A mother's right to brag......

So, my girls are doing great in College!

My oldest is at Salt Community College/pre-nursing and getting a 4.0. And these classes are very difficult classes like Biology, Chemistry, so on and so forth! I'm so proud of her determination.



And my youngest, is at BYU and got a 4.0 this semester and a 3.75 overall! And this is at BYU, really quite amazing! BYU professors think that BYU is Harvard and so expect that kind of work. I'm very proud of her as well! In fact this last year Allison was invited to join the Golden Key Honor Society, which I later found out that they only invite the top 10% of the College to join.



Aileen, my middle girl, just gets a 4.0 in life! And I love her dearly - well actually Aileen is the professor and Alan and I are the students...... I wonder what kind of GPA we are earning........

So, thanks for letting me have this moment to brag!

Spring + Blue Bonnets = Texas!

We have lived in Texas for 7 yrs now and every spring I say that I want to go and take pictures of my girls in the blue bonnet fields that bloom in spring! Every year something happens, like waiting too long, too busy with other activities to take a moment and make the trip, or the fact that not all of my girls were here and it just didn't feel right to take the picture with only 2 of the 3 girls, or only Aileen!!! But since that is who our family is now that we are Empty Nester's, just Aileen, Alan and I, it didn't seem wrong somehow this year to go and take the pictures! I also think that this life is so short that its a shame to not take advantage of the memories while you can. These past 6 months have really taught me if nothing else....life is too short to not make memories whenever possible! Not only did I lose my mother from this life, but my father had 2 heart attacks in a matter of days just recently and had to have triple bypass surgery. A family who are very dear friends to us loss their 25 yr old son in a tragic accident, and in our church family tragically a 17 yr old young man was shot when he disturb some robbers in his home just because he came home for lunch a few days ago! This life is too precious....... and can change on a dime..... so it is so important to cherish your time together!

So.......we took pictures in the blue bonnets today and it brought us all a lot of joy!

Spring is here and I love spring for what it represents with the Resurrection of the Savior! That I know that he lives! I know that all these dear ones that we have lost, live again and are in such a glorious place and with their Heavenly Father and Savior!

Tomorrow is my mother's birthday! I think she would be please with how we have continued on in faith and that we are trying to be better people in this life so that we will be able to see her again! That we are trying to continue her legacy of service. And that the Gospel and the Savior are the center of our lives! Love you Mom, and we miss you for now, but know that we will be together again!

Going to a garden party......

Today my VT partner had a luncheon for us and a couple of our Visiting Teaching ladies in her garden! It was a lot of fun! The food was awesome, the company FABULOUS, and the weather perfect!!!! We talked for so long we totally lost track of time and all had to run off at the last minute to go pick up kids from school and what not! But it was really really delightful MA, thanks so much! MA didn't have me bring any food, so I brought some really pretty pastel colored flowering plants for them to take home in keeping with our Theme! And of course i got one for our hostess with the brilliant idea as well! I really love visiting teaching! Throughout my whole adult life, visiting teaching is where I have found some of my most precious friends that last forever! Not just for a little while, but forever! For that I am extremely grateful!

Oh, and I got to hold this cute little boy all afternoon as well! BONUS!

April's theme......Emergency Rooms!

So this morning at about 5:00 am my Dad says, "Lois, I think I need to go to the hospital". which if you know my Dad, he is really concerned and has probably been dealing with some pain for awhile and finally decided he needed to check it out. I jumped out of bed so fast you would have never believed it and we were on our way. We just got home and it is 12:25 pm and they said that he didn't have a heart attack so that is good....but I still want to know what caused the shortness of breath and the tightness in his chest. So I have put a call into the Cardiologist myself and they will be seeing him today or tomorrow or they will have the wrath of Lois and if you've seen the wrath of Lois.....its not a place you or I want to go!

Monday, I got a call from my oldest who said that she was in the Emergency room getting a CT Scan and a Lumbar puncture test to make sure of no bleeding or problems in her brain.....She is in Utah and I am here.....not happy about that. But she is home and resting now and her tests came back clear.....but once again, why did she have the pain in her head and vomiting.....I hate that I can't seem to get answers!!!!

Then of course there was the infamous 2nd heart attack of my Dad's on April 2nd that we ended up in the Emergency room for that moved his surgery way way up.....obvious they couldn't wait like the wanted to, to do the triple by-pass! So I guess if this is the theme for April....I am ready for April to be OVER!!!!!

(the 1st emergency room visit for Dad's 1st heart attack was March 28th so it doesn't count for April but that would make 4 emergency room visits in a months time!!!)

I believe 3 emergency room visits in one family for the month of April makes it a theme!

But I am extremely happy and feel very blessed that everyone - even with the scares - are doing well!

a Different kind of "Care Package" to missionaries

Friday, I went to the post office and mailed off 3 care packages for the missionaries that are on missions from our Ward. These 3 young men also use to be my seminary students so that makes it even more fun! The last of our RS Qtrly Activity - Service Projects has been taken care of. We asked each sister to write their testimony. Originally I thought it would be so cool for the missionaries to get a package full of testimonies from the Ward members they remember and love back home. Knowing that it would be their teachers and leaders from their youth! But then a member of the RS Presidency who is a return missionary herself said, "and how cool will that be for the missionaries to use our testimonies with their lessons in teaching investigators or inactives, how nice will it be for them to share our testimonies with these people when they feel inspired to do so". And then we even thought that they could put them in with a Book of Mormon they were giving away if they wanted to.....so many uses.....so I was really happy to send these off to Chile, Canada, and California!!!

Cutting Boy's (Men's) hair

Tonight we had a RS Meeting on how to cut your children's hair, focusing on boys hair cuts, which could in turn translate into cutting your husband's hair! Our Bishop's wife is the mother of 5 boys and she cuts all of their hair and the Bishop's too! She says that she has saved thousands of dollars doing this and she learned when she was first married at a RS meeting!!! This gave her the courage to do it and practice, and she says that she is careful to stay up on the styles (within reason of course). Everyone that came learned something new even if they had already been cutting their husband's or children's hair before. I learned that if I am going to continue cutting Alan's hair (my husband) I have got to get clippers!!! That is why I can't get the back cut close enough to his neck! So that might just be what I want for Mother's day! Anyway, here are some pics of tonight, and thanks to J for being the perfect model!

Service project hits close to home....

Early March our Relief Society had a Qtrly Activity that was all about service. See this post and this post.

One of the service projects was to make "Heart Pillows" for heart surgery patients at a nearby hospital. These are pillows that the patients are given to hold on their chest so that they can move, cough, get out of bed etc... with as little pain as possible. Plus it keeps their breast bones that have been wired together again, together!

we made 25 pillows in about 45 minutes, some women cut fabric, some ironed, and 4 women sewed like deamons!

At the time I had no idea that this project would be so dear to my heart personally! I loved the idea of it and I lead the group that night in making the pillows. And when we didn't have enough pillows for the covers we made, I gathered coupons and bought the pillows as my donation to this service project! I guess Heavenly Father was behind my passion and drive of making this happen, because guess who got our first pillow from the Hospital! My Dad!

My Dad with his angel heart pillow on the road to recovery!