Life at Gramma's

 We've been cooking.

 Teasing Duke.

 Hiding with mommy.

Working on our fashionista.

Helping pick apricots

Yummy!

Even Sig gets to  enjoy a treat.

Our Lives are about to change...in a good way.

Steph and the little people have officially moved in for the next 7 weeks  while Jake does an internship in Dallas.  Today while the mom and dad finished packing up all their worldly goods the little people hung out with gramma.

Here's how our day went.  

We...

 Played with playdough

 Sorted our dishware by color

 Washed Easter Eggs

Jumped

 Fed Elmo cookies

Drew artwork on the patio

Drew artwork on ourselves

Snacked on the sidewalk chalk.

And finally settled in to watch Ratatouille.

At this point the gramma was feeling a lot like little Duke.

 Oh yes...It was a clothing optional day.

The Neon Boneyard

As a last adventure with Jake here in Vegas we visited the historic
 Las Vegas Neon Boneyard.

 The Boneyard isn't historic...but everything in it is.

Old Neon signs from Vegas' colorful past.

 Here's one for Clark.

Do you remember any of these?

 We went at 9:30 am but unfortunately it was blazing hot already

and the kids were getting toasted.  So we ended up cutting our hour long tour down to about 45 minutes.

But I did get our name in Lights.

A few perks of living in Vegas.

 In the past week Karl and I've been to two shows down on the Strip

...totally unnatural behavior for us.

They were all free tickets given to us  (we like free)

And totally like us...

we had never gotten around to deciding when to go

 until they were just  about to expire.

So we went to both in a week.

But we are improving...we're actually had a week to spare.

We went to Raiding the Rock Vault on Tuesday  at the LVH (formerly the Hilton). Here in Vegas if you give blood at United Blood Services you get  free show tickets.
My good friend Rosanne gave blood and gave us the complimentary tickets.

.

Yeah...we have really nice friends.  

Then as a thank you for finding a stolen purse and getting it back to it's owner (a story for another post) a very grateful lady sent me a voucher for four  tickets to the Australian Bee Gees.  Saturday night we took Rosanne and Mike with us to this show at the Excalibur.

Now to get back to our typical Vegas exsistance

...we only go down to the strip when we have out of town visitors.

Then we might just point them in the right direction and say have fun.
...unless we have free tickets to a good show.

While we're away

...little people did play.

Last night Karl and I went to a show down on the strip with our friends.   When we came home the house was quiet and empty.  But these photos were on my camera.

 Perfecting her "Runway" walk and pose.

Love these people...big and little 

and will miss them something awful when they move to Tennessee.

Happy Birthday Kyle!

This post is still being  "built" :)

Happy Birthday Kyle!

You've still got it

 

....some where.

You always have motivated the rest of us Toblers 

to try harder and be better.

We love you.

Mom and Dad T.

Happy, Happy Mother's Day

We had a couple little people  for a few hours this weekend (34.5 hours to exact)  while their parents drove north (in a rented convertible)  for a  temple session in St. George, a wedding reception in Sandy and a trip to IKEA for me.
We love these little people more than words can express and know our time having them close is so short.   So we appreciate every minutes we get to spend with them.

 Now the little people were so good and so happy... they didn't miss mommy or daddy at all (except we did miss Steph and her nursing ability at 12 am, 1 am , 2 am and 6 am)  but we survived and by hour 28 Duke had about decided maybe he'd take a bottle.  Thank goodness he was a hearty eater of everything else I put on his highchair tray. 

We even made it to church 10 minutes early...where everyone greeted us with "Happy Mother's Day" said with a  a smirk and a laugh.
Duke fell asleep during sacrament meeting and slept soundly as long as I didn't move my arm...which was throbbing. (fussy tired baby vs. throbbing arm...sleeping baby won.)  He woke up during Sunday school and after he had eaten a banana muffin out on the lawn (a treat from someone's sunday school lesson) it evident that staying in a class just wasn't going to happen.    Karl was getting spiritually feed in the nursery with Ethnie (marshmallow and Goldfish.) So  nobody objected to our early exit.

" Hi Mister Turtle"

 "Hey.everybody left me in the house by myself"

" I'm coming too."

 Harvesting to feed Mister Turtle. 

After a quick lunch we decided to wear the kids out with 15 minutes at the park so they would both nap soundly at the same time.. They both fell asleep in the car going to the park.  Now our skills at removing sleeping children from a car needs work.   They both promptly woke up after their 10 minute power nap and were up for the rest of the day.

.

Snuggling with her "Pa"

 

and having a snack while watching Ratatouille.

 Oh how she loves her "Pa".

Oh how I admire mothers of small children.   How do they keep smiling when they are so tired?  How I did I do it so many years ago?  How do I remember those years as such happy years...being so tired?  So tired and surrounded by chaos.

Oh how I love and appreciate my daughter-in-laws...they take such good care of the little people...and they act so happy....when they must be soooo tired.

And we were all sooo happy to see the Mom and Dad of these little people walk through the door.   Yay...we were all doing a happy dance.  Needless to say...we ALL slept so good that night.   

Paragonah

We drove to Paragonah on  Friday before the funeral 

 to  hang out with Clare and Kaye.

  I LOVE this place. 

 It feels like home

 The big garden.

Lilacs

 and apple blossoms in the Springtime.

 "Will work for room and board".

 Love this old shed

...just needs an old bench and some wild flowers around it.

 And the countryside...

Beautiful.

Friday evening we went to a little cafe in  Parowan for dinner. (didn't take my camera).  The Parowan Cafe is a little mom and pop place that  has down home cooking  with portions to fill a farmer.   I highly recommend it.
 It will be a regular stop from here on out.
I can hardly wait to go back to try the chicken fried steak.
Hmmmmm....