Family... the Best!

I finally remembered to get a family shot tonight while the kids were here for dinner. I am so grateful to be able to see them and spend time with them. Little Riley is so precious. What fun to be able to visit with him and his folks. (I've told my children that I am sorry that they automatically become second priority when they have children!!)

More Fred-Footies...



Auntie P wanted more photographic evidence that Riley has Grammie's Fred-Flintstone-Feet.

Baby Fred-Feet

While Spencer, Tricia and Riley were over the other night they went and got Jack in the Box for dinner. I laughed to see little Riley go after the tomatoes. But while they were here Tricia commented that Riley had little snausage toes. When he took off his shoes we discovered that he has the curse of the Fred Flintstone Feet (dun, dun, dun!!)














It's sad but true that little Riley inherited his Grammie's feet. Hey, they reach the ground and get us where we want to go!

Baby Sweetness

It is that time of year again. (Yes, I told my family don't expect me to come in the middle of a HOT So. CA summer again!!) I needed to see my little grandsons that live in California. I am always amazed at how quickly these little boys grow up! (Did they ask me if they could grow up this fast? No, not them!!)

I arrived on Thursday to find that "baby" Riley is almost perfectly squared at 34" and 34 lbs... but here's the kicker... he is only 16.5 months old!!

(LivE-PaintedOverlay01-1)

Auntie P always has her camera handy and started snapping photos of Riley. He still loves to pose for the camera (what a precious baby). Tricia and Spencer are such good parents, they dote on their cute little guy.

I am so grateful that I am able to visit with these sweet babies. I will go later this week to spend a few days with the Flynn boys, so be expecting more grandson photos!

Hope

In our prayer meeting on Wednesday at the Temple President Merrill J Bateman spoke to us about hope. I was so moved by his remarks that I asked for the references that he quoted from. I don't know that I will be able to communicate the same feeling of hope and comfort that I felt, but I hope so.

President Bateman encouraged us to have hope and not to preach pessimism but to look forward with faith.
He quoted from President Harold B. Lee (1899-1973) classic address given in 1973 at Ricks College (now BYU-Idaho),

Men may fail in this country, earthquakes may come, seas may heave beyond their bounds, there may be great drought, disaster, and hardship, but this nation, founded on principles laid down by men whom God raised up, will never fail. This is the cradle of humanity, where life on this earth began in the Garden of Eden. This is the place of the new Jerusalem. This is the place that the Lord said is favored above all other nations in all the world. This is the place where the Savior will come to His temple. This is the favored land in all the world.

Yes, I repeat, men may fail, but this nation won’t fail. I have faith in America; you and I must have faith in America, if we understand the teachings of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are living in a day when we must pay heed to these challenges.

I plead with you not to preach pessimism. Preach that this is the greatest country in all the world. This is the favored land. This is the land of our forefathers. It is the nation that will stand despite whatever trials or crises it may yet have to pass through.

The Lord will not leave His church without direction. Revelation for our guidance comes to the leadership of the kingdom of God on earth. (Ye Are the Light of the World, 350-51)

More Apple-y Goodness

Years ago at Girls' Camp Paul Preter introduced me to Snicker and Apple Salad. Can I just say YUM! So with this years' plethora of apples I decided to make some for 3rd Sunday Family Dinner. I know that it may sound way to candy bar, but really it isn't. I didn't have the recipe so I Googled it and found the recipe at several different sources.

This is it-

3-4 apples, cored and diced
3 small (not miniature) Snickers Bars, diced or roughly chopped
4 to 8 oz Cool Whip

Mix together and refrigerate 1 hour.

Hope you enjoy it!

***Addendum... I thought the directions on the Cool Whip might be misleading when I wrote 4-8 oz. What I meant was 4 to 8 oz (so half to a full 8 oz tub of Cool Whip)

Brigham Stung

(I wish I could take credit for that clever little title, but I can't. I'm borrowing it from Fox News.)

We watched their humiliating loss to TCU last night. TCU came out with an agenda and they achieved it. They scored TWICE in the first few minutes of the first quarter. What a disappointing game. The sports-dudes proclaimed that this was the end of the longest winning streak in history. (BYU lost 32-7) It wasn't quite as bad as what BYU did to UCLA, but it still wasn't a pretty sight!

The only thing I have to add is this, "If they can't play any better than that, they don't deserve to win." (As far as I know that IS a Joanie original!)

Pictorial "About Me"

My sweet and sassy niece, Sarah, did this pictorial About Me on her blog (you've got to go see hers, she cracks me up!!) and I thought it was so fun that I needed to do it to! Rather than turning this into a game of tag, I will just invite anyone who wants to do this to join the fun!

Here's what you do: type in your answers to the following items on Google Image Search and choose an image to represent your answer from the first page of images. So, here it is:

First Name:

(So it is me?)

Middle Name:
(maybe this is too accurate for who I am!)

Maiden Name:
I got this from some herb place... yikes!
(Magickal Uses: Use caraway to protect against evil spirits. Place in sachets and carry to attract a mate. Bake into breads or cakes to induce lust. A bag of caraway seeds placed in a child's bed protects against disease.)

Last Name:

Age:

Where I was born:
(So sad, no Google images of Dr Batson's little hospital, who'd have thunk-it?)

A place I'd like to visit:
(If you can't guess, it is PEI-Prince Edward Island)

My favorite place to be:

My favorite animal:
(Doesn't this look like my little Buddi-dog?)

My favorite food:

My favorite color:

My first job:
(This is the shortest job ever... one hot August afternoon, dishwasher in this building, but I don't remember the name of it in the 1960s)

(My first real job... at Fotomate in Norfolk, VA in 1970)

One last totally unrelated item that I wanted to add...
What I like to do growing up in the metropolis of Greenville, CA

(Admission: 25 cents, Popcorn- 15 cents, Soda- 10 cents, candy- 10 cents... tough choice when allowance was 50 cents a week!)

Apple-y Goodness

All of my gardener friends tell me that one must wait until after the first frost to harvest apples. That frost/freeze makes them even sweeter.

But what does one do when the weather changes abruptly from fall to W-I-N-T-E-R???? Well, this ONE prayed very hard that the snow would hold off so I could harvest my apples on Monday AND, hopefully, have my trees "naked" before it snows. (I really don't want to lose branches because I have snow on leafy trees!) Apparently I wasn't the only one praying! The forecast was for snow Saturday and Sunday. Thank goodness we didn't get any. BUT we did finally get that freeze!

So this morning I was out picking apples! Back when I was picking peaches I scored a gugalin of fruit boxes down at Ream's! I love to have a standard size box for my fruit (or anything for that matter)! I filled up the back of my little Bug-hauler!! I was absolutely amazed when we filled up every single box I had (14 in all!) and there are still apples on the tree. (of course, you have to be a monkey to get to them. So that counts me out!)

As anyone who has fruit trees knows- getting the fruit off the tree is just the beginning of the work. We sorted as we picked so any apples that had birdie-pecks, blemishes, or got dropped went into one box (that turned into 2 boxes) and the other boxes are the "good" ones. I knew that I would need to take care of the "questionable" fruit today or it would start to go bad. I ended up putting up 10 quarts of apple pie filling and 12 quarts of applesauce.

I love the fun kitchen gadgets that make this process so easy. I have my Vitorio Juicer that puts sauce down one shoot and peels, seeds, etc. out the end. But my favorite, hands-down, is my Pampered Chef corer-peeler-slicer! It really speeds up the job!

I just love the smell of apple-y goodness wafting in the kitchen!! Today I got to enjoy that smell... but with 12 more boxes of apples in the garage I have the feeling that I will be smelling that apple-y goodness for a couple of weeks!

Stories

I wanted to share a wonderful FREE class with everyone. I recently finished a Type+Writer class over at JS.com but now she is offering this class.

What a fun thing to do. I love stories. My daddy was a skilled story-teller, my mom used to tell me stories about "Tell me about when I was born." or "Tell me about when I was two!"

I suppose that because of that start stories speak to my heart. I love the shared stories from other people's families: like Edna and her friend bring home a wringer washer on the trolley (with their husbands hiding and watching, scoundrels!!)

What a wonderful opportunity to record those stories that only we can tell.

Sweater Weather

Today is the first day that it really feels like fall! I got up and the thermometer read 36 F! Now for a lot of you that would be cold winter, but here it is just sweater weather!!

I love being able to drag out all of my snugly sweaters from the other closet. It's like meeting an old friend after a long separation. "Hey, did you miss me? Whatca' been doin'? Where've you been hanging out? (ha ha)"

Of course, I have my favorites: the green one I picked up on sale at Christopher & Banks, my pink 3/4 sleeve from Target that I've had for several years ago, my black-wuzzy mock turtleneck from Costco in the way-back-Palmdale-days... I love them all.

So with great happiness, they come out of hiding to keep me company and put their fuzzy arms around me for the next 6 months. Welcome back friends!