Visit to Vegas

Once Mariska saw the other grandkids playing and wrestling with Grandpa she decided that he was alright and began to give him her attention. Yeah!!!!!!! Thanks dad we love you.

A trip to Vegas would not be complete without a trip to the Bellagio Fountains. Riska loves to watch the water show.

Riska saw Grandpa read the newspaper everyday. Notice that she is reading the comics, girl after my own heart.
My brother Brandon has a lot of fun with the kids he sat with Riska for awhile teaching her to play sorry. She loved it.

Finally Finished

Four years ago I stated a project that turned out to be more than I bargained for. It got put away for about two years and then worked on periodically over the last couple years. I was determined to finish it by the time the baby came. It has been a lot of work but it is finished and framed and now I can put it on display in my home. Feels good to have this finished. Now I can get back to blogging. Be prepared for several entries with lots of pictures.

Sickness defeated.

After a full week of being sick, a visit to the doctors, completely losing my voice, a few boxes of tissues, an entire bottle of Robitussin, and a very concerned two year old, I am finally on my way out of this junk that decided to take up residence in my body. What started out to be allergies turned into a very nasty virus. Thank goodness for priesthood blessings. I was so worried that if I was as sick as I was what would it do to the baby. John's blessing was wonderful and gave me peace of mind. Baby is healthy and I need to concentrate on getting better. Thanks again to Jim for coming over and helping to administer so late at night. I have always been a firm believer that priesthood blessings work. I received a fathers blessing every year when school started and my dad never hesitated to call our home teachers when we were in need of a healing blessing. I am so glad that John is a worthy priesthood holder and I am glad that we have family and friends who are worthy and willing to help aid him when there is a blessing to be given.

All at once!

I swear everything falls apart at the same time. Our camera which has never had any problems is completely blown. It is not just the battery it is the actual camera. Our laptop cannot be used unless it is plugged in because the battery reached it's end. We should buy stock in batteries and light bulbs because everything that has batteries is all of a sudden needing new ones,and I swear once I change one light bulb they all need to be changed. I find it funny how these things go.

Baby News

It has been a while since I last wrote. I will be adding a lot more to the blog soon. We had an ultrasound last week. We took Mariska with us. When the picture came up on the screen I told her to look at the baby. She looked and the screen and said, "It's a baby monkey." I love that child of mine. We of course are not having a baby monkey but we will be adding a baby boy to our mix. We are way excited. John was sure we were having a girl so it is a little surreal to him. I had a feeling it was a boy so I wasn't really surprised, just happy to see the little guy.

The Family Way

Back in the old days with the pioneers, people would refer to a woman with child as being in a family way. With that being said I am in a family way!!!!!!!! That's right Mariska will be a big sister. We are a little surprised but very excited!!!!!

Through the eyes of a child

I know it's long but I got this in e-mail and laughed so hard I had to post it.

The Children's Bible in a Nutshell

In the beginning, which occurred near the start, there was nothing but God, darkness, and some gas. The Bible says, 'The Lord thy God is one, but I think He must be a lot older than that.

Anyway, God said, 'Give me a light!' and someone did.

Then God made the world.

He split the Adam and made Eve. Adam and Eve were naked, but they weren't embarrassed because mirrors hadn't been invented yet.

Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating one bad apple, so they were driven from the Garden of Eden

.....Not sure what they were driven in though, because they didn't have cars.

Adam and Eve had a son, Cain, who hated his brother as long as he was Abel.

Pretty soon all of the early people died off, except for Methuselah, who lived to be like a million or something.

One of the next important people was Noah, who was a good guy, but one of his kids was kind of a Ham. Noah built a large boat and put his family and some animals on it. He asked some other people to join him, but they said they would have to take a rain check.

After Noah came Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jacob was more famous than his brother, Esau, because Esau sold Jacob his birthmark in exchange for some pot roast. Jacob had a son named Joseph who wore a really loud sports coat.

Another important Bible guy is Moses, whose real name was Charlton Heston. Moses led the Israel Lights out of Egypt and away from the evil Pharaoh after God sent ten plagues on Pharaoh's people. These plagues included frogs, mice, lice, bowels, and no cable.

God fed the Israel Lights every day with manicotti. Then he gave them His Top Ten Commandments. These include: don't lie, cheat, smoke, dance, or covet your neighbor's stuff.

Oh, yeah, I just thought of one more: Humor thy father and thy mother.

One of Moses' best helpers was Joshua who was the first Bible guy to use spies. Joshua fought the battle of Geritol and the fence fell over on the town.

After Joshua came David. He got to be king by killing a giant with a slingshot. He had a son named Solomon who had about 300 wives and 500 porcupines. My teacher says he was wise, but that doesn't sound very wise to me.

After Solomon there were a bunch of major league prophets. One of these was Jonah, who was swallowed by a big whale and then barfed up on the shore.

There were also some minor league prophets, but I guess we don't have to worry about them.

After the Old Testament came the New Testament. Jesus is the star of The New. He was born in Bethlehem in a barn. (I wish I had been born in a barn too, because my mom is always saying to me, 'Close the door! Were you born in a barn?' It would be nice to say, 'As a matter of fact, I was.')

During His life, Jesus had many arguments with sinners like the Pharisees and the Democrats.

Jesus also had twelve opossums.

The worst one was Judas Asparagus. Judas was so evil that they named a terrible vegetable after him.

Jesus was a great man. He healed many leopards and even preached to some Germans on the Mount.

But the Democrats and all those guys put Jesus on trial before Pontius the Pilot. Pilot didn't stick up for Jesus. He just washed his hands instead.

Anyways, Jesus died for our sins, then came back to life again. He went up to Heaven but will be back at the end of the Aluminum. His return is foretold in the book of Revolution.

Nicknames

I am sure we all have a nickname maybe two. Some we are more fond of than others. Mariska has a new name for her daddy that I absolutely love. We were at Fred Meyer taking a look at the clothing sale (everything was 75% off the lowest ticketed price, including clearance.) When we had finished we went to the electronics department to see what was going on there. Mariska was doing so well up to that point, but she had had enough. I asked her if she wanted to go look for a treat and of course she was all over that. As we were walking out of the department Mariska held her hands out toward John and started to whimper and say "Honey.... Honey... Honey." It only took me a sec to realize she was calling for John. Now she calls him honey all the time. Anytime she wants him to do something or wants him to comfort her she calls him Honey.