While the cat's away...I use his mouse!

Dave was back in Clovis for the week working...so I was able to get on his computer and use his photoshop to work on old pictures.  I am trying to clean up very old pictures and make them nice for my grandparents' life histories that I am working on.  I can't tell you how much fun I have doing this!  I worked on them all week...turned pandora on (the classic broadway show station) and clicked that mouse for hours!  In the entire week he was gone I got 82 pictures done!  This picture won't show too well what all I did, but I love getting the creases and tears out of an old photo, and erasing the dust marks and fingerprints...this particular picture had some kind of red ink on it, which I was not able to entirely remove, but it looks much better.  It is my Grandpa Farnsworth when he was very young...I love it.  I put the old scratched up picture on the monitor on the right and then work on a duplicate on the monitor on the left.  Never messing with the original picture.  Fun stuff.  I owe many, many thanks to Shelly Petty for teaching a Relief Society class once on doing this.  It got me started and I have really enjoyed it!

Amanda and the boys got back late Sunday night (yes, I had the house to myself all weekend!  It was soooo quiet! And I got tons done plus had a lot of fun working on projects and watching my chick flicks! But I did not like going to church by myself!) and the boys have been playing with this cool Hot Wheels track that Onty Ashley brought them ever since...The love it!  It's noisy, but keeps them entertained!  And that way I can keep photoshopping! Dave gets home tomorrow night.  I will be happy to have him back!

Happy Birthday Lindsay!

Happy Birthday to our beautiful daughter-in-law Lindsay!  What a wonderful addition you are to our family!  We are glad we could celebrate a little with you last weekend...thanks for coming!  Hope Clif is treating you extra special today!  We love you!

Happy 6th Birthday David!

Happy 6th birthday David!  So fun that your first tooth came out just a couple of days before your birthday!  Such exciting times!  And today you are in Georgia for Aunt Kellie's wedding, but I know you will still be celebrated!  So many people love you so much!  Happy Birthday little man!

My first pedi..don't laugh!

Amanda gave Ashley and I the gift of a pedicure for Christmas...so we all went together to get them done.  It was so much fun!  I have never had one, and I really enjoyed it!  The girls made me pick a darker nail color than what I was going to, and I really like it!  Can you guess what color?  Purple!  Ashley and I dropped David off at Kindergarten and then met Amanda at the mall (she was on her way home from class).  It was a fun girls time out!  My favorite part was the massage chair!  I felt so relaxed!  Thank you Amanda!  I am gonna miss these girls...they both leave tomorrow!  Ashley to go back to CA and Amanda to GA for Kellie's wedding...at least I know she will be coming back!

Birthday breakfast...

Birthday week for David continues...We asked David where he wanted to go for his birthday dinner and he picked IHOP.  We decided to do breakfast on Monday instead so Clif and Lindsay could join us before their drive back to Rexburg.  Ashley was with us too...what a fun breakfast!  Joel loves their pancakes...wish we could have sent him some!  David ate so much!  He even finished some food from the rest of us that couldn't finish ours...it was amazing how much he ate!  Guess he is a growing boy!  After our leisurely breakfast (we got there at 10:30!) Clif and Lindsay packed up and got ready to head back.  Randa and the kids came over for the afternoon (no school!) and we worked on our crafts some more and watched The Music Man and Newsies.  Aimee and Lilyanne dropped by as well.  Aimee had fun learning to make fabric rosettes and bow ties.  (Amanda was finishing up the bow ties for Kellie's wedding). The kids had a great time just playing and we ladies all had fun visiting and crafting (and singing along!).  The perfect day.

 The boys in their matching Olaf pajamas!  One of David's birthday presents.  So cute!

Birthday celebrations...

Since Lindsay is in town for the weekend and she has a birthday coming up, and since David's birthday is on Friday but he will be in Georgia, we decided to have a family birthday dinner party on Sunday!  We invited Eric's family and Aimee is still in town so she came too!  And Ashley was here...it was great!  And we invited Greg (David's uncle from BYU) and Amanda realized it's his birthday coming up too!  Amanda made Cafe Rio and it was delish!  David requested a blue, pink, and purple cake and he got it!  We had a fun time with everyone here and of course presents too! It felt so good to have so many people at our house that we know and love, helping to celebrate those special days!  Our Clovis friend who lives up here, Mark Nielson also came, and Amanda's friend from church since her husband was out of town and she was alone.  We really did have a crowd and it was FUN!  Here's a lot of pictures in no certain order!

 Okay, funny story about little Lilyanne here...she loved the Uno farm game animals.  They are little round balls.  She could fit one perfectly in her mouth (barely) and always had one or two in her hands.  Once she had her back turned to Ashley and Ashley said, "Oh my gosh!  She got TWO of them in her mouth!"  Aimee turned Lilyanne around to check her and she didn't have ANY in her mouth.  She just has super chubby cheeks!  We laughed and laughed about that...

 The engineer and the math teacher attempting to assemble the Planes airport!  

 All this yummy food and the kids made tortillas with cheese.  I had made some stroganoff for David's dinner as that is one of his favorites.  But the other kids wouldn't eat that either!

Christmas again...

Ashley came for a visit!  Thanks to the generosity of her good friend, he gave her free sky miles so she could fly in and visit us for a few days!!  We finally got to have her open the rest of her Christmas!  Dave delivered some of her Christmas to her the end of November, but we saved the rest for when she came to visit.  What fun having her here for a few days!  Clif and Lindsay came down for the long weekend and it was so fun having most of my kids here!  We missed Clark and Joel, but know they couldn't be here for good reasons.  Merry Christmas again and happy new year!!  We are working on some fun crafts while she is here...and we will have a birthday party for Lindsay and little David who have birthdays coming up very soon!!

Dave's first pack meeting...Pinewood Derby!

Dave was put in as the Cubmaster a couple of months ago.  It turns out he was out of town for the first pack meeting and then they didn't have one in December.  Well, January was Pinewood Derby!  He held a few meetings with the Cub leaders (3 were already in, two are new) and they got it all planned out.  Since I don't have a very big calling, I offered to make the refreshments.  They haven't had refreshments and decorations in the past, but Dave said that "we are going to raise the bar a little bit."  Of course, I am the "assistant" cubmaster to help pull it off.  I really don't mind.  It was fun!  Thankfully the three leaders that were already in the program knew the ropes and helped us from beginning to end!  We are most grateful!  There are only 8 boys in our program and 7 of them came.  There were siblings who got to participate also.  Someone was very sweet and let David and Jacob race one of their old cars.  It turned out to be a very fun evening!  They also loved doing the "cheers" for the different awards.  Their favorite was the wolf howl.  Next month is the Blue and Gold Banquet...Cubmaster Dave gets to jump in with both feet from the get-go!  He has never done scouting as a leader, and not much as a young 'un, so this will be new and challenging for him.  We have GOT to get him his own scout shirt though...that borrowed one is AWFUL. And he definitely needs to get a microphone...his voice just does not carry in a cultural hall!  Lots of pictures below...Start your engines!