Matthew's Big Smiles

Yesterday when I was in Provo, I caught Matthew in a particularly good mood and snapped a few photos with my phone. 

You can't get too much of a good thing! He is such a sweet boy! I love him, love him, LOVE him!

In Time Out, Once Again

This weekend was Time Out For Women. It was held in the Maverick Center this year, for the first time. It is a bigger venue that the Salt Palace and could hold 3,000 more people, and the place was filled! Don't ask me how Cheryl and I scored front row seats for Saturday's session. It was amazing sitting dead-center in the front row. We had better seats than the presenters! This is the little art do-hickey they shined onto the floor, right at our feet.

We took a moment to take a picture and have it "framed." 

Yep, Cheryl was framed too. 

Then someone offered to take one of us together. I'm hogging the shot. Sorry, Sister. 

Friday night's first speaker was Sheri Dew. To top off the evening, Sheri interviewed Ann Romney.

On Saturday, I was thrilled to hear my very favorite singer, Hilary Weeks. See the guy behind her? That's Michael Dowdle. I have some of his cd's too. 

I could listen to Hilary's music all day. Oh wait, I DO listen to her music all day. Or at least whenever I'm in the car. Sometimes that is an all-day event.

She graciously pretended like we are friends, and she signed my cd jacket of her music.

Since we were front row goddesses, we got to hang with all the popular speakers. This is S. Michael Wilcox. He's taller than I realized. He was very generous with his time, and the women all seemed to want to chat with him. We spoke with him about three or four times. That's the perks of the front row!

Cheryl got Sheri Dew to sign her book on Friday night. She thought I grabbed my camera as we went up for the autograph. All I was doing was tucking my purse under my chair. We remedied the lack-of-photo-op on Saturday. Sheri Dew is the kindest woman when it comes to star-struck fans. But she is also rather business-like and keeps the line moving along so everyone gets a chance to hang out with her for a few moments. 

I believe this was the best time-out we've been to (although hanging out with Sara and Kate was pretty awesome). Next year I will have both of my sisters with me, and maybe even a daughter as well. We all deserve to be in Time Out! 

Memory Lane

 Saturday we went to my brother-in-law's house and came away with a trove (what's a trove? A collection of discovered valuable items or a discovery of great importance or monetary value) of family pictures. I thought I'd share a few gems with you.

Joseph F. Smith and his wife, Julina, after a trip to Hawaii

"Cruising" to (or from?) Hawaii

Joseph F. with a wife other than Bud's grandmother

Bud is in the middle with the big smile

Yellowstone- shy of age seven by three days

Bud's high school graduation picture.

Wasn't that fun? Except with all these (and about 50 others) new photos, his biography is that much further from being finished. And we were so close before...

It's Twins (edited- Triplets)!

You all know that my daughter, Laura, is pregnant and due in November, right? Okay, I thought you'd be interested to know that this post has nothing to do with that, and no, she is not having twins.
Last night I was sitting on my porch swing which used to be Karen's swing. Anyway, I was looking at our tree thinking how much I didn't like it. Then I started really looking at the tree and noticed some grassy-like stuff in the middle of the branches. I thought it looked like it could be a nest. Upon further investigation (like when a robin flew in and sat on it) I realized it was a nest. I wondered how many eggs might be in the nest. The answer to that was- none.
Instead of eggs, we have two (edited- three) tiny little babies in the nest. I saw them get their dinner and get tucked in for the night. I think I'll watch their progress and see how they grow over the next little while.

What could this be? 

Two little babies, waiting for dinner! 

Yummy worms for dinner!

Good night little robin family

Sleep tight! 

When Will I Learn? Edited!

For at least the second time, my iPhoto program and/or computer has lost pictures of something important. Because it has happened in the past, I started to keep the photos on the SD cards so I was able to import most of the photos again. However, I am either missing one card or it is a damaged card and is therefore unreadable, because I am still missing three days of my cruise from last year. Why didn't I hurry home and make my book? Now I am stuck. Some of my favorite photos are lost. The only photos I have are the ones I put on my blog from when we returned last year. Makes me want to swear, stomp and scream to not have the pictures. Pictures like this one-

...makes me so sad.
Wait! UPDATE!!! Twenty minutes after I finished this post I looked in one more place and found ALL the pictures from the cruise! No, I didn't find every lost picture ever, but I DID fine all the cruise pictures, including the one posted above! I've gone from sad to glad, glad, GLAD! As soon as I get home from Chattanooga, I'm going to get these pictures into a book. Yes, I have learned my lesson!
Whew!

Just The Boys

Samuel- 13, Danny- 6

My Boys! 

Merry Christmas!

I Remember Them

Samuel- 12, Karen- 9, Laura- 7, Danny- 5. 

The good ol' days. 

Merry Christmas!

Where's Waldo?

No, you're not really looking for Waldo.

Just because I'm at the ERC and can't post something real, and because I found this thumb drive in my purse, and because I thought it would be fun, can you find anyone you know in this photo?

Who Dunnit

I carry a camera in my purse. I don't use it often. The other day I checked the SD card to see what needed to be downloaded to the computer. I found a bunch of pictures on there that I didn't remember taking. They looked like this.

I'm pretty sure I didn't take these pictures. 

And, I'm pretty sure this sweetie pie didn't do it either. 

So that just leaves these two. I'll only give you one guess which one it was. This should be an easy game. Bonus points if you can guess where those mystery pictures were taken! I'll let you think about it while I go get my new cookbook signed! P.S. that's a hint right there.