"Whatever," is always fun!

Dayna and Jack came out for the day last Saturday, to watch Kim and Cameron in the school play. Jack went to visit his family who live about 20 minutes away, and so Dayna spent the day with us. We all wanted to do something fun for the afternoon, but since living in Duchesne doesn't offer much for en

tertainment (no malls, fun stores or beaches etc...)we had to come up with our own kind of fun. So we decided to make jewlery. We pulled out the beads and the wire and went to work. Dana had gone shopping over in Vernal (we missed her being there) so there was me, Dayna, Kim and Halle. We made necklaces, bracelets and earrings. Its fun just hanging with the kids. I really enjoy the times we've done things together. It doesn't even really matter what we do. Sometimes we go shopping, we've sat and visited, watched a DVD, sprawled out on the floor and laughed about old times, we've cooked, cleaned the yard up, folded clothes, gone for rides and picnics and journeyed long walks. Whatever it is, I just love being with them. Even though its not as often as I would like, but when we get to take the time and spend it together we always have so much fun. Life gets busy and everyone has things to do, so I snatch up the chances that I get, to do things with the kids and then I love every minute of it. 

I remember when the kids were little and they always seemed to be right und

er feet and fighting with each other, or whining, or just being little kids, but they took alot of energy and time to keep them happy and content. It was very emotionally draining at times and there were some days that I was glad when they were all tucked in their beds and asleep for the night. I never thought that the day would come when their lives would all become so busy with their own activities, school, extra curricular stuff and lives away from home, that it would be me that was whining about never seeing them or getting to spend enough time with them. I love being a mom and I have such great children and children-in-laws. It makes life alot more fun and exciting and gives me so much to look forward to in the future. 

Its a DATE!

Cameron is such a busy boy and I don't get to spent very much "one-on-one" time with him. He is involved in the school play, wrestling, and working so he has limited time that he is home. When he is home, he is doing his homework and then crashes for the night. But last week he was home early from wrestling practice and so I asked him if he wanted to go to dinner, just the 2 of us. We went and had a burger at the little cafe (Cowans) here in town. We talked and laughed and had a wonderful time. He is a great son. He is so thoughtful and helpful, he looks out for his siblings and is alot of fun to be around. I had a wonderful time and I think he did too. Can't beat the Mother/son dates!!! I love you Cameron!!!

The Christmas season is officially here in my house. I started decorating a week ago and just finished on Thursday. It was a lot of work, but I love Christmas! I am thrilled to have everything up, the Christmas music playing and to have NO SNOW! My decorations aren't anything spectacular or extravagant, they just help us here in our home, to feel the "reason for the season" and to enjoy the time we are together with our family. We have 3 trees in our house, one in the living room, one in our dining room, and one in the family room downstairs. The one in the family room is one that the kids all help to decorate, and it is by far my favorite to see go up. Over the many years that we have had children in our home (22 years now), we have made Christmas ornaments as a family off and on. We have also received handmade Christmas ornaments for gifts from our children over the years. We use to just ADD them to the other ornaments that we put on the tree, but now we have enough to decorate an entire tree with. I love to watch the kids pull the ornaments out of the box and see their faces as they remember the times that they made them for us, then to watch their eyes sparkle as they hang them up on the tree. Its one of my favorite things about Christmas. In the worlds eyes this tree might not be considered special, but in my eyes, its beautiful! 

"My favorite tree and some of my favorite decorators"

Calling all nurses and doctors out there...

I know that there are many of you out there in cyberworld (my friends and family) and I am asking for your help. Halle got this strange rash all over her legs. Its flat to the touch, but feels itchy and burns her. Its now progressed into what looks more like a bruise of some kind. Does anyone know what it might be? 

Confusing?

Its a play on names, often a tongue twister and has caused many confusing moments for people...so I am here to explain this to any of you who have been confused by 2 of my beautiful daughters. 

Dayna is  pronounced Day-na, her maiden name was Wilkerson but she is married now... to a wonderful man named Jack, with a surname of ADY, hence her new found name of DAYNALEE ADY. Dana is pronounced Dah-na, but spelled without the "h" (that was just to help you sound out her name). Her maiden name was ASAY (yes, it sounds very close to ADY)...but she is married now to my wonderful son, Todd, and so she took on the surname of Wilkerson, hence her new found name of DANA KAY (yes, thats also my middle name and my dad's name, and Kimberly's middle name)WILKERSON. Are you confused at all yet? They both love to dance, were very active in their high school drill teams, they both have brown hair, love Todd, hate spiders, love to shop for shoes and purses and are 2 of my favorite people. Dayna moved from Duchesne to the Wasatch Front where she works 

for Clifford Motors and her husband is attending UVU and working for NuSkin. Dana moved from Roosevelt to Duchesne where she and Todd live. Todd is working for Express Title and Dana has her own dance company (24-7 Dance), where she teaches dance to about 40 children. She is also working for Western Land Realty as a receptionist. When Dana started the dance company, she made up flyers to advertise and had her name and phone number on the paper. Many people here in Duchesne wondered why "Dayna Wilkerson" went back to her maiden name and was living here in Duchesne and was teaching dance, when really it was "Dana Wilkerson" my beautiful daughter in law, who lives here and doesn't have a "Y" in her name and pronounces it differently. Everyone in Duchesne knew that Dayna loved to dance and was involved with it when she lived here and just assumed it was her, but were just as happy to find out that Dana loved to dance just as much as Dayna and was just as involved with dancing in Roosevelt, and they love her teaching their children. Its been fun to explain to everyone about our "confusing names"...and then I tell them...that the plot is even thicker, both Dayna and Todd's mother-in-laws have the same first name...Karen....see it just gets more confusing all the time. 

Regardless of how you pronounce their names, I love them both and I am so happy they are my daughters. 

I don't want to grow up....

The weekend was arriving and I decided to go out and spend the night with Dayna and Jack in Orem. Todd had a test that he needed to take on Saturday so he and Dana were planning on spending the weekend also. I so was excited to go have some "Mom and Adult children time" chatting and visiting about life or whatever the subject of conversation might be. The night began with dinner at Chili's Restaurant. I hadn't been there in years so I was excited to go. I had the grilled salmon with steamed broccoli and black beans... it tasted heavenly. (But anything that I don't have to cook usually tastes wonderful.) After our bellies were full, up came the discussion of "Well, what do we want to do now?" We talked about going to the dollar movie, but there wasn't  anything good playing. We talked about going back to Dayna and Jacks and hanging out there, and then someone brought up going to the "Nickel Arcade". I was fine with the 2 married couples doing whatever they decided and me just going back to the house and laying on the couch and watching a little TV. But after much pleading, and the reminder of the "memories that we would all make...and that they would have this memory of me going to an arcade with them", I buckled and said.."OKaY let's go." (mom's are funny that way) And off we went...I had the time of my life. It was SOOO much fun. I know...things like that just bring out the KiD in everyone, even me. Dayna and Jack and Todd and Dana played Dance, Dance Revolution...which I just couldn't bring myself to do. I am not cordinated at all plus, everyone in the arcade comes to watch when someone is dancing, I don't like attention brought to myself, so I opted out of that game in a hurry. But it was so much fun to watch Dayna, Jack, Todd and Dana... they are really good at it! We had races on snowmobiles, motorcycles and cars, shot at dinosaurs and various other creatures (all video game style, of course)...had great laughs and friendly, fun competitions. I really did have a wonderful time, more fun than I had had in a long time. I forget to take time to laugh and have that kind of fun. My hectic schedule of life and the stresses that come with that, seem to interfere with my sense of "fun". So I am so glad that my adult kids could bring me back to see the "FuN side of LiFE". I had a great time!!! Everyone should revert back to being a "kid" once in awhile, no matter how old we get, being a kids is alway more fun. I can 't tell you how much good it does the soul!

CrAfTY Times!

This time of year brings out the "crafty spirit" in me. I enjoy crafting, but don't really spend alot of time doing it in the spring and summer months because my time is stretched so thin (but it always is). But during the fall and winter months I am inside more and with Christmas right around the corner, I think of making crafts to give away as gifts. My wonderful daughter-in-law came over last night so we could do some crafting together. It is always fun to craft with someone or a group because you can laugh and visit while you are working. We had a super fun time. We made magnet boards and magnets to go on them. They both turned out so darn cute.I just couldn't get over how cute the magnets turned out. They were little penguin magnets, which penguins are adorable anyway, but these turned out extra fun. And actually Dana did most of the work and I just helped her. She is a very crafty person and a whole lot of fun to be with. We talked and laughed and just had a really fun night. I can't wait for more "crafty days and nights" when we can get together and do things. I had a really great time. I think that our next crafting adventure will be....jewlery!! 

Perfect PoPcORN

This is Halle's last year doing a Science Fair Project and we are both thrilled about that. After many years of stressing of what to do and how to do it, it will be nice to have elementary and the Science Fair behind us. It came creeping up on us too quickly once again this year, but Halle was able to pull off a great project. She wanted to find out which brand of popcorn (out of 3)- Jolly Time Butterlious, Pop Secret and the infamous Western Family, popped the best and left the least amount of un-popped kernels. She popped 3 bags of each brand, at 3 different times and then counted the kernels to see how each one did. It was the Pop Secret Brand that finished on the top. Every time that she popped it, it had the least amount of un-popped kernels. It turned out to be a fun project for her and she is excited to present it in the school Science Fair today. I think she feels pleased with what she did and hopes to go onto the District Science Fair like she did last year, but isn't getting her hopes up. However she does today, we are so proud of her efforts and her willingness to do her best...which I feel like she did. She worked really hard and put a lot of time into her research, and yes, we ate a whole lot of popcorn... Way to go Halle and Good luck today!!

An Autumn "BReeZe"

 Autumn has hit our yard like a bulldozer, wrecking havoc all over. We have several trees in our yard, ranging from fruit trees to a red maple. We also have a giant size cottonwood tree in our back yard, which I love in the summer for its sweet shade, but not so much in the Fall for it abundance of leaves. At this point in the year it has dropped most of its leaves on the back yard and they have been waiting patiently for someone to rake them up. I have been ignoring them for quite some time, but after having to clean them up off of the floors in my house (because they get tracked in by everyone), I decided that today I would venture out and put them in bags...how hard could it be? I do it every single year. BUT...this year was different~ as I left the comfort of my warm house and went to the shed for the leaf rake I felt a slight breeze..."its just a breeze" I told myself, "I can still rake with a little breeze in the air." That was my first mistake. I raked up a giant pile of leaves in not too many swipes with the rake. "This was going to move along quite quickly" I decided. I put the leaf sacks in the garbage can so I could load up the leaves AND...a large gust of wind came whipping around and blew the leaves all around the yard. Yep I was not very happy, but I raked them up and then along it came AGAIN! It seemed the more that I raked, the harder the wind blew, over and over this happened. I had to bag them almost as quickly as I raked them. It was so frustrating. I actually bagged about 15 sacks full (a very small amount for my yard) before I just gave up and let them blow. Needless to say, my job was left VERY UN-finished and I probably won't get back to raking until early next week. I guess that I will continue to clean up the rotten leaves on my floor until then. Hopefully when I can get back to raking, the wind will cooperate a little bit more. I hope you have better luck in your "leaf raking adventures". Happy Raking!!

It was an "OH DEAR" moment

Have you ever done something stupid and then afterwards wondered "What was I thinking"?

Last night was one of those moments for me. In the process of cooking noodles for dinner, I burned some onto the bottom of a pan. I heard that if you put some water in the pan and boil it for a few minutes it helps the noodles to become loose (and it really does work) so you can clean the pan. Well, I put the water in and put the pan on the stove. I had some others things that I needed to do and planned on coming back into the kitchen in 5 minutes to turn the pan off and clean it. I got busy doing my little things and in the process forgot about the water on the stove. (Bet you can't tell where this is going, huh?!!!) Pretty soon the smoke detector was going off, which it does randomly when the battery is going dead. Still, nothing clicked in my head. I let it buzz because I was in the middle of something downstairs. No one else moved or even flinched to go and see why it was going off, mainly because it just does that sometimes, so the smoke detector continued to screech. After a couple of minutes I decided to go upstairs and take out the battery because it was driving me crazy...as I reached the top of the stairs the kitchen was filled with smoke...yep- then it clicked in my head. I remembered that I had left a pan of water on the stove. The only problem was, the water had all boiled out and the pan was burning. I ran into the kitchen and the pan was on fire along with the top of my stove. I grabbed the pan off and threw it in the sink and turned on the water. We were all coughing and choking trying to get to the windows and doors to get them opened and get the smoke out. After the smoke cleared, we assessed to see if there was any damage and to my surprise there was none. The pan may not be able to be salvaged, but my stove was fine and we all seemed to survive. The house smells of something horrible and so Monday morning may consist of laundry galore as well as cleaning the smells from curtains, couches and such. But the important thing is, we are all okay...which may not have been the case if I would have waited much longer to go and check the smoke detector....

The moral of my story is...DON'T ever leave pans on the stove unattended, and make sure that you have smoke detectors!