Zoe and Desmond

Here they are together.  Big sister Zoe and little brother Des.  Such a smiley little guy with adorable dimples.

Desmond Time. . .

We've had a new addition to our family.  Matt and Jen have a little boy named Desmond James, born April 12, 2012 and weighed 8 lbs 3 oz.  We are so exited that Zoe has a brother, we have a grandson and Matt and Jen have a son.  

This is Jen (like you can't tell) with one day left until Desmond was scheduled to be born.  Both he and Zoe were C-Section so we knew when he would arrive.  She was the cutest pregnant women I've ever seen I think.  Notice no weight gain anywhere but the bump?  

So Thursday morning at 8:17am Desmond made his grand entrance.  Jen and Matt both came through it like champs, but then we knew they would.

Meet Desmond "Des"

  
There he is.  Our perfect little boy.  You can't tell from this angel but, the little ear that is showing has a ragged edge that looks like it was chewed by a chipmunk.  Even so, he is perfect.

Jen's mom Judy took Zoe to school and then Matt went and got her to come meet her new brother.  First she did some gourmet dining from McDonald's.  The didn't quite have mom and baby in their room so Dad entertained her in the waiting room.

Our little boy has the biggest smile and 2 dimples.  He also has his daddy's hands, wavy hair, beautiful lips and mom's wonderful eyes.

Zoe was tired when she met Des the first day and it upset her that she couldn't sit on Jen's lap so Grandma Judy and Poppa Fred took her home for some dinner and a good nights sleep.

The next day when she got there it was a whole different story.  First thing out of her mouth was "Where's baby GoGo".  She calls him GoGo because one of her favorite Yo Gabba Yabba characters, Muno has a little brother named GoGo.

 

It was love at first sight. She was so excited to hold him and kiss him and just shower him with affection.

The very best . . . time with Mom.   

He's doing what?

Yikes!  I don't believe him and I just can't watch.

Let's look at my feet and the rubber ducks instead.

It turned out to be a VERY good day for everyone.
 

Hey Cowboy, be careful of the babies fingers.

 I spent a couple of days in Simi Valley with my sister Barbara to help her care for Natalie's children why she went to Washington DC to visit her husband.  What a blast we had.  The two older kids spent most of their time with their other grandma but we had the baby and the 2 1/2 year old. 

Liam, the 2 1/2 year is an interesting little person.  He talks just about all the time but his pronunciation isn't very clear yet.  He looks very serious when he talks to you and expects you to respond.  His love this weekend was the rocking horse.  Pajamas and yellow rain boots are the attire of the morning.  We really had to keep a close eye on the baby when Liam was riding the horse because Liam wanted to crawl under the horse.

The baby, Grayson, 10 mons.  is a laid back cuddly baby.  He is also very verbal but just makes noise and really enjoys hearing himself.  He smiles all the time and loves to be talked to.   Doing the army crawl all over the house is what he likes to do. The condo in Simi is small and he can go around and around and around.  He is starting to get up on his hands and knees and rock but hasn't quite mastered the crawling on all fours.

Today was a monumental day for Gray.  He discovered he can climb the stairs.  He's just figuring it out but managed to get up as far as the 3rd step.

Once he got to the 3rd step he would slide back down and turn and give us this big smile.  He knew he had accomplished something.  We sent pictures to his mom and dad and her response was "oh great, I leave for a couple of days and he learns a new trick".  Yup mom, that's what happens, their little life is just constantly learning new things.




Saturday we celebrated Jackson's 7th birthday.  We had dinner then cake and then, the best part for Jack. . .

 PRESENTS

It was really fun for met to spend this time with the kids and my sister.   Barb and I even had a little time to do some shopping.  Yea for us.

Time with these little kids was such a special time.

Christmas It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.

This year Christmas was celebrated on Christmas Eve with our kids, Matt. Jen and our delightful little Zoe Luna.

Aunt Honda (Sonja) sent Zoe a large gingerbread man that was to be decorated.  While Jen and I fixed dinner and waited for Matt to get home from work, Grandpa and Zoe decorated the Gingerbread Man.

Putting on her new Gingerbread girl apron was the first task.  She wasn't excited about wearing it.

A cookie with sprinkles on it, that she made earlier with her mom, was on standby in case she needed some nourishment of sprinkles during the decorating process.

Yummmm... some sprinkles to get the process started while Grandpa mushes the icing around in the bag so it's nice and soft.

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.