28th Wedding Anniversary

Today is my 28th Wedding Anniversary.  Pretty darn good, I think.  But a little ways to go to reach my Grandparents who celebrated their 75th Wedding Anniversary last October 16.  Then Grandpa suddenly passed away on Oct 30th.  I am so grateful for the heritage of lasting marriages.

Here’s a little glimpse of us over the years.  I have more photos to add, but my computer has not been cooperative the last week.

This is our first dance together– Senior Ball in December of 1980.  I have a whole story about that date I’ll have to post later.

Here is our wedding day.  We look like babies.  We were. =)

And until I get the older ones loaded, here we are in 2004 in Nauvoo.  The last trip we had with my dad before his passing in Feb 2005.

This is at Sam’s wedding in 2006.

This is in Scotland in 2006.

This is in Costa Rica in 2007.

This is a family photo shoot in 2008.

I will post more later.  We are leaving right now to spend the weekend together (with the kids) ;oP  So I will update when I can.

Love you, sweetheart!  We’ve had some really great years together!  And many more to come!

Best Christmas Jammies Story Ever

Like many of you, we have a tradition of opening matching jammies on Christmas Eve.  We try to match the adults and kids as close as possible, but some years it’s harder to do.  This last Christmas, my mom and sister found some cute Christmas stripped pajamas for the little kids.  We thought they looked darling!

This is a picture of  my granddaughters and my sisters three boys.  (It’s really hard to get a picture of them all sitting still.)

Christmas morning, as I came into Grandma F’s house, my cousin was just laughing.  I guess the little boys above came in and her 7 year old son, “Pete”, said,

“Where’ve you guys been?  JUVI?”

[Juvi is short for Juvenile Detention.]

We could not stop laughing.

I hadn’t thought that these cute Christmas Candy Cane pajamas looked like jail attire, but alas, a 7 year old taught me different.

Now many of you may be wondering how a 7 year old knows about Juvenile Detention.  It is because his grandmother works at the Juvenile Court, so he’s familiar with the stories and terms.  Still funny coming from a little guy!

Is this what Santa puts his elves in that are in trouble? ;o)

For more insight into Pete’s knowledge of Juvi, I suggest you read this great story by his mom which I have posted HERE.

One Shoe, Two Shoe, Orange Shoe, Blue Shoe

Yep, me and Dr. Suess…we’ve got it figured out!!

I’m confessing here….knowing that this could cause great embarrassment on my part, but I’m willing to share this little piece of my funny day.

I was getting ready for work.  I decided to wear my fushia pink shirt with my sky blue scarf (like the one I was wearing in my family picture).  I grabbed big blue hoop earrings that matched my scarf and went to grab my shoes.  By shoes, I mean flip flops.  I have about one of every color of flip flops.  They are the shoes I love to wear all the time.  Easy on, easy off.  Not constricting.  Variety of colors, etc etc.   So this particular morning, I decided to wear my blue flip flops that matched my outfit.   They are stacked in my closet like so:

As you can see, they are kind of tucked under my shirts.  So I bent down to find the blue ones, slid my right foot in and then, while putting my earrings in (you can all relate to this, right, girls?) I slid my left foot in the other shoe.

I grabbed all my stuff and raced off to work.

I had been at work for about an hour or so when I needed to get up and grab some copies off the copy machine.  I usually slide my feet in and out of my shoes while sitting down, so I looked under the desk to slide my feet in and to my wonder and astonishment, there sat one ORANGE and one BLUE flip flop.

Stunned at my fashion ability, I hollered, “OH….MY….. GOSH!!”  Then I started laughing and wondering how in the heck I could manage to go for about 2 hours never looking down at my feet and noticing what I had done BEFORE I left the house.

In utter amazement and still cracking up at myself.  I slipped my shoes on and walked in to my husband’s office and stood there.  He looked at me and I pointed at my feet which looked about like this:

He put his head in his hands and shook it back and forth, rolling his eyes, and said, “Well I guess it’s a good thing you can laugh at yourself!”

“Well, It’s hysterical!”  I said.  I mean, if you don’t laugh about it, then what do you do?  Sit and pout and cry and be embarrassed?  Really, who will know?  Unless you post it on facebook and your blog, right? ;o)

Well, I went back about my business, still giggling and yes, I posted a note on facebook and then adjusted my schedule to NOT stop at the grocery store on the way home, cuz THAT would be embarrassing!

While I was sitting at my desk, our good friend Danny P came in.  He is  a super nice guy!  The first thing he said to me was, “Hey, those are nice earrings!  I like those!”  I was laughing because they are HUGE blue things that my hubby hates because they

A:  have color

B: are big

C:  someone may “notice” them.

[Insert information here:  MP (my hubby) does not like color.  Ok, he likes color, he just doesn't like to WEAR color.  He's a blue/gray/brown plain, simple, not-standout-ish kind of a guy and is embarrassed when I wear any colors (especially bright ones) because it will make you stand out and people will look at you.  I'm ok with wearing color now that I've been studying Dressing Your Truth and now I know that I like to wear color and it's okay and he doesn't like to wear color and it's okay.  I'm at peace.  He still struggles. ;o)]

So, when Danny noticed my earrings, I was kind of chuckling that I would get a compliment on them–especially when I couldn’t even get my shoes to match.  MP was  walking up to the desk as he heard the compliment and said, “If you like her earrings, you should see her shoes!”   Yes, he ratted me out.  Laughing, I showed Danny my shoes and he said, “Hey’ I’ve done that before!!  I ‘ve worn two different Sunday shoes to church!”  We got a good laugh at that.  Only because, yes, I’ve done that before, too,– only they were both white and both pumps and you could only tell by a slight color variation.  But Orange and Blue are a whole different story.

It got slightly funnier (I know that ‘s not a real word, but it works for me), when another man came in a bit later when MP was gone.  He said, “I really like those colors together!  That blue and pink are a great combination!  When I was playing softball and was in charge of the uniforms , I ordered a red with that sky blue color.  Everyone thought it was going to look ugly, but they were sharp looking!  Oh, and I like the way your makeup matches your outfit!”

Now it was really funny.  First of all, when do guys even notice color, let alone makeup?  I thanked him and told him he was the most observant man I knew and that someone raised him well.  He said it was his mom. ;o)  I couldn’t help but think how great it would have been if MP had been here to hear that compliment.  It was still funny because while I was receiving the compliemnt, I couldn’t help but think that  my shoes weren’t matching.

It still cracks me up.

And yes, I do like to match my makeup colors to my outfit colors.  It’s one of  my quirks….kind of like flip flops.

You will be glad to know that I have looked down at my feet EVERY time I have left the house since that day.  I match now.  And I am at peace with color.

Thankful 2011

As I approach the end of each year and begin to look back on all that has happened during the year, I become so grateful for all I have been given.  I have found it theraputic for me to go back through the years worth of pictures and pick out those that summarize the year we’ve had.  I thought I share with you the wonderful year we have had with all our joys and sorrows.

Truly, I have so much to be thankful for!!  I hope you enjoy this peek into our family!

Thankful 2011

Here’s a little video of my all my family’s events during this year.  My son, Scout, is singing it.  He is the one serving an LDS mission right now.  He recorded this at my cousin’s house a year ago.  (Glad he did). ;o)

Hope you enjoy a little look into all of our family fun this year!

Denise

A Christmas Surprise

I received this sweet tender mercy last night.  A friend of mine has an old schoolmate who is in my son’s ward in Redlands.  She recorded him singing O Holy Night at church.  *shhh*  Thought I’d share it with you!

O Holy Night

Homecoming 2011

It was homecoming around here last week.  We love to have some fun with our kids and make their dinner just a little bit more special.  Well, let’s be honest, it keeps them from traveling a long way or spending a bunch of money on a dinner.  And it’s hard to get a big group in some of the restaurants.

Doodle Bug and MP decided that we should do a pirate theme this year.  So I figured that making the deck of the pirate ship would be the easiest.

Here are some photos of the room:

Here's the tables looking toward the door

The tables with their treasure chests, swords, eye patches and earrings.

The ships sail in the background

Pretty peach soup. They loved it!

My handsome son and his darling date!

Love this picture!

The group

More of the cute group

Kite Festivals & Disneyland

BJ Dude volunteered at the Kite Festival today as a service. MP came home and asked him about his day.

MP: How was the kite festival? This was the first one you’ve been to right?

BJ Dude: It was like Ghetto Disneyland.

Nothing more to say, I’m still laughing.

What Happens When Mom & Dad Are On Vacation

So MP and I are on vacation in Hawaii. It’s early morning and I decide to check facebook. For some reason a video my son’s friend made just seemed to call out to me, so I clicked on it. Imagine my surprise when I saw the opening credits to include my two youngest boys, then my #4 son roll across the screen. Now I was definitely watching because I wanted to see what really happens when we are on vacation. Turned out to be the funniest thing I have seen….. Enjoy

I should follow up with the fact that when we did return home, the kids (mostly Doodle Bug & Scout) had washed all the sheets in the house, washed all the blankets and organized that closet, changed all the bulbs in the chandelier, the kitchen was spotless, the laundry was done. It was amazing! I looked at MP and said, “where should we go next week?”

I truly truly have the BEST kids in the WHOLE world! They are amazing and kind and wonderful! How blessed I am!!

Halloween Joy

Here is what becoming joyful is all about!  Pretty sure I have the cutest grandkids on the planet! ;o)

This is a cute Jazz Bear, too.  He’s my baby and will be taller than me in a year or less.