ANTICIPATION

Yes, that word has been a HUGE part of my life, I have anticipated a LOT of stuff! The list is endless.....you really don't want me to go into it....so today I am just ANTICIPATING Thanksgiving. 8 adults, 5 young adults (over the age of 10) and 5 children (under the age of 5) will be sitting at my dinner table...or on the floor, or on the sofa, or where ever I can find a place for them!

Good friends and family are ANTICIPATED to come together at my beautiful home for "the feast".

I will be cooking and serving (with the help of the other women)

I forgot my camera cord to download pics so.....you will just have to ANTICIPATE the pictures to come!

DARN weather! wish it wasn't raining. It never rains in St. George, and I have been here for a whole 5 years for Thanksgiving and it has never rained on that day....but the weatherman forcasted rain today (and it is because my sweet adorable Teddy Bear of a husband WASHED THE WINDOWS in MY HOUSE SPARKLING SPIT SPOT CLEAN). Is that a law? That is always rains if you wash your car or windows? I think it is....(sigh) what am I going to do with my grandchildren while Mike and Camille are off shopping on BLACK FRIDAY? Dang weatherman....it is ALL his fault!

ANTICIPATION

to come

with the best part of all

the dessert!

Perfect Shot "He's the Man!"

If I didn't know any better, I would think....hmmm...ya this hurts?

On Monday, just 4 days ago, my sweet adorable hubby was doing what he loves to do and that is a little carpentry work....expect he some how, and I will never understand the "real how" he shot his right leg with a nail gun. YEAH, he did! and sat in the emergency room of the hospital, (drove himself there because he could) and his levi's were nailed to his leg. After 4 hours of waiting for the orthepedic surgeon to see him in-between surgeries, the doc was able to remove the nail from his bone. Yep you got it . . . with none other than some carpentry looking tools.

Bob thought this looked pretty cool. Straight through the bone just below his knee.

Good job Bob!

The doc loaded him up with some strong antibiotics, a shot, (there was a little oozing of bone marrow after the removal of the nail) and a nice applause from the emergency room staff. Some pain meds (which he barely used) and . . . a little flush in his cheeks probably!

Guess he was running out of stories to tell his grandkids!

My sweet hu-honey!

Letting Go - Saying Goodbye

Most recent pics, I am sure there are others that I could have chosen but, I loved these two, and because this is MY blog, I can do what I want!

What can I say...I have put this post off because I wasn't sure if it was necessary, and maybe it isn't, but....some things just need to be said. Letting go, was easy, saying goodbye was hard. My Mother (no such thing as mother-in-law) was a tough lady, she laughed hard, cried hard, and was hard of hearing (lol). There isn't a hand in the world I would have traded to be holding at 4:36 pm on October 25th. She gave it her best, and her best was always given in everything she touched, and believe me she touched many people's lives. Will she be remembered....you bet she will. From her closet full of clothes, with the tags still on them, to her hair having to be done every week, just so....to the grundel of Christmas presents she started buying for EVERYONE every year in January (no wonder she was always broke!) to the scrumptious meals she would conjure up from left-overs you didn't know you had in the refrigerator! Her love of reading was, contagious. She loved to read. . . and. . . yes she loved variety in books (!) One thing for certain . .

(Her children's reunion a few years ago)

she loved her 7 children and their spouses. She loved her grandchildren. She was a great friend to everyone. Stranger was not in her vocabulary. Much can be said but a book would have to be written to do so. Mother lived life to the fullest. Life was not always kind to her, but she never complained. Her joy in life was her family, and she let you know it. Her faith was unshakable. As she walked through the veil that beautiful Saturday afternoon, I was proud to be able to hold her hand and reach through it with her, if only for a moment. Then I had to turn it over to someone waiting for her. I wrote this little poem for her. I promised her I would. Just one last thing I could give her.

I give to you my hand my Lord,

though shaky it may be;

I've done my best,

My earthly tests,

Please take this walk with me

Your mission here on earth complete,

My child you've served me well;

Come take my hand, I'll walk with you,

Now through sweet Heaven's veil.

Love you and miss you - Frances Higgins 1925-2008

Brown eye's cuteness!

I am Thankful for my brown eyed boy's!

Here is our newest grandbaby! I can't believe that I haven't put this baby on my blog yet, Kolytn Robert Higgins was born in May this year. He is such a cute chunky monkey (that is what Nat nicked him) and he loves to cuddle, be cuddled, kissed and just held. His poor mama (Tera) has done herself in by never putting him down...and is now paying the price! But he is soooo hard to put down! His big brother Kyler who is 5, has the same birthday as Ryan, only hours apart, and is a real ham when it comes to having his pic taken. But when you are as cute as these two.......it's OK! Just this year Brad adopted Kyler and Brad and Tera went through the St. George Temple and were sealed. Pretty cool huh! The Higgins boys are taking over! Keep em comin! gotta luv um!

"How sweet it is"

Getting everyone to sit still for just a second....capture this moment forever, without a binky, chocolate thumb, or wandering off and then to say CHEEZZZZZZZZE for my camera is history in the making!

A couple of weeks before Halloween Mike, Camille and the kids came down to St. George, it was such beautiful weather and before they all hopped into the car for the long ride home, the kids decided that Papa's flowers were the place to be....at that moment....

Lolipop (Lauren) is a flower picker, so is Brookie Cookie, (they have a lot in common, attitude #1!) they love flowers, and Pop (Bob) makes sure that there are flowers to be picked! Ryan, well sweet Ryan....he is just a smeller of flowers, (silly boy) he actually decided he wanted to know if they tasted as good as they looked, and he gets right into it too! Owen....well he does what you tell him to do......most of the time.....

The "Harvest"

Lauren always looks up to her big brother.....they are 11 months apart you know....Owen is a cowboy, and Lauren is a princess. This little mischevious look from Lauren is actually only looking to him for confirmation that it is "OK" to eat the corn Oma picked from the garden!

I never did find out, if anything, if corn, fresh off the cob, uncooked, does anything....to little ones....well you know....tummies. Camille didn't mention to me that it did or didn't! But yummmm they loved every single little morsel of sweet corn, from the giant stalks in their own garden. Lauren and Owen didn't have any problem eating almost ALL of the cob! (bad Oma, bad Oma!)

Summary:

In Natalies words: Brooklyn

Yesterday afternoon when Brooklyn came home from school she was very interested in the changing leaves. It has taken a while but the leaves have finally started to change colors. She decided to go out on the deck and collect some colorful leaves. She has quite a few "collections". She can't pass a gravel parking lot without grabbing handfuls of rocks for her "rock collection", she has an extensive "leaf collection", and most recently yesterday afternoon, unbeknownst to me, she started a "stick collection." She gathered some sticks and leaves and had them on her little picnic table in the family room. After a few hours, I started to clean up the family room and picked up her sticks and threw them away, she hadn't mentioned them or touched them in a while and I wasn't aware that they were a "collection." She noticed when throwing a peice of paper away that her sticks were in the trash. She immediately ran over to me sobbing (dramatically, no real tears) and asked why I threw her "stick collection" away. I told her I was sorry but I didn't know they were a "collection" and that we could retrieve them out of the trash (it was a brand new trash bag and nothing else was in there). She then told me that "I always ruin her life" and that "her heart was breaking." When I asked why she said because I threw out her "collection." I managed to retrieve the sticks from the trash after several "you always ruin my life" stabs and that was still not good enough because one of the big sticks was broken. She did end up forgiving me later on.

In Natalies words:
Madi

Last Wednesday I was not feeling well so I went to bed early (8:30). Apparently, Madison in her haste and clumsiness missed the last three steps on the staircase and fell. Her ankle swelled up and Brad put ice on it and sent her to bed. The next morning she woke telling me that she couldn't walk. I had no idea what happened since I was in bed before she was. She told me what happened and I figured she probably just sprained or twisted her ankle. I was sick with a stomach virus so Brad took her to the doctor for x-rays...still neither of us thinking anything besides a sprain since Madi tends to exaggerate and be very dramatic. The x-rays came back showing two small fractures near her growth plate in her ankle. So, you guessed it...........A Cast! She is in a cast up to her knee for a month. She can't bare any weight on her foot and has to rely on crutches. Last March she also took a tumble down the stairs (girl needs to learn to hold the railing and S L O W down) and hurt her knee which put her in a brace for 2 weeks and then a full leg cast for 2 weeks....there was no fracture that they could see but they didn't want to take any chances because it was very painful for her and it was also near her growth plate. YES, you guessed it, SAME LEG! I swear she is going to have one leg shorter than the other if she keeps this stuff up! Today I had to take her back to the doctor because her foot was numb, turning purple and cold. They took her cast off and replaced it with a new one. The first one was a little tight and a spot had been rubbed raw where the bend in her ankle is because the padding was bunched up and her foot is swelling. Every time her foot swells it puts pressure on that area. She needs to sit her butt down and elevate her foot as much as possible. But you know MADI!!! She has a new cast on today and is feeling better. Just gotta keep her off her feet as much as possible. Easier said than done though.

this is our little Brookie Cookie who loves sparkly things, and this Halloween was no different...can witches be adorable!? YES mine can! I am thankful for my Brookie Cookie who always makes me laugh, because she is so much like her mother! Nat tells me stories of Brooklyn and it is like going back in a TIME WARP! WHOA, Nat took this beautiful pic of a pond in her neighborhood, I think it is just the street over from where she lives.....I am thankful for my eyes that can see such beauty all around me, and for the beautiful colors of every season!

Thankfulness!

This beautiful summer sunset looks like something that should be on a magazine cover, the corn stalks in the background is the masterpiece of my son Mike's garden. It flourished this year. Camille couldn't keep up with all the tomatoes and Mike makes the BEST salsa I have ever eaten! Sunsets in Erda are always sooooo beautiful. I have many sunset pics but this is by far one of my favorites.

Right now at this very minute....I am most thankful for my sister.......who inspires me and makes me feel like a better woman. She doesn't know it but I have always admired her for so many reasons 1) her ability to make me laugh when I don't want to, because her giggle is contagious 2) her creativity, because I can't wait to see what she comes up with 3) her patience, I don't know how she is with her kids, but I bet she is patient.....she certainly has been with me and getting me excited about this blog thing :) but most of all.......I have always known that my sister...is so Christ like in nature and I always wanted to be like her.....Terrie, you are my inspiration! (this is my only and last picture of the two of us last Christmas!)

we will have to catch up on pics at Glen's wedding!