Heavy melting ice causes roof collaspe

At 1:00am Monday morning several people in the house thought they heard someone falling down the stairs and being hurt because it was very loud. What they heard was huge ice blocks sliding down from the roof of the house onto the back porch and causing it to collapse and break the porch down also.

No one was hurt and no animals were sleeping on the porch at the time thank goodness.

Jovie's blessing

April and Matt decided to have Jovie blessed. Her Papa J was the spokesman and it was a lovely blessing. She has talents and gifts and will bring joy to others. She's already begun. She got a lovely new dress for the blessing. Isn't she pretty?

Great Grandma and Grandpa's Christmas

We held the annual bowling game. I did pretty good if I do say myself. Off to the church we went. There are too many of us to all be at Grandma's house so she reserves the church. There was vollyball, games, food, basketball and a Christmas Program to fill the night. We were able to have Michael be in the program singing Silent night and The First Noel thanks to David's talented computer skills. A Sister in one of his ward's on his mission has been taking pictures of Michael and his companion and putting them on her face book to share with us. She took a video of Michael and his companion singing. It was great! Michael is on the left. We had a great conversation with Michael on Christmas. We were able to talk for an hour. He sounds good and is learning and working hard.

Gwen read a touching story of the three trees of Christmas.

April sang I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day. It was very good. She has a beautiful voice. Someone came up to me after church on Sunday and said sitting in front of her and listening to her sing brought tears to their eyes several times.

Nathan sang a solo of Jingle Bells and did GREAT! Do you see the look of a proud momma in the back ground?

Cousins Jessica, Emily, Aria and Taylor sang a fun song of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer for everyone.

We talked these men into singing for us. They did great! I love the sound of men's voices singing together.

They loved singing so much they talked the rest of the men into coming up and singing another song with them.

You can tell by the look of Great Grandpa and Grandma listening to the program that it was enjoyed.

I think the program was a hit and may even have more participation next year. This is the first year of not doing any type of gift exchange and the feed back I heard was that the program was even better.
Good food, good company, good fun, good show, lots of love, family. What else is there?

Jovie's 1st birthday

Little Jovie is one now. Her momma threw her a party that every little one year old would love. Pretty dress, cake, punch, dance party and presents. Her Aunt Misty made her a beautiful fancy party dress. Isn't she lovely!

She loved the little keyboard we got her. Yeah!

The cake her momma made scored with her.

Joshua is trying out the Wii Fit. You can see Gabe on his right cheering him on. Gabe has the high score so far at 312 points for the hula hoop. He can really wiggle those hips for a three year old.

Jovie sure missed her cousin Mae and parents being at her party. CLara is next to turn one out of three "baby" granddaughters. They grow up so fast.

Sledding

This last weekend was the Great Grandma Johnson's "Christmas". Larry's sister Brenda and her family and Misty and her family are the only ones that traveled this year to be at it. Small gathering but it was still a fun weekend. The first activity was sledding on all that Walla Walla snow before the Chinook melted it all.

Nathan is on a sled that Papa J used when he was younger.

Gabe was having a great time too.

Aria was just like the energizer bunny. She kept going and going and going.

Papa J fixed some yummy hot chocolate when we got back to our house. Yum! Yum!

Excercising with Jovie

I exercise usually 5 mornings out of each week. It's a routine that Jovie likes to be involved with if she's awake. She likes to help with my stomach crunches.

Ruby has laid in her bed watching me exercise since I brought her home over 2 years ago. At first Ruby tried to get on the treadmill with me and she would get tossed off the back. She learned quickly it was safer in her bed. That is until Jovie came along.
Ruby knows what is coming...

Swing to the right...

Jovie won again. Ruby is so good she just takes it. so far.

Watch a little TV, watch Grandma J. Nice seat Ruby.

Christmas sweets

I don't know why but even though we have already had our Christmas "Christmathanks" on Thanksgiving I still feel the need to give my children and their families something for the actual Christmas. So I give them the Family Calendar that I make each year with the current years pictures,

A special letter (that I have yet to write) and candy that I've made.

Starting at the top left. Caramel chocolate covered pretzels with different toppings such as nuts, Oreo's, toffee, plain, mint. I made the preztles last year and Rachel shared them with one of her friends and all year he's been asking her when I was going to make them again. So I sent some in her box for him too. Yummy Ritz mints. Sugar cookies. Caramel, some I dip in chocolate and some I leave plain, some I turn into turtles and then dip them in chocolate. I wasn't quite done with those before I took the picture. On the tin foil are Peanut Butter cups that are really Peanut Butter squares. They tasted yummy but I've got a different recipe I'll use next time. Center plate is a harder caramel with nuts. I took some of the hard caramel with nuts to church to share with the Young single adults and they devoured it. :) It feels good when people enjoy something you've made or cooked.

Snow update

Ok, I know I already posted about the snow but the darn stuff keeps coming down and piling up. I know that other cities are affected too and so you don't feel sorry for us here at all but I thought I'd post how much has piled up by a couple of pictures. It seems like we have been shoveling off about 4 -6 inches at least of snow every day so you would think it would measure 3 feet by now but it doesn't. So I concluded that snow must settle somehow. Any one know for sure?

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. NOT!

Our first snowfall of the season has been huge! Especially where we live. We live a few miles out of town in the country.

Why do you think I needed to shovel a pathway out to the grass and then shovel off an area of grass?

It's so Ruby could go to the bathroom. The snow is deeper than she is tall. Does she look like she appreciates it? She looks cold to me and also like she thinks I'm crazy.

It is very beautiful though. The white decorating the green branches of the evergreens, covering up the muddy ground.

I don't want it to stick around here long though, keep the snow in the mountains. I just pray that it melts slow enough that it doesn't flood.

Cookies with Jess

I wanted to make Christmas cookies with Jessica. This granddaughter loves to be in the kitchen making things. We made sugar cookies and frosted them. I tell you we were lucky to have cookie dough left because Aunt April and Uncle Matt were eating it. JK. Then we almost didn't have any to frost because Aunt April was eating them after they came out of the oven. She loves cookie dough and cookies. See Jess's yummy tasty creations...

We had a fun time.:) She spent the night and we watched a good movie called To the Center of the Earth. She had seen it before so she helped me through the scary parts.

I'm glad I sent all the cookies home with her except for one cuz they were so good I might have eaten them all.

My nephew Frank

Most of the time we blog about happy, joyful events. This event wasn't happy or joyful but a part of this earth experience. Death.
My nephew Frank Marks died November 24th, 2008. He would have been 35 on Dec. 2nd.
Actually this young man should have died before he was born. He was born premature. To not get into a lot of private family information his mom couldn't take care of him and didn't want to watch him "die" so she "gave" him more or less to my mom, his grandma. I was 15 years old. He wasn't well and needed a lot of attention. My mom, my younger sister Brenda and myself would take turns rocking Frank and keeping him upright. We would sleep with him on our shoulder.

He grew up in his grandma's home and was a pretty happy little kid. He was 3 when I moved out.

But as he grew up you could tell he always wanted to be with his own mother, even though she didn't want him and/or my mom didn't want to let him go. His mom, my sister had a lot of her own addiction problems. He also had a lot of problems and became addicted to some bad stuff and it eventually destroyed his spirit and body. I picture my mom, his Grandma Jean in heaven telling anyone that would listen to get Frankie up with her so she could take care of him again since he wasn't doing such a great job on his own. He was in a detox center when he died and he thought this time he was going to be able to make the changes he needed to to stay clean. Let's hope he was and now he will be able to progress where he is now in the Spirit world now that he's out of his mortal body.

He is buried right above my parents and my little sister. My dad is on the left, my mom in the middle and my younger sister Brenda on the right. Brenda and I are whole sisters, all the rest of my sisters and brother have different fathers. That's a whole other story...

One thing about my family is that it only seems we get together at funerals. Two of my sisters came to dinner the evening before the funeral, Margret on the left came from Colorado and Georgia on the right came from Oregon. April, in the middle, enjoyed visiting with them at dinner especially to hear some of our old stories. She loved Georgia's eyes because they reminded her of Grandma's.

You know what? Family has strong bonds no matter how screwed up the family is. The family I come from is proof of that. Some aren't talking to others and visa versa but yet financial help was given to Frank's mom by someone who she isn't talking to. Even though she might not say thank you and appreciate it, I'm thankful to have witnessed it. Yep, dysfunctional but it's where I'm from. I am VERY thankful to have the gospel in my life. It has given me direction, purpose and a way to live my life.

The rest of the Christmathanks weekend story...

Among everything else we had planned for the weekend after Christmathanks day Larry's brothers daughter Emily was baptized. Here are some family pictures taken at her baptism.
Jessica and Aria found cute matching dresses from an upscale store called Seva that morning as we were shopping.

This is a picture of Larry's parents with all the grandchildren and great grandchildren with some of the spouses of the grandchildren too. The baptism day Emily is in the red dress on the left in the front.

Here are the 5 great grandchildren of LaVerne and Evelyn born within 6 months of each other. All 3 girls are Larry and mine granddaughters. Aren't we lucky!
Eli, Daniel, Clara, Jovie and Mae in front.

Here's a lap full. I think they enjoyed it though.

Here are the babies with their momma's. How fun it is going to be for them at our family gatherings to have cousins so close in age to play with.
Rachel and Mae, April and Jovie, Maryanne and Eli, Misty and Clara, Teresa and Daniel.

I love this picture of Clara and Larry looking at each other.

We enjoyed making, baking and decorating ginger bread cookies. They were yummy and the kids had fun making and eating them.

Maybe you can answer this question for me. Why do we let our grandchildren do things in our home that we normally wouldn't have allowed our own children do like throw footballs in the house back and forth to Papa J? Getting to be softy is what I'm thinking.

It was a great weekend and many memories were made. Now to rest... HA... what's that?

Christmathanks 2008

Christmathanks, yes that's what I said. It's Christmas and Thanksgiving combined into one holiday hence the name Christmathanks. This way we can celebrate Christmas as a family and then on the real Christmas the kids can have their own Christmas or spend it with the other parents. That way everyone gets the best of both worlds. We've done it for several years now and it is really starting to feel like Christmas. We fill stockings and the whole chabang. For years on Christmas eve we would have a fondue and then just have pizza or something easy on Christmas. So last year the kids wanted fondue so we did that and not a Thanksgiving meal. This year they actually took a vote on having the Thanksgiving meal or fondue or switch off every other year. The switch off every other year won out. Christmathanks eve though we had a nice meal of steak, and a couple of their favorites from our fondue meal. Stuffed twice baked potatoes and crab cheese fondue with french bread was served. So I was able to make everyone happy with both meals served. Maybe the fondue meal will get updated.
Christmathanks eve after we ate we watched Fred Clause and got the kids to bed. This is where Jessica, Nathan and Aria sacked out, right by the tree. We left them there and just put out presents around them. They know Santa doesn't come until Christmas and the stockings are filled by Papa and Grandma J.

Christmathanks morning started early. Ever since our children could get up themselves we let them open the presents in their stockings to keep them busy for a few more minutes of shut eye for Larry and I. Santa would even add a small box of cereal so they could eat. The tradition continues. Clara got the bear I knitted her in her stocking. I think she liked it.

Gabe was excited to get the big yellow tonka truck. Mae and Jovie loved riding in the big tonka truck too. Except Jovie kept looking the other way.

Don't you love this face Mae makes? I do.

I loved all the gifts I received. I told the kids it's great having them all grown up. Dad and I get some awesome gifts now. :) This gift I received from April and Matt tugs on strings from my childhood. My favorite doll growing up was my Raggedy Andy doll. I also loved reading the Raggedy Ann and Andy books. My doll got burned up in our house fire over 20 years ago and so my mom gave me my little sisters doll which was Raggedy Ann, with no clothes. I should really get her some. I have also wanted an old doll carriage because they just look cool. Well I received both and they are antiques to boot...

I love the look on Aria and Nathan's faces as they anticipate me opening the gift they made me. They are as excited to give me and Papa J this gift as they are to receive gifts.

A cool magnetic board!

Jovie is getting into the opening gift thing. It's good practice for her birthday soon.

Do you remember that box Gabe's truck came in? It was a favorite toy of the little ones and Aunt Shannon was a good engine.

This gift was given to all 5 of our children at the same time. It was a gift that was 10 years in the making. I collected the state quarters for the last 10 years for each of our kids. They were impressed I didn't spend them. Rachel helped me find quarters from each of their birth years to have in the book as well, so they are personalized. I was excited to give the books to them.

This year Aria requested that we have a formal dinner for Thanksgiving so we all dressed up for dinner. It was actually fun to do that. Thus begins themes for each year. The kids all decided next year will be awful Christmas sweater theme. Here we are at dinner. I'm taking the picture and Mae is back behind her mom so you can't see us. Michael is in Utah at the MTC and has been greatly missed.

Our grandchildren. I love moments like this. I love my family. Yep, I sure do.