Spencer

Spencer completed a Power Point presentation last week about himself. This picture is one of the pictures he used to illustrate that he loves to play basketball. You may notice he is in the garage..well, it was snowing and dark, so his dad had to take the picture in the garage!

One of Spencer's new hobbies is playing games on his Wii.

This is his dog, Coal, hiding under the trampoline. They were playing chase and Coal seems to think that if he gets under the trampoline, he's safe.

This photo was taken last week also. Spencer had a project to chose a disability and plan activities, perform them and then write about the experience of having this disability. He was to spend an hour. So Spencer chose blindness. He spent some time outside and some of the time eating and getting dresses, etc. Eric went on the walk with him and took these pictures. He has on a headband I use to keep my ears warm when walking outside in the COLD, and a pair of sunglasses! He's using a broom handle to help him navigate.

Here's Spencer, the blind man, walking in our neighborhood...heading to the park.

Another view of the walk and using his stick! Spencer said it was harder than he thought it was going to be. He planned to make it much farther than he actually did. It was a good learning experience and he had fun doing it as well. I like those kind of homework projects and I especially enjoy it when Dad is the one helping out!

Mt. Charleston Memory

Today I have been working on continuing to clean out Spencer's old bedroom upstairs, it has become a catch all. Well, needless to say, it's almost finished. I found my BIG TOTE of pictures and have scanned some in for facebook, but as I saw these it brought back a fun memory with the Church family and Mt. Charleston. We took the kids on a hike to Robber's Roost, which is located up Deer Creek Canyon.

Eric, Tess, Spencer, Cameron and Scott.

I taught them how to sniff ponderosa pine trees, just like Maryetta Farrer taught me when I was a teenager. Most trees are Chocolate, Strawberry or Chocolate. That day I believe we found some caramel and Mint Chocolate-Chip. As you can see Scott is really getting in to it, so I believe this one had to have been Mint Chocolate-Chip.

This must have been Scott's favorite tree, I think he tried to eat some of the bark...

(Just kidding, I just wanted to take this great picture of my great friend)

I have been missing my friend a lot lately, guess it's just been too long since we've been able to get our families together at least we have email and Steph has a great blog now.

Just wanted to share a fun memory for me. I love my memories of Mt. Charleston and I love my family and I love my friends who do crazy things with me!

70's Dittos

I haven't found a picture yet of me in my Dittos..but I did find a site that has a few for sale and so I thought I'd post it as well as a picture, but you have to go to this page and you'll be able to see the signature back side of the Ditto pants.

Mine were blue, I do remember that much. I see that Anthropologie is selling them for $118. WOW. I didn't know the 70's were coming back

http://www.rustyzipper.com/shop.cfm/rz/viewpartnum~131990/backtorow~15/maxshow~20/startshow~1/SIZE~/ERA~1970/TYPE~Pants/SEARCH~/GENDER~Womens/PRICE~ALL/SITE~rustyzipper/131990.cfm

The 70's remembered!

The 70's remembered. I have a dear friend, Tess Church, who declared that the 70's are her favorite decade. She was not born in them, but enjoys them. She blogged about it the other day and she had some good points. It was a simpler time and we didn't have to be as careful about the way we said things, as I understand her, we didn't worry as much about being "politically correct", because that really was not a term back then. However, my teacher's in 3rd through 6th grade expected all of us to answer them by saying, "Yes Sir, No Sir...or Yes Mam, No Mam" We were padded if we got in trouble at elementary school. My teacher in the 4th-6th grades would pick kids up and shake them violently if they we disrespectful or weren't following the rules...etc. The above picture was the beginning of the 70's...I attended kindergarten in 1969-70. Yes, I wore RED! (By the way, this is what I looked like when my husband was born! Almost 40 years ago)

This lovely shot was in 1976. Notice the lovely long hair of the 70's and I believe that was a shirt, not a dress and if I can remember correctly I was wearing my DITTOS, my favorite pants, I still haven't found a shot of me with the pants on. This is Mr. Vassar, he was my teacher for 4th, 5th and 6th grade. This was also the bicentennial celebration year for our country! Tess, this is what Mountain girls looked like in the 70's!

This picture is from the 1982 yearbook, it's a black and white. This is my Farrah Fawcett hair! We all opted to wear the tuxedo for boys and blue feathers for girls. This is the picture that I thought of when I saw a picture that was posted of Scott, Tess' dad and my close friend since BYU 1982-83, his was in 1978, but the feathering is so similar!!! LOL. Wish I could show you that picture, but it's property of Stephanie's BLOG. So if you know Scott, and you want to see some cool pictures and read some great posts, ask Stephanie to invite you...comment on here and she just might!

Yes, the 70's were alright! If I can find a picture of me wearing my Ditto pants, I'll post it sometime. Music was pretty good too...all that disco.

Baby Kisses!!!

A few days ago I caught Eric kissing Neal, he just starts out by gently doing quick kisses from one ear, along his cheeks and then to the mouth and on to the other side of his face. He does that until Neal lets him know "that's enough." So I thought I'd give it a try. I'm always saying, "Kisses, give mommy some kisses" and he just shakes his head no and laughs at me. But finally I tried Eric's trick and Neal gave me a little kiss, but as you can see his eyes are on his dad! (taking the picture) He really LOVES his daddy.

There's just something magical about baby kisses. It's sweet and endearing. I just love to kiss babies, their sweet soft little lips and chubby cheeks... it's hard to stop once it starts...

Spencer doesn't enjoy kisses very often. I have to sneak it in once in awhile. Camilla gets giggling so much when we are giving kisses and she prefers them on the cheek. I grew up kissing my parents on the lips and I'm just used to that, but I succumb to cheek kissing or else we spend most of the time wrestling so the kiss can happen. Once in awhile I outsmart her by putting my arms around her after she's laying down in bed and I pin her down; then quickly kiss her as she laughs. Eric has to almost pen both kids down to kiss them, and I've seen him have to be content to kiss them on the head. I'm not sure how that happened, I mean we are a fairly affectionate family, and we say "I love you" every day, usually several times a day. At least they both give hugs without too much resistence. LOL!!

So, we are enjoying our baby kisses from Neal and who knows maybe we'll have one out of the bunch who actually likes kissing his parents?!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's day

From Camilla the Leprechan! May the luck of the Irish be with you and yours!

The many sides of Camilla

Camilla gathered sticks from the yard, fallen from our trees, and with the help of Eric and I, she put together a band that would hold her antlers. She enjoyed pulling her make believe sleigh for awhile. As you can see in the background, Eric is hard at work raking the lawn and sticks and helping the lawn to stand up after all the snow this winter.

Camilla the reindeer!

Camilla told Eric that she wanted to be a clown, he did most of the makeup, but she added black penciled in eyebrows!

Camilla, the clown!

Twins Blessing Day

Pretty Momma, Bev, and her twins, Clark and Nathan on their blessing day. Bev is now the mother of 7 children!

Another angle of Bev and the twins.

Clark Jay and Nathan Ray Duncan were given their names and blessings on Sunday, March 8th by their father, Chad Duncan. John Frank Sanders JR (Grandpa), Danny Sanders (uncle), Michael Nelson (uncle) and Eric Kern (uncle) were the family members in the circle. If there were more men, I am sorry I don't remember. In our religion (LDS, Mormon) the priesthood give baby's a name that they are known by and a blessing from Heavenly Father when they are infants. This takes place usually in a Sacrament meeting. These two little guys were so handsome all dressed in white tuxedos provided by their grandma Duncan.

It was a great day and we all enjoyed getting together at Bev and Chad's house after for good FOOD and fun. We missed our family members who were unable to come or who had to leave because of illness.

Beautiful Mother

Grandma and her grandboys born in 2008

My beautiful Mother with Nathan Duncan, Neal Kern and Clark Duncan (her baby, the one she takes care of the most while helping Bev.) My mother made both of these blessing blankets. One of them Neal used for his blessing as well. I sure love you mom and appreciate all that you do for all of your children and grandchildren!

Camilla Student of the Month

Congratulations to Camilla. She received the Student of the Month Award today for the month of February. She is so thrilled. Just last month or the month before that her friend, Camilla Rose Adams, received a Student of the Month award and she was happy for her. She kept telling me how neat it was and that she wished that she could get that award because she'd never "had it before" I told her to keep doing her best and maybe some day she would receive it, but if she didn't that was okay also.

So today as we rode home in the car, she told Camilla Rose about her award and she said, "I did my best and I got the award, isn't that great, Camilla, and it's my first time." Then she went on to say, "You got it too and you did your best" The next thing I hear her say is, I even got to stand on the stage and they took my picture!" So I finally was able to get a word in, and said, "Camilla did you win the Student of the Month award?" She said, "yes, it's in my backpack" That's all she had to say about it as I went on to tell her how proud I am of her and asked her if it made her feel good..she said, "Oh sure" So, now she's playing with Camilla Rose and we'll see if she remembers to share her news with dad when he comes home!

Happy day

On Tuesday, Neal and I were invited to go to lunch with my friend, Dawn, we had so much fun geting out and seeing people! Thanks Dawn!

Dawn and I commented later about how we really didn't talk much, which is highly unusual for the two of us when we get together. But the happiest part is that we are close enough that we are comfortable being together even on those days when "Talk" isn't coming. I sure did enjoy the taco salad though and Neal had a fun time eating graham crackers, sampling guacamole and banging on the table! As you can see, I even put on a bit of makeup for the occasion.

Turning 45 and other things...

Here's me, 45, no makeup, no color in my hair, except the remnants of months ago. I begin March with a resolve to start shedding pounds, and now that the pain of surgery is gone adding exercise in to my days. I am actually feeling more at peace being 45, since I've managed to make it two days out and am feeling rather good, didn't die or lay down on the bed and not get up. I think it will be a good year. I was able to have lunch with my sister's, Bev and Wanda. We ate at the Olive Garden, one of my favorite places. We laughed and talked and enjoyed each other. They took me to a store called Rod Works and bought me a wall hanging, I'll take a photo when I get it hung. It was a great day! Eric took care of the kids and I was also able to get some shopping done. I felt good and it was sunny!

Here are some random pictures and soon I'll be posting pictures of the WII, or the kids playing it. Spencer was able to get it on Friday night and Spencer and Camilla had non-stop fun with it this weekend. So fun to watch them!

Neal laughing at Eric...he sure missed his daddy and it is so much fun to see them together.

Eric in Arizona with his friends, taking a break from their conference to check out the Miss Gay USA pageant. They took a picture with this lovely drag queen. Eric said, "She/he was very muscular!"

While I was gone with my sisters, Bev and Wanda, Eric hung out with the kids, this is one photo of Neal after his bath, I think it's priceless!

Eric gave me a chocolate moose(SP?) pie and put 45 candles on it...We huffed and we puffed...

Look how scared Camilla is (LOL), we thought the pie was going to burn! It's dang hard to blow out 45 candles! But I finally did it after about 4 or 5 tries. Okay, I seriously need to color my hair and shed the pounds...oh well, at least I'm still alive!

Birthday Roses from my wonderful parents!