Crafty lady.

My granddaughter, Makayla is SO smart. She has tried, unsuccessfully so far, to become a thumbsucker. Anytime she gets that thumb in there, it is promptly pulled out and a binky is placed in the thumb's path. Enter Makayla.



I love this girl!!!

Happy tears.

I've had the most amazing couple of days. I'm so grateful for the tender mercies of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

Yesterday I ran into Brittany's daughter, her mom, and little sister. It was just what I needed. I love my granddaughter Makayla so much, but, a part of my heart belongs to Brittany's daughter. I had an amazing visit right there in the Walmart. She is the most beautiful girl, so smart and wonderful.

I wish that everyone who is touched by adoption could have the blessed experience that we have had with it. She was adopted by an amazing family, chosen by Brittany. She has a happy family. She has brothers and a sister. She has amazing parents. My thoughts are so fractured as I try to write them because it is such a tender part of us. We love this family so much!

Because of the experience, Brittany struggled for quite some time. It's hard when you are the mom and know that you can't walk through her trial for her. You pray and hope that someday, somehow the blessings will come. You wonder what the blessings will be.

Tonight, my beautiful daughter received her temple recommend. I'm crying as I write this because I know how hard she has worked. She has a wonderful companion in her fiance, Nate. He has been there for her, supporting her, and tonight they saw that come to fruition. I'm so excited to be able to go to the temple with my daughter for her first time. She's preparing to receive her patriarchal blessing too.

I am over the moon with gratitude. As Nate said to me tonight, "God is good!" Yes, He is.

Stress........it pretty much kills.

What kind of doctor would you see about having your head removed? You think I'm kidding? Just having my heading sitting atop my neck is killing me. I just have no idea in the world why I'd be stressed. Therefore, enjoy these.......

Stress-what happens when your gut says no but your mouth says "Of course, I'd be glad to."



Stress: "The confusion created when one's mind overrides the body's basic desire to choke the living daylights out of some jerk who desperately deserves it."



Stress is when you wake up screaming and realize you haven't fallen asleep yet.



We now return you to your regularly scheduled program.

It's a new year.........again.

It's now 2011. The world was supposed to cease in 2000 with all that Y2K stuff, and yet here we are. The world is supposed to be ending next year too. Somehow, I think we'll all live past that one too.



This is probably the first new year of my life that I haven't felt hopeful at all for a new year. Depressing, huh? I have no resolutions made since I don't believe in resolutions. Resolutions and actual change are the stuff of fairy tales. Time has taught me one thing. There is no such thing as happily ever after.

I have had so many things I have wanted to do with my life and now I fear that I will never attain those things. My life has been one of getting other people where they are going. I've envied the stay at home moms who can raise their children and develop their talents. I've envied the women who have obtained their higher degrees of education. I've envied the women whose husbands and parents supported them with their goals. I've envied those that have seemed to have gotten out of life what I've desperately wanted, but for whatever reason has been withheld from me.

I want to be happy. I want to have joy. It just seems to come in very microscopic bursts and is not lasting. I hate where my blog has gone and wish that I had never started it to begin with. It's posts like this that I am sure why I have been deleted from others blogrolls. No one wants to listen to a whiner and complainer.

Happy 2011-the sky is falling, the sky IS falling.

More grandma joy.....

This is how I spend a few hours a few days each week. Isn't she a treasure? I can't kiss these cheeks enough!



Makayla got to sit in Grandpa Lee's new chair first. I think she approves.



Grandma Charmen is so happy to have gotten a new camera for Christmas so that she can post these smiles. Now she doesn't have to steal them. "Grandma, get that camera out of my face!"

Not much, how 'bout you.

Not much changes in a year in the life of an adult. Christmas is once again upon us and just in case you may have forgotten my feelings on the yule, see here

I have, on a couple of occasions this week, had a desire to put away everything Christmas. Sometimes it just feels like too much work, and no one seems to appreciate the effort anyway. Why try to create the Christmas spirit when all it seems to do is make everyone grouchy?

Eighty eight days and counting on the wedding front.

Oh, and Makayla is growing and happy!


Children, on the other hand, change a lot in a year.

Why dogs have bad breath and other stuff........

Why do dogs have bad breath? Better still, why do they have to lay at my feet while I work and breathe that breath in my general workspace? Febreze, anyone?

Why do dogs pass gas in the same general scenario as above? Seriously, why must you lay HERE and make ME smell it? Highly objectionable.

Why do my dogs continually get upon my lovely couch? This is a complex question that requires a multi-faceted answer. First of all, yes it is lovely. However, when said dogs get up on my couch and leave their fur behind, the mother becomes most angry. Do you have any idea how much of my life is spent de-fur-ifying my house? Just ask the other men who live here. There are days when the vacuum is never put away. If you only knew.

Why do dogs resist the bath? Because they are trying to make the mother insane? Sadly, no. They don't want to get rid of the smells that they have rolled around in and accumulated over the course of that week. Again, Febreze, anyone?

Why do dogs have such cute faces? This is an easy answer. It's so that they are forgiven for having smelly breath and body, and for messing up the momma's house and leaving their toys strewn about.

Forgiven, yes but definitely not forgotten!