Christmas Time is SO wonderful!!

Wow--I had to have my son Wade come and show me AGAIN how to post stuff on my own Blog. (They've thought all along that I was pretty 'ditzy', and I guess I AM!!) Anyway---now that I know how, I'll write more often! Today as I write, it's Dec. 23rd.

As for today--it's just a couple days before Christmas and I've had SUCH A WONDERFUL TIME being with all our family members these past few days!! Every one of us were together for a Saturday night Christmas Family Gathering--all 22 of us--and we had a really fun party, so it feels to me almost like Christmas is all OVER!! We ate a delicious cold-cut/appetizer meal--with our traditional Frappe' drink, had a fantastic program featuring all 11 grandchildren in a beautiful Nativity Scene while Grandpa Dennis read the Christmas Story from the Bible, then walked over to great-grandma's house and went Christmas caroling as a group to her and her husband, then came back and unwrapped a tree-full of Christmas Presents for each other. Here's a cute picture of the Nativity--with Moms getting kids ready. (While Grandpa Dennis was reading the story from the Bible, he kept looking up to see the darling children, and couldn't concentrate on what he was reading.)

As you can see, the whole process of getting "ready" , took lots of "doing"!

SNOW on October 11th!!

Well, we woke up to a White World this morning---snow all over everything!! I LOVE the snow, but it seems to me to have arrived a bit EARLY this year, so we'll likley be seeing LOTS of it for the next 4 or 5 months. A snowy Saturday, makes for a lazy-day-in-front-of-the-fireplace kind of feeling--don't you think?? Dennis was going to go hunting with Trent this morning, but he was so exhausted from all the hunting he did YESTERDAY, that he opted out of it this morning; so we are just lounging around, enjoying the warmth and cozy-ness of our fireplace.

(Trent DID, however, head out for a second day of deer-hunting, taking a couple 4-wheelers on the trailer, and I guess the trailer got two flat tires before noon, so it sounds like they're heading back already. There was 6 or 8 inches of snow up in the mountains where they went, and it was supposed to be pretty good for 'hunting trackability', but........maybe they'll get their deer NEXT week!)

Trent and Melissa and the kids stayed overnight last night and it was fun to have them. Josh and Sara say and do the CUTEST things!! Most everything Josh does, Sara tries to duplicate, and she does a great job of it!! If I knew how to put pictures in here, I'd put in some cute ones of the two of them. Also, Tristan and Ryan stayed the night with this Grandma Thursday night after Ryan's Flag Football game got over, and we made a whole bunch of Halloween cut-out cookies yesterday morning. Here again, pictures would be nice....eh?? At the football game, little Anna refused to come to me to sit on my lap, but after the game got over, when she saw that her two brothers were going to get to 'stay all night with Grandma', boyee--she scrambled over to me and climbed into my arms, and got all "happy-ed up" and wanted me to take her with me so SHE could 'stay over' TOO! What a 'fickle' little doll!!

Lance and Jen are in Salt Lake with Blaine and Lisa, and Wade's gone to California this week-end, so I bet he's enjoying much warmer weather than the rest of us around here are! Our 'high' temp today is just supposed to be 35! Well--Happy Snowy Fall Day to everyone!!

Well, I'm sure SLOW about this 'Blogging Stuff!'

I guess I'd better take time to put more information on my Blog, 'cause people may be checking in to see what I've written, from time to time. Now that I'm reading so many other peoples' blogs, I find that I have to use a 'blogging title' in order to even COMMENT about things they've said. So that makes my 'Karen's Korner 66' title available to other readers. But I don't know how to post pictures, so anything I write will likely not be very "entertaining" to anyone. (By the way--the 66 is not for my age---yet---but for a YEAR that's very dear to us.)

The thing that is most 'dear to us' at this stage of life is our FAMILY!! We LOVE being with our kids and with our grandkids. We have such a good, good time together. (If I knew how to post pictures, I'd put up a picture of each of our individual little families at this point....) We took a big week-long Family Reunion trip to the Oregon Coast the first of August this year, and all had a WONDERFUL time together. Now that Brian and Kam and their two little ones have moved back here to Idaho from living in London, England---I think we'll ALL be able to get together lots more often. I'm glad they lived in England for a time like they did, though, because it provided an opportunity for me and Dennis to go to Europe three different times during the 4 years they lived there. We even went just in April of this year, and it was SO FUN!

Three of our sons live within 25 miles of us here in Idaho, with their darling families and we have marvelous times being with all of them. And our other son, Blaine and his little family just live in Utah, 2 1/2 hours away from us. (Blaine and his wife, Lisa and their four kids just boarded a plane yesterday and flew to San Francisco; and I talked with him a few minutes ago as they were just arriving at Fisherman's Wharf for a day of sight-seeing. What a fun time they're having!)

I have lots of interesting things going on in my life, but without pictures, it'll likely be boring for anyone to just READ what I have to say, so I'm going to quit writing at this point and try to figure out how to put pictures in with what I write. I mean---how interesting would it be for you to hear all about me making lots of containers of beautiful strawberry freezer jam, without being able to SEE all those lovely little red jams??? (...too bad I don't know how to put cutsie little 'smiley faces' in here, either....) Anyway--General Conference is about ready to start, so bye for now.

Our Oregon Coast Family Reunion

My very own blog--WOW!!

Well, My son Wade set up a blogging place for me......Wasn't that WONDERFUL of him?! I've been reading other people's Blogs for a long time now, but I think I'm going to really enjoy having one of my own wherein I can write down my thoughts whenever I get a few minutes extra. My title: "Karen's Two Cents", likely ought to be "Karen's Ninty-Nine Cents" if it truly reflects how many thoughts I will have on different subjects, cause I ususally have TONS of thoughts---rather than just a minimal amount!

I'm supposing that Wade, Kamber, Blaine, Lisa, Jen, Melissa--and sometimes maybe Lance and Brian, will check in from time to time to see what my "two-cents spot" has written in it, but I'm betting my Trent guy never will! :) My dear friend Eva, who lives across the road, would just LOVE to be able to read and write on blogs, because she LOVES keeping up with the 'goings-on' of her loved ones, but she doesn't know how to use a computer yet. She sure loves the pictures and writings that I've shared with her, that OTHERS have sent, and I love to include her in all the fun things that "I" myself get included in!

On this first blog, I will write about the nice Relief Society lesson I was able to give today. I am delighted to get to give lessons in Relief Society again, because it's my favorite place to teach---(everyone is so very attentive and helpful and responsive and QUIET...so it's my most enjoyable setting in which to teach....)

I taught a lesson from a talk given by President Uchtdorf in the Nov. Ensign, called "Have We Not Reason To Rejoice", and it's a beautiful talk about appreciating the times we live in, loving to live the gospel, and enduring to the end. In it he said that when he was a young boy, he thought that "enduring to the end" meant that he had to try harder to stay awake until the end of their church meetings. He has since learned that there's lots more to it than that, so a whole lot of the lesson was dealing on what to do to 'endure to the end'---faithfully. And it was really fun to prepare and to give. I couldn't believe it, but I was so well-prepared that I wasn't even nervous today!

In the way of NEWS....our oldest grandson, Ryan Dennis, is going to have a Monumental Occasion take place this coming Saturday....he's going to be Baptized!! His baptism will take place Saturday morning at 9:30 A.M. in the Shelley Stake Center (the same building where their family goes to church....), and Ryan's dad, Lance, will be the one to baptize him. His Grandma Willyerd will give a talk on 'Baptism', and his Grandma Hone will give a talk on 'The Holy Ghost'. Ryan is pretty excited to get to have this nice event take place.

In the way of OTHER news.....We now have two brand new little Grandsons---Bryson Blaine, born to Blaine and Lisa on Valentine's Day, (in Layton Utah), weighing in at 6 lbs. 10 oz, being19 inches long. And eight days later----Spencer (something) Bishop born to Brian and Kamber on George Wasington's birthday, (in London England), weighing 7 lbs. 13 oz., 21 inches long. The Mamas of both little boys are doing fine and feeling pretty good., and the Daddys are being good helpers. The Grandparents are pretty proud to have these two new little guys in the family---making us now have ELEVEN gandchildren!!

Well, this is a lot of writing for my first time at Blogging on my OWN blog site, so I will bring this to a close, finally, and say goodbye for now. Happy new week ahead to you all.

Love,

Mom