law Sondra Ward as a Christmas gift. It was Julie, Lisa, Brynnly and me, grandma, working on it and we finished it up in just over 2 hours! Wahoo!

Julie and her dad, grandpa, and Braxton looking on, going over directions to do some sight seeing!

This was taken at Grandma Guptill's. There were 25 of us for Christmas!

Let the fun begin!

Grandma Valdine Guptill in her 'Snuggie'!

Brynnly and Lauren having fun with Lauren's Karaoke machine!

This is at our home and the garland and bows I put up for Christmas.

Even the little gate was decorated!

We had so much fun! Chris and Michelle and their family also visited our home for a few days and played and had a great time! Doug & Ashley were able to spend two days with us. It was so wonderful having all 6 of our children and their families spend Christmas with us. Neil's mom is 83 and going strong and is such a fun trooper! She had a great time with all 24 of us at her home on Christmas day! Jordan and Lisa also played host and had Doug & Ashley and David & Angela staying at their apartment. Grandma had the rest of us! The walls were singing with happiness!

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!

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!)

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.

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.

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!

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!