Christmas Day

As we drove up to Karen & Mike's house on Christmas Eve we found that everything north of Springfield was covered in a layer of ice.  We hate to see that happen, but I have to say that the sun shining through the icy limbs of the trees was sure beautiful.  I wish I had gotten a picture of it, but we didn't stop anywhere to do that.

The Jacobs kids are growing fast.  When we compare pictures taken in February when Charlie was born to what the kids look like now, there is a big difference.  We spent Christmas Day at Karen & Mike's before heading home to do laundry in preparation for the further trip to Amy's.  On the 27th we drove to Amy & Mike's to meet with the whole family for a belated family Christmas.  A big thank you to Amy and Mike for letting us all converge on them.

On Christmas morning the family checked to see if Santa and his reindeer had eaten the treats that they left for him.

Andrew was excited to check his stocking.

Emily loved the Fisher Price train and her stocking.

This picture of Emily reminds me of Karen when she was this age.

This guy is just happy most of the time.

They were waving at each other; that's why their hands are fuzzy.

One of Andrew's favorite activities of the day was sitting with his daddy while ripping up wrapping paper and then throwing it up into the air.  What a good daddy!

Here is the kitchen crew at Amy's house.

Here is what Amy was making.  They were called "Grinch-kabobs".  Cute, huh?

Daniel and Zach are such clowns when they get together.

I really like this one of Dominic -- except for the fact that it looks like Michael was about to snap him in the ear with something.

Here is Michael holding Sawyer.

46th Anniversary

The 23rd of December was our 46th wedding anniversary.  I can hardly believe we are old enough to have been married that long.  May it continue for lots more years so that we will look back and think that 46 is such a short time.  We thought of several things that we might do to celebrate our anniversary this year.  We finally decided to go to Silver Dollar City.  The weather looked pretty good online so we figured we would be safe to walk between the many shows and activities there were to do.  We were able to make our hotel and park reservations online, making it all pretty easy.  As we continued to check the weather during the week before going, we found the predicted temperature would drop a couple of degrees or so each day.  It changed from 36 degrees to 23 degrees with a substantial wind chill.  We still had fun even though we found ourselves looking for shops, etc. where we could stop for the heat to avoid freezing.  There was to be a light show at 5:30 and a light parade at 6:00.  We thought we would go to those and then go back to the hotel and enjoy the hot tub.  Every time we needed to stand in line outside for a show it started snowing.  The shows were good though, but by a little after 5:00 we decided the hot tub sounded a lot more inviting than the lights so we hopped on the shuttle that would take us to our part of the parking lot.  It's a good thing we made that decision too; the driver made the announcement that the parade had been cancelled due to the cold.  Boy, did that hot tub ever feel good.  Sorry, no pictures of us in our swim suits at the hot tub.

I can't put my arms down!!

 

This is the entrance to the park.

Santa was waiting for me near the entrance.

This guy was picked from the audience to be in a skit.  He was a really good sport.

I wish this showed how really beautiful the lights were on the trees, but you get the idea.

Did we have a blast?  Yes, we did!

Cold . . . or not??

I took this picture of the bushes in front of our house.  I think it was Saturday afternoon when I took it.  Today is Monday and the temperature was up to 60 degrees.  We have the craziest weather!!

Here is a picture of my new friend.

Alan and I have begun a new health regime.  There's no way we could do this without doing it together.  We are exercising and counting calories.  Sometimes we take walks together, but in this snowy weather we have been using the Nordic Track. It's a good thing we invested in it so long ago.  I was so used to just eating whatever sounded good at the moment.  It's so different to record every little thing you eat.  It really makes you think.  My doctor was thrilled.  She asked if I had been sick that month and was happy that I was just being sensible.  Lots of fruits and veggies in my recipes.  I dropped 8 pounds the first month.  We'll see if that continues.  I am being very good about sticking to my calorie limits.  Maybe by this summer I can actually wear my swimming suit??

Thanksgiving 2013

I'll start with this.  It's the only "food" picture I thought to take.  It's a turtle cheesecake.  Sorry about the background; all other counter tops were full.

We had originally planned to meet at Amy & Mike's house for Thanksgiving this year and do Christmas here.  That all changed when they closed on a new house and moved into it the weekend before we all were to meet together.  It certainly wouldn't work to converge on them while they were in the middle of moving in and putting things away.  So everyone came here.  And I do mean everyone.  This is one of the few times we have been able to have all of our "kids", their spouses, all the grandkids and even one great grandchild.  We were packed in, but believe me we had plenty of food.  For example we cooked 20 pounds of potatoes, had a 21 pound turkey and a ten pound boneless ham.  We ate it all (in two days).  There was lots of other food, including Karen's homemade dressing and Aaron's homemade cranberry sauce.

Enough about food, except that we were very grateful to have it.  We were also very grateful for all the delightful and very cute children in our family.  Things were so busy that I'm not sure I got photos of all of them but I'll post a few.  Sorry, I still am not allowed to post any of the twins.  I wish I had taken pictures of Dustan, Dominic and my own children.  Things just get too busy.  Amy did the individual pictures that you will see.  We used them to create some Christmas ornaments for them to take home and hang on their tree.  I probably should have taken a picture of all of those too.

These little guys were born three months apart this year; they are interested in pretty much the same things.  They will be good friends when they get a little older.

Jeanette's boys are train fans just like their "papa".  They were watching train youtubes until I decided to take their picture.

Andrew got new indestructible glasses this year.  He loves wearing them.

 

 

Emily is no longer a baby.  What a little cutie she is.

Noah sometimes gets a little stressed when so many people are around.  He looks pretty happy here.

Sawyer is sitting up for his picture.  He has two teeth even though you can't see them in this picture.

This is a small smile for Charlie.  He's a very happy boy.

Our Zach is looking so "teen-agery" these days.  Where do the years go?

Here is our great granddaughter, Ashlynn.  She and Sawyer are about the same age.  Isn't that fun?

Here is a four generation picture.  We're even standing in the right order.

Here's our sweet Sierra.  She is such a good helper when family gets together.

Daniel is growing up to be such a handsome young man.

Nauvoo Trip

We went to Nauvoo last week.  Somehow it seems longer ago than that.  It was a nice trip, as Nauvoo always is.  We stayed at the Willard Richards Inn.  Yes, it is the actual home that Willard Richards lived in in the 1840's.  He lived in the center part and later they added the two wings.  The only bad thing was that we asked for the room on the third floor and there is no elevator.  It was a lovely room and cost quite a bit less than the ones on the lower floors, but I was really puffing by the time we got to the third floor with our luggage.  On the way home we were able to meet five other members of our branch for a session at the St. Louis Temple.  It is so nice to be able to see people you know at the temple.

Here's a picture of our room.  I needed a fish eye lens to get all the room, but you get the idea.

Here's a picture of our inn.

Our room was behind these two windows.  You can see these windows in in upper right hand corner of the previous picture.

The next morning we attended a session at the Nauvoo Temple.  Every time I round the curve on the highway coming into town and see this temple at the top of the hill it just takes my breath away.  I am so glad they rebuilt this historic temple.  It's amazing!

Remember the bronze monuments to women in the garden behind the LDS Visitors' Center?  Notice how this generous lady is offering Alan a piece of fruit.

Here she is from another angle.  And no, I did not put this in her hand; it was already there when we arrived.  A tree next to her was full of it.

One of the missionaries took our picture at the Seventy's Hall.

Several Things

I still want to do a little posting about our recent trip to Nauvoo but that will take a little longer than I have right now, so I'll put a few minor things that have been on my mind.  I had a couple more things that I was going to post on this, but every time I tried to do it my computer would crash.  I don't exactly know why but I'll just quit with this and try later.

It's beginning to look a lot like FALL.

I had a long overdue mammogram done this week.  The results came back good. Always a good thing.  They were giving each lady a pink carnation.  Nice, huh?

The Jacobs come to town

Last weekend Karen, Mike & family came to Salem for a visit.  They arrived Sunday evening and stayed until Tuesday.  We were able to spend Sunday and Monday with them, but we were out of town on Tuesday.  That will be another post.  I'll tell you -- those kids are growing so fast.  We look at pictures of them six months ago and they have changed so much in that short amount of time.

Here Andrew is, looking at a book with Karen.  As you can see, Karen has just recently got her hair cut.

Emily checks out the Halloween decorations.

Here is grinny Charlie.  He is such a happy baby. -- except when he didn't want to take a nap.

 

 

Here is a portion of the Halloween decorations.  Click on the picture to enlarge and see the photo on the table.  The people change back and forth from normal to skeleton when you move the picture.

Comfy Bed for Pakamer

I went to Wal-Mart to pick up a jug of milk and ran across this little cat bed on clearance.  It struck me as something that Pakamer would like to snuggle into, so I tossed it into my cart.  Apparently she likes it.

She was asleep, but when she heard the sound of my camera's button being partially pushed down, she raised her head and chirped.

Small Surprise

The other day I went to the grocery store.  They were having a promotion in which they give you a card and then punch on it the amount of money you have spent.  When you reach a certain amount you take it to the store's office and they scratch off the silver stuff to see what you have won.  It can be anywhere from $1 to $1,000.  I didn't win the $1,000.  No big surprise there, but I was a little surprised when it wasn't $1; I won $5, which was very nice since I had no cash in my purse.

New Container

Well, this is rather a mundane entry but when you don't have small children to post pictures of you take what you can get.  I had been putting food scraps into a Wal-Mart bag and leaving it laying on the counter top for a couple of days before taking it out to the compost pile.  It would get pretty messy.   This works so much better.  Alan just looked over my shoulder as I was typing and said, "Aren't we proud?"  Now I feel even stupider putting this online. Oh, well, there you are.

I've been shot!

I went to the doctor's office yesterday.  I wasn't sick but needed to schedule a well-woman physical.  It turns out that they got a new computer system and I hadn't been to the office for so long that my name and information didn't appear.  So I had to fill out several sheets of information and then so see the nurse practitioner so she could check me over and fill out more stuff.  When she asked me about what shots I wasn't current on I ended up getting three shots. -- a flu shot, a pneumonia shot and what we used to call a DPT shot.  No big deal, right?  Until today.  I woke up this morning with achy muscles and chills.  Ugh.  This had better keep me healthy during the winter.  It's also a good thing I don't need to go anywhere today or tomorrow.  I did manage to get some reading done (under my electric throw).  Oh, yeah, my well woman physical isn't until November.