When Addison is with me I take her to the park every day. This is Jaycee Park and she likes this slide the best but she wouldn't turn so I could get her smiling face. We usually go to this park in the morning while I'm on my walk or on the way home from visitng Grandma Warren at Maple Ridge. Addison always sits in her stroller for an hour on those visits so I like to reward her with a trip to the park. In the afternoon after her nap we like to go to Lion's park right by my house. The slide is much bigger and I sit on the end and say you can't get me and she tries to slide down and touch my back with her feet before I can get up. She will do this over and over and over again.

When Julaine is at school during the week I have the priviledge of babysitting my granddaughter. She is at a cute phase. She seems to be adding words daily to her vocabulary. She may not always say it right but she says it cute. When we go to Jaycee Park she loves this swing because she has more freedom in it and I always worry that she will try to get off while she is swinging but so far so good. When she gets on the swing I always ask her if she wants to go high and she says yeah, yeah.

I had to make a trip to Patterson's orchard for some apples and they had pumpkins, haystacks, flowers, cornstalks and a large giant gourd. As soon as we got there Addison ran for the pumpkins.

She thought this gourd was really neat I tried to get a good picture of her sitting on it and sliding down but this turned out the best.

Addison went from pot to pot trying to smell each flower. She even tries to smell the artificial flowers I have in my home.

We read this book called baby at the farm, it is a touch and feel book, she loves feeling the hay. I couldn't get her to move off the hay for quite some time. She just liked sitting there and rubbing her hand on the hay.

This picture was taken one day when I took her to the parkway for a picnic. She loves to swing and this swing is really high off the ground. When she swings I like to sing to her this little song I made up for my kids when they were small. Swinging, swinging H-i-i-i-g-h, in the sky. Swinging Swinging H-i-i-i-g-h in the the sky. I go up down, up down high in the sky, cause I'm swinging, swinging H-i-i-i-g-h in the sky. She likes me to sing that the whole time while I swing her.

This has been a difficult week for me. Last Sunday after feeding my guys my daughter, Julaine, picked me up and I stayed at her house for the night. I really needed to get out. Qhile at her house Jason grilled us a delicious dinner of hamburgers and chicken with some grilled asparagus. It was so good I'll have to have John grill us some asparagus sometime soon. I spent some time with my adorable Granddaughter and after she was in bed. The three of us watched Avatar. I don't usually sleep to well at her house but that doesn't really matter because the reason I go there is to spend time with Julaine and Jason and of course Addison. In the wee morning hours I started reading a new book "The Time Traveler's Gift. I really like it so far. Julaine brought me back home about 1:30. We fixed Donald dinner and sent him off to work-- this week he's on second shift. About 3:30 in the afternoon my mother-in-law fell and she burst open some clots just under the skin and she was bleeding and I couldn't stop it. she also couldn't put any weight on her one leg. I decided to call 911. They bandaged her arm and took her to the emergency room. I was babysitting Addison so when they called about 7 I explained that I couldn't get there before 10:00 pm. I also asked them if she could walk. They said she couldn't and I expressed my concern about how I would care for her if she couldn't walk. They decided to admit her in the hospital to run further test since the X-ray was fine.
Tuesday morning Don and I went to the hospital to see mom and they told us she was going to be released and they ran a few test. One for a bladder infection and at cat scan on her brain because she was so confused. To make a long story short she is now at Mapleridge nursing home because it seems the veins in her legs seeped out some blood into the muscles and have dried and it's suppose to be very painful and that is why she can't put weight on her leg and hence she can't walk. She will have therapy and they are hoping to bring her back to be able to walk. I have visited her several days now and each time I go she cries and begs me to bring her home. My emotions are raw. Now this was all hard enough but as of yesterday Donald is layed off and it could be until October. We're hoping with all the vacations in July and August that they call him in but we're expecting a long haul.

This Sunday the lesson I taught in gospel doctrine was on Ruth and Naomi and with everything that was going on with my own mother-in-law I did not get throught he lesson without a few tears. I have mixed emotions about all this. It's hard to have her out of our house because she seems so helpless and to put her into someone else hands to care for is difficult but at the same time it's a relief not to have that responsibility. It has not been easy taking care of her and there were times when I was so frustrated that I yelled at her even though I knew she couldn't help what she did to frustrate me. I don't know whether she'll be returning even if she does get the strength in her legs back Don feels it would be best for everyone if she stays in the nursing home.

Relief Society Women's Conference

On Saturday March 20 the Milwaukee South Stake had a Women's Conference. I was asked to speak at the conference and teach two 45 minute classes. They offered three classes and the sisters in our stake were able to choose 2 classes out of three. My talk was on the book I Hate It When Exercise Is the Answer by Emily Watts. The book gave 31 ideas for how to exercise your soul. Emily Watts is a very witty writer and I totally enjoyed reading her book, trying to build a talk around it was a little more difficult. I decided to do a power point showing pictures of a few of the stories that explained how the author came up with the spiritual exercise. I narrowed the exercises down to share only 9 and if I didn't have enough time I could end where ever I was in the presentation. After I finished the power point I felt inspired to make this a hands on lesson. so I went shopping for some cute cards and paper so we could do the exercises as we went through the presentation. I purchased some 6x8 white envelopes and printed the title of the book on the front of them. Inside I put a pen 2 cards and envelopes, some pretty post-its tow write on and two homemade magnet that said Compassion, and Creativity. I made 150 envelopes and there was about 10 left over. So I guess I had about 140 sisters come to my presentation and several told me I did a good job. It was a lot of fun for me and I learned so much I hope that the sisters left feeling uplifted and ready to try something to enlarge their soul

Julaine decided to finish her college education, so she headed back to school early in February. To my great joy I get to have Addison with me 24/5. We are enjoying every moment with her.
She loves any kind of food but especially snack time. Here she dragged out the pretzel container and helped herself. She likes these big pretzel's even better than the little fish ones.

Addison has a hard time sleeping in her pack-n-play so I've been laying down with her trying to get her to sleep. When I sing to her and she goes right to sleep. Here she is in John's bed before I move her to her own.

She loves any kind of music but she really likes playing the piano now that she is tall enough to reach the keys.

Everyday she finds some contraption that she seems to cling to most of the day. Here she is with the extendable duster. She wouldn't put it down all day. She tried to play with her toys while she clung to the duster. What was the fascination? I have no clue!

Grandpa just loves Addison. She has stollen his heart totally. Here he is giving her a snack.

One of my favorite times with Addison is giving her a bath. I love watching her splash and play and get a drink of water from the wash cloth. She loves the water!