She is 29

Can this be true. My oldest Daughter
and sweet little girl turned 29 Saturday, Feb. 27, 2010
Am I old enough for this? Well I do have one that is 30. But Elliah was my tiny little baby girl
born 2 weeks after I turned 24. She weighed in at 5 lbs. 5 oz and was 18" long.
In this picture she weighed 8 lbs. and was 2 months old. I still forget how petite she is
until I stand next to her, and put my arm around her. She is little, but has a giant of a personality. I admire her so much. She is one of my very closests friends and confidants, and
is such an example to me. She never wavers, has very high standards, and tries to always improve herself. She is a good wife, wonderful Mother, sweet daughter and thoughtful sister.
Todd and I feel very privileged to have been able to be her parents. We love you Elliah and
want to wish you a very Happy Birthday. Enjoy this next year.
and know that we love you so much. I could write a short novel here in this post about Elliah
and all the things I like about her, but instead I will just say, that she is really NEAT! And I just can't believe that you are 29!

Valentines make me happy, BUT floods do not!

I am posting some of the Valentines I made this year
because this is something that makes me happy.
I loved making Valentines and sharing them on my
creative blog. I swapped some with some other
bloggers and gave some away, and made one just
for a little decoration. This was very satisfying!

The part that makes me really unhappy, is when
we have a flood in our basement. Yes, we had another
flood in our basement yesterday. This is the second time
in 9 months for us. Maybe we have hit our quota for our lifetime.
We woke up to water coming in a basement window because of a broken water
main outside. No insurance covers this one folks. It turns
out, that if you do not carry flood insurance, and you have
a pipe break outside your house and it floods inside it is not
covered unless you carry the Flood insurance. Oh Joy! It
flooded the entire family room and storage room this time.
We spent all day yesterday cleaning up this one. A professional
flood cleaner upper came and pulled the water out of our 6 month old carpeting. I will be okay,
and many professional fans are going right now downstairs for a few days. We did a lot of forced
spring cleaning because of it, and we were not able to
travel up to Provo for a very important funeral. We
just could not leave our house in that state.
This morning already I have been doing some
more cleaning in the storage room.
I have decided that this is just the way life is. And I
have definateily decided that the best way to handle
things like this happening is to KEEP YOUR SENSE OF HUMOR!
p.s. my house smells musty and is feels humid. And I hope you like the Valentines!

We are amazed and we are sad!

Well, I sure never thought I would be posting this post, but in regards to Jerry Askeroth, Todd's dad, well we thought for sure he was going to pass away this past week. This is what every indication gave us. We did not realize the will to live and determination of one's soul really makes a difference sometimes. Jerry has been battling with life and death with pneumonia and a bad fungus throughout his body for a month now, not to mention recovery from Colon cancer surgery, in and out of ICU and completely showing the Dr.s a thing or two. These past three days he has been drinking nourishment sitting up, and carrying on conversations, and speaking and swallowing more clearly than he has in years. On Wed. we were all just waiting for him to pass away. It is another miracle.

SAD NEWS. . .
Now for the sad news. Todd has lost one of his very best friends in his life. Steve Rowley, who was his missionary companion 3 times died on Thursday night in a skiing accident up near Salt Lake City. He was 52. He leaves a lovely wife and five children, son in laws, and grandchildren. What a great man he was. We got an early morning call from his dear wife, and all day on Friday, all we talked about were the many stories of Steve. He had a great sense of Humor, and was a lot of fun., but was also a spiritual giant. He and Todd have stayed such close friends over the years, and even worked together cleaning grocery store floors together after we they were married, back in the early 80's. I am sure he will be sorely missed by all who knew him.

Big announcement!

Giveaway that is happening over at my Creative blog "Something Special"
Check it out. This will be fun! Click on my Something Special Button!

Update on Gramps!

Jerry Askeroth is doing so amazingly well the past few days. He was moved from the hospital to a rehabilitation center yesterday, and once he is able to get back on his feet (literally) he will be able to go home. It is a miracle. We thought we would loose him for sure. We love you Gramps!

Skin like that!

As I was editing the photos of my granddaughters who were visiting last week. I thought to myself, how not only how adorable they are, but how beautiful their skin was. I had also stayed with Elliah and her family over night two weekends ago. and got to sleep with Breya, who is seven and has the softest facial skin I have felt. Did I ever have skin like that? Probably, but how come we can't keep our gorgeous skin we are born with. I think we abuse it for one thing, or our genes affect it when we get to be teenagers. But I was always taught to believe that bad skin was for teenagers. I am in my early fifties and still have acne! Since the teenage years, it has never left me. Go figure!
Anyway, love all these granddaughters and their personalities and their beautiful skin so much and am so thankful for them in my life.
p.s. that mark on Carys' chin was from her faceplant into the coffee table, at our house!

Showing off!

Carys, Afton, and Cameron show Grammy
their Creativity with my Scrap Paper!
I think they did such a good job. It is amazing
how you can entertain kids with paper,
cutouts and a glue stick of their own.
Notice their bracelets. We strung beads as well
and they loved doing that. All in all it was a very
creative weekend!

Cookie time at Grammy's

When Josh and Family showed up to surprise us
on Friday night, I decided that on Saturday, the
girls and I would have to make valentines and
sugar cookies. We sure had fun and I did not even
mind the messes that were created by our creativity!

I think Afton (bubba) had
more flour on her than in the cookies.

Rollercoaster week!

Jerrold Askeroth or (Gramps) is Todd's Father. He has been in ICU since Saturday. For a few days now it has been touch and go. We were pretty sure some times that we would not get to keep him around. Especially since he has been on a ventilator, things have not looked good for him. On Monday I picked up Todd's sister at the airport, coming in from Minneapolis, and we were just hoping to get her up to the Dixie regional hospital in St. George before he passed. Last night he was taken off the respirator and is breathing on his own and it is looking like he is going to get through this. At least for a little while. We are so thankful to have more time with him. His daughter and some of her kids are staying at my house, and in spite of the circumstances, we have had fun being together. We are just so thankful and amazed. Heavenly Father is in Charge, and I guess it is not his time to go! Jerry is one of the most generous and kind people I know. We love you Gramps!

She loves to run!

I took these pictures of Evelyn in the Leavitt's front yard.
She was enjoying the big grassy area and her new dolly she got from Santa.
I love the way her colorful clothes contrast with the subtle background. Winter in Logandale
is quite mild. We never have snow, but we have some cold. I wish I could think of something profound to say about these pictures, like some of the other amazing bloggers I know. I am not very creative when it comes to expressing myself on my blog. I just tell it like it is. I do want
to say how blessed I am. I also want to say that I am so looking forward to this new year. There is so much I want to accomplish. Happy New Year to all my family and friends.

There is THREE!

It was sure fun to have almost all of the Askeroth kids home for the holidays.
But this just floored me. Espescially when all three of the pregnant ones would come in the kitchen
and announce that they needed to eat, and eat now! They would need to eat constantly and want
some unusual things at unusual times. It hit me when we took these pictures, and when Kendra said,
"Mom we are pregnant and we need to eat now!"

Kendra at 25 weeks. Kylee at 16 weeks and Tara at 10 weeks. I love it and boy will we all be busy in the spring, and summer.

Scenes from Christmas

This was part of our Christmas morning Breakfast.
It was an orange/cranberry pull apart bread with orange frosting. Very festive and we served bacon and scrambled
eggs, Hot Chocolate and orange juice.
It was a very busy place on Christmas Eve.
Some of the gifts were opened for the family who had to leave that night. We had a wonderful dinner
some entertainment, and then gift exchanging. It was a great night.
Caleb and Evelyn were very entertaining as well as many other
family members.

Appreciation Luncheon

On December 15th, I decided that rather than give a gift in appreciation to my Counselors and teachers in Relief Society, I would like to give them a really nice luncheon at my home, and treat them to some very tasty recipes I got from my most recent Fairview trip. I told them to come and enjoy and bring only themselves. Top Photo is my good friend and 1st counselor Julie Masters.

The Table looked lovely and I even did placecards.
I served. . . Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup
Spinach, bacon and Strawberry Salad/raspberry vinagrette (sp)
Homemade rolls
Apple Carmel Cake

Our Three very wonderful teachers for Sunday Lessons. We love and appreciate them!

Check it all out!

Hey family and friends. There are many new posts on this blog. Check out our great weekend. (at least 4 new posts) We are so glad to be where there is warmer weather and although we loved visiting the snow and seeing how pretty it was, we are so happy to have made it back home. We drove on many snowy roads, (scary) to last us for a long time. We called it white knuckle driving!

Reason for our weekend away!

We were up in Logan Utah and USU for the graduation of our daughter Kendra with her bachelor's degree. It was a wonderful experience. Our first Askeroth child to get a BS degree. Hers was from the school of Humanities with a degree in Broadcast Journalism.

I think she looks quite proud here. It is quite an accomplishment for her. Now she will work full time for a while until her baby is born in April.

Tara also joined us at the ceremony. Pictures of our twins together always amaze me at how different their coloring truly is. Love these girls.

Our Son-in-law Sterling looking very proud of
his wife's accomplishment also. He will graduate in April with his bachelor's degree.

Our very snowy weekend up North!

So fun to see our little Evelyn all
bundled up to play in the snow.

Check out those tiny boots. I love to see little kids and how they react to snow. The cold just doesn't bother them a bit!

Sterling out early to shovel the snow. This is before it got bad. Later in the day it was much worse. We were amazed at how
cold it was there. We are desert rats now!