THE BIRTHDAY BUDDIES TURN THREE ~

Jayden and Scotlyn turned three on Thursday!

Three years ago we were trying to be at both arrivals! It was an exciting day! We went to the hospital in Nampa and got to see Jayden come into this world and then we hurried to Meridian to witness Scotlyn's arrival bit missed it by .....
THAT MUCH!! boo:(

Now due to DISTANCE .... I got to be at Jayden's 3rd birthday but of course missed Scotlyn's! boo again! :( but ..... we will be going to Arizona in June so we'll still celebrate with Scotlyn ........ only later!

Jayden loves Thomas the Train and his mommy made him a darling cake! Delicious cake and toys on top! Doesn't get any better than that! Reminds me of cakes my dear mother use to make for us. She would hide money inside and we thought that was GREAT!!

Here's Jayden showing me how BIG he is now!! Jayden got a lot of Thomas toys and Thomas clothes! He was happiest with his Thomas puzzles and AMAZED us with his skills!! He can put a puzzle together faster than I can type it!! NO KIDDING! It was truly phenomenal.

And then he held up his three fingers to show me how OLD he is now!!

Scott sent me a picture from his phone of Scotlyn with her birthday gifts! She got a kitchen and plastic food! And a princess castle! She is such a cute little Princess herself! Love her Cheesy smile!

I'm gonna have to bring her some felt food to go with her kitchen! We missed getting to celebrate with this cutie but we will .....later! I'm sure Scotlyn will whip up a delicious meal for me and Tony in her new kitchen! lol

UNBELIEVEABLE !!~

OK, so I get up this morning , do my usual ..... hit the head, make my bed (lol ... that rhymes) and I always peek out the blinds to see what the weather is doing. Gotta know how to dress! Well, was I ever surprised to see a skiff of SNOW!
It's been rainy and cool but I sure wasn't expecting SNOW!!

The neighbors side of the block doesn't get the sun in the front yard like we do so they had a little more. Granted, it's a skiff BUT it's the 29th of APRIL! Sunday is MAY 1st for Heaven's sake!!!

Our back yard has a wee bit more!

It will be gone in a few hours and I am grateful for snow in (almost MAY) ... it sure beats tornadoes and earthquakes. The times, they are a changing!

GOOD FRIDAY & EASTER SUNDAY 2011

FRIDAY ~



I wanted to see my McGregor grand kids for Easter so I went out on Friday evening after work and gave them their Easter goodies! Caden was on a Scout camp out with his dad so I missed him but was able to spend a little time with the other three! They loved the malted eggs and immediately taught Andrew how to apply the color! lol


Sophia has the pucker down pat!! Andrew struggled a bit! lol

It was fun to see the kids. The girls and their mother were going to do some sewing after Traci mowed the yard.

Isabel and her blue smile. Looks like some of that lovely color got on her teeth too! LOL

GIVE GRAMMA A BIG BLUE KISS!!

Andrew wanted a closeup! He was so funny! I'm sure he was on a sugar high when I left and his mom was probably ready to string me up!!


SUNDAY ~


We had a lovely Stake Conference today It was a broadcast from Salt Lake. It was a beautiful service and I enjoyed it immensley.

Afterwards I came home and rested and listened to "The Kingdom and the Crown." It's a book on tape about the Savior which I borrowed from Art and Lynn. I'm on book two and it is marvelous!

At 4:15 or so this afternoon, I went to Art and Lynn's for Easter dinner. Curtis and Deedra were already there so we had a nice visit. Soon all the other kids came and we had a delicious ham dinner with all the fixins!

After dinner we opened the flood gates and let the kids out for an Easter egg hunt!

They had a great time filling their baskets with loot!
Then we lined them up against the fence and got pictures of the Norton/Butterfield/Cleaver kids!

I thought I had all 10 of them in this shot but low and behold I missed Jayden .....

Nikki and Ellie checkin to see if the eggs really contained something good!

Jack was pretty pleased with his haul too and I think he had a starburst in his mouth already!

Another shot with all 10 of the kids. Jayden coming back in from the left! lol

It was such a nice weekend! Can't wait till my bunny is home!

5 WEEKS!! and counting!

TRIP TO MURPHY + YARD WORK = I'M TIRED !

Last Wednesday for Young Women's we did a service project with the Young Men! We cleaned up a bunch (AND I MEAN A BUNCH) of brush, tree branches and crap from a yard for a single sister in the Ward. It filled up two pickups and there is still enough for another load!! Today, we (The Bishop and Dad and Mom Norton and myself) drove out to the Bishops property in Murphy to dump the stuff. Reason being ..... The boys and girls (Not together mind you) will be having camp outs there this summer and they can make campfires with the brush! It was an interesting morning to say the least!! The Bishop called me around 7:15AM. I called my 1st counselor and her mother said she was laying down because she had put her back out and she had to be to work at 10AM. So then I called my 2nd counselor and her husband said she was still in bed. When I did hear back from Emily, she said she and her husband were going to work in the yard so they planned on driving out later in the day to see the place for themselves. So the 4 of us took off. I needed gas so we stopped at a station and as it turns out ...... I needed transmission fluid and oil as well! I don't drive the truck very often but I did notice on Wednesday when I drove it to the service project, it made a funny hum. (oops, transmission fluid low) Good thing I had some men with me to tell me what was up!! The trip out was fun! The weather was perfect and the temperature was just right!! We stopped once to tie the tarps a little tighter and so I took a picture of the snake river.

The Bishop told us that we had another 10 miles to go at this point.

We finally arrive at his property and we had to go through 3 locked gates to get to his land.

This is a road that runs through and his well.

The trailer that is parked on the property is where the kids would sleep! It's an old dairy trailer so it smells a little like powdered milk. He has carpet inside that the girls would roll out and put their sleeping bags on.

It has two outhouses on the property too. Pretty uptown! Wouldn't you say ???

The Bishop unloaded his truck (and he didn't want us to help cuz he said he didn't want anyone to lose an eye ..)Dad Norton helped him unload our truck.

Then we got a picture in front of all the debree just before we took off for home.

It was fun to visit with the folks and Dad said he would stop at D&B so I could get a 1/2 yard of compost for my garden. We did and then we went home.

Dad shoveled it out of the truck and over the fence. Then I drove them home and I came back to the house and started my yard work.

I mowed the lawn 1st, then I weedeated the yard. I then sprayed all the weeds in the rocks with roundup and then I spread the compost in the garden. By then it was 3:30 in the afternoon and I was beat! I sure feel my age when I work in the yard. Gonna have to rototill next week cuz I can't do anymore today!!

I absolutely LOVE Spring and all the new life! My little old birdhouse in the willow had some new birds in it again this year but some %$#@ squirrel must have got to them because this is what I found on the bench that goes around the willow ...................

They obviously didn't have time to mature cuz it was more than just a little shell!!

Poor babies! I do have new life in the yard in the form of plants though so I took pictures of them!

I should have got the leaf sucker (for a better term) out and sucked up the dead leaves but I was too bushed. That and the rototilling will have to wait till next Saturday.

Things are blooming nicely and I can't wait till my Snowbound Spirea bushes in front of the house are in bloom! Their my favorite!

THOR & THORA ~

I just got these pictures from Scott (via his smart phone) and I had to share ... Thought they were pretty funny ... and cute! Thor : AKA Hawkins And Thora: AKA Scotlyn

They look pretty tough. Don't mess with these two! lol

ANDREW TURNS 3 !

Andrew turned 3 on Friday the 25th of March. I was not able to go to his Birthday due to the trip to SLC for the YW's Conference. Luckily I was invited out the following Friday, the 1st of April to celebrate with him. It was his 2nd party so he was pretty excited to get another go at turning 3. He called me earlier that day and over the phone he said ... "Let's get this party started!" lol He got some Monster cars from his folks and a kite and some Monster Bubbles from me and Tony!

He promptly spilled pretty much all the bubbles on the kitchen floor! lol (Well, his mother didn't think it was too funny!

He's pretty much potty trained and was happy to show off his BIG BOY pants!

He really wanted to dig into his ice cream cake. He was upset that I had to close the office that day so wasn't able to get out to their house till 6PM. Traci showed me a place he had impatiently licked it before I arrived. Consequently, we ate dessert 1st and dinner afterwards! lol

Caden, Sophia and Isabel had made all kinds of signs and games to decorate the house.

They made a pin the wheel on the race car game!

Pretty clever!

Here's Caden trying his hand at it!

It was fun to see the kids and to celebrate with Andrew. When I left I said "Happy Birthday" again to Andrew and he said "Happy Birthday to you too" Funny kid!