Wednesday Morning!!

Happy Wednesday to All! It has started out as a wonderfully cool day in the 60's this morning. We are now up to 73 degrees but it isn't supposed to go out of the high 80's. So maybe it will stay okay for today. I hope so.

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Was up very late last night working on this layout of Hailey. Thought it turned out pretty cute. So here it is. She really looks a lot like Little Ky in these poses. Especially the third one down.

Not much to tell yet as the day is just starting out. I did see this quote last night and wanted to share it with all of you.

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Enjoy the little things,
for one day you may look back and realize they
were the big things.
~ Unknown

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So.....on that happy note, enjoy today's Simple Pleasures and I'll write again soon!

Sunday!

We had such a nice day today. We headed on out to Queen Creek to be there for when Austin became a Teacher in the Priesthood. Heather invited us and Stephen R. and Karma and their kids over afterward for pancakes with strawberries and Cool Whip, bacon and sausage. We had a good lunch and enjoyed the visiting.

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There were butterflies all over the yard at both Chad and Heather's and Stephen R. & Karma's homes. It was so fun to see so many all at once in one place. On top of that, before we left to go to Queen Creek, we took Frankie out for a quick walk and there was a big black and yellow butterfly flittering around the condo across from us. It has been a while since I've seen any butterflies so this was delightful.

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Frankie was so glad to have us back home again. He doesn't like us leaving him for so long by himself and has a way of letting us know it when we get home. Poor puppy. He's such a good dog.

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Simple Pleasures for today:

• Being with family out at Queen Creek
• Holding little Cydney
• Sharing Austin's special day
• Seeing the butterflies
• Finding a card in our mailbox from a friend on a card group I was on

Hope you all had a great day today!

What A Day!!

What a day! We found water coming through the wall between the laundry room and the kitchen. So Stephen cut the wallboard out and sure enough our hot water pipe was leaking. So it was a trip to Home Depot for repair supplies and a mess to clean up at home. But Stephen got it all fixed and it looks like it's going to be okay. Have to patch the wall now. And I didn't get the laundry done like I had planned to do.

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We welcomed our 23rd Grandbaby into our lives early Wednesday morning. The kids named her Kayta-Kaili Normadean. (Kay-tah Kay-ee-lee) the Normadean is for Melany's grandma and my Mom. Quite a long name for such a little one. Here are her first pics. She's just a few hours old in them.

Precious, huh?
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And here are some of my latest digiscraping efforts:






Let's see.....Simple Pleasures:

• Having a beautiful new Grandbaby and all being well with Mom and Baby!
• Austin being advanced to the office of a Teacher tomorrow morning!
• Having a few days of cooler weather - like down in the 70's kind of weather!! - even if it did go back up into the 90's again!
• Still having cool mornings and evenings even if it does get above 90 by noon or so! At least we get a bit of cool to temper it.
• Seeing snow pics from Logan!
• Getting to buy the book "Eclipse" so that I can finish reading the Twilight series now - YES!!
• Having sweet, juicy apples to eat - yes, I'm still on an apple eating kick.
• Having Colebe say that he thinks he will keep his new baby sister - FOREVER!

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I have to share this: Last Sunday when we were out to Chad and Heather's for Stephen's birthday dinner, I was holding little Cydney. She spit up on her hand and Michael was standing there by me. He said, "She's leaking." I had to chuckle over that.

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Well, I hope everyone has a happy Sunday. We will be going out to Queen Creek to share Austin's special event with him and to visit with everyone. Take care and be sure to look for those Simple Pleasures!!

Thursday Almost Friday!!

I'm back!!! And I have more layouts to show you. But first of all - Stephen had a nice birthday. He took some of his sweet rolls to work to share with the guys who were there and someone left a big baggie of pecans in their shells on top of his lunch box - he loves pecans and was happy to get them. We had ham and baked potatoes for dinner so that was yummy, too. I didn't make him his apple pie yet. I got to looking around and we had homemade cake from the other day still sitting here, cup cakes from a lady we home teach - she brought them to Stephen for his birthday - plus we had cookies from a couple days ago and then the sweet rolls! So we decided to hold off on the pie until this weekend. : ) And we have ice cream ready to go with it.

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Wow! We have a whole 10% chance for rain over the weekend. And the wind is coming in starting tomorrow. We are supposed to be 74 - 79 degrees for our high on Saturday!! It's 95 today so far so that is quite a drop. I have given in and turned the air back on for a while this afternoon. It will be soooooo welcome to get the temps down this weekend. 70's are just right for me. And after that it will go back up into the 80's and 90's.

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Don't know if Stephen will have work all day today. And he didn't know about tomorrow yet. I kind of hope he gets to stay home, even though that will be hard on the paycheck. We'll survive it. Just have to tighten our belts. I so love having him home though. If he has the day off we'll go see about retirement for him. I hate going to the Social Security offices. It's such an intimidating place to be. And things are hard to understand. So many rules and regulations just to get the money we have coming to us for retirement. He really needs to be able to retire though. It's getting to where it just needs to happen. It's time. But we also have to be able to survive on whatever he gets paid. Don't know if we can do that just yet.

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Okay! Here are the new layouts! I've enjoyed doing them. Again, there is an 8.5 x 11 and then a 12 x 12. I really love the way the smaller layouts turn out with the added trims and papers at the top and bottom. This first one is a redo. I love how it turned out.

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Austin holding the sun - don't you just LOVE these yummy blues!!!:

Kodi and Zack scattering Reindeer Feed - Christmas in Indy:



Frankenstein's Bride - Kodi - Love all the leaves and swirlies on this one!:

Another redo - Kodi:

And that's about it. Simple Pleasures for today:

• The ac back on for a little while.
• Being able to open doors and windows when the ac isn't on!
• The smell of fresh air earlier this morning - YUM!
• The thoughts of a very cool Saturday coming!!
• Lawn day today! That means the fragrance of fresh cut grass to enjoy!!

Hope everyone has a great rest of their day!

Busy Day!

Wow! Tuesday again already! It has been a very busy day today. It started out with Simple Pleasures. As I was saying my prayers the Mockingbird who often sings in the tree just down the sidewalk from our bedroom window began to sing. And because it's finally cool enough to turn the air conditioning off and open windows again - YAY!! - the melody of its song came floating to me. I love that little Mockingbird!! And it sang all while I read my scriptures, too! Heaven's music to my ears to be sure.

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Then when I walked Nickie out to catch her bus the air was so cool and wonderful! Finally!! A change to our seasons! And the sun was shining. I hated to go back into the house again. AND.... we saw a hummingbird. Just a tiny little thing. It was darting around above the street and then came to sit on a tiny branch in the tree by us. Then it was off again.

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When we got to the bus stop, this grandma lady who walks her dog Elvis every day was coming across the street to our side. So Nickie and I got to visit with her and Elvis. He's the cutest little thing. All black with a touch of white. And he just loves the attention we pay to him. We used to see him last spring at the other bus stop so it's kind of fun that the grandma lady walks him by this new one at the condos here.

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I made sweet rolls this afternoon to surprise Stephen for his birthday tomorrow. He told me the other day that he wanted sweet rolls, an apple pie, and a pineapple upside down cake for his birthday - in hopes that he would get one of the three items. So I did the rolls today and tomorrow I'll make him his apple pie. We had to go buy the apples for it this evening. I'm still eating apples like crazy. They just taste so good to me. Anyway, Stephen was really happy with the sweet rolls and has already had several.

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We went to a viewing at the mortuary this evening also. Stephen's brother's wife Raylani's father passed away last week and it's his funeral tomorrow. We won't be able to go as Stephen has to work. So we went to the viewing. Raylani is holding up well. They have a grandbaby on the way and a wedding coming up in the next month or so. So she has a lot to keep her busy for a while.

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We went to Lissie's birthday party and dinner on Sunday at Karma's mom and dad's home. They made Indian Fry Bread with all the trimmings. Was yummy. And we had a nice time. After we had been there a couple hours we found out Lissie wasn't feeling good and she ended up throwing up. Soooooo..... we are praying we don't get whatever she had. Kodi woke up feeling puky this morning so I had to take over for her with Nickie. I was worried that she got Lissie's bug. But she is doing better this evening. Stephen hasn't felt real good for a couple days. We are thinking his problems are from the spiciness of the beans and meat on Sunday. So we are just praying hard that it doesn't hit us with a vengence. We try so hard to not be around those kinds of bugs because they are so hard on Stephen and I anymore.

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And I've been scrapbooking again. Here are the latest layouts. You can click on the pic to bring it up bigger on each one.

And I guess that's it for today. Lots of Simple Pleasures out there to be aware of. Some even just pop up when you least expect it like mine did this morning! Have a great day tomorrow!!

Happy Tuesday!

Tuesday night and all is well!! It's even beginning to finally cool down here. And the monsoon is officially over for this year. We got 5.70 inches of rain this summer. An awesome amount for Arizona for one summer!

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I have been eating apples like crazy! They just taste so good to me. We bought a container of them at Costco last payday and had them eaten in a week. So we bought more on Friday from Fry's and they have been pretty good ones. So juicy and yummy.

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I finished the second book in the Twilight series a week or so ago. Went online for the library to see if I could reserve the third book as Kodi got rid of hers a while back and we don't have it anymore. Bummer!! Anyway, there are about 25-29 people who have it reserved ahead of me and each one gets to keep it for three weeks!!! This was NOT good news! I guess I should go ahead and sign up though, huh? Maybe they have more than one copy of it and it won't take a year to get to my turn.

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I got candy treats sent to all the grandkids yesterday. We bought one of those $10 bags of assorted Halloween candies at Costco. It cost me another $15 or so to send each family an envelope with the goodies in them. The funniest thing about it all is that I was able to send them all 1st class mail which was cheaper, all except for Chad and Heather's family. I had to pay Priority Mail fees on theirs because they have more kids and it weighed more than the others. Priority Mail to Queen Creek!! A 40 minute drive from our house! LOL I debated sending the Queen Creek kids their treats or just taking it to them. But then I decided it would be fun for them to get goodies in the mail like the out of town grandkids. Sooooo............And this Grandma had enough stamps to put on everything except for the unexpected extra postage because the scales at the post office read different than mine here did. Anyway, treats are sent!

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Well, gotta run. Hope everyone has a great day! Look for the Simple Pleasures out there!

Just Checking In!

Okay! I'm checking in again to say hi and to show you more of my scrapbooking! I think summer is finally winding down. Yay hurray!!! I think the monsoon storms are done, which makes me a little sad as I love them so much. I'm trying to feel like the holidays are about here. I really want to decorate big for Christmas this year. I want to be excited and feel the magic of the season in my heart.

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It's only 102 this afternoon so far. I went to meet Nickie at the bus stop and just got back. There is a warm breeze blowing that feels like a nice warm, soft blanket. But the air isn't so hot that it fills your lungs with heat when you breathe. If it were just a few degrees cooler it would be perfect. But I'm not complaining. It's so much nicer than the hotter parts of summer/fall.

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Work is slow again. Stephen has missed a day and a half off this next payday. That isn't a good thing. But I sure loved having him at home with me! We are kind of worried about what is going to happen with his job. There isn't much work from now til the end of this year and with the economy doing it's insecure thing right now, we are very concerned.

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Okay!! Grandma and Grandpa got treats!!!!! Will be sending them soon!

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Here are some of my latest scrapbooking efforts:

Ruins at Canyon De Chelly (Canyon day shay)

The London Bridge at Lake Havasu, Arizona

This is the Place Monument in Salt Lake City

Papa Santa

Chad

Ky, Stephen R., Chris & Chad

Chad

And I guess that's it for now. Take the time to enjoy the Simple Pleasures before today is over! My list:

That soft, warm late summer breeze that feels like a blanket

Kitties who come running for attention - even though they aren't ours

Eating a crispy apple

Hearing my Honey's voice on the phone at noon

Wonderful cold ice water!