Happy Thanksgiving

Things I'm thankful for:

• how strong Edwin is
  

• how smart Edwin is

• how curious Edwin is
  

• and how helpful Edwin is

Photo Shoot

I love doing photo shoots of my family. Especially little handsome Edwin. I'm definitely a mom who adores her baby and takes tons of pictures just because he is so cute. Most of these pictures are the latest photo shoot I took of Edwin, the lighting was so good and Edwin was so cute I couldn't resist.

As for the rest of life things are good. Grant is crazy busy at Stanford, our usual schedule with Grant is in the morning go to school, then come home for dinner, leave to school after dinner, come home to put Edwin to bed, back to school work until about midnight or so, sleep, and start the day over again.

Grant's first day of school picture, and a pumpkin jar I made that, with a candle, glows at night.

Now onto cute, adorable, handsome Edwin

He's 15 months now and loves exploring his little world.

He loves living at Stanford, especially because he has a huge backyard, two playsets, and a whole group of friends that come with the backyard and playset.

I love living at Stanford, because Edwin naps so well because he plays so hard, and I too, have friends that come with the backyard. It's going to be hard to move. If I want to talk to someone, all I have to do is go out my back door and their is another mom of a munchkin to talk to.

August has been CRAZY

Well hello to those who check this blog. I'm rededicated to doing a better job of keeping this blog updated. Now I would like to share with you that AUGUST HAS BEEN CRAZY! Now this blog will be very real and candid. It will include a hospital visit, wisdom teeth, and much more!

At the very end of July my Mom, Dad, and little sister called up on a Wednesday morning (I think) and said they would like to come visit and arrive Friday morning. I of course was pumped for the visit, but it did make my schedule a little more full (no complaint though). While they were here we did a lot of sight-seeing and fun activities. Saturday we went to Yosemite, below are pictures .

After sightseeing there we decided to go sightsee the coast, going to Carmel-by-the-sea and Santa Clara. In Santa Cruz we went and saw sea lions up close and personal, there is a boardwalk that you can walk down that has stairs down to the dock wherethe sea lions sun bathe on. Also in Santa Clara we went to the beach amusement park, and Edwin went on some rides all by himself. This was awesome to watch because he wasn't scared at all, and had such a good time. My parents watched Edwin for a little while so I was able to go on the "big kid" rides with my sister Mary Rose, which was awesome. Below are pictures from Carmel and Santa Cruz.

This video above is of a little sea lion trying to eat, it's quite interesting. If you have a weak stomach you might not want to watch this.

After my family visited a week later Grant's cousing Greg and his wife Sue and their baby girl Lyla came to visit. It was nice to hang out with them we became really close when we all lived in Provo. While they were here we went to In-n-Out, and we took them to Stanford campus to show them Grant's new school. Below is a picture of Edwin and Lyla.

After they left I packed up stuff to get ready to go to Mexico for my best-friend from High School's wedding. Venessa is her name and the wedding was beautiful and she was beautiful. It was nice to be there for her and to support her while all the chaos goes on in wedding preparations and she definetily had some chaos, so it was nice to be there for her; but it was hard. This is where I get a bit candid, to be honest I felt like I shouldn't go and for reasons, I'm not going to mention, I went. While I was there I tried very hard to eat a strict diet to stay safe and to not drink the water. Unfortunately my efforts failed. When I got back from Mexico, that evening I went to the hospital; for 3 LONG DAYS! It was so hard to be away from Edwin but he did, suprisingly, pretty well. Each day I asked the doctor if I could go and was tempted to go against medical advice and go, but I decided to listen to them and stay. It was good for my body to stay and fight that nasty bacteria. FINALLY, on August 13th, Grant and my 4th year anniversary they let me go. It was quite a mellow anniversary, we went out to dinner and then played it low key that day and for several days to follow. I definitely learned my lesson that I need to listen to the promptings I recieve.

During this whole time Grant was amazing taking care of Edwin 24/3, mentally handling having his wife in the hospital, and running a ton of errands for me.

Below are some of the pictures from Mexico, but NONE from the hospital, who would want them anyway (not me).

After the hospital experience things were kept on a down low, and soon came Grant's birthday so I made a donut cake for him since he loves donuts. The picture below is of Edwin trying to get a bite of the donut cake before the birthday boy does.

A very selfless thing happened on Grant's birthday, he ran to the grocery store for something and returned with these, our special flower, we had them all over our wedding reception.

After that I had all 4 of my wisdom teeth removed, which was a funny experience. I was gased for the experience to relax me, and by the end, my dentist was finishing up and I asked if I could give him a HUG for doing so well in taking my teeth out. It's not like I completely didn't know this dentist, he's a good dentist and he's seen me several times. Still though reflecting back on what I did, I just laugh.
Okay lastly, there have been loads of stuff; before all this, like EDWIN WALKING, in between, and in the end. I will add some videos and pictures of all the cuteness of Edwin.

EDWIN DEVELOPING A FRIENDSHIP WITH YODA

EDWIN WALKING!!!! AND DANCING!!!!

Edwin doing dishes with daddy and hanging out with his stuffed animals.

Oh yes one more think to top it all of; Grant and I are moving to Stanford this Saturday, so lots of packing amongst the chaos.

1 year old Edwin!

I can't believe it! Edwin is one, time flies. It has been an amazing year and Edwin has developed so many loves, one of those loves is filmed below. Edwin loves music, and he has taken a special interest in drumming. The video below is from Saturday's Market in Portland, we were watching these street performers and Edwin (without any resistance) went straight to the drummer and started drumming and dancing with him. The crowd loved watching Edwin, and they shouted "go Edwin, go Edwin, go Edwin." When I took Edwin away from the drums, he acted as if I took him from his only happiness, he was so broken hearted and he sobbed. The crowd was so compassionate and said "ahh, ohh" when he was crying, they wanted him to stay too. It was such a cool experience to see Edwin love something so much.
Edwin also has a huge love for dogs and gets excited whenever he sees one, his birthday cake in Washington was a dog, thanks to his Grandma for buying it. Lastly, and a great blessing to Grant and I, Edwin loves his family. When we were in the airport arriving home from our travels to Washington, going down the hallway, Edwin started saying dada dada, like he knew what was coming. Once we saw Grant, Edwin got a huge smile on his face and started laughing. It was great to see that Edwin remembered his dad after that month trip to Washington, and was really excited to see his dad.


Edwin got a dog book for his birthday from his mommy and daddy, and he loves the book. Yeah!

Edwin being all grown up and lazy.

Hair Cut

This post kind of explains itself.

Picture with Grants family and my short hair.

I usually have short hair this is the first time I've had long hair, and I grew it out to donate it to locks of love (spelling?) and the goal was accomplished seven years later (my hair grows slowly).

Big Companies that don't care!

I feel we all probably at one time or another in our lives have run into issues with a big company, that have in one way or another done us wrong. There are probably many words we would like to say to them, or a novel we could write about the wrong they've done to us. I know for me I've was wrongly charged over 100 dollars from an airline, and they would not refund me; I've also had several, several, several issues with Verizon and their sneaky charges they stick on your bill. Urck! I feel you all may have similar stories. Well, one guy had a sticky situation with United Airlines so he wrote a song about it, I thought it was fun and relieved me of some of my frustrations with big companies, so click on the link below and be relieved from some of your frustrations.

http://singingcicada.blogspot.com/2009/07/united-breaks-guitars.html

Washington Fun

I have been in Washington for the past couple of weeks and it has been excellent. I came for several reasons, but the biggest reasons being, for my nieces baptism, an Allred Family Reunion, and my youngest sister's graduation.

I will attach some pictures of all the fun we've been having!

These below are from Mary's graduation which was incredible, the BEST graduation I've ever gone to, it was fun, unlike so many graduations I've gone to.

Pictures from the reunion, the reunion was so great! It's so nice to be with my family I miss not being near them.

This is an awesome picture because that's my bro-in-law, my youngest sister, and me, swimming in the ice cold Oregon ocean and having a blast!

These pictures are from Summer's baptism, and I made the scripture case for Summer.

Interesting Stuff!

Interesting Stuff, I was e-mailed the following by someone I love, and it got me thinking. Thinking in a good way and I thought maybe I should share this with others and get them thinking. Take time to read through this, it's interesting. The picture below is of Ben Stein.





Remarks from CBS Sunday Morning - Ben Stein

The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary.




My confession: I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees, Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are, Christmas trees.



It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, 'Merry Christmas' to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu . If people want a creche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.



I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from, that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.



Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship celebrities and we aren't allowed to worship God as we understand Him? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and where the America we knew went to.



In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it's not funny, it's intended to get you thinking.



Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her 'How could God let something like this happen?' (regarding Hurricane Katrina).. Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, 'I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?'



In light of recent events... terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found a few years ago) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK.



Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.



Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave, because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock's son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he's talking about. And we said okay.



Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with 'WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.'



Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says. Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire, but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.



Are you laughing yet?



Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it.

Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.



Pass it on if you think it has merit. If not, then just discard it... no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don't sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in.



My Best Regards, Honestly and respectfully,

Ben Stein

A Gift!

A friend of mine is doing this, and I thought it might be fun. So...here goes!The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice. For you. This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

Purse made by me.

1. I make no guarantees that you will like what I make for you!
2. What I create will be just for you.
3. It'll be done within a year.
4. You have no clue what it's going to be. It may be a card. It may be a scarf or maybe even some creation I haven't yet dreamed up. I may draw. I may bake you something and mail it to you. It may not be big or impressive. Who knows? Not you, that's for sure! It'll be cool though, I promise!
5. I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.

Ornament made by me