Happy Easter.

How blessed can a bunch get?!?  We were so

blessed to have a HOUSEFUL to celebrate

Resurrection Sunday with us!!!  There was

food for days, tons of friends and family, and

a true spirit of love and compassion as we

celebrated Easter together.  I feel blessed

to have such wonderful people in our lives

to celebrate the triumphs and support in the

trials.  Life has been difficult at times, to

say the least, over the past months.  It has

been wonderful to have the Lord work in

all of our lives.

Happy, happy Easter.

Resurrection Sunday.

The boys and I went to church tonight in 

order that I might have the entire day to

prepare our Easter feast!!  I must say that

this, like all other firsts, is difficult.

Easter is our favorite holiday. We sure

do miss our Dad and think about how

he must be celebrating in Heaven.  We

think about him constantly and he is

never far from our minds or lips.  

While we are beginning to accept the

crazy fact that he is truly not going

to come bounding through the front

door, that is a pretty difficult dose of

reality to face.  We are each handling

grief in our own way, but together we

know that by the grace of our Heavenly

Father, we are going to make it.

We are excited about tomorrow.  We

are excited that we have a wonderful

family and many friends who will

celebrate Resurrection Sunday with 

our family.  We realize that while there

is much that is difficult, we are an

incredibly blessed bunch.

Happy Easter!!  Jesus is RISEN!!!! 

Resurrection Weekend.

 I love, love, love preparing to celebrate

our Savior's resurrection . . . I wait the entire

year for it . . . I love it more than CHRISTmas!

 One of the must-haves of this special

weekend are homemade sugar cookies

in all shapes and sizes.

Today I was excited to whip up a special

batch of sugar cookie dough, go through

my drawer of a bazillion cookie cutters, and

have at it!!!

Making sugar cookies isn't quite as much fun

for me now as the boys don't stick their

finger in the dough, play in the flour bin,

get sugar all over the counters, press out

cookies with the cookie cutters, make 

snakes out of the dough . . . 

Man, I sure do miss those days!!

Happy Resurrection Weekend!!!

Mailbox Surprise.

Card in the mail from my bestie . . . 

Oh.yeah.life.is.good.

Still Celebrating the 5-0.

 I must say that I have had a wonderful TEN

days of celebrating the BIG one!!!  Tonight my

sweet girls from my card group took me out

to dinner to light one more candle to the 5-0.

I have had a wonderful time celebrating and

am so very grateful that I have such wonderful

family and friends to celebrate with.

This has been a different year celebrating

for sure and as I was apprehensive about it

for months, I must say that the Lord put those

around me who helped me to have a wonderful

time ushering in FIFTY!!!

A girl's gotta have a favorite card . . . right!?!

Mountain Falls Tourney.

Buy one stroke . . . Our Sam earned

SECOND PLACE in the two day 

Mountain Falls tournament.  We had 

so much fun watching our guy play

golf and grateful that he has such

commitment to his team.  He is a

very.very.very busy guy and could

have easily chosen to take a pass

on this tournament.

Way.to.go.Sam.

Marathon Day.

Day 1 of the Pahrump Valley Invitational

was held at Mountain Falls in dreamy

75* weather.  Luke was my driver in

the golf cart and I was happy as a clam

with my quilt and dissertation book.

I read, worked, and kept Sam's score

during the 5 1/2 hours of play.

 I just love my golfer and am so very

proud of all that he does.  He juggles

a full schedule at CSN, practices golf,

plays on the worship team, has a 

bazillion friends, and still has the time

to be awesome around our home helping

Luke, Zach, and I.

 Yep . . . Steady Freddy with the "80".

He three putted on 18, almost had

a 79.

We were excited to have dinner with

our sweet friends Rod and Jeanne.

They were such good friends of our

Gram and Grampa.  We loved, loved,

loved every moment of our visit with

them and so cannot wait for it to

happen again.

After these events, Luke and I headed

to Scouts.  Did a little grocery shopping,

came home, left items in the cart, went

back to the grocery store . . . 

Yep, you can imagine that I spent a 

little time soaking in a hot steamy

bubble bath after our looooong, but

totally great day!!!

Calico Basin.

My Mountain Man.

 Sam, Luke, and their buds hit the hiking

trail on this be-a-uuuuuutiful day today!!!!

 They hiked all through Calico Basin with their

buds from church.

It just doesn't look like they were having

that much fun . . . 

I am so happy that they have awesome

people to do fun activities with.

An answer to prayer for sure!!!

Big 5-0. Day 5.

As a lover of all things Ozish, my boys new

that today would be the p-e-r-f-e-c-t day to

go to "Great and Powerful Oz".  We all

loved it.  Sharing this birthday with my

boys has been incredibly special as they

have devoted all weekend to the BIG 

EVENT.  What a fun way to spend Day 5

of the BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION . . .

my boys, popcorn, and a great flick . . .

cannot go wrong!!!

Big 5-0. Day 3.

 Yep, my amazing BIRTHDAY 

CELEBRATION continued today as

I celebrated with my awesomely 

amazing FAMILY!!!

 Turning the BIG 5-0 is pretty darn fun

when I am able to spend quality family

time with my parents, Jeff and his crew,

and our be-a-uuuuuuuutiful boys!!!!

(My boys wrote some pretty.darn.sweet

messages in my birthday card from them!!)

 Love, love, love these guys!!!

 My be-a-uuuuutiful Momma . . . How did I

get so blessed?!?

 Love, love, love my bro . . . so thankful that

we can be so close now and that we live

only a hop, skip, and a jump away from

him.

It really just doesn't get any.better.than.this!!!

Big 5-0.

Happy, happy birthday to me!!!  My marvelous

boys gave me this beautiful cookie bouquet!!  

I am a cookie bouquet lover!!!  I ate practically

every.single.cookie myself.  I cried the moment

that they gave it to me . . . what a blessed

Mom I am to have such wonderful, thoughtful

boys.

I walked my 8.3 early in the morning . . . 

one of my very favorite things to do.

There is lots of time to pray, talk and

listen to the Lord, cry, and think on 

those walks!!

Sam had a nine-hole match and I was

able to drive a cart around the course

and watch him play his round.

Our friend Steve took me to an amazing

dinner at Brio.  We then drove go-karts

and went to the Bellagio for ice cream!!!

What a wonderful Day 2 of birthday 

celebrating!!!  (Last night some besties

took me to dinner and then we played

cards at Cathy's house).

Tomorrow is dinner and cake

with my awesome family, Saturday is 

Spring Mountain Ranch and "Oz the

Great and Powerful", Wednesday is

dinner at Cafe Rio with my card group!!!

I would most definitely say that I am

one.blessed.chick!!!

Birthday Eve.

 Last year's birthday celebration will

be VERY different from this year's

birthday events.  This is a picture of 

the special lemon cake with raspberry

filling that Mike made for me.  He 

made this while he was exhausted from

treatments and could not even taste one

little bite.

While I could not accept it, somehow my

spirit knew that this would be the very last

birthday that I would share with my incredible

husband on this earth.  Thinking back, I can

remember this day like it were only yesterday,

yet in other ways it seems like a bazillion

years ago.

 I am so very grateful that our Heavenly Father

gave me the bestest gift EVER of these very

special boys who have taken such wonderful

care of me since our incredible husband and

Dad passed from this life.

I can tell you that it is memories like these

that make it.ALL.worth.it.

I bet you know what I was wishing so

very, very hard for . . .

Big 5-0 . . . bring it!!!

Canyon Gate Tourney.

 Desert Oasis Diamondbacks hit the links

today!  It was a be-a-uuuutiful day outside.

It was hot and toasty 80*.  

 The course did not allow spectators

to drive a cart, so my partner Luke

and I walked the course with our Sam.

. . . that is lots and lots and lots of 

walking.

Luke and I accomplished much on

our famers tan and are both sunburned

from the days events.  We had fun

watching our Sam play golf!!!  I am

so very thankful that I am able to

participate in all of these events with

our boys!!!!

Scout Awards.

Luke's Scout troop held a Court of Honor

tonight . . . 

. . . of course our Luke received THE MOST

merit badges and awards!!!!!

Love, love, love that boy!!  I am so very

grateful for his determination and amazing

spirit.  He.is.a.wonderful.part.of.our.family!!!

Luke's In the Money!

My little entrepreneur, Luke has quite the

business going making paracord bracelets.

Kids at youth group and Scouts purchase

these bracelets by the dozens from him.

He is always thinking of ways to make

extra moola.  I really appreciate what a

hard worker he is.  The bracelets are quite

the rage and are functional also!

Eastery.

Like other human beings, we cannot resist

the Easter aisle in the grocery store.  Our new

favorite candy comes in Easters colors and

are the yummy M&Ms filled with peanut

butter.  They disappear pretty darn fast in

our candy jar . . . There are a couple of people

in our home who are a little more guilty

of partaking then others! 

Hopscotch.

 I just LOVE this brand new quilt

that I whipped up on Princess B.

It is called "Hopscotch" and is made

from 1930s reproduction fabric.

 Doesn't is just remind you of something

that you would see on your Great-Grandma's

couch . . . 

 This is just the quilt top . . . 

I need to add the batting, backing, and binding.

I am also excited to do some embroidery on

it on my new sewing computer!!!

Sewing Computer School . . . Embroidery!!

 Just a BIG FAT yippee for sewing

computer school . . . I tell ya, I start

looking forward to it Monday evening!!!

 Today we learned SO much more 

about our be-a-uuuutiful sewing

computers including . . . 

 MACHINE APPLIQUE

 . . . and making these lovely

lace beauties . . .

I seriously can hardly wait to get

crackin' on CHRISTmas!!!!!

Early Birthday Blessing.

Where, oh, where would I be without my

bestie Susan . . . Where I ask ya?!?

Next week will mark the BIG 5-0 for me . . .

My sweet friend and I have been talking about

making the Farmer's Wife quilt.  It is a

BEAUTIFUL quilt that has 120 . . . count 'em

120 quilt blocks . . . ALL DIFFERENT.  Each

of the block represents letters for 1920s 

farm wives and the blocks that they inspired.

I am more than stoked and excited . . . I am 

still so thrilled that my Susan took the time

to not only purchase the book to complete

this huge task, but purchased the fabric for

our first block . . . Yep, she is a keeper.

Beautiful Farmer's Wife fabric . . . 

A BIG 5-0 package would not be complete

without these babies . . . Remember, my

tootsies tend to get pretty.darn.cold these

days . . . 

Happy EARLY birthday to me!!