Party Hearty in the Bowerman's Flower Beds!

Monday I worked and worked and worked in the yard. Things are starting to look super nice. Lots of the perennials I planted last year are back and looking beautiful. And then I went out yesterday to do some more bedding work and couldn't believe my eyes! More than half of what I have planted and coaxed along were gone, pulled up, nibbled on, discarded in the grass! I was really astounded. The more I looked around, the more damage I saw...a tad bit depressing. The nerve...
Some creature, I think it's the deer, like tulips...

And I think it's the deer that nibbled the tops off these hostas! Bunnies must have attacked the Johnny Jump-ups, Geraniums, and Columbine...they pulled them out and tossed them on the grass. Hey, but they left Johnny Jump-ups that are growing in the cracks of the driveway alone...how kind...

Geez, I wonder what I'll find this morning when I head out there. Alas, the weather has been perfect to work in the yard and I need to get on top of it all!!

Lately...

My, oh my, sometimes time just starts to fly and it seems as though it is all I can do to keep up. I have had the chance recently to meet several different women who seem to be so busy, with full time jobs and busy callings and busy homes and schoolwork, etc. One thing I have learned over the years about myself is that I definitely accomplish more when the pressure is on, but personally, I am SO grateful for my life right now. I truly do acknowledge that a great deal of my freedom is due to the fact that I have a hubby who works very hard at his job. I have tons and tons of things to be doing and responsibilities to fulfill, but my days truly are mine for the most part. It has been a long time coming. My challenge is to priortize and move forward. I must admit that my days are often lonely...never thought I would say that. I think that at times it would be nice to go to an office and work together with others, but trade my independence? No way. I do what I can to help friends with children, which I love. I get to spend this next weekend caring for a sweet family in our ward and I can't wait. Ah, changes. It just happens.

Anyways, this post really is a catch up of sorts. I think blogging is an excellent way to record what has been happening...more for me than anyone else.

So, early March 22nd I headed out to Utah to spend some time with my kiddos out yonder. Doesn't seem right that they are so far away. This has got to be remedied some how. I rented a cute little "Fast Ford Focus" that we named "Fonda". Got me where I needed to go! So good to spend some time with Sweet Baby Claire (and her parents) and Lindsay-Loo and Chris and Holly...I think Claire and I finally connected this time. We have been trying to get her to call me "Grammy", but clearly "Mum Mum" was what was coming out. So for now that's fine with me. She is just a character! I loved getting up with her in the morning and learning how to eagerly greet the day. I loved her inquisitive ways. The girl can figure out anything! She's into everything! She especially loves sharing time in the bathroom. She stands on the toilet and watches everything, doing her fair share to make getting ready kind of difficult. The best way to get anything done quickly is to put Claire in the bath tub, which she loves, and keeps her somewhat confined. Claire loves to GO! She loves to be out and about. She loves her playground outside her door. She is a collector, especially of rocks. They're definitely her fav!

It was fun to tackle some projects with Katie. We pulled out her new sewing machine and got it humming. Made up a pattern for a table runner sort of thing and she did a great job for her first project. It seems so like yesterday that I was in Katie's shoes. I wanted to try new things, I wanted to move things around in my house all the time, I wanted to organize and often didn't know where to begin. We had a fun time getting some things in order. Often times it just takes a little something to spur you on. Katie is a great little homemaker and I am very impressed. She takes it very seriously...I love to see her in action. Lindsay's apartment also needed a little organizing/clean-up detail work. It was fun to work together on that with her. Lindsay and I also spent some time doing a little jogging...good stuff!!

So, here are recent pics of some "goings on"...
I brought a little doll stroller with me for Claire. Ummm...she LOVES to sit in it and be pushed around - the faster the better! She definitely does get the concept that it is for all of her animals and dollies, though, too.

One rather cool morning we ventured out to Thanksgiving Point to the petting farm. After Claire's initial encounter with a lamb that was chewing on her finger and a bit of a scream, she settled right down and figured it all out and we had so much fun. Loved all of the noises and actions of various farm animals.

These roosters were so loud. As funny as they are, I am really quite thankful that I do not wake up to that every morning...

Ummm, yea, we loved the pony ride!!

Back in December I mentioned that my niece Jayne and her husband Ta had been able to adopt a sweet baby from Samoa. We got to finally meet Poppy! She is THE most beautiful child. Poppy is as dark as Claire is fair. They had fun discovering each other. I hope they will be good friends over the years. Let's clap together!!

Sarah joined me in Utah for my 2nd week there. It was her Spring Break and I don't think she'd rather be anywhere else than with her siblings. Claire loves her Aunties!

But the true highlight of Sarah's week was a night out with Lindsay...and Michael Buble! Apparently this was quite the concert. So glad they got to go together. Bye, bye girls!!

The day after the concert we tried to have a "Girls" day...didn't totally work out as I had envisioned, but we did get out toes done! Mind you...I do believe that it was SNOWING outside! Yikes, the weather was just pitiful while I was there. BEFORE the pedicures we had the exciting opportunity to go to Katie's ultrasound. We all crammed in the little room to get a look at the newest little Brewer! So amazing to me. I had thought all along that another little girl was on her way, but I was so wrong. Joseph has an amazing smile, but as difficult as it is to imagine, I think his smile doubled in size when the tech announced, "Well, that would be exterior plumbing that we are seeing" and "Girls don't have those!" He was beside himself with excitement! Over the next several days I saw him standing at the refrigerator door where the ultrasound pics were posted. So fun...a dad and his boy!

That same day some dear friends came to visit. The Raymond family used to live in Edwardsville, but moved to Las Vegas last summer. How fun to see them again!! They are all much taller, and we realized how much we have missed them. Thank you so much for taking the effort to come visit us!

Claire's Yaya sent her the cutest Easter basket. As I mentioned, Claire is a collector. I knew that she'd get right into the Easter egg thing, so we put together a little hunt for her. Took two seconds to get that game down! And we had to do it several more times. So fun to watch.

Alas, all good times seem to come to an end. Claire had fallen asleep in the car this morning, but we needed to make one more Deseret Book stop. How fun to listen to General Conference play while shopping! Anyways, I ADORE this child.

Came home and sang our "Sunshine" song and went sweetly to sleep. I love her little bum up in the air, blankets all arranged in a pile, animal friends put just so, and then sleep! Her curls are multiplying! So fun to see. I never had one with so many curls so early!

A transformation that only can be described as "simply amazing" had taken place during the two weeks I was gone! I got home late Saturday night and so it hadn't hit me yet. I was looking out the window Sunday morning as I was waking up and realized I was seeing "GREEN"! WOW! It is amazing. I felt so humbled. I had complained to a California friend about a month previous how long and awful our winter had been and how she should really appreciate her weather in California. I realized that Sunday morning just how lucky I was to partake of this - this kind of transformation doesn't happen in California and to me it truly is miraculous! I must have looked out the window 1000 times, just to make sure I was seeing it right. Everything is growing and blooming and it's just glorious! I love "Johnny Jump-ups". They remind me so much of my mom. She got to the point where hand sewing was not an option, but she could make cards. And her favorite thing to do was take little pressed flowers and glue them on the front of a card. I used to press lots of these for her. So, the funny thing about this picture is that these "Johnny Jump-ups" are not growing in the planter area out front...they are growing in the drive way cracks! What's with that? I know there is some message/metaphor here, but the first person that drives over them will be in trouble!

One of our cherry trees...so full and pretty. My camera is not doing it justice!

And then there's this tree! The Primary children sing a song about a "Popcorn" tree. In fact, Claire is learning this song. This is the ultimate "Popcorn" tree! It is on the island as we leave our driveway. This display lasts only a couple of days, but it is so amazing! When the wind starts to blow, it almost looks as if it is snowing because there are so many little white petals. So, so, so pretty!

As far as what else is happening...I've started quilting once a week with a sweet friend. Last fall my oldest sister brought out two valences that my mother had made for her when she was a little girl and asked if I could think of something to do with them. They have six little dutch figures on them that my mom had appliqued and embroidered. Such detail...only my mom! Anyways, I have dismantled those valences and am in the process of piecing a quilt together...way fun! Pictures soon...

My hair is getting a little longer...actually almost long enough to put into a ponytail! Every time Sarah walks by me she whips off her pony tail holder and pulls my hair back...so funny. It's been over 20 years I suppose. Sure is an easy hair-do...

This last weekend was the high school prom and the weekend before that was a prom for all church youth, age 16-18 for four stakes in the St. Louis area. The theme was "In the Garden". That was easy to work with. We had about 160 youth and it was wonderful to see them all dressed so modestly and appropriately. I was able to pull together a lot of the decorations, thanks to my sisters and a trip to Salt Lake and lots of flowers from Katie's wedding - used once again! I'll get some pics of Sarah up soon...she was gorgeous! Rich and I get to work together in our callings right now. We are busy into planning all of the summer activities for the youth, which will be many, but the biggest is a Youth Conference in July. Lots of planning for that one - but it's all good!!

For the Love of Books!!

Monday morning, March 22nd, I headed to Utah! I have had so much fun visiting/playing/chasing/rocking/kissing/bathing/knocking on the wall/reading to Sweet Baby Claire! Need to explain the "knocking on the wall" part. Her crib is right up against the shared wall with the extra bedroom, where I sleep. In the morning she likes to lay in bed for awhile and kick the wall and play with her crib friends. We started carrying on a little conversation this morning, tapping back and forth on the wall before I finally went in to retrieve her...so much fun.

Claire loves books, which pleases Grammy so much. We finally got a bin to keep a good majority of them in, knowing perfectly well that it had to be sturdy enough for her to climb in/throw/stand on, etc. Sure enough, she emptied all of the books, climbed in, and then pulled all of the books in on top of her.

Ah, books! Can't learn to love them soon enough!

I Love...

February 28th, 2010

It's the 28th, and it's late, and it's been a long, long day. I have new respect for those that "blog" on a regular basis! What I was going to write about just doesn't seem to want to come together tonight, so I better save it for another time. In the meantime just let me say...thanks for reading. But in reality the reason I was writing was rather selfish on my part...giving me something to focus on other than a dreary February. I think it helped a little. I am VERY excited for spring to get here asap!

I still have a lot of "loves" I could share and still have plenty to learn about love. That which I am grateful for would fill more than a 1000 blog entries. "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoso believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Mostly, I'm thankful for a loving Heavenly Father and His Son, the Savior Jesus Christ. Hugs, Lisa

I Am Grateful for Tender Mercies!

February 27th, 2010

Our organization for the children in our church is called Primary. It is such a blessing to be called to serve with the young children. One of my favorite Primary songs is entitled, "I Feel My Savior's Love". A thought has gone through my mind several times in the last few days as I've thought about doing my blog posting for the day...what should I focus on...what do I love today...and the thought has been this, "I feel my Savior's love in all the world around me..." One of the ways that I feel like I can more fully understand His love for me is to recognize more often the tender mercies that occur each and every day. "Tender mercies" are just that..."tender". Sometimes they are very obvious, and sometimes you have to look a little closer to recognize that what at first may be somewhat common place is, indeed, a tender mercy.

Nephi tells us in the Book of Mormon, "...that the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith..." Elder Bednar testifies that, "the tender mercies of the Lord are real and that they do not occur randomly or merely by coincidence. Often, the Lord's timing of His tender mercies helps us to both discern and acknowledge them." I LOVE that thought!

Like I said earlier, some tender mercies are obvious. Some you have to look a little more intensely for. And some you don't recognize until some time has gone by. There's a sweet one I wanted to share. Katie was in college and taking a calligraphy class. She needed to do a project and needed a poem, so she called me...surprise, surprise...Mom has nothing better to do...right? I remember when she called...I remember that I was very busy and wanted to point her in a direction and have her do her own searching. But I also remembered that I had recently bought a poetry book for a class and as I had thumbed through it earlier I had come across one of the very few poems that I had memorized way back when. And I said, "Katie, I think I know the perfect poem..." and went and retrieved this one. (Daffodils, the other poem I had memorized, was too long!)

TREES

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

It had the perfect number of lines/stanzas, etc. So she went right to work on her piece of calligraphy and I thought no more about it...just that I had once again done my job as mom and felt good that I had been able to help when needed. So often I think that's how us moms think about it...no big deal, no one notices, just what we do, day in-day out. It's not that we're necessarily looking for recognition, but sometimes it helps.

Several months later Rich and I were celebrating our anniversary and found ourselves in the little town of Durango, Colorado. As I'm prone to do in cute little old-looking towns, I find the antique stores and encourage Rich along. So we walked into this little antique shop and sitting right there on a shelf, in an old gold leaf frame, was the above poem. At first I looked at it and smiled because I thought the frame was cute and the paper was cute...and then I saw the poem and it dawned on me what I was seeing. And I smiled some more, wondering just for a second about the thousands of poems in the world and the coincidence of finding just this one, this day, in this antique shop. I bought it as a gift for Katie...and as I reminder for me. It was just something very simple, but at the same time I knew that it definitely was not a coincidence. Just a tender reminder of His love for me. For which I am grateful.

I Love to Shop and Use Coupons!

February 26th, 2010

I Love, Love, Love to shop...and spend my husband's hard earned money...just kidding! He has such trust in my abilities to handle a huge chunk of our finances, and I certainly appreciate that. I'm sure that at times he thinks I'm over the top, continually asking him if used a coupon on a purchase. He dislikes shopping just about as much as I love shopping. That's ok...it's pretty much a girl-thing! I especially love getting a super, duper deal. Some days, like today, I hit a particularly good sale.

Wasn't necessarily planning on it, but just had a "feeling" that I should head over to Macy's today, since I was out that way. Totally worth it. I wasn't looking for anything in particular, and if that's the case, then I'm super strict with my personal rules. It has to already be marked down once or twice, there has to be an additional percentage off (preferably 50% more), and I have to have an additional coupon with at least another 20% off. Bingo, all three rules were in place today! I started out by getting a $70 pair of shoes for $18. And then I wandered through the women's department and picked up a few things, and then headed over to the children's department, and oh my, bargains were just sitting there to be had! All in all I left spending just over $100, with the full price (which, in reality, nobody pays) being about $750! I've got a ton of baby gifts stocked up, which I need for the near future. Thanks for making my day Macy's!

I've just about figured out that there are coupons/discounts for just about everything. Sometimes they are harder to find, but the internet sure makes this handy. Also, P-A-T-I-E-N-C-E is key when looking for bargains. And sure, sometimes if you wait too long then the item you're hoping to buy will be gone. This is definitely the case at Costco...if you see something at Costco that you really think you'd like to have, and even if it's something you've seen more than once, chances are if you don't buy it when you see it, then when you go back to get it, it will be gone. Does that make sense? I know whereof I speak...it's happened to me way too many times. Bargain hunting and coupons...part of my every day life...and I love it!

I Love My In-Law Kiddos!

February 25th, 2010

There are tons of momentous milestones that come along while raising children. They are born, they go to school, they join a team, they spend their first night away from home, they drive, they go away to college...and somewhere along the line, they choose to get married. And who they choose to marry is definitely their own choice, as it was mine, as it should be. But still...as a parent, that part of the deal is pretty hard to swallow. There just isn't anything to prepare a mom for the day when a child says they are ready to give their heart to someone else...it's pretty drastic. Very, very fortunately for me, Chris and Katie have chosen partners that seem to fit into our family perfectly. As hard as it is for me to admit, I could not have done a better job. It has been so fun to watch them begin their new families.
This is Holly! This pic is actually from the first weekend when we met Holly last spring. To say that we were impressssssssed would be such an understatement. We adore this girl and are so happy that she crossed paths with Chris, even if it was in cyberspace at first!

Holly is an RN and is currently finishing up just a tad more schooling...so proud of that. She does hospice work...definitely an area of nursing that requires a special amount of love. She is just what Chris needs to push him through school. Geez, it's actually quite amazing to see how Chris is doing with an encouraging companion at his side. Great motivation.

Yep, Chris is a pretty happy man! They were married last November in the Bountiful Temple. Love it, love it! I look forward to getting to know and spend more time with my darling daughter-in-law.

Katie started talking about this guy named "Joe" She'd say things like, "I got mad at my roommate, so I talked to Joe about it...I needed to go to Wal-Mart, so I got Joe to take me...I had a terrible date, so I talked to Joe about it..." and this went on for awhile. And then it changed to, "So, Joe and I went on a date...so, I'm kinda liking Joe...so, when are you coming out here so that you can meet Joe?"

Needless to say, he became the love of her life. They are a great match. It's interesting to me that they are both the middle child in a family of five. I'm thinking that makes for a pretty easy-going marriage...both the "peacemaker" types.

Joseph makes me laugh! He has THE best smile. And he treats my daughter like the special woman that she is. They both have grand ambitions and dreams and I have no doubt that over time, with each other's support, they will achieve those dreams. Joseph is getting pretty close to finishing his degree at BYU and will go on to a Physical Therapy school...so proud of him. I'm very glad that I'll have a family member who can help me with all my aches and pains that inevitably come with the aging process. Oh, and with Holly being a nurse, I'm set!

I knew when Katie and Joseph got married that children would not be too far off down the road...and that was just fine with this Grammy-in-waiting! Joseph is a wonderful dad. I know that much of Claire's personality comes from her dad! She just makes me laugh and smile and from all accounts, is quite the little dare-devil that her daddy was. Surprise, surprise.

And so the reason I'm writing about my daughter-law and son-in-law is to let them know how much I love them and how neat I think they are...AND it just happens to be Joseph's birthday! Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear Joseph, Happy Birthday to you! Looking forward to being out there again soon. Hugs to you both!!