A little Random....Ok, A Lot of Random

I thought of a metaphor to describe Joey the other night. It was kind of late and so maybe a bit odd.... but I think it really works. Joey wears responsibility like a lycra suit. It fits him like a second skin but is a little too binding to relax in.
Here is Mr. Lycra himself with JB. I'm not even sure why I took the picture but I guess its pretty cute so I had to add it.
....& here I am. I guess one of those times I couldn't sit down to eat....I don't know...but my closet door is opened and that really bugs me.
OK so if you haven't figured it out....That's Crowdin's eye. Don't ask. I have no idea.
So Joey brought home this perfectly nice blow snake. And then let Crowdin torture him right while our home teachers were visiting. Crowdin just barked and barked at it and the snake was all coiled up and hissing and striking at him and blowing. That was the great part....the blowing. Blow snakes expell a huge lot of air out of their bodies when they hiss. It is very intimidating and our hometeacher Bishop, President, Doctor Besendorfer pointed out to us that you could actually see the snakes whole body contract when he blew. Naturally Joey did what all real men would do. He picked Crowdin up and dropped him on the snake. The result was that the poor snake was so traumatized that we had to let it go. This is a picture of him severely mad. He is very tightly wrapped around Joey's wrist and wants to bite his face off. I'm pretty sure he won't ever like humans again....Or little barky dogs either.

Mr. Fix It!!

Joey has been working hard at remodeling our old home. I know he gets very tired of it, but he does such a good job. Here he is putting in our new flooring in the Dining Room. We tore out very ugly, old, sickly dark brown carpet. Underneath that was the old green linoleum squares from before the 1960's I think. This new floor looks so nice.
He finished the dining room and into the kitchen, under the pantry, and then the entire laundry room. We were only able to do a portion of the kitchen because we are remodeling it as well. We'll finish the floor after pulling out cabinets and putting in all the new ones.
Yay! We were able to put our first section of cabinets in!! They are so pretty compared to what we've had for these past 12 years. I will feel so pampered when we get this all done. I actually found these online, a company from KC Missouri. I was impressed with them after all my research and I am still impressed with the product. I put most of these cabinets together by myself...(that means they were very easy.) I couldn't have done the pantry without Joey's help though. Someday I'll have to remove the old border on the walls...but that project won't be for a while yet.
This is a close up of the pantry. I was hoping you'd be able to see the pretty grain of the maple and the chest nut glazed finish. We were able to put in our first section of cabinets where we didn't have any cabinets before. That way when we start pulling out the old ones, we still will have a little bit of storage space. I'm still not sure what we'll do about counter tops. I haven't decided. (If you want to compare these to my old cabinets, there's a little shot of them in a couple of Delila's pics with Crowdin in an earlier blog.)

Big Bear Lake, CA

We were able to take Snook and Papa Joe with us to Luke's blessing in California. They have been visiting from South Carolina since the first of May. We had so much fun. Fortunately I took these pictures at Big Bear Lake. Unfortunately, I forgot to take any other pictures or I didn't have my camera when I wanted to.

My boys and I....All my family thought it was such a bother to be in a picture. You should have heard them complaining because I wanted to take an assortment of pictures. No wonder I didn't get my camera out again. What a HUGE ordeal! But I thought the pictures turned out really cute. Even if we were all a bit scruffy looking.

Big Bear Lake is actually the name of the town where we stayed for two nights before getting to Lacy's and Jason's. It is in the San Bernardino Mountains about three hours away from their house in Santa Ana. I would imagine that it is named for the beautiful Big Bear Lake that we are taking our pictures next to. I think this is a great three generation picture of the Ellison men.




DeDe and I and our sunglasses and a sparkling lake and a beautiful mountain day. And Life is Fine...

It's time to show you LUKE

I've been waiting to tell you all about my brand new first grandson Luke. If I keep waiting until I get all the rest of my blogging caught up then he won't be so new any more...... Introducing LUKE JASON FAAS.

"Hello World!!"

I have a confession to make. Sometimes I think of him as "my Luke", but I try really hard not to say that out loud. I really want to give credit where credit is due. He was born to Lacy and Jason on April 23, 2007 at 3:15 a.m.. Luke weighed 8lbs 14oz when he decided to join us. He came nearly one week early, and we are all very happy about that. But no one is happier about that than his mom Lacy. Imagine if he had been 9 1/2 pounds...that would be his weight if he had waited one more week, and that would not be so fun.

For example, this is a picture of Lacy and Jason on Lacy's birthday. That would be March 18. Luke still had a month to grow-- (I meant a month to go...but grow works perfectly =0) (Lacy looked so adorable but she was very tired!)Happy number 22 Lacy. What a year to celebrate. Lacy worked at an accounting firm called Kramer and Olsen all the way up to two days before Luke came.

While we're on the subject of Lacy's birthday, I have to mention my homemaking skill. I have so few that might be worthy of attention. I really surprised my kids when I started this one in January.Comes with the territory of being a grandma I suppose you could say. I crocheted Lace a throw afghan for her birthday that she can put on her sofa and have handy on any chilly nights up with the baby. As you can see, the big crochet hook was still in it. I hadn't quite finished. So I brought it out when she had Luke and still had some finishing touches to add. It's about half again as long as it is in the picture.

Well....On with the show...

Here we are. Grandma and Luke!I wish this one showed up better. It is Grandpa and Luke. I'll have to try and lighten it up because it is one of my favorite pictures.But just in case. Here's another cute one with Grandpa. I Love It... =0)Luke snoozes away in his carseat/stroller. For the two weeks I was there, he never fussed if he was in his stroller or in the car. Mom's favorite sedative...I just want to kiss his gooshy face all over!!!!!!!!!

Delila and her Photo Mates

Delila was asked to be Glenda. You know who I mean. The good witch. Ordinarily I would never refer to DeDe as a witch. You would not hear that coming from my lips. But since I can put the word "good" in front of it that makes it ok, right? This was for a Relief Society Enrichment night. I think she looks beautiful.

Obviously a Wizard of Oz theme, but since I couldn't be there, I don't quite remember what the tie in was. I just know that when the women showed up they got to take pictures next to Delila and the other Wizard of Oz characters (ie..poster). I don't believe Dorothy or Toto ever showed up for the photo shoot.

Every time I turn around there are more pictures of Crowdin on my camera. Mostly because of Delila.

I don't know...if we'd have dyed him black, I think he'd have made a pretty cute Toto. What do you think?

Delila has been a Teacher's aid this year for Mrs. Thompson'a 4th grade class.

She's so cute.....

and so are her students

The Eagle has Landed

In January JB received his Eagle! This was a huge event in our household. I can't even begin to describe what we (meaning mostly Joey) went through in order for JB to complete his project of building a fence for the forest service. Wow! what a lot of red tape.

There was a blizzard outside that night. After getting back to Nephi from Santaquin we grabbed Delila and Charlie and went to One Man Band. Not the greatest... OK maybe the worst meal I've had. But the company was phenomenal!

Especially my most favorite and cutest husband. He is such a man!! (Delila was with us also but requested I not post the one picture of her. But that's ok because I'll highlight her in the next blog.)

As you can well imagine, Charlie is completely impressed with his big brother's huge accomplishment! (OK...so maybe it looks a lot like we're a huge scouting family...with all my men in their shirts. I have to say that really isn't the case, but it looks nice anyway.)

New Tricks

Here I am on my brand new blog page...and fyi Lacy (or should I say btw), I haven't figured out the picture thing...How can I manage to learn a whole new cut and paste and drag and save and file something, something when I tried to post you a comment this morning on your blog and didn't even manage a something as minor as "sign-in"? I thought I had to use gmail and I thought that this new blog created a gmail account for me. Apparently not so...and that's what I get for thinkin'.

Anyway enough of that. I am off on this exciting adventure of trying to figure out my own blog. Ha! I'll have to come up with a title a lot more catchy than "Ellison's Corner" but for the time being all my creative or intellectual juices escape me and I sit here as empty as a crushed milk jug...(ok maybe not completely empty...but the drip that remains is nevertheless only just a drip. Who wants to be known as a creative drip? Man, I was hoping my page would start out with a little more substance than spilled milk.) I'll try again soon. And Pictures, I promise I will conquer!!