Farewell to a great man

My brother just sent us the message that President Gordon B. Hinckley, prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, passed away. He was 97 years old. I will really miss having him as the leader of the church. He has been such an example and done so much good. On the happy side, though, now he gets to be with his wife again. It's obvious how hard it has been for him since she died.

Deseret News Article

ha ha ha!!

This is great!

Noodle of the past...

Hmmm.. I wanted to share cute Noodle from 2006, too, but it's giving me errors and I'm tired and want to go to bed now. I got one to work, though, so this will have to do for now.

more photos from the past...

Revisiting 2006 as I get my photos together to print so I never have to feel devastated if my computer dies again.

spots, take 2

Spud showed his first spots yesterday, so now we are in round 2 of chicken pox. It was almost funny, as when I noticed the first one, I could only find about 6 total. By this morning, though, he was officially spotted. He's holding up well, though right now he has a fever.

"there are two kinds of people in this world...

...those who like Neil Diamond, and those who don't."

Happy 67th Birthday, Neil! (And no, I don't ALWAYS know when his birthday is. I happened to see it in the paper, so I might as well blog about it, right? I mean, the point of a blog is to share random, generally meaningless insights into your life, afterall.)

I have been busy the past week. On Saturday I went to training for instruction on how to run a "Liberty Girls" club. I think it will be a fun thing for Noodle and the other girls, but it is requiring quite a lot of planning right now.

I saw this in the paper today and thought it was a pretty cool story, but only since the little cat made it through the ordeal okay:

stowaway kitty

these are my people

This is my family, minus a nephew who is serving a mission in Pennsylvania. We had a reunion last summer up in Idaho. I am the youngest of six kids. My oldest sister has eight living children (a daughter passed in infancy), and my middle brother has seven kids. So they make up the bulk of the grandkids. The other sibings check in at four kids, four kids, and one kid. (And two kids for us, obviously.) Everyone lives in Utah somewhere (from Draper down to St. George) except my brother Eric (with 7 kids) who moved to Belgium last September. Before that, he lived in Meridian, Idaho, a few miles away from my parents, who still live in the home I grew up in.

(I can't remember if I posted this picture before...but if I did, oh well.)

a bit of summer....

I'm compiling photos I want to print for albums, and I just love this one from summer of 2006, shortly after we moved into our house.

nature is weird

This is the giraffe beetle. Crazy, huh?

a pox upon your house!

Oh wait, it's a pox upon MY house. Noodle has chicken pox, poor thing. She has LOTS of spots, but she is hanging in there and doing all right. Hopefully it will pass quickly.

more SNL funny

the snowman my nephew built

Or should I say, snowhead?

daily funny

spud logic

The other day Spud was sitting near me in the family room, playing with his toys. He said, "I know why dey are called finguhs [fingers] -- because dey hold fings!"

This "fing" fascination has been around for a while. For the longest time, whenever he was holding one thing (usually a toy car) and wanted a second (either another car or a water bottle), he would look in frustration at his hands and say, "I can't hold two FINGS!"

A couple of months ago, though, he had an epiphany. He was standing in the front hall, holding a toy car and he picked up his water bottle. He looked down at his hands and after a moment of reflection said, in a assured voice, "I can hold two fings." Then he carried on his merry way.

do I spoil my dog?

It snowed another six or so inches today. (I say another because we got about 4-5 inches on Saturday that hadn't yet melted off the lawns or the streets.) In addition to shoveling the driveway and the walkway this morning (which David was able to help with this time - hooray!), I shoveled off a large patch of grass for Daisy's bathroom needs. I've done this all winter. And really, it's probably more for me than for her. If she traipses out in the snow, she turns into a big snow-blob, which leads to severe tangling and matting, which takes me 2-3 times longer to comb out. Not to mention the puddles around the house as the chunks melt out of her fur. To avoid this, I shovel some potty spots AND put her in either her waterproof jacket or her snowsuit. I only pull out her snowboots when absolutely necessary, though, as she hates them so.

So, while to the uninformed observer it might look like I am spoiling my dog, really I'm just trying to minimize my work. Lazy, yes. Stupid, no.

(If my pictures & such were available and hooked up, I'd share a pic of Daisy in her snowsuit. It's pretty pathetic/hilarious!)

sweet kid...

So over the holidays, David's sister Jenn was visiting us one evening. I'd gone out with another sister of his shopping, so Jenn, David & the kids sat down to a spaghetti dinner. The kids enjoyed the meal even more that usual and Noodle said, "Dad, this spaghetti is really good." She added, for Jenn's benefit, "My dad makes great food! He's a really good cook!" Then she paused and said, "And my mom makes great Tang!"

The sweet part is that she was legitimately excited and supportive of her mom and her mad Tang-making skills.

another bad technological event...

So my computer died (again) this week. At this point, my photography drive is inaccessible, but we are hopeful to get it up and working again eventually. Hopefully David's programmer can get it to work. In the meantime, I'm rather devastated whenever I think about it. So, if you have any prayers or good vibes to send its way, they would be much appreciated. I'm just sick about it.