Doings at Dodges

I'm in Susanville with my precious Dodge family for Chloe's baptism.  Yes, our sweet little Chloe was baptized on Saturday, November 26.  She was beautiful in her white dress.  Being the good auntie that I am, I didn't get any pictures because her Uncle Jordan was taking them and I just dropped the ball.  After the baptism all the family went back to the house for an amazing breakfast.





 Great Grandma Myra (who was my  mom's best friend in Calgary when they were young women in the mid 40's) assisted in the making of pancakes.  Don't worry, we didn't make her do all the work, just a little.





Marissa, Jordan, Jandy and TJ eating their first course
of pancakes, bacon, sausage and eggs.                                                 

      Mr. Big Bite and lovely Jaquelle got their fair
share.

 Let the games begin!  The boys retired to the living
room for some football games.  The video games look as real almost as the real games.  Stephen and Matt were playing with great concentration.

 Jayleih loves it when Grandma Jaynann comes up and she gets to help grade the 1st graders papers.  We possibly have a teacher in the making.  As you can see by the look on her face, she takes it very seriously, as she should.

 The little kids, TJ, Chloe and Max retired to the girls bedroom for some play time.  These little cousins sure love each other and play together so well.

With all the new gadgets and contraptions, playing games now consists of using your phone..  Remember when we used to sit around the table and talk and laugh and spill drinks (that would be me) and share conversation?  Now everyone pulls out their phones and hook up with each other to play games.  Games like hangman, scrabble and other games I've never even heard of.

Dinner for the kids was at a separate table in the living room.  Remember those days when the adults put you at the kids table and threatened your life if you spilled on the carpet?   Well, that's what we do now, kind of  like payback.  That doesn't make sense, payback for what?  The kids didn't do anything but be born.  It must just be a way to save our memories.  Actually, the kids table was more fun so we really didn't mind that much.

The above is so foreign to me that I had to take pictures of it and document it.  Joe, Jordan, Jason and Stephen went hunting.  They brought back this beautiful pheasant DEAD.  They shot it!  It was so beautiful with magnificent colors.  Then they took it to the garage and skinned it.  You see the results.  Pretty sad.  I couldn't like it.  They bar-b-cued it and each had a taste.  I don't know how it tasted, didn't try it, didn't want to.  Not the high light of my trip.

We had to keep an eye on these two.  Jason and Stephen had a little snuggle in the morning.  They are two funny and wonderful guys.  We had such a good time with them.

I had the best time with all this nutty family.  I feel honored to be included as family and to be showered with love and kindness.  I love this whole fam damily.


 

Halloween Crazyness

HALLOWEEN MADNESS

The Halloween party for the youth was really fun.  As you can see we had all kinds of yummies, worms, kitty litter cake, alien eye balls, Ogre ear wax and eye ball soup.  I make the worms and the kitty litter cake.  And Steve thinks I can't cook, well I showed him.  He didn't try any of it so the kids were very brave.  We combined 3 wards so there were lots of kids to participate. 

Worms, a Halloween favorite!

Kitty Litter Cake - not too bad if you're brave enough to try it.

There was a mummy making contest.  The kids were 5 groups of kids  with a leader in charge of each.  Neil Norton was the volunteer for our group and guess what?  We won.  No, I didn't have any vote!  

Neil Norton was our "build a mummy" for the contest

Another group working on their mummy.  Liesl, you're suppose to wrap the TP around your volunteer.

Another group working on their mummy

Good work, almost finished

The Winner!

Musical Chairs was played and once the kids saw it was fun they participated with great vigor.  Bishop Tong almost won but in the end one of the kids beat him out.  Sorry Bishop.  

Musical Chairs was a hit

Plain cookies were available to be decorated.  The boys decorated them to, I just happen to get all girls at the table.

It was a lot of work to get it all together but it was nice to see the kids having fun together.  I love all our youth.  They help keep me young.

Zoe connects with Grandpa

Catching up:

He's my Grandpa!

The end of September we were babysitting our Zoe while her mommy and daddy went to Parent's Night at her preschool.   Grandpa spent some time entertaining her by spinning a wooden token, for the carousel at Santa Monica Pier, on the table.  She found that pretty funny.  After they finished that game they retired to the living room where she showed Grandpa her planet cards.  She loves the planets and can name all of them and tell you how many moons most of them have.  Then she went a got an Elmo book and  as Grandpa was reading to her I caught this adoring look on her face.  This day Zoe and Grandpa really connected and a bond was formed.  She is definitely her Grandpa's girl.  Grammie is ok, but Grandpa is the best.

I'm Back

I ignored my other blog for so long it has gone the way of the dead blogs.  Well, I'm going to try this again.  Steve and I are on vacation in Ramona CA (just North of San Diego) for a week.  Our new tradition is to spend Thanksgiving with Jen's family in Temecula.  They are great and fun people so it is very much to our liking.  This is the 3rd year we've celebrated with them.  I'm so happy to have a new tradition since our Christmas Eve parties came to an end a few years ago after an 18 year run.

OK, enough of my dribble, check in later for more updates and pictures and stuff.