Liberty's Baptism

Elder Denton, Liberty and Elder Sitivi - our eleven year old neighbor who has been investigating the church for over a year...baptized the day after Thanksgiving - she asked me to say the closing prayer.

 Sabrina, and Sheriden with Libby - they were in my Primary class and have down a great job of fellowshiping Liberty.  They are in 7th grade and Libby in 6th grade and the first week of middle school I asked her how it was going - she said she couldn't get her locker open, but Sabrina comes down to help her!

 Isn't she pretty?  We are happy to be close and support her.

 This is blurry - but this is her friend Shelleen from her old neighborhood.  Shelleen was staying over at Libby's house this summer.  Both girls came over to our house to borrow an egg - - they were making cookies at Libby's house.  Libby asked us then if she could go to church with us - OF COURSE.  It was a little tricky at first.  Our meeting at the YSA ward begins at 11:30 - so Sacrament was over at 12:40.  Then we would hurry across town to walk over to pick up Liberty and go to our home ward at 1:00 pm.  Then we would go back to the YSA wards RS and Priesthood meeting.   We did that for a couple of months.  When we were out of town, I asked Sheridan and Sabrina to do it - Libby lives right next door to the chapel across the street from our house. After a while she goes by herself and we stay at our YSA ward.

Happy smiles all around - love the picture of the Good Shepherd in the background.  Elder Sitivi is from Samao and is a little hard to understand sometimes.   Liberty will be confirmed on Sunday - we will be there.  What a wonderful way to celebrate Thanksgiving weekend!!

Continue being Thankful!

Here we are being very thankful for all our blessings - I love giving thanks, being with family and eating good food!!

 Briella found this 'baby' in the nursery room, and she carried it around most of the day.

 Polly and Jason - two oldest grandchildren of Gramps and Granny - catching up on each other's lives!

 My sisters and I married awesome men!  Ken, Harold and John helped so much ... not just setting up but taking down and putting away, doing dishes and sweeping and mopping floors... love em!

 Briella had a great time at the dessert bar!

Wild turkeys!  We drove a washer and dryer to Hyrum for Kate and Ben - driving through Millville toward the freeway - there was a whole flock of wild turkey - probably 25 plus!  Fun to see the day after Thanksgiving!

Still being Thankful!

 What a wonderful spread!

 Heather and Chris helping their children to all the yummy food.

The other end of the line!

 Briella enjoying olives on her fingers.

 Aunt Becky made these table clothes for each of her siblings - fun to read the 'family' quotes while we ate Thanksgiving Dinner with extended family!

Thanksgiving 2015

 Aunt Sue's assignment was to bring fruit to the Family Thanksgiving dinner - she made this cute fruit turkey!  She told us - why do easy?  Actually then she confessed that she had the fruit all cut up and in tupperware in her fridge - and drove over to Utah with out it!  yep - she is related to me! Don't you love her sweatshirt?  Gaea is attending there and Sue and John when up for their "Family" weekend.

 Here is the set up for our celebration - the small table has a coloring tablecloth for the little ones ...

 ...or the bigger ones!  Missy and Britt and Gwen - notice the men in the background playing basketball.

 After a few tries - here is the whole group - we missed a lot of you!

Becky telling us about the song: "Praise God from whom all blessings flow, Doxology...we are very thankful for all our blessings.

Pizza Pie Birthday Dinner

 Annabelle choose Pizza Pie Cafe for her birthday dinner.  They had a sign outside that said:  "Happy" has five letters, so does "pizza" - coincidence - we think not!

 She opened her gifts from us - a kitten puzzle, The Princess and the Pea book and tickets to the Princess Tea Party - Dec. 4th, plus glitter glue and markers!

Pizza Pie brought Anna this Monster Birthday Pie - pretty yummy!  When we got there the table next to had 6 - 8 ISU football players ... they were eating and eating the whole time we were there - still at it when we left!

Making Cupcakes

 Annabelle and Avery came over to our house after school on Wednesday - to make cupcakes to take to school on Thursday - Anna's 'real' birthday.  Anna wanted blue cake - so she put food coloring in the white cake mix.

 Here Avery and Annabelle are putting the blue batter into the cup cake papers...Grandpa in the background!

 We made three colors of frosting for them - blue, green and red!  The girls had a good time piping it on the top of the cupcakes.

 See how cute they turned out?  Anna liked them and that is what is important.  We are amazed that the school still allows home made goodies to celebrate birthdays in school.

Close up of the finished product - some looked better than others, and Anna said all her friends liked them and ate them!

More fun at Outer Limits

The girls playing Skee Ball - Grace won this one ... one of her aunts owns Outer Limits so she knew the most about playing the games and winning!

 The Mini Golf is black light and really spooky - crazy girls!!

 Anna liked the big elephant!!

 We met Ben and Joel back at our house for cake and ice cream - with three friends, Anna took the unicorn decoration, Avery the wand, and Grace got the plastic rainbow.

 Annabelle with her cake.

 The happy birthday party - eating cake and ice cream.

 Somehow this picture got into the middle of this post - was supposed to be at the end - oh well.  Joel started playing trombone in the Middle School Band when school started in Aug.  He is really learned a lot and you can recognize the Christmas Songs he is playing.

 The three girls and Anna's cake.

The other side of the table at our house - showing that Kate and Ben and Grandpa were there!  Fun Time!

Annabelle's Friends party

 On Monday, November 16, the Pocatello schools had a teacher work day - no school for students.  So Annabelle invited two friends and we went to Outer Limits - a fun center in town.  Grace, sitting by Anna is a good friend who lives near us.  Avery, sitting by Kate is in our ward - her dad is Sam Stones, the son of Dad's first cousin - Brain Stones.  They are all in the same class at school.

 After you pay for each girl - they give them a 'credit card' and then they go to the sign in machines - pretty cool for the children of the digital age!

 Here is Annabelle at the Laser Tag ... there were only the three girls in their session - Kate and I got to observe from a window.  Anna was green, Avery blue and Grace red.

 They had these flashing lights - Anna and Avery have older brothers and shot very well - Grace was not so good - she even was minus in one session!!

This big play structure is called the Toy - it had swings - trampolines, lots of fun.

Montana State vs. Idaho State Football game

We have never been inside Holt Arena and so we took Joel and Anna to the Montana State vs. Idaho State football game today - Joel said: "are you going to wear that shirt?"  Of course, I said!  It was fun.

 The ISU Marching Band - seems funny to be inside watching a football game!

 One of Joel's best friends family was a few rows above us - they had a good time - watching, cheering and eating ice cream.

 Annabelle liked the popcorn, and the cotton candy ... we also had hot dogs - they taste better at a sports event!  We left at hafttime - MSU - 27 - ISU - 0.  We had a family coming to dinner and a missionary lesson afterward so we had to leave - Joel stayed with his friends - Anna was okay with leaving.

Here is MSU just before scoring - they're in white, ISU in orange and black.  The MSU kicker was fun to watch - he kicked field goals of 57 and 53 yards!  The final score was MSU 44- ISU 20.  There are 19 seniors on the team, one of the senior wide receivers, Madison Mangum was in our first YSA ward we worked with - his younger brother is Tanner Mangum - QB at BYU...both returned missionaries.

Pretty Granddaughters - Old Grandma and Grandpa!

 We drove to Rexburg Friday morning to attend the temple and take these lovely ladies out to lunch.

 Costa Vida was yummy and fun to catch up with the busy lives of these dealing granddaughters!

 We are officially OLD - invited to the Senior's Thanksgiving Dinner by the YW/YM in our ward - yummy food and nice company - we enjoyed it!

 These rope wreaths were at our local Western store - I thought they were unique and cute and easy!