Happy Birthday, MaryAnn!

Friday the 13th was a very lucky day for me in 1981!

Here are some cakes through the years:

March 1992 (On their 11th Birthday they got to have an ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins!)

1988:

1986:

From the Rainbow News 1986: "MaryAnn's Fifth Super Birthday!" by Mandy "MaryAnn had her fifth birthday on Thursday, March 13, 1986. She got a lot of neat and exciting things. Some of them were a Cabbage Patch kid named Caren Rosie. She got a watch that when you push the button the time pops out. She also got some clothes that she has been wearing almost every day since her birthday, some clothes for her doll, and a game called CandyLand which everyone loves to play. She also had a party and got a lot of other things too. Her cake was a teddy bear--it had raisins for the nose and red hots for the mouth. It had big eyes on it and a bow. The eyes were the wiggly kind. That night I had a school program. Everyone went to that. MaryAnn's birthday was very fun!

1985:

From the Rainbow News: 1985 "MaryAnn's Birthday" by Mandy

"MaryAnn had her birthday on March 13th. In the morning she opened her presents. She got a PlayDoh set, a spelling desk, some makeup and some clothes. I was sick that day so I stayed home from school. I played with some of her presents. After school, she had a party. She got a watering can and some paper dolls and some pictures to color. After dinner we had her cake. It was yellow with chocolate frosting and had little Cabbage Patch dolls standing on it."

Something special about MaryAnn is that for many years she always left a display on her bed before she left for school. This was not occasionally. It was EVERY day. It was not just a mess either, but a carefully organized presentation. Here is an example:

Lots of love to a wonderful daughter!

Empty Nesters at FHE!

Last night our Family Home Evening group met at the Hansens. We started out by singing these words to the tune of "There Is Beauty All Around:"

"There is beauty all around, when there's no one home
There is joy 'cause there's no sound, when there's no one home

I can curl up in a nook, take a bath or read a book

I don't even have to cook, when there's no one home

No one's home, No one's home

There is joy and peace abounds, when there's no one home!"

No, this isn't our theme song that we sing every week as we celebrate our kids being gone from our homes. Quite the opposite! We love talking about our families! It seems like we especially like talking about our grandchildren. But sometimes we get mixed up about each other's children. So last night we were asked to come prepared with pictures and information to tell the group about each one of our children. Between the five couples there were 22 children to learn about.

I made this chart so everyone could get a better picture of our family:

I also brought these family photos:

It was fun to see how much people love talking about their children. We are a pretty lucky group because of the couples there last night, all the sons and many of the daughters had served missions, all who were married had been sealed in a temple and all 22 children were active in the church. Wow! But the final thing that stood out to me after everyone was done was that if you raise your family in the gospel of Jesus Christ, even if there are hard things along the way, your family will be happy, successful and filled with love. There definitely is beauty all around when there's love at home!

Grandparents Bearing Gifts!

We try to bring some fun surprises to the grandchildren when we visit. It's not easy choosing just the right thing. We did a pretty good job this time. Here are Heidi's girls working on their art projects:

Elizabeth is making her own book:

Courtney made this bouquet of flowers and gave it to her teacher at school:

Sarah is being cute and happy and I think she liked the little doll in the bed that we gave her:

Sam loved his Indiana Jones Legos:

We thought Eleanor might like Legos too, especially these that came in a pink container and make a house with flowers:

Peter is enjoying his cars and roadway:

And Penny is being cute in her new clothes:

P.S. When we arrived at Eleanor's house, she was so excited to show us and tell us things. But she was most excited for us to go downstairs and see Sam's fedora! We thought that was so funny. But she looks adorable wearing it!

The Royal Treatment!

We certainly got the "Royal Treatment" on our recent trip to Kansas!

Sarah and Elizabeth insisted that I wear this crown!

Courtney gave us the royal tour of her "school" which includes her bed and walls. We enjoyed picking her up from her real school and taking her to Wendy's for lunch!

And we were treated to a gymnastics exhibition by Lady Elizabeth and Lady Sarah...

and a skating show which also included Lady Courtney.

Heidi took us to see their soon-to-be castle:

We were presented with all of this artwork:

We got to meet Princess Penelope Jane!

And attend a royal banquet (aka Blue and Gold dinner*) which included some fancy swordplay by Sam and Eleanor:

Sir Peter enjoyed it all very much!

And a real highlight was a grand tour of the Kingdom of Cessna by none other than Prince Charming himself--seen here with the Royal Consort:

(Jeff took us on an interesting tour where we got to see some airplanes on the assembly line and then also to see the mock ups in the "show room." We saw the Sovereign, Citation, Mustang and the one he is working on, the Columbus. It was really interesting! We were required to wear those safety glasses on the tour.)

Thanks to all of the Knights and Ladies!! We enjoyed our visit and our dinner at the Round Table (aka Pizza Hut) very much!!

*Blue and Gold Dinner: I thought the Blue and Gold dinner was so clever and so much fun. It was a Knights and Castles theme. They had swords for all the kids to play with and several castle sets to play with as well. The dinner was chicken legs, fruit, and cheese--no silverware allowed. The centerpieces on the tables were baskets of loaves of bread from which you could tear off as much as you wanted. It was perfect for Cub Scouts and their families. We saw Jeff receive a special award for his 3 years of service in Webelos. And we saw his Webelos perform a skit they made up entitled: A Day in the Life of Simon Cowell. It included such scenes as the breakfast scene: "These are the worst Cheerios I have ever tasted!" Lots of fun!

Baby Blessings Are Special!

We recently attended the Baby Blessing of our newest granddaughter, Penny.

The McClellan family came to participate in the event. Courtney and Elizabeth had specially curled hair for the occasion!

Sam and Elizabeth sitting in their CTR 6 chairs waiting for Primary to begin:

Later that day Heidi and family hosted everyone for a very delicious dinner. Here are the kids eating their dessert:

And we even got a picture of the entire Harrison family after church on the big day:

It was also the blessing day of Daniel in Kyiv:

But what made the day most special to me were some comments made by the bishop of the Harrison Park Ward. I think I sometimes take for granted and feel it's almost routine for babies to be blessed in our church. But he pointed out what a wonderful and unique thing it is for a father to be able to stand up before God and the church to give his new child a patriarchal blessing. It's not routine and when you think about all the babies born in the world only a very, very few have this wonderful event in their lives!

A Dream Come True?

On our recent visit to Kansas we had an experience many people only dream about!

Did we:

1) Get to ride with tornado chasers?

2) Watch Charles argue a case in court?

3) Get to fly in a Cessna jet?

No! We got to judge a dessert contest!!

This included sampling 12 diferent desserts. We were the guest judges (flown in from California as Jeff announced and with almost 120 years of eating experience between us as Dan commented) for the the Father-Son Dessert Contest at the Cub Scout Blue and Gold dinner. Don't laugh! Most of the desserts were actually very yummy. They are pictured below:

We chose the Castle Cake in the second picture for Best Presentation of the Theme and the cake with Blue and Gold written on the top in the first picture for Best Tasting. It was actually a very hard decision. There were three that were extra yummy!

Happy Anniversary!

Wishing Mike and Becky a wonderful day and a wonderful year ahead!