January

This may be a long blog. But so much has happened this month.

NEW YEAR'S EVE
Mike and I spent New Years Eve with friends, playing games and ringing in the New Year at midnight, even if we are old folks, we managed to all make it to 12 am! New Years Day we put away all the Christmas decorations and getting ready for a normal work schedule.

KELLY VISITS
The following week, Kelly was in town for a few days for the CES convention (Consumer Electronics Show not Church Education System). Her group from work flew in on a Thursday and left Saturday. Her boss was very kind and gave her a flight home on the following Monday night, because he knew she was from here and wanted her to have time with her family. We enjoyed spending time with her.

MELISSA AND KIDS

The Wednesday of that week Melissa and the kids arrived. Melissa came to spend some time with us while Curry is in Ghana working with his Signs of Hope Organization and to get out of the snow. We had fun days of visiting quilt stores to pick out fabrics for a quilt I have started, playing in the park, going to Build a Bear, and just playing with the kids. Kelly and her special friend, Luke came in Friday night to join the fun and to celebrate Kelly's birthday.

Lauren had not seen Melissa to give her Christmas gifts yet, Lauren had made plates etched with each of Melissa's family name on them.


Jaman with Garn playing with a lego set

Lauren with Asher playing with Asher's gift, a tea set

BUILD A BEAR

The kids has so much fun at Build a Bear on Friday night. Jaman made a teddy bear and Asher made a dog. Asher did not understand that we had to stuff the dog to make it look like the sample dog in the store. She carried around the store sample until we got hers stuffed and when it looked like a dog she was willing to put the sample one back on the shelf. Jaman was so happy with his he picked out clothes for it including a hat, then made it dance all over the store.

Jaman and his teddy bear that he made at Build a Bear

Asher and her dog ( it only looks like she is choking her dog) We picked out a dog sweater but after we got home, she wanted it off, she said doggie wanted to be naked!

KELLY AND LUKE ARRIVE

Luke and Kelly arrived Friday night very late. I was the only one who waited up for them! Kelly and Luke had some interesting news for us...after Luke and Mike (AKA "Daddy" had a little talk). They are engaged! We are planning a wedding for April 11Th! We are very excited to welcome Luke to our family. It will be strange to him for awhile since he is from a family of 5 boys. He is not used to being with all us women!

Luke and Kelly

While Mike and Luke had their little talk the rest of us went to a bridal store to try dresses on. I won't show you THE dress I am going to make, but we did get some cute pictures there. Kelly and Jaman

A future bride

Lauren and Leslie

Guess how excited Garn was with the whole thing?

(Garn had worked a graveyard shift the night before)

KELLY'S BIRTHDAY

That night the whole family went to the California Pizza Kitchen for dinner to celebrate Kelly's birthday. Here we all are...

Nancy, Kelly and Luke

Jaman and Mike

Lauren and Garn

Leslie and Asher
Leslie, Melissa and Asher

SUNDAY

Sunday we all went to church and Kelly and Luke left for home. That night I still had a gingerbread house to be decorated that we did not have time to do at Christmas time. So we had some fun with it.

Jaman with our creation.

Asher and our decorated house

I think a lot of the candy ended up eaten!



Asher pretending to be asleep on the stairs.

All too soon it was time for Melissa and kids to start home. The house was so quiet. We missed Jaman's babbling and Asher asking for snacks because she was SO hungry!

LAST NEWS

Today I had an interview with a councilor at the temple. I have been called to be an Ordinance Worker at our temple. I start next Wednesday. I am very excited to be able to serve the Lord this way.

Christmas

Christmas Eve was a fun night for us. We had Leslie, Lauren and Garn here with us and we were also joined by Mark, Wendy and Ian for dinner. We had a feast of ham, turkey, mashed potatoes, rolls, and the rest of the trimmings, with pies for dessert. We ate till we were ready to burst.

We then relaxed and talked for awhile. We were joined by Zen and Jody (they had been at her parents house not far from us) just as we were ready to start our Christmas Eve game and Mike's reading of the scriptures. It was a very fun night and I was so happy to have Mark's family with us. We all went to bed very late.

The stockings have been hung for weeks at our house, but it was finally time to fill them! Lauren and Garn arrived about 8AM with homemade cinnamon rolls. We dug into our stockings and then opened gifts. Then had breakfast.

Lauren liked the bow as much as the gift.


Leslie with her new blouse

Lauren with her gift
Garn and his jig saw (boys and their toys)

Mike with his favorite game (haha)

Leslie and a new movie and candle set.

All in all it was a peaceful day, until the rain came about 4pm. The wind blew at about 50 miles per hour and the rain poured, we also had thunder and lightning for about an hour and then it was gone!

Leslie had a chance to talk with Justin (her boyfriend who is in Ohio on his mission) at his parents house. After she arrived back home we drove to a new theater in North Las Vegas near Lauren's house to see Valkyrie. It was a great historical movie I enjoyed it.

Mike has been off work for about 1 1/2 weeks. He has one more week to go. I will miss having him home when he returns to work!

Melissa visits

We were lucky to have Melissa here for a few days. She came home to attend her 10 year class reunion. (I know she's not that old right?) She and I went shopping Friday after she arrived looking for a new iron for my sewing room. We did eventually get the iron ordered because we could not find it in stores, but we did make it to DSW, Target, Great Harvest for lunch and I am sure a few other places too.

Saturday it was cold and windy we really did not want to go out. Lauren stopped by for a visit and we had a Wii bowling tournament. Mike won that easily. We showed Melissa how to box using the Wii. She was sore the next day! Melissa went to her reunion this night.

Sunday we went to church, Melissa attended Lauren's ward. Then we all gathered at Lauren's house for yummy pasta dinner made by Lauren, and had Family Home Evening.

Monday morning we were up early and headed out to a huge antique store and then to lunch at Macayo's for Mexican food. All to soon we were on our way to the airport so she could return home. We miss you already and wish that you could have brought Kelly with you.

Melissa, Lauren and Leslie

Snow in Las Vegas?

We live in the desert! We don't usually have much if any snow, but yesterday broke records. Some parts of town had 8-10 inches. We just had 1-2 inches. These pictures were taken in the afternoon, when it was just getting started. It snowed until about midnight and then started raining, so by morning it was almost gone. It was fun to watch though. It is funny how such a little bit can stop a city this big. The airport cancelled all flights last night due to not having de-icing machinery and snow plows to clear the runways. School was cancelled today for a snow day. It was the first time in 30 years that had happened! We picked Leslie up from work last night and it took us an hour and 15 minutes to get home due to street lights not working!

Our backyard


This was taken this morning looking out our back windows. This is Sunrise Mountain which hardly ever gets snow because it is not very high. It sure looked pretty. It is all melted tonight the temps were in the 40's this afternoon.

Movie warning

Last night after our ward Christmas Party, Melissa, Leslie and I decided that we would go to the movie,"Four Christmas's". We all love Reese Witherspoon and were hoping for a funny movie. About 30 minutes into it we walked out! I have only walked out of one other movie before. But this one was vulgar and rotten. So beware!

Quilts

Melissa is and always will be the quilt maker in the family, but, lately I have learned to like making quilts. So I wanted to post two of the ones I have made.

This one I made for Jaman. My friend Tracy embroidered the ASL alphabet on each square for me and I put it together.

This is a quilt I made for Mike's niece for her yet to be born baby! I loved the colors.

Thanksgiving

I haven't had the time to write anything in ages, and this will sound alot like an email I sent to my family, but read on if you would like!

We were lucky enough to have Kelly home for almost a week around Thanksgiving. We really enjoyed the time and it all went too fast. We did Christmas shopping, ate turkey and trimmings and even found time to make fudge.

The Sunday following Thanksgiving, I went home with Kelly. I spent the daytime with Melissa and the evenings with Kelly or both girls. Monday Melissa and I went to about 20 different places Christmas shopping. We were worn out by the time she had to leave to go get Jaman from school. That night Kelly and I went to Karen's for her birthday. Mom and Dad were there. We had a nice visit with them. Mom wasn't too sure who I was though. Dad had bought a beautiful cake for Karen and Mom was very excited to have some of it. She really did not want to wait even for dinner to start on it.

Tuesday I drove to Alpine to met Melissa. We stayed closer to her house that day. She had a sewing project that she needed to work on and I finished a skirt that she had started and ran into problems with. That night Kelly and I went to her first Mary Kay party as a consultant. It was way up on the mountain in Salt Lake City. We had a fun night but did not get home till late.

Wed. Mike and Leslie arrived. We met at Melissa's and that night we opened gifts with Kelly, Melissa, Curry and the kids. It was very fun. We had bought Jaman a robotic dinosaur, Asher had been with me when I picked it out and she thought it was hers. But when they got it out of the box and it started walking and roaring, she was very afraid of it and wanted to be held! I had been busy sewing for Asher, I made dress-up costumes for her and bought a toy chest to put them in. I can't wait to see her in them. We also bought a tent set that included and small teepee tent and another igloo type tent with tubes that conect them together. We set up just the tents that night and Asher had to have all of us join her in the tents with all her stuffed animals and her blankets. It was really cute.

Thursday we helped Melissa get a new house ready for their "Once Upon A Christmas" home tour. We had thought it was just going to be decorating and staging the home, but it turned out that they builder was not finished with the home yet. When we got there they were still installing carpet, lighting fixtures, varnishing the fireplace mantle, and it was very dirty! We ended up doing contruction clean up most of the day. That night we toured some of the homes on the tour. We had the kids with us as Melissa and Curry were so involved with the tour.
Friday morning Leslie and I made a trip to Tai Pan and found some fun things, then we met Melissa and Asher and Kelly for lunch at Midvale Mining Company. It was great! Then all to soon we had to start home.

Asher in her tent

Leslie & Asher

Kelly & Leslie

Asher, Curry & Jaman

Asher & Curry

Jaman and his Quilt I made (this is the back side)

Jaman and his dinosaur

Mike and I.

Jaman opening gifts

Melissa where were you hiding?