Family Pictures in Utah April 2009

We had family pictures taken in Utah while we were there for Kaylee's graduation. I am sure you can all relate to the energy and effort that goes into trying to coordinate every ones outfits. It never fails that my expectation is always higher than the out come but I have to be so thankful to have had all of us in one place at one time and have it documented!!

The family age span. Tyler 24....Grant 4! The colors are beautiful.

The photographers art. It reminds me of ....as I call it "Mormon Graffiti" , ( I am usually not a big fan of it) but it is growing on me a bit. However Carly's name is misspelled.

The boys....

This little guy has added so much love and energy to our family!! What would we ever do without him??

Keller 2nd Ward Memorial Day Swim Party! 5-25-2009

We had our Ward party at the Hidden Lakes Club House. It has become a tradition and one that we all look forward to. We have a BBQ with great food, volleyball and swimming. It's fun to take time out of our busy lives to reconnect with those we love but never seem to get time with. We truly have so many wonderful, talented people in our ward! How blessed we are to live in such a wonderful area.

Grant: READY, SET, SUMMER!! Darling Lauren with her handsome Simon. Hot Mama Jill in the background.

My darling daughter Camille and Mr. Grant.

I love these women...Taylor, Val, Michelle, Raleen and Rebecca. It almost looks like we have a Ward uniform with all of the hot pink going on...HA

Our handsome Pierce. He is SO adorable!!

The cook! Nate and his BIG Green EGG!! He is a tradition as well...........;)

Thanks to all who helped. What a success it was!

How the Williams live on the WILD side!!

OK , I have had several e-mails saying I left you all hanging. What car did the Williams get? It is an Acura MDX. It is much smaller than the Yukon XL. I must be honest that I do miss sitting up high. Camille says "Get over it Mom it wasn't that nice of a car!" Nice or not... I loved it!! My favorite thing about this car is my navagator named "Mona" ! I can tell her what to do and she responds to me. I feel like I have a new friend. Really! :) I am just trying to figure out how to get her to move INSIDE the house! I'll keep you posted....

PS: Silver is a new WHITE!!

What's wrong with this picture????

Can you tell what is wrong with this picture?? We had quite a week last week. The computer was down almost all week and we had car trouble so I had the car in the shop most of the week. It was a frustrating week to say the least! It was also amazing how fast Blake took over the garage with all of his lawn equipment. I would come home to a full garage and NO place to park. This went on all week. How did I loose my spot?? I even requested that I get my spot back in the garage. After all I think I have earned the MAIN parking spot since I feed people! Blake has just kind of taken over the garage. After I finally got a bit grouchy coming home to no place to park...he finally gave me my place back.:) The computer is finally fixed and we had to get a new car because our old reliable Yukon ( I loved that car by the way...our last 3 cars have been Yukon's) was past it's prime. I finally let my husband talk me into a smaller SUV. I hope I don't regret it!! I found a car and took Steve to see it. He agreed to get it for me but was concerned that the car was silver and not white. For the last 18 years of our marriage our cars have ALL been white!! Steve believes in WHITE cars... ( I said don't you think people think you are boring always getting white cars? He said at least they know I am consistent! Ha ) As we are driving the car off the lot Steve says I would feel a bit better about this if the car were WHITE!! I said, awwwwwww let's just live a little!

Prom Night 5-15-2009

BLAKE THE DESIGNER!!
Blake was asked by a friend (Lauren) from the Colleyville Ward to go to her high school prom in Grapevine. Since I was making a few of the flowers for the kids in my ward Blake wanted to be involved in making the corsage for Lauren. He was so funny and such a great help! Here he is putting the final touches on his masterpiece. The finished masterpiece! He may have found a new talent! :)

Here he is getting ready for the big night. It turned into a family affair. The HOT pink was a little girly for him but he looked great!

OK seriously Mom..... NO MORE PICTURES!!!

My favorite of the photo Shoot!! HA HA Such a classic boy pose... The bad thing about being the boys parents we did not get to see them together!

LAST GAME OF THE SEASON... GO ROCKETS!!

Today was Grant's last soccer game of the season. We had a great season. Although they really do not keep score at this level a few of the over achiever dad's (right Tyler??) KNOW that we actually only lost one game..that is IF we were keeping score.:)

Here Grant is going in for a goal. That is Blake right behind him!
Grant is so intense. He loves his team and the game!

The celebration line.

Today we had the team party at Coach Mary Lee's house. They had pizza, darling cupcakes a jump house and most important TROPHIES!!!

All of the boys. Grant, Blake, Josh, Aden, Nathan and Blake. What a darling group of boys. They are all great friends. It is our hope to keep them together again next season.

Josh's Dad Rick made these cupcakes for the party. It was a soccer field with a picture of each one of the boys! It was DARLING!!! so creative....I know Rick does have a day job but it looks like he may always have a back up!

Grant and his cupcake!

The long awaited trophy! Grant finally has his own trophy. Isn't that what every little boy wants and the whole reason we sign up for soccer in the first place??!!

Great season, team, coach, FUN!!

Buddies

This is Grant and his buddy Nathan. We love that little guy. They have been the best of friends since they have been about 2 years old. They look forward to playing at each others house every week. Today they laughed and laughed. it was so fun to watch them interact. Of course one of their favorite things to do is play in my bath tub. I have to TRY and get them out before they turn into prunes! They really do not come much cuter than this...

After a hard day of playing. Grant couldn't even stay awake long enough to eat this snack that Camille made for him. I can't believe that he did not fall off that bar stool!!

We are so lucky to have good friends and fun memories!

Girls Cruise with RAINER! 4/30 - 5/4/2009

My sister Dana came up with this great idea to take my 84 year old Mom on a cruise before it was too hard on her to travel. My Sister LaNae acted as the travel agent and the rest is history as they say! Mom's birthday is Dec. 14 th so each of my Sisters and myself gave her sun glasses, a sun hat, Jammie's and fun cruise stuff for her birthday but we didn't say a thing about anything else. Then for Christmas we gave her the cruise and airlines tickets. The best part of this gift is that we ALL got to go on the trip and we had lots of time to look forward to it!!!!

Here is our Ship. The Sun on the Norwegian Cruise Line. It was so much fun!

It was a short trip 4 days and 3 nights that traveled from LA up the cost to Vancouver Canada. This is a picture of Vancouver as we were getting ready to port there. It was a beautiful city. We did however see the down side of the city with the street people. Dana gave a handout to one of the women which started a fight between two women. I am assuming that one owed the other one money. It ended with one woman hitting the other one. It was a bit tense and scary. Next time no handouts Dana!!

We had such a fun time....all we did is laugh, eat and sleep and watch movies...OK EAT, laugh.....Either way it was a treasured memory!

Here is a picture of my Darling Mom Loraine affectionately know to us as "Rainer" guarding our luggage at the airport. My Mom is so funny. I think it is a combination of her being naive, being old and not hearing really well and trying to humor us..... but whatever it is she is the main attraction wherever we go! I call her remarks "Rainerisms"...Here are a few of my favorites:

1. Rainer: Man these people in Canada really travel a lot.

Us: Mom we are at an airport!

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2. My sister LaNae FELL off the bed and cut her foot. A SERIOUS injury as she calls it. Anyway she went to get some neosporin and band aids at the gift shop.

Mom: Where did you go?

LaNae: To get some stuff for my foot.

Mom: Did you have the leave the building?

LaNae: Mom we are on a SHIP!

Mom: Well, I thought we were still parked!

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3. LaNae e-mailed Steve to let him know which LLadro figurine she got me from him for my birthday and she said he wrote back and said to give Stacey a "wet kiss"....(Please Steve) Mom said "What affects the kids"?... Wet Kiss Mom...nothing about kids.

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4.We were watching a DUMB movie called He's Just Not That Into You. In the movie a girl upset with her husband throws a mirror and shatters it on the floor. Mom woke up out of a dead sleep and said, That's seven years bad luck and went right back to sleep!

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I could go on but WHY??? You gotta love Rainer! She always makes us laugh.

Can you believe that I did not get one good picture of all of us together on the cruise. We had two state rooms that were adjoining. it was a huge slumber party for 4 days. Here we are in one of the staterooms. Mom, LaNae, RaeAnn and Dana.

At breakfast. RaeAnn, Dana, empty spot for ME, LaNae and Rainer.

We took a city tour of Vancouver the last day of our cruise and then stayed over night in a GREAT hotel. Here we are at Queen Elizabeth's garden in Vancouver. It was so beautiful!

LaNae and me at the tulip garden.

The whole garden was this beautiful.

This great clock in Gastown operates on steam from under the streets that runs the heating system. Every hour and half hour it plays some great music generated by the steam. It is hard to see but steam is really coming out of the top of the clock.

This is China Town. This was a fun and very interesting experience. They had everything from fresh veggies and seafood to dried and salted everything!

This was one of the most interesting "dried" foods we saw. Dried, flat,smashed lizard...so appetizing. Both RaeAnn and I wanted to bring one home to our boys....however we would never get back into the country with it. We both decided it was better to come home legally.

Her is a picture of my darling kids and the GREAT gifts I picked out for them, Grant in his silk Jammie's. Camille in her darling embroidered flats. Blake in his groovy biking glasses.

It was also fun to celebrate my birthday on the ship. Each of my Sisters took a turn buying breakfast, lunch and dinner for me since it was all included! ;) Actually we went to a great steak restaurant where we had steak and lobster and huge prawns. It was so yummy. They gave me a birthday cake and the staff even sang "Hoppy birthday" to me. I think the English version is "Happy Birthday" It was historical. I got some great earrings from Lanae (yes, I did manage to loose one before I got home with it!!) a Shirt from Dana and money from Mom and RaeAnn.

Then they gave me a gift from Steve and the kids....It was this beautiful LLadro figurine. It couldn't have been a better gift!

I loved the other one so much and they had great prices...well great for LLadro's so... I splurged and got another one for Mother's Day. I figured that Steve would be thrilled that I already had that gift covered! :) Don't we all do that?? I now have a collection and it is up to three. Tyler brought me one home from his mission to Spain. I hope to go to Spain one day and get a couple more to add to my COLLECTION. (By the way Steve was thrilled to know he has Mother's day covered!)

My sister Dana decided that she would WIN a LLadro. She called them LARD-O's..which we all got a kick out of. The only way you can WIN anything on a cruise ship is in the casino....just ask her how well she did. I think she actually LOST hers. I lost $20 in five minutes and was so done.... now LaNae was the only winner and we all benefited form her winnings. Dana even lost some of LaNae's winnings. RaeAnn of course is STILL little miss perfect and did not support that little vice. My favorite quote of RaeAnn's.."Why does Dana like it so much when she is so BAD at it"? I think I remember the brethren say something about not gambling...hummmm;) Needless to say Dana came home without a LARD-O!

I got home late Monday night and look what I came home to....A CLEAN house, a beautifully mowed yard with FLOWERS planted in the beds, my urns planted with new topiary of hibiscus and everything freshly mulched! It looks beautiful! I have great kids!!! What a fun surprise to come home to.

How darling is this. The kids know I like to plant begonias but Grant loved the marigolds so they let him plant one in each bed! I am thinking that it will be my new tradition! Thanks kids I love you!!

What a great trip and fun memory. I am so lucky to have wonderful Sisters. We all get along so well and they have sure blessed my life.