Great Women Born in January!!!!

                                           Great Grandma's 90th Birthday Dinner at Olive Garden.
                                          Last Saturday we had a small Open House for her.
                                           She thought it was wonderful.  About 15 friends came.

                                                 Happy Birthday to Abigail today!!! She's 5

                                               I love this picture of Kate and her Kids!

                                               Lizzie LOVES cats!!  This is Grandma Gubler's

It's great to be 8!

Lizzie's birthday was two weeks ago.  Mom came up for Lizzie's birthday, and that was SO AWESOME!!

 I took Lizzie and two of her friends ice skating & then out to frozen yogurt for her birthday.  

Then Sunday we had our family party.  

Lizzie's baptism was the next weekend and was great.  Rod & his dad were back from Brazil and two other ladies (mother/daughter converts) were getting baptized as well, so a lot of people from the ward were there and it was great to be able to share the baptismal day. It made it more special, I think, to share it. 

Rod's dad gave a great talk on the Holy Ghost, and Caitlin sang "When I Am Baptized" (I played for her and didn't mess up! Yeah!!) beautifully.  It was a great day!

 

 Mom made Lizzie's cake.  Lizzie had quite an elaborate drawing of what she wanted her cat cake to look like, and mom's cake fit the bill!

 After Lizzie's baptism, we went out to eat at a Mexican restaurant, then we came home and had dessert: cupcakes and sparkling Martinellis' apple-cranberry cider....which must've been a bit too much for Lizzie's stomach, 'cause she barfed in the middle of the night after this.  But the next day she was fine and went to church & was confirmed. So I think all the excitement of the day + decadent food and treats were a bit much for her!

Happy Late Birthday Kate!!
 
I feel bad I didn't get on this sooner, cause I really was thinking about you Kate! And I don't have any pictures on this computer yet, so I will have to late post some awesome Kate pics. Wow, you're 30!! I love Kate because she is "chill". She is just relaxed and easy to be around. She has a great sense of humor that I appreciate. See previous post :) She always stands up for what is right and isn't afraid to share her beliefs. She is thoughtful and kind. She is always thinking of others and how she can help them. I LOVE YOU KATE!!!

I have decided that I LOVE snow.  Or, more accurately, I love seasons.  It is so awesome.  Here's Abby doing some snow angels in our backyard- this is after she had told me she "didn't want to go outside".  Then she goes and had a ton of fun. Last year I liked the snow- but this year I love it.  Seriously, I don't ever want to live in a place that doesn't snow. 

I also love Benji.  Emily, you rock for giving us this cat.  I love him. Ironically, Rod is his absolute favorite. He loves Rod.  Must be a guy thing. I'm #2, and I'm pretty sure Lizzie is #3. He sleeps on our beds each night.  First he was just sleeping on our bed, but now he sort of does this self-rotation where he goes back and forth between Abby and Lizzie's beds, and squeezes in the occasional Caitlin's and our's bed.

He is the best cat ever (no offense, Zoogie, Jimmer, and Rosie).  He brought us a quail today. He's gotten a mouse, a sparrow, and now this quail.  The mouse and sparrow were a month or two ago.  And I am surprised he got a quail- they are fast and kinda big for Benji (or so I thought).  I think the quail are beautiful and I love the dozens that run in our yard- but I was proud of Benjie!

The quail is already dead- he had just brought it up to the sliding glass door to show off, then rolled around and played with it for awhile.  I rewarded him with bits of ham. I don't want to encourage him to kill quail....but he was so proud of himself! And I trust that he won't be able to get too many quail...they have got to be hard for him to get.

Aren't quail beautiful?

So any thoughts on what I should do with the quail? He's done playing with it and it's sitting on our deck.  Do I throw it away- or will Benjie be like "Where's my stinkin' quail that I worked so hard to get?" He ate the mouse and kind of dismantled/ate the sparrow...so there wasn't much left of those two.  But the quail's kinda big...what do I do?

And yes, I realized I just wrote, like, four paragraphs on my cat.  When other people rave about their pets, I would think, man, you need a kid.  But I have four kids.  So now I can rave about my cat.

Baby Brooks is Here!

                                Mr. Brooks Dennis Blodgett has arrived!  3:00 am Nov. 21, 2013
                                 7 lb. 4 oz.  He's a cutie.  We are so happy for Brett and Em!

goodbye black beauty!

Not sure if everyone has heard that dad sold black beauty?!?!

crazy right?! 

we put a for sale sign on it and parked it by our house. Tons of people stopped and took pictures of if and wrote down dads number.

A guy called a couple days later, who happened to be a bee keeper, so dad thought the guy was awesome already, and he basically wanted to give him the truck. 

But Brett and I reminded him how in-valuable black beauty is and how durable she is! 

(even if her front grill is held on with zip ties...)

So, the guy bought it and the good news is he lives right around the corner from us so Parker and I get to see it sometimes on our walks!

I'm thinking if I ever want to go for a trip down memory lane, I'll just run over and ask the guy if I can take it for a spin! :)

Dad got a new truck a few months ago, from a guy at work, and it was a great deal so he got this red ford 250. (this isn't his, I just found this one online, but this is what dad's looks like)

so black beauty has been replaced with... Big Red?! 

Travis thinks dads truck is pretty awesome, as well as Parker, heck even as well as Brett. :)