Excellence

It has been a long time since I posted on my blog. I could tell all of you about my darling grandchildren, the wonderful time we had at Christmas, what I got for Christmas, or the fact that I have been exercising at the gym again for a few weeks now. But, I won't. My kids have done a great job and telling about all the wonderful things we have done together.

I want to tell you about something that I thought was really great. Yesterday we went to the home of a man named Frank Fogerty. He goes to church with my boss, so Brent was able to find out about Frank's open house. Frank has a cute building on his property that he has turned into a home for his model train collection. It is amazing. Every detail is so perfect. You could spend hours looking at all the little buildings and people. I just loved going there and seeing it. Seeing something this excellent always inspires me to want to do better at the things I love to do. I hope you enjoy a few glimpses of Frank's excellent creation!!

So much going on....

Earlier this month we went on a trip with Brenda and Steve. I will blog about that next time. It was a fantastic trip, but I don't have all my photos ready from it yet.

The past couple of weeks I've got to spend a lot of time with my precious grandkids. We've had a lot of "special days" and outings. How I love each and every one of these little cuties. Even the babies know who I am now, and it's fun to be greeted with their smiles.

When we went to Utah I picked up a new little pocket sized camera that I had been hearing a lot about. It is supposed to do the best photos in low light of any point and shoot type of camera. It seems to work really well....not as good as my DSLR, but then again, I can't keep the DSLR in my purse. If I took it into McDonalds or WalMart people would stare at me, but not with my new little toy. So, I'm having a blast with it.

Little Jaycie still loves to stare at people's faces. I just wonder what she is thinking when she is looking at me.


I got to tend Jade the other day for a few hours. He is just the most pleasant little guy. He jabbers and carries on quite the conversation with all these little sounds that he makes. It sounds like he is saying words, but they don't make any sense at all.

He and I went to WalMart. He loved a little ladybug book. I tried to get him to get the monkey book instead, because I thought it seemed more like a book for a little boy, but he threw it on the floor and grabbed for the ladybug book. So, the ladybug book it was!!





Heather had to take Jaycie for her 9 month checkup. I thought it would be fun to take Harlee on her "special day" rather than have Heather take her to the doctor's office around all the sick kids. We had fun picking out books at WalMart (she chose a princess book, of course) and eating hamburgers at Burger King. I don't know if my waistline is going survive these "special days"!!

We also bought Mickey Mouse cheese cutouts, Little Pony, Toy Story, and Smilie Face fruitsnacks, and M&M's.







We offered Jaden a reward for something he was trying to do at school. The reward was an ice-cream outing. We had the twins with us, too!! It was messy, but fun.







Today Amber needed to go to preschool with Jaden for a field trip. I asked mom if she wanted to go to lunch with me and the twins to celebrate her good news on her biopsy (hooray!!). We took them to McDonalds and Hastings. Hastings has a little train table that is a lot of fun....similar to one the twins have at home.

They loved playing on the BIG toy at the McDonald's by Sam's Club. They both climbed to the top and Brigham went down the slide, but Brighton didn't dare so he climbed back down.

The highlight of the day for the boys was going to the car wash.....

Anyway, right now my life revolves around 6 little people that I love more than words can express. Next week Melissa will be home and I can enjoy her, too!! I'm looking forward to that.

Leaves, babies, drywall, family, and the newspaper...

My week has been an interesting one. First of all, it's been a bit tough. I've had a major sick stomach and the doctor thinks that the antibiotics I took for my sinuses have caused all the good bacteria to be killed the some bad bacteria to have taken over. I'm being tested and will find out the results in a few days. I've had no energy to accomplish anything, but I did have fun taking photos of the kids playing in the leaves.

On Monday, I watched Amber's kids for a while. They wanted to go out and play in the leaves. The photos turned out fun. I liked one of Jaden and thought it looked like something that they print in the newspaper so I sent it to the Post Register. I didn't think any more about it....until today.




On Wednesday, I watched Heather's girls for a while, so we headed out to the leaf patch again. Then on Friday, we had Jade play. It was fun watching all of them enjoy the fall experience.

Besides that, we've had the restoration company working on putting new drywall in the basement. Hopefully we can paint this week. It will be nice to get it all fixed.

Last night we had a fun time. Barbara and Rebekah are here visiting, and we had a family dinner with them. Kathy came up and all our kids, except for the Vests were here.

First Annual French Family Halloween Party

Heather and Beau invited all of us to a Halloween Party at their home. We had a blast. I'm sure it will become a family tradition. They sure put on a great party with costumes, decorations, great food, fun games, a treasure hunt for the kids.... It was perfect.

In attendance were a princess, two cowboys, Tony Stewart, a monkey, a strawberry, Juan Valdez, the Easter Bunny, two Bonneville Basketball players, Daisy the dog, Handy Manny, Go Diego Go, and Dora the Explorer. Diego won the prize for the best costume, which was designed by yours truly....!! Diego and Dora had a surprise for the monkey, strawberry, cowboys, princess, and Tony Stewart in the magic backpack and rescue bag. A ghost left a treat for the kids in the clothes dryer of all places!! I can't wait to see what happens next year.

I think that Beau's family has activities like this and the traditions are spilling over into our family, so thank you Hall family for being so great... I know you read these Margaret.