The TWINS

 

So........here they are! The twins. What? You don't see the family resemblance???? Come on.

MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT....

"Make no mistake about it, brothers and sisters, in the months and years ahead, events are likely to require each member to decide whether or not he will follow the First Presidency. Members will find it more difficult to halt longer between two opinions. President Marion G. Romney said, many years ago, that he had 'never hesitated to follow the counsel of the Authorities of the Church even though it crossed my social, professional or political life.'

"This is hard doctrine, but it is particularly vital doctrine in a society which is becoming more wicked. In short, brothers and sisters, not being ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ includes not being ashamed of the prophets of Jesus Christ. . . . Your discipleship may see the time when such religious convictions are discounted. . . . This new irreligious imperialism seeks to disallow certain opinions simply because those opinions grow out of religious convictions.

"Resistance to abortion will be seen as primitive. Concern over the institution of the family will be viewed as untrendy and unenlightened....

"Before the ultimate victory of the forces of righteousness, some skirmishes will be lost. Even in these, however, let us leave a record so that the choices are clear, letting others do as they will in the face of prophetic counsel.

"There will also be times, happily, when a minor defeat seems probable, but others will step forward, having been rallied to rightness by what we do. We will know the joy, on occasion, of having awakened a slumbering majority of the decent people of all races and creeds which was, till then, unconscious of itself.

"Jesus said that when the fig trees put forth their leaves, 'summer is nigh.' Thus warned that summer is upon us, let us not then complain of the heat."

--- Elder Neal A. Maxwell

Drawing on Drew Carey

 

With just a 99 cent pair of plastic glasses, my beloved husband becomes a celebrity! He works with a bunch of fun people at his office (that was the nicest way I could think of to say that...) so they get into things like Halloween with great gusto.

Shauna, thugging it

 

This is the perfect way to mess up a beautiful and lovely young girl. No offense to anyone whose daughter dresses like this on a daily basis. :) As for mine, it's her Halloween costume. She is dressing up as the twin to her friend, Dontae. He provided the wardrobe, bless his heart. Stay tuned for more pictures after school today!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Shelli had a little lamb....but it can be replaced

We have a somewhat strange little tradition in our family --shocker, I know--that stems back from when the kids were little and I called them my lambs. :) So, that led into me buying lambs, lambs, and more lambs, and before we knew it, we had quite the little herd. The herd lived on Shelli's bed and it kind of became "her" thing to be the receptacle of the lambs. There were several reasons for this, not the least of which was the fact that Shelli was really the only one who could be counted on to make her bed on a daily basis. Furthermore, being followed by 2 brothers and no sister on deck just yet, no one was giving her any grief about being a lamb hog....or whatever....

Anyway, as she got older, BOYS started to catch on to the lamb thing, and before we knew it, there were lambs arriving in the mail, with flowers, with boys, you name it, the lambs were flowing in. And as the boys fell in and out of favor, so did the lambs. This picture, one of my all-time-favorites, is Shauna trying to protect and defend the most recently dethroned lamb by covering his eyes to try to save his tender little lamby feelings. We have a couple of little actresses in our home, which made this all the more hilarious. :) I do love my lambs...all 6 of them. My beloved little herd keeps growing! :)

Bryce's Halloween Costume

 

Bryce wants to be a spider for Halloween....I guess. I think that is a little bit of an awkward costume, personally. But that's just me.

:)

Elder Kevin Lowder...and friends :)

I just want to give a shout out to my son, Kevin, who is serving in Recife, Brazil as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He has about 9 months left, and has had some amazing and life-altering experiences. We are sure proud of him, and we miss him every single day. What a wonderful young man he is. I just hope he leaves all those nasty bugs right where he found them! ICK!!!! In his last email, the man seated next to him on the bus started vomiting violently, and it didn't even phase Kev. In the most recent email, Kevin was the one doing the vomiting, and I'm sure that phased him a little bit more. :) We love him so much!!!!!

"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it NOW, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; 'tis dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed, if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated." (The Political Words of Thomas Paine, p. 55.)"

Shauna waiting for her Homecoming Date

 

Graham and Shauna -- how CUTE

 

Anybody else feel this way?

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing" (Edmund Burke English Philosopher)

"Thank your for your great examples to the world. They are watching us closely. We are privileged to be asked to protect the basic unit of society; the family. Therefore, be encouraged that many are praying for us as we work at “ground zero.” Why should we mourn or think our lot is hard? ’Tis not so; all is right. Why should we think to earn a great reward If we now shun the fight? Gird up your loins; fresh courage take. Our God will never us forsake; And soon we’ll have this tale to tell—All is well! All is well! If the Lord can guide a persecuted and exhausted group of forlorn saints to the shunned valley of the Great Salt Lake, he can surely guide us to victory as we are riddled with ridicule and false accusations." (From a recent email from the man heading up our stake's fight for Prop. 8.)

The next generation of giggling sisters

 

Standing up for marriage

 

This was at the beginning of our sign waving adventure, and we were all still happy. We were upbeat and getting a kick out of the honks and positive reinforcement. And then the "hating" began. It's interesting to me that people that are screaming, literally in our case, for tolerance, don't HAVE any for those with differing viewpoints. We were being peaceful and friendly, but the opposition was most certainly not. Our sign was stolen out of our front yard last night, too, so that will have to be replaced.

I was just standing there, minding my own business....kind of

You know how it is. You're standing there, innocently looking for that next item on your grocery list, and the conversation of the people next to you leaks over into your unsuspecting ears. You know you know how it is, so don't try to pretend. Anyway, there I was, in that scenario. I was looking for some creamed corn (ick, I know, but you should try baking into your next batch of corn muffins!) when the following conversation ensued:

"Well, I have to make sure it's the one that's just pumpkin, and not the pumpkin pie mix."

Okay, if you know me, you know that it is nigh unto impossible for me to ignore such bait as this. The Good Samaritan in me bubbles right to the surface and I am on red-alert for ways to save, uplift, and instruct the flounderer. So, I snappped to full attention and realized that I could indeed render aid.

The woman standing next to me was with her daughter, who, interestingly enough, had hair the identical color of the can of pumpkin that she was holding in her hand. She had a can of pumpkin, and she had a can of pumpkin pie mix, and she was looking back and forth between them, saying what I just quoted above. Hm. This was going to be an easy rescue for sure. I was a little taken aback because I thought I must be missing something, since unless she was blind and was trying to detect which was which by simply the difference a little nutmeg and cinnamon would make in the weight of each can, I didn't actually see how she could be confused. So I offered the following:

"Uhm, the one that just says PUMPKIN is just pumpkin, and the one that says PUMPKIN PIE MIX is the pumpkin pie mix."
I was trying to keep the superiority out of my voice and everything.

She then said, "Well, I have to be sure because the vet said that it has to for sure just be plain pumpkin."

Dummy me, "The vet?"

Dummy her, "Yes, our dog has diarrhea and you should just see the mess he has made EVERYWHERE in our house! Honestly, you cannot believe.............." and then I was assaulted from all sides with graphic pictures that I will need years of serious therapy to overcome. You just don't talk about that stuff. Not ever. Especially not in front of strangers who were only trying to save you from....well, from buying clearly marked pumpkin pie mix instead of clearly marked pumpkin. All I could do was stare at that can of pumpkin, plain 'ol pumpkin, and picture it NOT WORKING. And picturing it in ways that should be illegal and even immoral in all 50 states AND the District of Columbia. I was ashamed for and of the pumpkin and its looming, overwhelming job. The mental images of diarrhea and pumpkin should never nuzzle in one's head. It hit me then that I would not be making my delicious pumpkin cake this year at Thanksgiving. It hit me that I no longer felt a kinship with that cheerful orange can. I felt the little ticklings of a dry heave starting at the base of my throat and I knew that my friendly relationship with pumpkin was over. Both kinds--the regular AND the pumpkin pie mix--just in case.

My beloved, silly, adorable sister, Mary

This is what we do when we're together....

We LAUGH AND LAUGH AND LAUGH AND LAUGH AND LAUGH AND LAUGH!

And then after that, we laugh a little more. :)

My precious little newlyweds

We just cannot be normal....we may have tainted Muir Woods forever

One gifted artist....who wasn't there that day...

Bryce and his beautiful bride, Haley, (aka: my newest daughter) :) decided that they wanted to do one of those....uh oh....I have no idea how to spell this. Okay I'll do it phonetically: care-i-catch-er. There, you know what I mean, right? Those little robbers that set up stands along the sidewalks near Pier 39 in San Fran and pretend like they were the ones that drew the amazing pictures surrounding them. You with me? Okay, them. Anyway, Bryce and Haley fell for that-- I mean decided to do that while she was here visiting us (aka: deciding if she could actually bear to marry into our unique and special family) so we came home with the lovely version of them that you see proudly displayed on the fridge. Actually, they sort of hid/misplaced it and I kept finding it and displaying it all around the house....anywhere that they might stumble upon it. We finally decided to try to make them actually look like it, and that is where we got this lovely photo. It looks a little closer, don't you think? But I must ask-- was it worth it????? :) What a great way to mess up perfectly beautiful people. Hm. And to think she still decided to marry in. Go figure....

(I'm sooooooooooooo glad she did!!! How I love our Haley girl!)

Never say it if you don't mean it....

Okay, here's a tip when dealing with our family, especially (but not limited to) while having professional pictures taken. The photographer, sensing that it was going to happen anyway, said, "Let's have a silly one!" And within less than half of a second, this is what she got. :) I should have warned her, but alas....So, here's my tip: Don't say it if you don't mean it. Never, ever say it if you don't mean it.

My beautiful baby girl-How can she possibly be a SENIOR?!

There's no place like home...in the Fall!

Oh, how I love, love, love the Fall! I wish California did a little better job of it. Every year I yearn for the beautiful, vibrant colors of my REAL state--Colorado. We lived near the Rocky Mountains, and in the Fall the colors were absolutely breathtaking. Of course, to my father and brothers that meant only one thing: Hunting season!!!

The Pied Piper of Brazil....Elder Lowder

My Missionary in Brazil...How I wish he wasn't walking on train tracks. Sigh.

The Oscar Meyer Wiener

For reasons that will remain deeply embedded in the fiber of our family, it was an awesome coincidence to happen upon this...... Wiener Mobile. Trust me--it was truly miraculous timing. :) As we were having our photo op, the girls whose job it is to drive this lovely piece of machinery came up to us, dug into their pockets, and handed each of us a wiener whistle. (Individually wrapped for our family's protection.) I am not lying.

What a wonderful weekend!

Well! We had a lovely weekend in Reno with our daughters Shauna and Shelli. We attended 'Time Out for Couples' at the Reno Event Center on Friday night, and then we went to the 'Time Out for Women and Girls' the next day. It was beyond wonderful to be together with our little expectant momma, Shelli. Now that she is married and living away from us, every moment with her is precious!

Still trying....

Hello, all three of you who will EVER read this! I must love you--I can certainly tell that you love me, otherwise you would not be wasting your time in such an iffy manner. :) Please do not have high hopes. No expectations or butterflies, and most definitely no red pencils. It's times like these that make me shudder with horror that I have begotten English majors. Go figure.

Okay, this is my first try. I am going to stop right here and see what happens when.....uh....when I do whatever I do once I stop typing. Merciful heavens.

(okay, bye)

:)