Denise's Birthday

We celebrated Denise's birthday today.  Happy Birthday Denise!  Every time we have a family gathering I miss Lynne, Craig and their families.  It gives me an idea of what my mother always felt after most of her children married and moved away.  Most people say they miss their grandchildren and I do but I miss my children and their spouses just as much. 

Anyway, it is always fun when the family gets together and we have gotten together a lot lately.  (There are a lot of birthdays in May and April.)  Denise chose to have Chicken Cordon Bleu for her dinner tonight.  Stephanie makes the best white sauces and I didn't do to bad with the chicken either!!  It was very good.

The kids played and ran around all evening.  They even found some baloons left over from Easter to play with.

Wicked

Thank you Steph!!  It was so good and I love being with amazing people when I'm having fun.  Stephanie, Denise, Dad and I all got to go and the entire night was so much fun.  Stephanie is always doing special things for us and I just love her!

Mother's Day

Stephanie just posted about this on her blog but I wanted to add more pictures. On the way home from Steph's Dad looked at me and said, "That was really fun!" I have to agree. It is always fun when we get together and the kids, big and little, play together. :)

Mary's 6th birthday!  Yeah Mary!

Everyone played dodge ball.

The kids loved Steph's tramp but it turned their feet and socks black!

Everyone played Mario! 

This was actually taken on Saturday.  Jeff came over to see if he could get Dad's rotor tiller started.  While he was working on it, Gabrielle grabbed a screw diver out of the tool box and decided to help her daddy.

WAY overdue to post

I love it when other people keep their blogs updated.  I'm even dissappointed when I check someone's blog over and over and nothing has been changed or added.  Okay, I KNOW I am the biggest affender of this.  I tell myself that I'll do better and then before I know it a couple of months have gone by.  I will try though.  I'm not saying that it will be every week but if I can remember to do it every Fast Sunday, that might help. 

The last couple of months have been so fun for me.  We have had Jeff''s, Jennilynn's, Addie's, Emma's, Grant's, Diana's, Lynne's, Grandma Cray's, and Katherine's birthdays all since I last posted!!!  See how far behind I get?  With those birthdays we got to go do two Build-a-Bears, and a baptism! PLUS Easter was in there too.  I LOVED it! . . . . all of it!  I love Build-a-Bear.  For you that don't know, when our Grandchildren turn 4 years old,  their Aunt Stephanie and I treat them to a Build-a-Bear.  Addie's birthday came first so she got to go before Grant.  But they both picked out cute little animals.  It makes their birthday so special and fun for everyone.

Emma turned 8 this year. What a fun time to remember. She was so beautiful in her white dress and it was a special time for her when she was baptized. It was amazing that her Aunt Diana and Cooper drove all the way from Southern Utah to come! I think that made it really special for me too. I don't get to see Cooper that much and we all thought he was so cute and grown up

Lynne, Lucas, and Ty came up for Easter!  I don't know how much fun all the grandkids had but I had a ball with them!  And having Ty and Lucas just made it even more fun.  We still missed Cooper though!  As our family gets bigger, it is harder to get them together all at the same time.  I think I am very lucky and blessed to be able to see them as often as I do.

Roger's birthday

Dad turned 62 this month.  I can't believe it!  Happy Birthday Roger.  He is the best man I know.  He loves his family with such tenderness and adoration.  He loves and honors me every day.  He is humble and is kind.  I love him very much.  I can't love him without thinking of his parents.  They raised such good Garner children . . . . all of them! 

They sing Happy Birthday very LOUD!

Christmas at the Garners!

My mother spent Christmas with us and I absolutely loved having her here.  I'm sure she went home thinking our family has some pretty crazy traditions because we do things a lot different then what I did when I was growing up!  That is what I like about it though.  Roger brought traditions from his family and I brought some from mine.  Then of course we came up with a few of our own. 

Here are some of the traditions: 

• I love that Roger reads the Christmas story every year. 
• Our children draw each others names and then we get to open those things up on Christmas Eve. 
• Grandma and Grandpa (Roger and I) always get the grandchildren pajama's every year.  Of course they have to open them up on Christmas Eve too. 
• Then the games begin!  Lynne and Bryan introduced us to the "Candy bar game"  but it has evolved into a gift exchange game.  It is a riot to play. 

I loved the gift that Stephanie gave her Dad.  She spent many hours turning Roger's mission slides into pictures and then she made a book for him.  It was very special and he really loves it.  The kids are always too good to us.  We received so many nice things.  Personally, my favorite for me was the temple shoes with enough money to buy a new temple dress.  I am still wearing the dress that Doris gave me many years ago and I was wanting a new dress!  I can't wait until I find the one I want.  I love my family and I love being with them.  I want to thank them for a wonderful Christmas!!  I am truely one of the most blest mothers in the World!

I better explain this picture of Roger. It was a game Stephanie came up with.  He had to shake the balls out of the box on his rear!  It was sooo funny to watch! 

The Kids in their new christmas pj's -- Mary, Joelle, Emma, and Addie are in the back.  Grant and Gabrielle are in front.

I think Christmas this year started when we went down for Lucas's baptism.  His baptism was so special to me.  I have been to many baptisms but Lucas is the first grandchild to be baptised and it meant a lot to me to be able to be there. It made me very happy to see how important it was to Lucas too.  He is a wonderful grandson and I love him very much. After he was baptized we went out to dinner then we went to Salt Lake to see Temple Square.  It was VERY crowded but it didn't bother me.  I enjoyed being there with Craig, and Lynne's family and with Denise, Stephanie and Roger.  I really loved it.  It was Stephanie's idea and I'm so glad she thought of it. 

Thanksgiving

This is such a terrible year to travel and I was afraid that Craig and his family and Lynne and her family wouldn't be able to make it this year.  The storm came in right before Thanksgiving.  The roads weren't all that great which made their drive even longer then usual.  On top of that, Lynne and Bryan was in an accident in their new car before they got out of Salt Lake.  : (   It was just a fender bender but it still wasn't a fun experience when you are on your way out of town. 

Craig and Diana got here early enough so we could celebrate Cooper's birthday!  It was so fun singing to him and seeing him dive into his brownie.

Even though Lucas's birthday was on the 15th, we got to celebrate with him too.  It was so fun to see both the boys soooo happy.

I've always given the grandkids an ornament each year like my mother did for all of her grandchildren.  Last year I started giving it to them before Thanksgiving dinner.  They had so much fun opening their ornaments and discovering what they would be.  A couple of weeks ago, Joelle mentioned to her mother that she wished her ornament would be a ballerina and surprise, surprise . . . that is exactly what I had gotten the girls!

Thanksgiving has become one of my favorite holidays.  I am so grateful for family, the gospel, and this great land I have to live in.  What amazing blessings I have!