Aileen is an aunt .....

Aileen is an aunt and she would like to tell you all about it!!!

Monday morning my Mom and Dad got me up and kept me home from Day Care so that we could drive up to Longview, Texas and see my niece be born.  My Sister Allison's due date was Sunday, January 20th, and since it hadn't come before today, they scheduled Allison being induced at 5:00 am at the Good Shepherd Hospital in Longview, Texas.

 We drove up and got there around lunch time, and Mom and Dad knew that I would be happier waiting in the labor and delivery waiting room if I had lunch.....so we stopped at McDonalds my favorite place and got lunch before going to the Hospital.

 

 About 1:00 pm we went to find out what room Allison and John were in so we could be waiting to hear about the baby at the right place. Allison let us come and visit her in the room while she was hooked up to all the monitors and while she was feeling some labor pains......

Dad bought Allison flowers - her favorite and made sure they were pink!!

Then we went back out to the waiting area and waited and waited and waited for what seemed like eternity!! My Dad took me for a drive and got me some dinner while Mom stayed close by Allison "just in case".

 

 



 John's parents the Rex's were there too and we had fun visiting. Then Aunt Elizabeth came up and was probably the smartest of us all because she got there in the evening time and didn't have to wait too long before we got the news that she was pushing...

 
Then we heard that Charlotte Elizabeth Rex was born and that she weighed 7 lbs 3 ozs, and 19 inches long. We were all so anxious to see and hold her.

The proud Dad

My beautiful niece....

Me and Charlotte

Grandma and Grandpa Rex - so excited!!

My Dad is loving being a Grandpa!

My Mom is thrilled!!

Aunt Elizabeth is crying because she just found out that they named Charlotte after her...

her middle name is Elizabeth.

I'm getting to hold my niece again....

The parents love her so much!!

and I think Great Aunt Elizabeth and Charlotte are going to have

a special connection.....don't you??

 

Monday January 21st was a special day.....

Now, you might think that Monday the 21st was a special day for many reasons....1) Barbara's Birthday, 2) Martin Luther King Day, 3) Presidential Inauguration 4) Usually a day off from work.... but you'd be wrong!!!  It's a special day because my very first grandchild Charlotte Elizabeth Rex was born!!  7 lbs. 3 ozs. and 19 inches long and the most beautiful baby you have ever seen in your life!!  I was so wowed by my daughter's strength and my son-in-law's attention and care and now I am a GRANDMOTHER!!

 

Words cannot express the feelings I have inside of me when I look at my daughter and then hold my granddaughter and hug my son-in-law.....I just don't know where to begin except to Thank my Heavenly Father for this wondrous blessing that has been given and entrusted into our lives!!  And thankfulness to my daughter and son-in-law for being extraordinary people and having an extraordinary marriage so that I know that Charlotte is one of the luckiest/blessed babies on the earth to be given them for parents!!

It was a really special day!!!

Visiting Teaching at lunch!!

We went to a deli (which I can't remember the name of) on 8th Ave that is the oldest Deli in Fort Worth and had lunch with a couple of our visiting teaching ladies!!  The food was good and you got a lot of it....we were all glad that we only got 1/2 portions.  We laughed, we caught up with each other, and shared our fun experiences from the Christmas Holiday's.  I gave the lesson and it was a great time spent together!!  Thanks Becky and Vera for going with MaryAnn and I to lunch!! It was AWESOME!!

This life is amazing....but some times it is hard.....

A very amazing family in our ward has had a difficult time just recently with their son who I believe is only 3, he was in a horrible accident and has a crushed femur and is in a body cast for at least 6 weeks.  You can imagine what this sweet family, especially the mother is having to go through in trying to care for her sweet boy as well as her baby and older son.  She is an excellent mother and is an amazing friend who I have loved getting to know.  Because I know this family loves Boston Market my favorite place to go to take dinners to others.....I took a Boston Market family meal over to them last Monday, and found out it was probably the perfect day for them not to have had to worry about dinner as they had 2 Doctors visits that day and other appointments involving the accident.  I'm also glad that when she was stressed out on another day (which she very rarely complains so if she is stressed you know its been a bad day) I was able to call her up and take her away for awhile and go to a movie....a comedy so we could talk and laugh and have a few minutes for herself!!

Caitlin and I ready to hit the movies!!

I brought Jace and Cole Star Wars Light Sabers to play with.
I knew Jace was getting gifts for obvious reasons as he needs
to be entertained while he can't do and go places but I thought
Cole would like to be remembered too.....they seemed to love them!!

Here's how cheerful and happy Jace is even during
this hard time.

This woman is willing to help and serve and does so much for others without even a thought i.e. helping me with my daughter's baby shower and it was an amazing shower, and she doesn't even know my daughter, in our church always signing up to help others and always doing nice things for her friends......I was so happy to get to do something unexpected for her!!  Hang in there Caitlin, I know you can do it!!

Her beautiful children
 

Her and her husband!  They really are just the cutest family and I am
so honored to call her/them my friends!!

P.S. I may have said amazing too many times in this post....but it really is the correct word for this family and mother!!

P.S.S.
Here is a really sweet note I got from Caitlin I would like to keep in my personal history....so no one else needs to read this but I want a record of it.  Thank you Caitlin and Jared.  I am humbled!

Caitlin said:
"Jared said to me "you know what I like about Lois Brown? She doesn't say "let me know what I can do to help", she just does something to help". He said it reminded him of that conference talk that said saying call me if I can help is really no help at all. So thank you again for just helping. It is so greatly appreciated. Love you :)"

Kinko's is my kind of place......

I know it's called Fed Ex Kinko's now, but I still just call it Kinko's, have I mentioned that I resist --o.k.-- fight change....lol!!  Anyway my best girl Mary Staley and I had a fun afternoon catching up on each others family news, had a fabulous lunch at Chipotle's (I think that's how it's spelled) if you haven't been you need to go....and then went to Kinko's to blow up family photo's in black and white to 24 x 36 sizes!!  I feel especially special today as she is a mother of 7 and in school working hard to get her degree (straight A, Dean's list kind of work) and she took time to spend some one on one time with me!!  And when I figure out what is wrong with my blog and I can upload pictures...there will be one here of her and her awesome family!!  She is an amazing loving woman and I feel so blessed to know her, let alone call her friend!  Thanks for the fun time out and about!!

 

Isn't this an awesome family!!  And this is one of the pictures we blew up at Kinko's!!  I also don't mind advertising that my daughter, Allison was the photographer you can see her most recent work at http://allisonrexphotography.blogspot.com/

Thursday 12-27-12 through New Years day 2013.

After I got off work on Thursday my Dad called to say that everyone was at his home visiting him and that they were going to IHOP for dinner and could I join them.  So I hooked up with everyone at IHOP and got to see Ruth, John and Sarah one more time before they left Friday.  And Edward before he left Friday (Jill and Samantha went to Cheddar's for dinner, they had to go before they left Texas!!)  My beautiful sister Elizabeth, whom I get to see all the time, but still nice when we can all be together.....never get tired of being all together!  And it was fun that Logan, Lauren, and Taylor were there too.  I had been kind of bummed out that I hadn't gotten to see them more with Alan working such long hours everyday through the holiday it seemed we were always the last ones there and the first to leave....while everyone stayed and played.....so I was happy for the opportunity to meet up one last time.  Thanks Dad and Logan for calling me and making sure I was included!!


Logan, Elizabeth, Dad, Barbara, Sarah, and Taylor

I was sitting on this side next to John....but I was taking the picture so not in it!
Lauren, Edward, Ruth, and John

Friday and Saturday we just tried to get caught up on sleep and work and kind of take it easy until we were going to go to a Party Saturday night....but then We were so excited because our kids surprised us by coming back to Ft. Worth for New Years!!  What a great surprise!!  We played Monopoly and some kind of cards I'm sure and talked about how much we wished we had "Risk" to play.

Sunday, I had my final lesson of the Book of Mormon, a review, a Family Feud Game.  Everyone seemed to have a really good time and we had a lot of high scores....so that's always nice.  And I decorated my room with all the Hero's of the Book of Mormon posters it was a nice ending to a great year!

We invited Dad and Barbara and Tootie over for dinner with us so that they got to visit with John and Allison some more.  We had Italian this night - lasagna and french bread and fresh fruit, and pies.

Then we played cards.

New Years Eve, I had to work morning only and when I got off we went to Barnes and Nobles to see Dad and look for some new games....we found "Bang" which we really like, but no Risk, at least not the style of Risk that we wanted....so we went to Target and found it.  Yay!!

Logan and his friend Snyder game to join us for Dinner at "The Cotton Patch" then we went to see the new "Jack Reacher" movie which I have read all of the books (Lee Child's Jack Reacher books) so I was excited to see how Tom Cruise did as he was the movie star playing Jack Reacher, and he is not the big guy the book describes, but he got the job done.  I really enjoyed the movie and thought it followed the book as good as any movie can.  Then you guessed it we played cards and "Risk" until way past the New Year.



Alan, Aileen, my empty seat, Snyder, Logan, John and Allison
 

New Years day, we slept in then went to lunch at Chili's then to the movie "Parental Guidance" loved it.  It was great and better than the previews made it look....and I thought the previews made it look pretty darn good.

We took Logan and Snyder to meet up with his Dad and then we played more cards.  I think we went to bed kind of early this night....too many late nights.  After Alan and I went to work Wednesday the kids left for Tyler.  We were sad to see them go....but we really had, had so much fun we couldn't really complain!

It was an awesome holiday!!

Wednesday 12-26-12

My brother Edward has a recipe from a Mexican Restaurant in Provo that they love and he wanted to make the dinner that they love from that restaurant for all of us on Wednesday.  So once again we all tracked out to Rowlett to Elizabeth's home where Edward and Jill had some wonderful bbq pulled pork taco type salad's with a special dressing (really hard to explain what it was, not sure they ever told us) but it was really good and we were very happy that Edward wanted to treat us all!! It was a treat.  Then almost everyone including Alan says that what happened next was his favorite part of the holiday.  Whenever the Clays get together, especially when Mom was alive, whenever we were all together as a family for whatever reason we were always singing around the piano.  So we had an impromptu gathering around the piano where everyone sang, cried, laughed and just loved being all together again singing the songs we use to sing with Mom.  Ruth played her cello again, Dad asked me to sing "O Holy Night" and Sarah played her piano again....but mostly we all just sang our favorite songs, like "I Heard Him Come", all the Janice Kapp Perry songs, "O Lord My Redeemer" and other favorites.  It was a great night.

Edward cooking us all dinner!!

 

We also were able this year to celebrate Sarah's birthday with her!!  Grandpa and Grandma Barbara brought a cake and we all brought presents and it was a nice Surprise!!

Allison and John went home from Elizabeth's that night and we went back to Ft Worth to get back to work the next day!  And we thought that was the end of our holiday.  But........