Rainy Days and Mondays...

It's a rainy fall day outside and we are snuggled up playing legos and packing scrapbooking materials for next weekend's "Sisters Retreat" down in SLC. I'll be taking James and my sister Laura down to Utah on Thursday night and hanging out with my sister Jill, SIL Audrey, SIL, Amie, and my mom for the weekend. I am looking forward to it, but I have lots to do around the house (and in the car--clean up and oil change) before we head out.

Blogger's image server seems to be down again, so no photos today, but I have a special addition of Heidi-isms for you. She is suddenly getting creative with pronouns. Por ejemplo:

"I 'Scuse"= Excuse Me
"Me Are" = I Am, as in, "Heidi, you're not going" "Oh, yes me are!"

There were lots of things that happened last week that I wnated to blog, but most of them have slipped past me, darn it! One item of note--our dear governor, Brian Schweitzer, was a guest on The Colbert Report! I think Stephen was kind of intimidating, but the Schweitz did pretty well --even when Stephen made fun of his bolo tie and hardly let him talk about good ol' Montana coal as an alternative to foreign oil.

Also, the grandparents made it home to Arizona safely on Wednesday. They both have colds and will take some time to recover, but they made it! I think it's an awesome feat, to be 81 years old and drive 1300 miles (some of it in snow!!!). Most people even ten years younger don't even have their licenses anymore! I talke to the G'rents last night and they told me another tidbit: my cutie cousin, Bill Elrey, is getting married to Courtney the hairstylist (we met her at Sam's wedding) in Februray 2007. Hey, Bill, February 17th is a lucky wedding day! Pick the 17th! Congrats on the engagement. In other cousins news, Dave & Lacy found out they are expecting a girl in February, which I think is great. I am a fan of first-born girls!

There is trauma and hullaballoo comig from downstairs, so I'll sign off for now. Have a great week...

PS: If you do happen to be hungry for photos of my part of the world, our recent visitors hve posted some...if you look over to my links list on the right, you can click on My Sister Laura or My Beloved Gilmores (scroll down to October 9th) and see photos of my gorgeous town and baby!

Beautiful Boy

James got all dressed up for his blessing on Sunday...thanks, Nana, for sending the cute suit and shoes and blanket (we used Nana Lyn's afghan on blessing day).





Proud Parents!

(don't ask me why my hair looks so wretched or why I am making that face--I may have been delirious from the fever and chills I had the night before).

Blessing Day

On Sunday, October 8th (Happy Birthday, Tyler), James was blessed at church by his Daddy. Great-Grandma & Grandpa Elrey were there, and so were Grandma & Grandpa Melin.

(I have more pictures of James & his parents, etc...I'll have to upload them later!) After church: Heidi, Great-Grandma, James, Great-Grandpa, and Addie
At Church: Grandpa & Grandma Melin with Baby James
Great-Grandparents with James

These pictures are from last Tuesday morning-- great-grandpa loving James.

manic monday

I have been trying to post pix of James' blessing day and the Grandparents' visit for the past few days and can't get blogger to work. I don't have time to try something else as I am "single mom" today (Rich is out of town)...so just be patient...there are MANY MANY photos to come!!!

Guess Who's Here?!...

...My Grandparents! Gram & Gramp Elrey DROVE the 1300 miles from Tucson to Livingston (stopping in SLC for conference & mission reunion) to visit us and meet James. They arrived Monday at about 2pm when I was just getting out of the shower (after a whirlwind of house work--thanks for coming thru for me, Mom M!), the baby was at the doctor with Rich, and the girls were across the street visiting Cousin Danny. Everyone was home within a few minutes and we were so happy to be together again... Look at all the love! James snuggles with his Great Grandma Lyn...
...awwww!
The girls loved on Papa Bill (look at Heidi's face! I looove it!)
They played "show-and-tell" for a while...
...and shared more kisses...
...and more hugs, while watching Baby Einstein's "Baby Neptune" video (Heidi's current obsession). I don't have to tell you how great it is to have them here, just for the love and the company, but also because it brings me JOY to see this first and fourth generation together! It's such a blessing to watch Grandpa giggle with Addie and Heidi or to see Grandma snuggle James (etc...). These are days I always envisioned but feared I might never experience because I didn't have kids til I was 30!

Conference Weekend

We had a fun visit with the Lehmans (my sister, Laura, and her husband, Darrin, and their boys, Gabriel & Jared) over the weekend. They came from Helena to join in our General Conference weekend festivities. This photo is of everyone (except Rich & Darrin--I was taking the photo) eating hot fudge sundaes after we had taken a walk to enjoy the fall foliage between sessions.

Thanks for coming, Lehmans!

ON THIS DATE IN HISTORY...1971

Susie & Jamie (in Paul's Red Car)- Tucson, 1988

Happy Birthday, Susan!

(and Happy Conference, all you Mormons!)

PS: I just noticed (at 10:30pm),

THIS IS MY 1,000th POST TO THIS BLOG!!

"Celebrate good times, come on... There's a party goin' on right here..." Okay, that was totally unplanned, but how cool is that? And on Su's birthday! And while I am post-scripting, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOMORROW to my dear friends, Kurt & Debbie...it's one of those "special" birthdays that ends with a zero for Debbie, so LIVE IT UP! You don't look a day over 29, girl, plus you get to hear from GBH on your big day! Woo-hoo!

(knowing so many cool people born this week--like LISA ROBBINS ANDERSON-9/25--makes me wonder about astrology--hmmm, maybe Libras really DO rule!)

Some Photos

This is James, asleep in his car seat today (9/28).
This is hilarious Heidi running around in Rich's dress socks on Sunday night. As "spirited" as she is, she sure does make us laugh and keeps us all on our toes!
...This is about 15 seconds after that last photo...she's obviously "pushing Addie's buttons" in this photo (this is a scene we see often at our house: Addie crying, Heidi in the background giggling, "mwahahahaha!"). Thanks to Aunt Marti for an insightful parenting conversation last night...she once had a Heidi in boy form (Steven) who is now a fairly normal, nice, productive almost-adult. She gives me hope! ;)

(PS: too bad they didn't have blogs when Steven was growing up because, man, that woulda been a good read!!!!!)

Bubble Fun

Last night, Addie wanted to take a bath by herself upstairs, which made Heidi sad, so I invited her to take a soak with me. I got some great Bath & Body Works bubble bath for my birthday (thanks, Mom M!)...look how good it works!

Heidi kept going under the water, then popping up like this...

...look at her bubble-fro!

Strike a Bubble Pose!

(She reminded me of a Dr. Seuss character, or someone in a powdered wig)

Old News

Last night (Wed. 9.27) I happened to have the TV on CBS Nightly News with Katie Couric while I made dinner. I hardly ever watch real news anymore, now that I am a Fake News junkie, so I was surprised to hear that THE LEAD STORY on the NATIONAL EVENING news was something that was covered (and of course, made fun of) on The Daily Show the night before! HA!

On Tuesday 9.26, Jon Stewart welcomed Pervez Musharraf, the President of Pakistan (no less) and they talked about his new book and about Pakistan's politics, etc. Musharraf mentioned that after 9/11/2001, Colin Powell called him and told him, basically, "You are either with us or against us," and after weighing his options, Musharraf figured it would be best for the Pakistani people in the long run to cooperate with the US invading Afghanistan. The next night (9.27), Katie Couric was sounding all sober and serious about how Colin Powell and Richard Armitage THREATENED and COERCED Pakistan into cooperating with the invasion--not exactly what Musharraf said. But I just thought it was cool that the evening news was YESTERDAY's NEWS for us fake news junkies!

Here's MSNBC's commentary on my fake news boyfriend, Jon Stewart.

Behold the Cuteness

James doing "bug-eye", wearing his Auntie Jen sweater
I know, I know...the sweetness is killing you!...

He can raise his eye brows and stick out his tongue, too!