Sunday, November 24, 2013

McKenna Arrives in the Nick of Time!!

So this is another week with the Perkins clan ... It started with me picking up a work day on Monday at Treasures ... So not much exciting there.
This pic is of Titan having his scan, after having a mild seizure a few weeks ago, its just precautionary. Sorry this pic is out of order, I am blogging on my iPad, as Mike is giving our computer a select  lobotomy, and changing out pics on my iPad pretty much means starting over, so not going to happen.  Still thought it was a cute picture.

Tuesday night I went to another art retreat, which I enjoyed a lot.  The three girls in the picture with me all belong to the Reclaimilogists that I sell with on FB.  

I worked again on Wednesday frantically getting stuff moved out of the van into the store, as we needed to empty it to add all the seats for our trip to Idaho the next day.  

As often happens I didn't sleep well that night and got a text from Dave while I was still up about 1:30 saying they were at the hospital.  When I got up, about 6:00 Scott read me the text announcing McKenna's birth.  Happy day!

With dad and I putting seats in the van, packing, loading, it was after nine that we got to the hospital to see our newest addition.



Such a pretty little girl, and such an unusual birth story.  Briahnna has given me permission to share, so here goes...

After a few hours of serious labor, Bri opted for an epidural.  Her mom and Davin were with her, and after a while, being so exhausted Bri fell asleep, so did Davin and her mom... A while later they were awakened by the sounds of a baby coughing ... And there she was, head and shoulders to the world, as Davin ran for a nurse, Lisa caught little McKenna as she finished her task of getting born.  

This is the cute quilt that I found at the doll house festival, perfect for our sweet dark haired doll.

I ran to work and got there just 5 minutes late.  Dad came by after my shift, and after getting all new tires for the van, and then we headed north. We picked up Ashley and her family.  Then Becca and her kids, then Darby and it was off to Idaho!

We got in about 1:30 A.M. And spread out beds and rearranged couches for a giant slumber party ... That is when someone decided it was a good time to start a movie ...  Then that someone fell asleep while, the rest of us watched the new superman movie ...Yawn .  The next day we all just hung out, cousins getting aquainted, and sisters enjoying each  other.

And of course there were more movies to be watched ...


... And babies to be played with.





And some pretties just preened.

Titan found an unusual set of bears to be scary with.




Then it was time for the big event ... Seeing the second Hunger games movie, Catching Fire.

The next day dad and I spent six hours junking ... 



And when we got back, Alex was giving his cousins rides,  while the  adults were watching another movie.  Then it was time to pack up the van and head home.

Dad and I got home before midnight. .... And for once I had no problem falling asleep.  But morning came early and with it a call from the ward exec sec and a new calling for moi ... Namely as one of two gospel doctrine teachers, my favorite calling ... And just in time for Old Testament next year!!

After our block we went to sacrament meeting again in Pleasant Grove where we got to hear Scott play a piano solo... He did a great job, and his grandpa and I are so proud of him!  After church we stopped at their house to visit for a bit, and Eva made dad and I sandwiches, which was so very nice.  We enjoyed a visit with Nell, before Trevor came home to get the family for tithing settlement.  What a lovely week we had ... Time spent with all our grands except the southern ones...

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

A Perfect Week With Prince Charming at Home!


... and another week begins. On Monday dad was off to work locally, of which I totally approve.

I got to meet the girls for lunch in American Fork at the Olive Garden for Briahnna's baby shower.   Darby put it together and Becca, who had been visiting grandpa Carlo, decided to bring him along.


Bri  seemed pretty happy with the cute things for her baby who will be born later this month.  

That night dad and I made dinner and ate in our room while we watched the last regular Downtown Abbey episode ... Good times ... (Btw, I purposely misspelled downtown abbey so no one will pick it up off google and read our blog ... :-). 


On Tuesday I played with setting a thanksgiving dinner table to enter a FB page contest.  I later used the pics for  a blog post.  


I worked on Wednesday and Thursday.  After work on Wednesday I made this flea bits sign for my booth of small crafting stuff, part of which is shown above.   

On Thursday dad surprised me by coming by with lunch. As he was leaving my coworker Richard calls after him and say "you are making the rest of us look bad, you know!"  So true.

 Then after work on Thursday I headed off to the ward book club with my friend Ginny. Emily had  read the book, The Book Thief, and I knew she had an opinion about it, so we called her in Texas and She told us what she thought, that was pretty fun. 
Dad took the day off on Friday so that we could get the garage in shape for the winter, when we don't want to park in the driveway.  In the early afternoon I ran up to PG to pick up Trevor and Nell's children as Nell was headed to Arizona for a family visit.  


The girls got in some art time before we headed to Spanish where we saw Dispicable Me at the dollar movies.

When we got back Eva said she didn't want to sleep in the library because that portrait of her grandpa in the library was like the ones in the haunted mansion at Disneyland, and she would worry about it changing like they do. Mi ended up taking it off the wall and turning it around. Funny girl.

Saturday morning dad made the kids waffles and then took them to BYU where they met up with Trevor and they all watched the game with Idaho State.

I, mean while, met my friend Wendy at the fleattitude sale in Pleasant Grove.  Above Amy, one of our former flea.o.logy dealers shows off a cool arrow she found.

Two Pitts of a Pear's Brandon made this awesome reinvented conservatory, which I loved.

Brandon also made this super cool 'mantel'.  Wendy and I spent a couple of hours at the sale before heading to a craft retreat we had signed up for.

It was hosted by Marci who does the Fallow Field Farm sale in the fall. This is the first time I have attended one of her craft retreats.

Here we are inside the building at Lindon park... The collected goodies to the right are the raw materials for the Christmas advent calendar I made.
This is the nice Texan I met with the advent she made.

Here are some of the new ladies I met.  I also ran into a gal named Becky who lives in our ward in Orem... I recognized her face and she recognized my name ... So funny. She lived just west of Barb's old house, but moved there just a year before we moved to Payson, so after Barb Moved.  She wasn't active when we lived there but has an autistic son who decided he wanted to go to church every week, and she didn't like him going alone.

Long story short, she was just released as Young Women's President, and was in during the time Kim was going to Young Women's and went to camp.  She said Kim is adorable, and I had to agree.

After the retreat I met dad at the Hale Theater and we saw a play called 'The Heights' which we both liked .

On Sunday we went to church, and then dad came home early from his second set of meetings so we could go and see grandpa, who was positively grumpy!!

It was fun to have Spencer and Brittney along.

When we got home I put together my gratitude stand that I had made at the craft event so that I could blog about it that night. 


Here are the other pages I got done.

Then dad and I put together dinner, and the Kews and downstairs Perkins joined us, which was lovely. Brittney said it was fun to get to know the Kews better.

So that does it for our week.  It was so nice to have dad around.

Monday, November 18, 2013

A Week With the Lonely Widow Woman

On Monday my husband left me and headed south... So it was a lonely week for moi. 

I had a few things on the docket that kept me busy, fortunately, as it could have been a very, very long week.

Monday morning, after walking I headed to my 'we can' group, where we wrapped packs of cards and game pads for stuffing into socks with otherbgoodies that will be sent to deployed  service people.
Here are some of the girls at lunch, which I had to pass on as I had a date with Becca and Ashley. 


I met them at the Cafe Rio in Spanish Fork, after they had visited grandpa Carlo.
That night I hosted our family home evening group ... I thought it would be fun to light up the jacks one last time to greet the group members....

On Tuesday I spent the day getting projects ready, photographed and collaged for the Reclaimologiststs instasale on Instagram the next day.
This cute little box was an old shop project and was dated 1928, so that with painting, decopaging and some distressing it was ready to go.

Then I took pictures of the box and a tall jar full of vintage ornaments and put together collages so I would be ready to post them on Instagram the next a day.

That evening dad called and asked me to run up and pick up the rent from the Orem renters.  I did some junking on the way home, not surprisingly.

On Wednesday I worked at the antique mall and listed my instagrams in the midst of a working day. 

Thursday morning while walking, I saw these fun pumpkins and had to take a picture of them too.

On Friday I puttered around the house in the morning, then headed to Lindon for a buying appointment.  The lady had traveled a lot and the goods were pretty pricy, but I did buy some bird cages, so that was fun.
 
Dad made a point of getting home early enough so that we could go to see Austenland again...fun as always.

On Saturday dad headed off to meetings for stake conference, and an interview with two members of the seventy who were here to install a new stake presidency, unfortunately our  Primary activity, where the kids were going on missions to Finland and India, was at the same time as his interview, so I got to tell the kids about Finland.  

To the right are two cute little missionaries, off to teach ...
Spencer and Brittney were investigators.

That night dad and Spencer sang in the stake choir at the adult meeting of stake conference.  We had elders Snow and Munday of the seventy.  Elder Snow is the lawyer that aunt Wendy worked for, and Elder Munday is English. Both did a great job, but elder Munday was so funny, and so British that he made me want to be a groupie. 


On Sunday Brittney and I went early and got seats up front.  Of course our boys sang in the choir again.

Our new Presidency is President Simmons who is the principal of the Salem High School seminary. The second couselor is the guy that has the tire place in town that dad uses, and the second counselor is the just released bishop of the singles ward that meets across the street from us.  I didn't know any of them, but dad knows them all.

When we got home in the afternoon I redid my dining room mantel so I could take pics and blog about it for Monday. 

So that was our week, and I was so glad to have dad back from points south, I really dislike it when he's gone, but being raised by a widowed mother, I am always sure to thank Heavenly Father that he is still here playing the grandpa to my grandma.