Admissions

I went to the move "Admissions" Thursday night to the late, late showing, which is kind of a sneak viewing of the new films that come out on Friday....It was really cute and funny, but also dealt with some emotional topics, so it was a good mixture and very entertaining.

picture by: IMDb

But, what I was so excited to see were the movie posters they displayed in the hall advertising the new Hunger Games movie coming in November...they were beautiful and make me get really excited way too early for the next movie!!  But I thought I would share.

Big surprise, I went to Tyler, Not!!

I know that no one will be surprised that I went to Tyler Friday afternoon to see my granddaughter and her parents!!  But what made this visit a little different and really fantastic for me, is that now that we have Respite care for Aileen, I could leave right after work at noon and know that her caregiver would be at the house waiting for her bus and then would take care of her all evening until Alan got home and could take over!!  I have never been able to do this before!!  Usually I have to take Aileen with me, not that that is not wonderful too, but it is a little more stressful and because I have to take care of her, I'm not able to help Allison as much, or help with Charlotte as much as I would like to!  So this trip was almost like a holiday!!  And I loved every minute of it!!

Because Easter is almost here, I had to go to Gymboree, my favorite baby clothes store, and pick out a couple of Easter Dresses....and can I tell you people, it was a miracle I only bought 2, but of course I had to get matching shoes and socks to go with he-he, it was so much fun.  And then because I knew we were going to go to the park, I just had to get her some stylin' sun glasses!!  Happy Easter Charlotte!!

And because I hadn't done my walking yet, Allison and I planned that we would take Charlotte to the park and walk together, which we did and Charlotte was too much fun!!

 

She is just too dang cute!!  Makes me smile anytime I see her in person or her in pictures!!

But this is how I love it most.....

Hail, Hail, go away......

Here in Texas we have been having awesome weather while all the rest of the country is having snow, snow, and more snow.  The other day I saw on the News that Austin had a hail storm and when they showed pictures it looked like it had snowed there was so much hail on the ground.  And I was surprised!

Well, I'm not anymore.  I went to Tyler Friday to help my daughter and see my granddaughter and ended up staying the night and getting up early this morning to drive home.  About 40 minutes into the trip home it started getting darker and darker, then all of a sudden there were rain drops, then all of a sudden hail and I don't mean just a little hail I mean pounding flash flood type of hailing....so much so that all the traffic on the highway pulled over to the side of the road and tried to get under highway passes with their cars and trucks. I really thought I would have a broken windshield before it was all over!!  and after 10 - 15 minutes when it was all over....you would have thought it had snowed 3 inches....but it was much more dangerous because your car tires were having to break through solid ice!

 

I hope I never have to go through that again.  But I am very grateful for Heavenly Father's protection, and that the car appears to be o.k., and that I made it home safely!

I've been to some baby showers.....

We have had a couple of baby showers in our Ward/Church the last couple of weeks and I love any excuse to go to a party....but I espcially love baby showers!

Last week, there was a shower for a fairly new convert to our church who had a late in life surprise!!  Jeannine Tshimpangila is having a boy, and she is so excited, even though all her children are grown and in college or the military right now.  It was fun to be with her!

Back L to R:  Rebecca Albright, Kristen Murphy, Dana Wurz, Caitlin Thompson,
Shanita Hepworth
Front L to R: Jeannine Tshimpangila; Betty Willden, and and Jeannine's daugher.

Me; Jeannine, and Betty Willden.

Quite a few more came then who are pictured here (Yensy Willden, Shelby Denti, Lori Wagley, Yamilla Pruitt, Theresa Gammons to name a few), but I took these before everything started!!  The food was yummy, the company grand, and she got a lot of fun things.

The shower today, was a shower for one of the young mother's in our Ward/Church who works with the young women!  And I adore Karin Havens who hosted the party!  Ashley Leaupepe had a baby girl and she always has her dressed so cute, especially this last Sunday for St. Patrick's Day!!  She had on a cute green dress, a fun green bow in her hair and green St. Patty's day tights!  It was great!

Karin Havens and Ashley

Front L to R: Kristie Jenson, Karin Havens, Amber Allen
Back L to R: Shelby Denti, Aleta Allen, Yensy Willden, Ashley Leaupepe,
Barbara Clay, and Bessie Treber  (me not pictured!!)

Some sisters left before I got the picture taken (Mirta Brown and I think someone else), but once again, the food was amazing, the visiting and laughter awesome, and the gifts were great and I'm sure appreciated by this new mother!!

Biggest Loser-Charlotte Edition-Week 7

This week, I'm really excited I'm not going to lie, because I broke out the 2 lbs a week plateau I was on.  I lost 5 lbs for week 7 for a total of 36 lbs!!

Alan lost 4 lbs and is down 57 lbs!!

We just have to keep reminding ourselves why we are doing this!! 

Miss Charlotte in her swing wearing her Jazz onsie!!

And I have to thank my son-in-law for all the time and effort he is spending on us - keeping us motivated, working out or exercise programs, checking up on us every day, and his willingness to come and work out with us!  We love you son!  You are truly amazing!

St. Patty's day!!

Last Sunday was St. Patricks Day!  I don't know if we have any Irish in us, but we always have fun decorating the house for the holiday, and when everyone was in school it was always fun to wear green so you didn't get pinched!  This year, Aileen got a visit from a Leprechaun at her Day Care Facility!  How great is that!  And her face looks like she is saying...."Hey buddy, where is your pot of gold?"  How fun that they took pictures and sent one home for me!!  She really does have a good place to go and socialize, and be taken care of while I work!  I'm grateful to them every day!!

And here is Aileen with her Adult day care workers!!

 

Thanks every one for you patience and compassion!!

 

My Dad.....

My Dad is pretty amazing!  And I''m so grateful that I have the privilege of being his daughter!  But last Saturday was scary!  We got a call at 4:00 am from Barbara saying that Dad felt like he was having a heart attack again, and they were headed to the Emergency room and could Alan and Bishop Willden come and give him a blessing!  The good news is, after the tests, they determined that it wasn't a heart attack, so that's good I guess, but what was causing the pain, that felt like a heart attack??  They said he had a mini stroke and that some of the pain could be from an ulcer....  Neither one of those things make me feel any better, because in fact my mother had several mini strokes until she had the stroke that killed her.  And she also had an ulcer that burst open when they tried to go in and fix it, which was the surgery right before the last one that she never came home from!!  Ever since a couple of years ago with his heart attack and kidney stones and high blood pressure, and erratic heart beating he really has never recovered!!  And it concerns me.  And my biggest fear is that he is not going to be with us much longer.....so we have been trying to not let opportunities to spend time together go...and we are trying to make the most of our time with him on earth!!

So, the day that my dad was in the emergency room so early in the morning, was Aileen's birthday party and even though they had released him, I knew he was so weak and needed to be home in bed resting that I never expected him to come to the birthday party!  But he did, and I was so happy he got to see his great granddaughter again.  He was so weak that he did not feel like he could hold her, but he reached up and held her hand and loved on her.  It was a tender moment and it will be forever a tender memory!!

Love you Daddy!!

My baby sister turned 40!!! Yikes, is that possible??

Saturday night after Aileen's party was done and John & Allison had headed home, we headed to Rowlett because my sister, yes, that's right my baby sister turned 40 that week!  I can hardly believe its true but she assures me it is.....I'm so old, its really not funny anymore!!



She looked so gorgeous, I wish I had a better picture close up of just her!

 Because we now have respite care, Yippee, lets hear it for respite care, Alan and I go on dates every week now and we decided that we needed to take our Date Night to Elizabeth's birthday party!  She looked beautiful and it was really fun meeting her friends and visiting with them.

 

I made Elizabeth for her birthday an "Aunt" tree of life necklace with all of her nieces and nephews birthstones on it, because she really is an amazing aunt and always does so much for everyone!  I know my children have been so greatly blessed to have her in their lives!!  She is a special lady, and when the Prophet or our Stake President says, you don't have to have children to be a mother.....that is so right, she is an amazing mother to all the children in our family!!

Happy Birthday Sis, I hope it was grand!!  We loved being apart of it!!

Aileen turned 28 and we finally got around to having a party for her!!!

I know, I know, its horrible how long Aileen had to wait for her birthday party!!  But her birthday was the weekend of the Baby Blessing and that weekend was just to jammed packed with things that needed to be done!  Then the next week we still had Anne Marie here and enjoying our time with her, and then we were broke lol.... and for your 28th birthday you have to have a party!!....so the first time that we could have a party was Saturday the 16th, which worked out nicely because John, Allison, and Charlotte were here for Spring Break!!

We gave her a choice of bowling, roller skating, movie, or miniature golf and she chose bowling!!

Summer, Aileen, Callie, Emmy, and Landin

Uncle George came!!

Aunt Beverly, and Uncle David came too!

Grandpa and Grandma came...which was really unbelievable
as my Dad had been in the Emergency Room all morning!!

Of course, John, Allison and .......

 

Charlotte came!

Emmy helping her Dad change shoes so he can bowl!!
 

Aileen Loving bowling!!!  Everyone wanted to help Aileen it was really sweet!

While we bowled, we had Soda, pizza, and popcorn!

Then it was time for the cake and opening presents!!

It was a great time!! Thanks everyone for coming and making it so special!!

Stephanie Meyer Book Signing

Alan was selected to be a part of the Dallas Barnes & Nobles book signing event that they had for "The Host" a book by Stephanie Meyer of Twilight fame!!  I really like this book and am very excited that it is coming out as a movie March 29, 2013!!  Alan really enjoyed working the event and even got to speak to Stephanie Meyer for several minutes having the tie in that he and I both attended BYU.  And best of all he brought me home a signed book!

His specific duty was to help one of the male actors' line, Jeremy Irons son, Max Irons to make sure he had everything he needed, to help move the signing along and to keep people (girls mainly) from asking them to do things that people just shouldn't ask, if you know what I mean!!  He really enjoyed the whole experience and I was thrilled with the movie poster he brought home for me with the movie actors signatures  (Max Irons and Jake Able) and of course, the book with Stephanie's.

Thank you sweetheart!

Spring Break 2013

This is the first time in several years, that we have had someone here for "Spring Break".  It was a lot of fun!  We picked out what restaurants we wanted to order from every night (counting calories, you know) and had Dad pick up on the way home because we had Miss Charlotte here and didn't want to take her out, plus that is her bedtime, or getting close to her bed time!  So we enjoyed Outback, Chili's, and of course Subway.

So, she got to take baths at Grandma's house....it was so cute to participate in that, especially since she loves her baths!!

 

And she got to spend the early mornings before I had to leave for work playing with Grandma and Grandpa in our bed so Mommy & Daddy could sleep!

 

I even kicked Allison and John out to go have a date by themselves and trust me to take care of Charlotte Friday afternoon!

 

And, of course, we played cards!!  All the time!!  Friday, Elizabeth came and spent the day with us, so that made it even better!! Although, she and John clobbered us in Cards!!  In fact the Men (John & Alan) had a better time this visit and beat Us (Me and Allison) a couple of times, but we gave them a run for their money and I think we won once or twice even though the men were on a roll!!

And the part that Aileen liked the best.....sleeping with Mom and Dad because upstairs needed to be quiet for Charlotte!!

If you exercise she will come.....

This is the sign that Alan wanted to have hung in our home across the banister....because John does bribe us with grandparent privileges to get us to exercise. He told us that if we exercised they would come up on Wednesday of spring break week instead of waiting until Friday night or Saturday.....so we made sure that we exercised.....and since Alan is the one that kind of slacks off a little, I made sure he exercised, because I told him he was not going to be the reason that Charlotte couldn't come to visit early!!

So he did, I did, and she did come!!  And it was such a joy to have Charlotte, John, and Allison here!

It was really fun because Charlotte, and Allison, and John all went walking with me!  Charlotte looked just as cute as she could in her hoodie, getting ready to go for a ride in her stroller.  I was really impressed that Allison could run with the stroller since it has been quite a while since she has exercised/run/walked having just given birth to Miss Charlotte not that long ago!!

 

I was even heard to say "Best Spring Break Ever...." in the same breath that I said "we have to go walking now".  Which is really pretty amazing.
And on Wednesday and Friday I walked my first 4 miles ever with Thursday 2 and Saturday 3.  So if you add Monday and Tuesday's 2 miles each....I walked a total of 17 miles that week.   When I thought I was doing outstanding walking 10 a week!!  I will say the walking part is getting easier, but the stairs and other exercises that I have to do are NOT!!

For this week I lost 2 more lbs. for a total of 31 lbs in 6 weeks.  Alan stayed the same and so did Aileen.  But the good news they didn't gain....Alan knew he had not watched his calories the way he should have....so we were just glad he didn't gain.

John re-worked our exercise program.....ugggh!  But its working so who am I to complain!

Old fogies can line dance too!!!

Saturday night was the High Priest Group Social in in our Church and that usually means the older people in our ward/congregation!  Sometimes you have younger ones in the group that have gotten certain leadership callings in our church......and we use to be the younger ones....but now we are the older ones....but they(the men/High Priest) planned a really fun evening and they really did plan everything and make everything....it was great!

They had a potato and salad bar for dinner, and believe me I figured out how many calories a loaded bake potato was before I went....and it was heavenly.

Then for entertainment and fun we had a couple from our Stake, come and teach us line dancing!  Now I didn't get pictures of everyone, but we had a pretty good crowd out there trying to shake a leg!!

Thanks Alan for helping to plan such a fun evening, even if we found out that you should NOT line dance Sunday morning....line dancing and plantar fasciitis do not go together!!

The only bad thing about these pictures is I realized I am still really fat....even with loosing 29 lbs!  But I'm working on it!  That's what I keep telling myself!!

This was a good workout!!  And those dancing even if you can not see them....Shelby and Kirk Denti; Yensy and Bruce Willden; Scott and Laura Brackney; us(Alan & Lois); Bro & Sis. Allen; Bro. & Sister Peterson; Bro. and Sister Chapman; Chuck Malone; John Wurz; and I can't remember who else, I might have missed someone....but it was a lot of fun and those that didn't dance watched and were their for the dinner; John and Mirta Brown; Barbara & Dean Clay; Betty & Keith Willden; Bessie and Jerry Treber; Linda and Rob Davila; Dana Wurz; and Carol Malone (because of her hurt foot).

Alan was in charge of the dancing!  he did good!!