Happy Birthday Dad!

I just wanted to do a quick post about my dad.

My dad was a worker. Everything he did was to provide for our family. Every cent he made went to the family. He might have changed jobs often, but he worked like a madman at each one. I think he litterally worked himself to death. He did it for us, Dad loved us.

He called me his little angel. At least when I was little. I know that I drove him almost crazy during my teen years and early adulthood. He didn't give up on me, he always believed in me. I miss him.

I remember once when I was about 8 years old, Mom sat all of us kids on the stairs to wait for Dad to come in the house from work. When he walked in, we sang this song. I think it was one of his favorite memories... the smile on his face that night is definitely one of mine. Here you go dad!

I have a family here in earth

they are so good to me

I want to share my life with them

through all eternity

Families can be together forever

through Heavenly Father's plan

I always want to be with my own family

And the Lord has shown me how I can

The Lord has shown me how I can.

-Love you!

Pay It Forward
The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice--for you! This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:1. I make NO guarantees that you will LIKE what I make! (I can only hope)2. What I create will be just for you.3. It WILL be done this year.4. You have no CLUE what it’s going to be … it may be cards, a bookmark, something delicious or a complete surprise to you (and me!) … who knows?5. Most importantly, you MUST offer the same deal on your blog - the first 5 people to comment on your blog get something made by YOU!

Rae and Mona Lisa

Here are a few pictures of the he that's a she with a very happy Momma Rae. She just adores Mona Lisa!!! Mona is Rae's baby, she dresses it up in her build-a-bear clothes, pushes it around in her baby stroller and as you see, they sleep together. Ben sent these to me from his phone, all my pictures are on my other computer and I can't get it to hook up to the internet. Big bummer! Anyhow, these don't do Mona (or Rae) justice. I'll update more when I can.

Christmas Morning

We have a rule at our house that the kids can't wake us up until after 6:00. Without fail, we can hear them giggling long before that time, however, they are so great! They just hang out our door until 6:01 and then attack us and get us going.

This was a fun year... I think the kids were all happy with their stash of gifts. Jason's favorite gift was his new Ipod... imagine that. He really wanted orange... we had him thinking we'd gotten him green. So he was very relieved when he open the paper to find his favorite color. Vincent was totally excited to get "everything". He wasn't feeling 100% that day...

he ran a little fever and slept a lot. Rae's favorite gift is hands down her new kitten, Mona Lisa. (I'll get a picture later). She was so excited to open the box and have little Mona pop out. She started trying to think of a name, and I told her it was a boy kitty. She didn't want a boy kitty. So I told her we could take it back. No, she want's THIS kitty, she just wants it to be a girl kitty. After about a half an hour of telling her it's a boy, and her saying she wants it to be a girl, I finally said, "Fine. It's a girl kitty," to which she clapped her hands together and said, "Yeah!!!" That was that.

Nutcracker

Gotta love the Nutcracker!!! Rae and I have been counting the days down to go to the Nutcracker. And this was our first year going with Grandma Doris! She loved it. We loved watching Rae's reactions and listening to her cute little comments. It was fun to hear her memories from last year. When asked what their favorite part was, Mom and Rae both replied, "the sugarplum fairy". After the show, we went on stage for punch and cookies and waited our turn for pictures with the cast. If I ever get a good scanner, I'll get the picture on here. It was so much fun to see all the props, the sled, the bear costume, Madame Buffoons dress, etc. Very cool. What a fun girls day out!

A Christmas Carol

This was Rae's first year to come to the Christmas Carol at the Hale Centre Theatre. She loved it!!! Of course she did.... we ALL do! We took the kids to Chili's for dinner, kind of a tradition now. It was kinda cool, one of the servers used to live in Fillmore and recognized me. Usually Ben is the one that people recognize. I think she was in my ward when we lived there, but that was over 15 years ago! The play was awesome, they changed the scenery from a little town to just fancy christmas decore, but it was still pretty. I just really love feeling as though I'm in the town. They also changed a few props. The show was terrific... as always and I can't wait to go again next year.

Here comes Santa Claus Symphony

We took Sydney and Anna to our annual Here comes Santa Claus symphony. Rae was very excited to see Santa and Vincent and Jason were great and got the Santa picture for mom. :) Love ya guys!!! I have to admit that I think this is the best Christmas symphony they've done. I am really glad that Syd was able to come this year. After the symphony, we went to the Garden for lunch. Anna had never been there, so when Syd suggested it, she didn't have to twist my arm very hard. After lunch, we were giving Syd and Anna a little tour of the JSMB. It was really fun to check out the little nativities they had

from different countries. The kids had me take all kinds of pictures, but I really liked this one of them taking a break and just being candid. While we where looking at the little chapel, we were lucky enough to get a close up look at the organ. I believe it is french and the keys are backwards. The ivory keys are black and the ebony keys are white. It is a beautiful organ. We felt pretty special to have been able to see it open. Fun day!!!