Happy 90th Birthday!

April 9th we held a big party for the best 90 year old grandpa ever... Lonnie L Moseley.

Setting up for the party.

All the great grandchildren sang for him.

Everyone took a turn at the microphone telling stories and giving honor to our own personal war hero.

The Three Moseley Musketeers.

3 Musketeers TNG

Remodel!

Our upstairs bathroom has needed help for quite some time. This year, I got the brilliant idea to do like the kids did to me a few years back and remodel the bathroom for Richards' birthday. (They painted the downstairs bathroom and bought some new stuff for it while Richard had me out of the house for the day.) Here is the before picture:So while Richard was out of town at a week-long classes in New Mexico and Texas, the work began. One guy had told me that we'd have everything done but the surround because that took awhile to order but the surround had to go in before the flooring and then the toilet and fixtures were last. One of the reason's I'd wanted to do this was the plumbing needed help. Here is the picture of the new plumbing (yay! no more leaks!) and you can see a bit of the new tub. It did not get as done as I thought originally in that week of construction.

So when Richard got home it was 'Surprise, the bathroom is torn apart and the toilet is in the kitchen. Happy Birthday, dear!' He was a good sport about it while we waited for the surround, flooring, and then plumbing to get put in. We had to tough it out for awhile but in the end, it looks like this:
Yay, new bathroom that doesn't leak and doesn't have tiles falling off.

Early Christmas

December 13, 2009 was a very busy day for the Moseley clan. The day began with everyone stopping by with soups to plug in and keep warm during church. That Sunday was the day James gave his 'farewell' talk in Sacrament Meeting. Extended family and several friends came to the meeting and later, to our home to visit and enjoy all the fabulous soup.

Once we were down to just our zany family, we began the celebrations. While we gathered, everyone stopped for some more soup and cookies. This day was Hillary's birthday (29th I'm sure!) as well as Grandma and Grandpa Moseley's wedding anniversary. They bugged out right after church tho. Since our Christmas party was on her birthday this year, most of Hillary's birthday and Christmas gifts were combined. We got her a nursing manual... maybe I should have checked it out for age appropriateness. For her Christmas, we gave Hillary and Marc some food storage that they get to pick out themselves (ok, it was a gift card to Smith's grocery store).

The girls all received lots of things they loved, including the quilts I made for Natasha and Emma. (We gave Samantha and Adelyn shoes... they get quilts next year.) One of Samantha's favorite gifts was a box full of Nerf type guns. I remember one of Sonia's favorite toys being a He-Man action figure when she was little.

Shawn received a nice bicycle lock from James and Sonia is always happy with anything from Vickie's (Victoria's Secret).

James received a few things to help him as a missionary. The turban on his head is really one of the plain shirts for P-day/exercise wear. His favorite gift was probably the Ipod speaker dock Hillary got him and hopefully one day he'll appreciate the condensed family history book he received.

Richard received some much needed slippers and this cool gun/rifle cleaning kit. I've never seen one as nice as this with it's case and all and I'm sure all the weapons need a good cleaning.

James is good. He was making bread one day (which made Hillary totally jealous that her little brother could make bread) and I was mentioning how I needed a new good rolling pin because although still functional, mine had its handles falling off. He remembered and scouted out a new one for me for Christmas so here I am being goofy and acting like I'm some bad dude spinning the thing on my knee. Whaa-shaaw!

We've been trying to find a good time to get everyone together for a family photo for awhile now and it just wasn't happening. Thanks to Sonia, we did get this family photo on our Christmas day but not before the kids had their silly stunt photos!

We all had a very Merry Christmas day and hope that all our of family and friends had a Merry Christmas too... whatever day they celebrated it on. After all, we should really have that Christmas spirit every day of the year.

Thanksgiving Day 2009

Gotta love this one day a year we get to be thankful for all the blessings (and stuff) we have. One of the things I'm grateful for is all the things my kids make and bring to share. It's all yummy delectable food and goes so well with my turkey, potatoes and best ever stuffing (which doesn't get stuffed). We have tables everywhere with 15 of us. We were down one this year with Marc having been sick all week and feeling sicker still. Sure hope he doesn't have the flu. I even got out my nice china plates and was sad there wasn't really anything that would enable me to use more of the china set. We usually set the food out buffet style so all that was really needed on the tables were the plates. Next time.

It seems like when the family gets together, there are always fun tricks to show the little ones. Usually it's Marc that has great tricks but this year Leland filled in. I have no idea what he's doing with the toothpicks but he surely had everyone's attention!

Once the (Gingell) girls were done with their dinner, they were clamoring for Auntie to paint their nails. Sonia dutifully found my supplies and was more than happy to oblige them.

Then comes the part where we celebrate Roxanne's birthday. Roxanne always has to have her birthday celebrated on Thanksgiving instead of having her own day but she's such a trooper. (No worries, Grandma Petersen had the same problem.) Roxanne got lots of gift cards so I see some new clothes in her future!

As the evening evolved, we had an impromptu photo shoot with grandma and grandpa. First with their great-grandchildren and then with their grandchildren. Everyone was being pretty silly.

As we sat around visiting, Buggie had a great time sliding down her mom's legs. She kept climbing up on the couch and then sliding down Hillary's legs for about 20-30 minutes. Phenomenal.

Elder Moseley

We had planned a family party for yesterday to celebrate a few birthdays. We always have dinner, presents, cake and ice cream and a whole lot of fun (as seen below in pictures). Saturday I went shopping for the dinner items I needed and came back to a message from the stake executive secretary. He'd called for my husband who was working late but I had this feeling I should call him back so I did. To my surprise, he said that our son James' paper to receive the Melchizedek priesthood was going before the High Council in the morning and that if he was approved, he would meet with the stake president and most likely be ordained that next day. I didn't think this would happen until October and with such short notice, it was a blessing that everyone was coming already! James was approved, the meeting with the stake president went well (he even said he'd 'push the button' on the mission papers) and the ordination time was set. The wonderful High Councilor assigned to see this was done agreed to come back at 5pm to do the ordination. I just had to tell our family members who were already coming at 5pm to meet at our stake center instead of at our house. What a crazy wonderful weekend!

Everyone enjoyed the salsa and chips I put out as an appetizer. Thanks cousin Joann for such yummy salsa!!

You can see how much fun we have... it's all over Adelyn's dress!

It's rare to get our precious grandparents out for these family parties. It's just too much commotion for them but they do love the kids.

Happy Birthday America!

Yesterday was the great day we celebrate our freedom and our country. In our family, we also celebrate the day grandpa got shot down in France. (Maybe this has something to do with why my kids are so morbid and think about straps breaking and falling to their deaths while parasailing!) In truth, we are really celebrating that he lived through this death defying event. Matthew summed it up eloquently on Facebook: "65 years ago today, my grandpa Moseley was shot down behind German lines in Normandy. A French farmer risked everything to hide grandpa (who pretended he was deaf/mute to fool German soldiers) for over two months until he could escape to the advancing allied lines. Grandpa (age 88) is still going strong. I have a lot to be grateful for today."

To celebrate, we got together, barbequed, made homemade raspberry ice cream with raspberries out of Roxanne's garden, roasted marshmallows and hot dogs (Addie loved the hot dogs and ate at least three whole ones, maybe four), and set off fireworks. Hillary's kids played in the water and took pictures of anything and everything. This probably sounds pretty much like anyone else's July 4th celebrations but another thing we do is probably unlike most everyone else. Each of us take the opportunity to call or trek over to grandpa's to visit him, thank him for his service and generally bask in the blessing of having him with us.

Here's Shawn playing games on his new Samsung Impression cell phone. He and Sonia got these new phones the day before. I purchased the same phone about a week earlier but didn't know half the stuff about the new phone that Shawn did. Here I was trying out the camera portion and I've also figured out how to send it to my email so I can save the picture to my computer. There's probably an easier way... like using the USB cable that came with the phone?
We also had an unplanned, impromptu birthday celebration for Sami. She will be officially 4 tomorrow. In this picture she has on the new outfit she received from Sonia and Shawn (dress, necklace, flip-flops).

Who knew that one of the highlights of shooting off fireworks would be making shadows on the garage door!

Happy birthday America and thanks for having your birthday when it's warm. Happy Fourth of July grandpa, we're proud of you!

Milestones

This last Saturday my oldest granddaughter, Natasha, was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She was so happy to be eight and to have her dad baptize her.

It was a full day. I went up to Hillary and Marc's to get the hams started. Between Gingell's and Moseley's, it took two hams and my turkey roaster came in handy! There wasn't even that much left over, just enough for a few sandwiches but the bonus is that both Hillary and I have a ham-bone for soup. I'll be making beans and ham.

Back to the baptism... due to some miscommunication, we were late to the service. It turned out ok but we were kind of running around like chickens with our heads cut off trying get everyone in the car, figure everything out, and get everyone to where they needed to be. That didn't end once we got to the church. Then it was go here, go there and oh, Tasha and Marc need to change! It's obvioiusly been too long since I've been involved in a baptism and it didn't help that they do the service a bit different up north. Once the baptisms were done, we moved back to Hillary and Marc's for dinner.

The hams were perfect and to them we added rolls, veggies, salads and eclair cake. Mmmmm. While everyone was enjoying their dinners, Sonia was surrounded with little ones waiting their turn to have bunnies painted on their toenails. The Moseley siblings took the opportunity to pose for serious and fun photos. My favorite is the James Bond-ish style poses.

Before long Sonia, Shawn and I were the only guests left so we gave Addie presents (since her birthday was the week before) and she was so happy getting her favorite things, a horse and a dog (stuffed of course!). By then Tasha and Emma were getting ready to go see the Hannah Montana movie with Sonia and Shawn so I bugged out leaving Hillary with my few Easter things to dole out Easter morning. Dad, James and I had a quiet and very different Easter meal... grilled steak and baked potato! Mmmmm.

March's Rockin' Birthday Party!

This last Sunday we celebrated Marc's birthday (1-1/2 weeks late) and Tasha's birthday (2 weeks early). We had quite the interesting birthday dinner with hamburgers and cheddar & sour cream potato chips for Marc and Cafe Rio style taco salad for Tash. We also had other great chips and so much food we all could have eaten twice! OK, well, maybe once and a half. It was a nice day so most of the adults were allowed to veg on the couch... er, I mean let their dinners settle... while the kids ran around outside. They loved just being outside and watching James work on his garden.

Marc and Tash got some fun and/or useful presents. One that Marc bought for himself was an Ipod Touch. Here he's showing me how cool it is and I don't know where he came up with them but he was showing me all these different fart sounds he had saved on there... wet & juicy, lawn mower, classic... he had about a dozen and it was so funny. He also had a light saber application where when you swing the Ipod like Luke Skywalker, it makes all the appropriate sounds. I could use one of those!

For dessert we had Oreo pie, because Marc had requested pie and then Tasha said we should have pie because that is what her dad likes. Tasha is a very considerate girl. Sonia surprised us with a special cake for Tash... total chocolate decadence and made from scratch. I totally want this cake for my next birthday so I don't feel so bad for getting another year older! Head on over to Sonia's blog to see this wonderful piece of edible art.

It's My Party And I'll Cry If I Want To... cuz we were all laughing so hard!

What a busy week it has been. We celebrated my birthday early, on the 8th. Everyone came over and we had a blast. Blasts start with super yummy food ya know... we had turkey and all the trimmings, cake and ice cream. Yah, super yummy food is pretty much standard issue for Moseley parties. Then as we gathered together to open presents, the little ones started showing off.

We're all just sitting there and all of the sudden Sami hops up on James' shoulders like an expert trapeze gymnast. He was a little surprised but took it all in stride... he's such a good uncle. Next thing he knows he can hardly breathe with Sami's hands clamped over his face in a death grip and with kicks in the ribs to get a move on. Sami clearly thought she was riding her favorite bronco. Just look at that adorable smile.

Addie got in on the action too making faces with her hands. Then she started terrorizing all of us with her roars. Addie made sure each member of the family was scared to death as she told each of us "RAWR" and we dutifully showed our terror. However, when Addie went up to Auntie, she must have lost her nerve because her roar became quite timid, "er, er... rawr?" Oh my gosh, we laughed till our sides hurt. Encouraged by all our laughter, Addie continued her reign of terror the rest of the evening.

Thursday we went to Desert Star for the hilarious show "Home School Musical" starring Zach Teflon, Amanda Hugginkiss, Linoleum Dynamite, LaVelcro Edwards, and Palmyra Kirtland. It's truly a delightful show and runs through March 21, 2009.

Friday I spent my actual birthday getting stuff done that I've wanted to do, like pinning a couple quilts so I can move on with the stitching. I also had fun transporting Tasha from Bountiful to Aunties. The day ended with a nice dinner out at the Magic Wok.

Saturday, 4 of the 5 family members with a February 13th birthday got together for lunch at grandma's. There was me and dad, grandma and grandpa, Alice and Jeremiah, and Todd and Dori. Everyone brought the required super yummy food for a Moseley bash and we had a great time eating and visiting. I hadn't seen Todd in a while and don't recall ever meeting his wife Dori so that was quite a nice treat. It's been a wonderful week for all it's busy-ness cuz this is the kind of busy I like. Bonus, a friend gave me a present at church today. I love when my birthday lasts all week!

Thanksgiving Birthdays

These last few months have been hectic. So what else is new, right? After all, it is the holidays. Along with our holidays, we have two birthdays in our family. We started out Thankgiving day with the usual festivities. Sonia sets a beautiful table with the set of china grandma gave her. While cleaning up, Leland kept the kids entertained by letting them pull him down the stairs. I think he is practicing for if Roxanne ever throws him down the 'stair' at their place! Hee hee

Next we moved on to Roxanne's birthday. With her birthday being the 25th of November, it has been celebrated on Thanksgiving day most of her life. Of course we make the standard jokes about the whole country celebrating her birthday. I usually have the kids choose what we are having for their birthday dinner. Since Roxanne always gets turkey, the thing she chooses is 'obscene amounts of stuffing!' Her siblings gave her a fabulous get-away weekend at Bear Lake which you can read about on their blogs. They had a great time and were all kinds of silly. I made her a jeans rag quilt and wrapped it around a picnic kit with everything you'd need for a picnic, such as the salt and pepper that Sami was just sure was a set of binoculars! Once she tried it, her sisters had to try looking through the salt and pepper too. It was pretty funny.

A scant 2-1/2 weeks later is Hillary's birthday. It's such a busy time of the year that I've thought about celebrating her birthday on Thanksgiving too but I never seem to think of it in time to warn the rest of the family or do anything about it myself. Maybe next year.

Of course the 'Gingell Girls' can be found wherever there are presents. They don't even seem to care who the present is for but just love to see what's inside. It's a magical time for them so whoever is having the birthday has at least one set of huge eyes twinkling close by. I found it very interesting that after making quilts for Sonia, James and Roxanne's birthdays, that Hillary was still surprised and exclaimed: "Oh, I get to keep it? It's not just wrapping?

The big five-oh

Not to be mistaken with Hawaii five-o, tee-hee! Yesterday we celebrated my 50th birthday. The forties weren't bad but 50 really sounds old... just ask my granddaughters! (It might take a week or two to get used to that number.) It was a really nice day and the best was having my kids and grandkids come. The funniest thing; Sami was leaning over me to 'help' blow out the candles but when Sonia stooped down on the other side of me with the cake she hopped down and in a flash had run over and blown out all the candles!