Family-My Greatest Blessing

My greatest treasure on the anniversary of our wedding is the beaitiful children Jay and I have.

They have married well. We now have in our family 11 living children (Donald and Dale are with their Dad), 9 sons and daughters-in-law, 67 children and 23 companions of grandchildren that  all were married in the temple and 55 gr eat grandchildren with 6 more grandchildren that are expected in the next few months.  This makes a total of 169 all because Jay and I fell in love and sealed our love in the temple.  All 23 of our grandchildren  that have married have been temple wedding.
                                                              My children on their wedding day.

                                            Another view of my children and their spouses

    This  year I got lots of new photos of grandchildren to add to my wall and keep it up to date.

 I have them on the wall in the order in which they came into our family.  These are my oldest            grandchildren.

                                                   These are the middle grandchildren

                                             And the youngest grandchildren.

These are our youngest two grandchildren and a photo of all the family taken a t our 50th Wedding Anniversary Party.

I also have a missionary wall with pins showing where we as a family have served missions.  Jay and I both served three full time missions and thirty one of our grandchildren have served full time missions plus  eleven  married into our family. Five of our children served full time missions plus five of their spouses.  Currently only two are serving with more coming soon. I feel so blessed to have a righteous poserity and know that I must  continue to set a good example to all of them.

Christmas 2018 at Rauna and Fred's Home

 In the afternoon on Christmas Day I went over to Rauna and Fred's to take my gift and wish them a Merry Christmas.  They have a beautiful nativity on display.

            Rauna made this for Dale showing his mission and the places where he served in Peru.

 Other big gift s were photo collages for each of her children.  This one is for Erin and Dantley.

                                                           Adrianne's photo collage

                                                                         Jamie's photo collage.

                                                        Rauna  and Fred's wedding collage.

                                                   Fred got a dolly to move heavy objects.

                                          They had a nice Christmas with lots of nice gifts.

                                                      They have a cute collection of Nutcrackers.

               I gave Rauna and Fred my gift for them. 

                                            Koen shows his roller blades he got for Christmas.

Maland really likes his roller blades. 

                                Rauna and Fred and family like playing games together.

                                             They got lot s of new games for Christmas.

Christmas Day 2018

I 

               I did all of our usual Christmas Day traditions with Amy, Ray and Ray's friend Alyssa.

                        Our first tradition is to see what Santa left us in our Christmas stockings.

                                              We found lots of fun things in our stockings.

                                                 I found some great things in my stocking.

                                                        Amy and her Christmas stocking.

                                       Ray shows what he got in his Christmas stocking.

                                                   Alyssa and the things in her stocking.

                                     I will put to good use the things in my Christmas stocking.

We  had cinnamon rolls and oranges for breakfast  and then the Christmas  Races.  Ray was the first one to run.

                                                      Amy had the fastest time this year.

 I participated in the Christmas races also. We have been doing Christmas races ever since I was a child.  

We watched as video that we took of Jay running the Christmas race his last Christmas upon the earth.

                 We had a nice Christmas.  There were lots of gifts around the tree for everyone.

The personalized ornaments of each of my children, grandchildren and great grandchildren made the Christmas tree really beautiful this year.

                        I was anxious to hand out my gift that I have been waiting to give.

                                                       Ray and Amy show their plaques.

I hope this will help them remember that the family is" Together Forever" and "The Answer is More Love".

                                  My plaque has the Conference Center on it.

Amy shows us her plaque.  

 I gave plaques like this to all of my children.  They got to choose what temple  they wanted on it.

                                     Amy and Ray open the other big gift that I got for them.

                                I got them Security Safes to hold all their valuable papers.

                                   I gave them calendars, popcorn and various other small gifts.

                                       Amy likes the pens and coloring book that I gave her.

               I gave Alyssas a book about how to raise a boy since she has two boys ages 5 and 2.

                                           I also gave Ray and Amy some new clothes.

                                        Kenneth and Jenni gave me this beautiful quilt.

Margie gave gift s to Ray this year.  She sent a Denali National Park t-shirt, a beautiful painting and some beauituful scenic postcards from the North Pole where they live.

                                        Amy and Ray gave each other some new clothes.

                                    Amy gave Ray some tape to protect his ankles when he hikes.

                                             I opened this wrapped gift from Amy.

She gave me an Alexa Echo that will answer questions for me, play music and do lots of other things.  This is a beautiful gift .

                         Ray gave me a Garmin watch that will track how many steps I take in a day.

                                                     This should help me get more exercise.

                                                                Ray 's gifts  to Alyssa.

Vernon and Connie gave me a book about "The Race" with photos of David and Daniel running cross country.

                                          Jenni gave Amy a Christmas ornament with "Big Foot" on it.

                            In this photo you can see the beautiful ornaments on the tree.

            Margie made the Christmas Day Dinner. and I made the Christmas Eve Dinner.

                                       My children made it a wonderful Christmas for me.

Ray and Alyssa were anxious to leave on their trip to Texas to kayak the Rio Grande River, back pack and hike.