Easter and Emmetts blessing

Introducing Emmett Marec Allen the newest addition to our family. He was born on February 19, 2012 weighing in at 10 lbs (can't remember how many ounces). The middle name Marec is taken from the first initial of his aunts - M is from Mary, A is Amber, R is Rebecca, E is Elizabeth and C is Candis - so he is named after all his aunts. On Easter Sunday, April 8, 2012 Emmett was blessed. He received a great blessing and all the family was able to make it. What a great weekend!!




Emmett and his grandpa already for church.




Penn, Logan and Audrey taking time out from playing for a quick picture of them in their new Easter outfits.




Alexis and Drake already to go to church




Aunt Becky giving Drake a ride on the scooter. what fun!!




Mary Elizabeth and Emmett meeting for the first time.




Gavin and his Grandpa talking strategy before the Easter Egg hunt started.




Gavin with his mom and Aunt Becky during the Easter egg hunt.




My parents with Daryl and I


Daryl and his dad.

We had such a great weekend with the family enjoying each other and the doing fun stuff. I look forward to the next family gatherings.

Christmas Tradition

We had a very different Christmas this year then we have ever had before. On Christmas Eve Candis and Joe invited us to their house for a great Christmas dinner and then we played Flinch - I won!. Thanks Candis and Joe for a great evening. Then on Christmas morning we got up and went to church and finished getting ready for the celebration that would happen later on in the day. We finally got around to opening our presents around 3:00 p.m. and of course Daryl spoiled me again. He does every year and I just love it. I sure appreciate him and all he does for me. The family came over at 6:00 including Chris, our foster son, and my parents with all the children and grandchildren. we had a nice turkey dinner and then opened presents. Thank you children for the wonderful gifts that you gave us, we will use them often over the coming years.

This year we started a new tradition - or continued a tradition that was handed down from the previous generation. When our children were young every year on Christmas their Grandparents Gudmundson would have a Christmas dinner then all the parents had to leave as well as any children that were not potty trained. Then they would have a sleepover with their grandchildren. This meant so much to my children that they encouraged us to do it as well. So this year we gave it a try - and it turned out to be a lot of fun. We bought flashlights for them and talked about being a light unto the world and a good example to their friends and family. We have five grandchildren all under the age of five and they were so excited literally running circles around each other. I don't think they fell asleep until long after midnight.



We read stories and watched part of Mary Poppins. But the funnest part of the night was turning off all the lights and laying on the floor with new flashlights and chasing a red dot that Grandpa pointed at the ceiling with his laser beam. The Grandchildren just loved it and all night long they wanted to know where the red dot was.


For breakfast we had chocolate chip pancakes, which is always a big hit with the grandchildren. We tried to get Penn to face the camera but I guess he was just too busy eating. The parents came to pick up their children at 10:00 a.m. and Alexis did not want to go home, she ran into the bedroom and shut the door and yelled "no mommy I don't want to go." but once all the parents got their she was okay going, she just didn't want to miss out on any of the fun. We had a great time and we think the grandchildren did as well. This will definiately be a tradition that we will continue for years to come.

railing

As a follow up to the previous post. Here is a picture of the unfinished railing that separates our back yard from the pool area. I think it is turning out really nice. (As part of Joe's birthday present to Daryl, he gave him a coupon for working in the backyard. Daryl collected on the coupon by having Joe help with this project and it turned out great - thanks Joe.) We plan on putting in archways at the top and hang baskets of flowers and little lanterns. I am so excited about all the hard work that Daryl has put into this. It is turning out beautiful.

Pool area and Halloween

This summer Daryl was very busy once again working on our back yard. He finished digging around the pool and putting in the wall. It is now ready for the deck. The railing separating the pool area from the back yard was also put in, but it is not quite finished yet. We are making a lot of progress and getting real excited about getting it done. It will probably take another 2 summers of hard work before it is done.




It was Halloween yesterday and the grandchildren that live close enough were able to come down to the Government Center and trick or treat. Here is a picture of them. Penn and Logan were dressed up like Thing 1 and Thing 2 from the story "The Cat in the Hat." Audrey was a cat. Alexis was a fairy princess. Not pictured is Drake who was a monkey. Drake wasn't too happy about wearing his custome. I had a blast showing off my grandchildren and I am pretty sure they had a blast going around to the different offices and getting candy.

Summer Vacation 2011 (trip home)

Before we left the Palmyra area, we made a stop at Peter Witmer's farm. This is the place that the church was organized on April 6, 1830. It was so neat to visit the sites on church history that we have heard about for so long.




Coming home along I90 we stopped by Mt. Rushmore for another look at this monument to some famous US Presidents. What an awesome sight. But I still maintain they should clean up the rock piles in front of the mountain and let the natural landscape grow back in. I think it would look a lot better.




In Mitchell South Dakato they have a corn palace. If you look closely at the following picture you will be able to tell that the outside maurel of this building is done by using different color corn still on husk. the corn husk is cut lengthwise and by using the different kinds of corn they decorate the outside of the building. The maurel changes every year. It was fun to walk around on the inside of the building and look at all the decorations they have done over the years. Its amazing what you can do with corn.




On the way home, we had to of course stop and visit the Jolly Green Giant. I don't remember how we discovered this statute but we did on the trip we took a while ago to Milwaukee. So we decided to stop and visit him again. It was good to get out and walk around.




Our next to last stop on the way home was a visit to Devil's Tower. This is the mountain that was featured on the movie Close Encounters. It was pretty cool to see it. After a delicious breakfast in Jackson Hole we visited with Monica, Sean, Ayden and Gavin for an overnight visit. Daryl got to ride bikes with Ayden, and we got to watch Ayden at his swimming lessons - were he did awesome. Then the next day we headed home. We were gone for 2.5 weeks and as you can tell from the blogs we did a lot and had a ton of fun. Now we just need a vacation from our vacation.

Summer Vacation 2011 (Palmyra)

We finally made it to Palymra, after being on the road for over one week. We meet up with Daryl's dad and his wife Judy and was able to visit with them for a while. We saw the sites like the following picture of Joseph Smith's home where the Angel Moroni appeared to him. We also made it to the Hill Cumorah pageant that I have wanted to see forever. It was wonderful.




This next picture is of Daryl and I in the Scared Grove. I took my kindle in and we sat on the bench and read the story of the First Vision. The Spirit was strong in the Grove and it was a highlight of our trip.





This is a picture of the Palymra Temple. We did not get a chance to go into this one. But it is beautiful as usual. This temple was built on the Smith Family farm and can be seen through the trees from the Scared Grove

2011 Vacation (Kirtland & Niagara Falls)

The next stop after leaving Chris and Cathy's was to Kirtland Ohio. I didn't realize how many of the revelations found in the Doctrine and Coveants were given to Joseph Smith while he lived in Kirtland. While there we saw the John Johnson farm were D & C 76 was given on eternal marriage. This was a great stop. We also saw and was able to tour the Kirtland Temple.



This is the Newel K. Whitney store. This is where Joseph and Emma stayed for a while. This is where the School of the Prophets was.




This is the room where the School of the Prophets was held. This is also the room where the Word of Wisdom was given. There was just a small group touring this building when we were there, so the Missionary let Daryl teach about the word of wisdom. It was really cute to do that in the very rooom where it was given.




On the way to Palmyra we stopped off at Niagara Falls. They sure are beautiful falls. We heard the Canadian side is even better, but we didn't want to take the time to cross the border. We were anxious to get to Palmyra.