Week of March 24th, 2014

Monday - Happy Birthday Gabe and Leah

Such a wonderful blessing to have Leah arrive. We are very thankful. Happy B-Day Gabe!

Achievement Days
The quilt is finished! The girls wanted to have the branch sign a card on Sunday, so we did that. Another girl wanted to read a scripture to Sis. Webster. They have really taken off on the service end of it.

We also celebrated all the girls birthday with cake and ice cream. They each took turns blowing out candles.

Thursday
It was District Meeting and transfers, so we ate lunch. We made a big pan of enchiladas, tossed salad, and corn and the Elders brought other food to go with it. We lost one of our Elders who had only been here for 2 transfers.

Our District

We taught a lesson on the Tree of Life in the afternoon and then gathered up the Achievement Day girls and headed for the Assisted Living place to give Rita her lap quilt. She was so surprised and loved the visit and the card. Here is Julia (the non-member) reading a scripture to her.

Charleen, who had the idea, is reading her a scripture.
It's a very beautiful place right along the Hudson River.

Charleen, Emily, Cassie, Julia in back of Rita Webster. I feel their service has influences the Branch for good and been a good example. We are going to take a Sacrament meeting to Rita in April. She is so alone.

Friday & Saturday
We had a big day with teaching Trooper Davis and then scanning pictures again with Brother Kruppenbacher. He is sure enjoying it. Saturday we took flyers around to all the inactive people we have visited and found several home who we have missed lately. It was good. Then we headed out about 3:00 in the afternoon for Joe's home. It took about 4 hours to get there.

Leah and Happy Tesha!

Aunt Cathy's daughter, Catherine, and her family came for the blessing. They live in Vermont. Joe & family went up last fall and spent some time with them when they went to Sharon, Vermont.
It was so good to see them and visit with them. They have lived in Vermont for 15 years, so she is very happy to have family out here. Their kids sure enjoyed playing with Ben and Zach.
Caleb, Jon (Catherine's husband), Dad, and Joe

Leah in her blessing outfit.

Andrea, Mariah, Quenla, Max holding Zach, Ben and Caleb looking on

Catherine had a good time shopping for Leah. She gave her a dress, a beautiful fuzzy blanket, and a beautiful Willow Tree statue of mom and baby.

Joni's hand, Tesha's hand, and Baby Leah's hand

All of us: Grandma, Jon, Andrea, Caleb, Mariah, Quenla, Catherine, Grandpa holding Zach
Joe, Tesha holding Leah, Max - Joni is taking the picture

Ben and Leah

 Helping Zach hold Leah

Ben thinks Leah is the cutest girl, Joe thinks Tesha is the cutest girl. It surely is a toss up!
I love the glow of new mothers

A very happy family
Zach, Joe, Tesha holding Leah, and Ben

Joe's foot and Leah's foot. What a thing to inherit from your father.
I'm sure there is much more to her heritage than spreading her toes!

Head Shot

Proud parents

Who does she look like? Ben or Zach? I think she looks like Leah

So, I love the parent shots.

I love you all very much. Family brings such joy.
Random family news: John did not get the job at UVU. They got a bunch of instruments and changed the job description to someone that can take care of them, but John's not too disspppointed right now because he loves his work. Peter still needs our prayers. This has been a wicked thing to get over. How are you Spencer? Haven't heard back from you:) and
Ellen still really likes Daniel.

Have a wonderful week. I am looking forward to General Conference.

REMEMBER, IF YOU PREFER A CERTAIN DAY FOR ME TO CALL, PLEASE LET ME KNOW. WE WILL BE USING GOOGLE + OR SKYPE (This is my Mother's Day call. We are doing it from Joe's because he has the internet.)

Week of March 17 (little late), 2014

Exciting News - Little Leah has finally arrived!!

Joe, we are all waiting for pictures of our little 8 1/2 lb. baby with blonde hair and born on Gabe's birthday, March 24th.

Not as exciting news, but still fun

We are excited to go on a day trip to the Stature of Liberty and Ellis Island on May 24th. I think we will have a good time with our class members and other Senior Citizens. We will take lots of pictures. Don't lose hope in the blog. Next week we will have pictures of Leah's blessing.

Random pictures from driving around:

On the side of a building

Homemade Buzz Lightyear for the kids!

Quilting without frames is just not the same.

A strange picture you may ask? It is our landlady that lives across the street walking her grandchildren home after a sleep over. They live just down the street.

AHHHHHHH, such fond memories. Dad took the picture. I think we were both jealous of her.

On the side of another building

We had so much fun scanning Brother Kruppenbachers pictures yesterday. We are doing it again in about 30 minutes. He had a wonderful time looking at pictures he hadn't seen for years and he was amazing in identifying them. His sense of humor runs in the family. When his brother Charles came in, he apologized for being late. He said the reason was, "I just got here."

It is wonderful to see the difference it makes when we remember our past and those who have gone before us. Most important of all is to remember our Savior, Jesus Christ and what He did for us. Without Him we have no hope. 

Our hope lies in His love for us and our love for Him.

Week of March 10 (little late), 2014

Tuesday - Happy Birthday Great-Grandma Catharine Jensen

Happy Birthday yesterday to Kaden and Max

Happy Birthday the week before to Ben, Spencer and Marri

Happy Birthday next week, or so, to Gabe and Cambria

Yesterday we were so busy all day I didn't get a chance to do my blog. 

Again, most of the news is in the letter, so here are the pictures:

They are making pizza. Notice the cute aprons Tesha made.

I bought material for 2 lap quilts and pre-bound it with Tesha's sewing machine.

We are going to tie it at Achievement Days and then give them to the 2 oldest members of our ward. One is in the nursing home and they won't know her, but last time I visited her she said she had been thinking about how wonderful it would be to go to church one more time. 

Playing with legos that Ben got for his birthday.

Hard to say good-bye

Albany Zone Training - We were waiting for our Elder's at a meeting,

so I took a picture of the Sister missionaries and sent it to Katie Call.

There had been an ice storm the night and morning of our meeting.

This is the tree outside the stake center. It was ice crystals frozen on the tree. Some were long like icicles. I just couldn't capture near as beautiful as it was.  

We were visiting a member after and he like to feed the deer. This is in his front yard.

Is this familiar to any missionaries? It is 9:38 p.m. and we are just getting home and eating dinner.

The Primary Activity Day that I was in charge of:

 

Taking pictures to put on the picture with Jesus

 Hearing the story of feeding the 5,000 while they are eating

Retakes of Noah to get a better angle. He just loves Elder Jensen

The kids had a lot of fun. All six of them. 

Yesterday we had a great 2 hour visit with Brother Kruppenbacher and we are going to record his conversion story next week. Wisdom from him this week:

When we have trials:

"When we have difficulties, it gives us opportunities to show our true love of God."

When we have temptations:

"Thank you Heavenly Father for another opportunity to reject Satan."