Gingerbread Houses

 Uncle John brought KFC and Pizza for dinner ... plus took Christian to his indoor soccer game at 7:00 pm - here John is helping Clark with his gingerbread house ... we had a good time making the houses and eating the candy!

Delivering Cookies and Secret Sister

 Here is our plates of cookies to take to neighbors - the kids did a great job of decorating them.

 Savanna was smart and got the wagon for us to put them in!

Maddie had to deliver a Secret Sister gift to her YW friend...Uncle John let us take his car and we got lost on the way back home!  All the streets look the same!  We said a prayer and found our way just in time for Maddie to babysit for the across the street neighbors.

Aunt Sue comes to visit

 Aunt Sue brought her grandchildren Simon and Eliza over to play with us on Saturday, Dec. 15th.  She brought neat beads that the kids had fun making - took over the dining room table completely!

 Kids working on their creations - Clark not being very helpful!

 Christian worked very hard on his design - just about all day on and off - like that persistence!

Decorating cookies - it was fun to see the kids be creative in their idea of how sugar cookies should look!

More CO fun!

 Christian made pancakes for all of us for breakfast on Saturday - did a great job of it also!

 Emma and Clark are helping with making cookies - love the big kitchen table to do things on.

 Savanna helping Faye eat her dinner - it was so nice to have Maddie and Sav know everything about taking care of the other kids... not just knowing but willing to do lots of the work.

Sav made cute note cards for us to write Merry Christmas to the neighbors we were taking cookies to.

CO Trip December 13 - 17

Fuzzy picture but wanted to show everyone the beautiful Christmas Tree at the Smith house in Parker, CO.  Plus the pretty granddaughters Madeline and Savanna!!

 Kurt and Emily on their way to their weekend adventure - beginning with a temple session - then off to the mountains.

 Dear Clark and Faye under the tree - it was such a delight to get to know them a little better.

There is a golden eagle flying as we waited to pick up the older kids from school - Clark wanted me to take a picture of it ... so I did! Actually one is sitting on a top branch of the tree also.

Middle of Montana and pictures

 This is the weather map from our Great Falls Paper - it shows the placement of Lewistown in the middle of the great state of Montana!  ... about 2 hours from anywhere big, 200 miles or so!

 This is Heather's hospital picture - I think Briella looks a little bit like her pretty momma!

 and Olivia looks like Lindsey a little bit!

Plus Talus looks like his pretty Momma also!!  I've been unpacking the scrapbooks and getting ready to work on them ... love looking at all the pictures of our past fun times ... and some not so fun!!

Three Weeks gone

Hello all who read this blog - I left on Dec. 13th - flew to Denver and had the privilege of staying with 6 darling GRANDchildren and my sister Susan for the weekend.  Our laptop, meanwhile, crashed and had to be taken to the computer hospital - where is still is on Janaury 2nd!  something about parts having to be received!!  Hopefully it will be fixed this week and I can download all my wonderful pictures from the holidays.  Had a blast in CO - Frontier Airlines cancelled my flight to Provo - so I missed our new granddaughters birth - but was there five hours later!  Loved being near so much family for the wonderful Christmas events.  For New Years we noticed a short article in the Great Falls Paper about First Day Hikes.  Many of the state parks in the country host a First Day Hike - celebrate New Year's Day with a hike in the wonderful world of our State Parks!  We went Home Teaching on Sunday, because Dad's partner got sick and one of our brothers told us he was moving to Great Falls - he had his little one room at the senior housing all packed up.  We told him we could come and help and bring someone else also.  Turns out he needed us at 8:30 AM on New Year's Day - I thought our plans for the day would have to be changed and that was okay - nice to start out a new year doing service!  The missionaries were at a District Meeting so we asked the High Priest's group leader and he and his wife were there with us and we finished by 9:20!  So we made the trip to Great Falls, the hike started at noon at the First Peoples Buffalo Jump State Park.  All state parks are free for Montana Residents who have paid their license fees - Dad did ours in December.  We had a great time and again - I'm anxious to post pictures and tell the story - soon!