Finally An Update!

I have been incredibly busy lately and horrible about updating. I've also been waiting on my Dad to send me some pictures he took of Avery and her cousins which I still don't have and will have to add later.....

We had a big snow storm and Avery and I got creative with our snow"women" we made....

February

My last remaining grandparent passes. My Grandfather Morris Mitchell left us on the 13th of the month. As sad as it was, there was comfort in knowing he was reunited with my Grandmother once again. We went to Burley for the funeral which was rather short and sweet. My Grandfather despite his oneryness was a brilliant man that loved geneology and Grandma's chocolates! It wasn't until I was married that I actually got to know him better. I feel blessed that my daughter had the chance to know him too. It was great being together as a family and although unfortunate the opportunity for gathering, what a blessing to draw close to eachother and form stronger family bonds that will last us forever! On a light note, Avery has made a wonderful friend with my Aunt Yvette. She latched onto her as soon as she entered the building and pranced around being the drama queen that she is. It was so sweet for me to watch them together. Picture to come soon!

March

We headed down to Salt Lake for one of Britt's company parties that we totally flaked on....but we did get a nice hotel to stay in thanks to Enterprise..... We ate at a few of our favorite restaurants, visited IKEA, but most importantly went to see Grandma Mattie. I have missed her soooo much. With the death of my Grandfather the realization of how blessed I have been to have her in my life was all too clear. Not only has she been the closet Grandma to me she has also been one of my dearest friends. I know it is because of her that I am supposed to be a Cornaby. She has always loved and supported me, listened and loved unconditionally. The first time I met her we went to dinner at Chuck-o-rama, her favorite place. She told me at the end of the date that she knew I was the one because I didn't load up my plate and throw away lots of food. I took little tastes of everything and that impressed her. Silly and unforgettable to me. I can honestly say that she is the thing I miss most on a very short short list of things I miss about Utah.:) Avery got hold of the camera and it was quite funny to see things from her point of view.

Speaking of the camera.....Avery is hilarious! She sneaks the camera and snatches all sorts of pictures, lots of them being of the toilet..... She is such a good girl. She is so good to help me all the time. She most of the time (yes there are exceptions)alsways has a sweet word for me telling me "Mudder, I love you, you're the best mudder in the whole wide world, no mudder is better than you!" She is growing fast fast fast! She is losing her babyness and really becoming a little girl! She loves to be very dramatic, wear pretty dresses and donning her beautiful handmade pearl jewelery from her Nana! She is very very very very chatty! She waves and talks to anyone and everyone where ever we go. She is learning to bat her eye lashes and has her first crush on a 14 year old boy in our ward named Spencer. He is one of Britt's scouts and comes over every once in a while. Avery has to put on her Sleeping Beauty dress and the whole nine yards to catch his eye. Thank goodness he comes from a very good family and has a sense of humor! Here are also some shots of Avery, Nathan and Andrew while we tote them around for preschool, Andrew asleep in the car, Nathan in Zachary's drone costume and look how cute Avery and Nathan are together. I never dreamt that my child and her cousin would be such loyal friends. It is really something to watch the two of them together. And when they are apart, all they talk about is getting back together again...

We had our first annual Potato Derby Race in our ward. Being on the activities committee has been a lot of fun for me! I was in charge of this activity and the pressure was on for something fun! We had witnessed a similar race with Britt's Smith family reunion 3 years ago which was hilarious! This was equally fun and now everyone thinks I'm brilliant for putting it together.....hee hee hee I've got them fooled! It was fun with my car "Nessie" coming in 5th and Britt's close behind in 7th. It was an adult's only activity and the winning car was "Spud Muffin". It was great! Here is Britt with our great friends Stuart and Eva Conde sporting their masterpieces! And then there's my Nessie....

April

Easter came and went so quickly, as did the Cadbury eggs. I bought a secret stash I hid in my bedside table drawer that disappeared all too quickly.... Avery was so pretty in her dress and loved her bunny she got! The neighborhood Easter egg hunt couldn't end any quicker for me or Avery. Right before we went I tripped and fell full weight on my bad knee which was already tender from kneeling building a cabinet in my kitchen all week. I believe it hurt worse than child birth and all I could do was grin and bear it. Then at the hunt Avery tripped too and was so embarrassed to have fallen down over her basket, that tears won out over grabbing as many eggs as possible. The only good thing that came out of it were that the 4 dozen sugar cookies we made together with Mom's famous recipe were the hit of the hunt! It is amazing to me how nobody makes anything homemade anymore. Avery and I had so much fun making them and sprinkling the sprinkles and colored sugar on them! They were sooooo pretty! She was content to come home to her new bunny which she appropriately named "Powdered Sugar".

Avery has started swimming lessons and is doing great! We are lucky to go to a nice lady in our neighborhood who has an indoor pool. She taught Britt's cousins many years ago and has such a way with kids. Avery is fearless and eager to learn to get ready for the ocean this summer.

Mom and Dad also came for a quick trip to look at houses. It looks like they have decided to build a beautiful home about 4 miles away. We are awaiting finalization's of their plans and look forward to being spoiled rotten with them being here by mid August! Now if I can just get my husband to behave.... I'll upload photos of the lot and model as soon as every thing's in writing!

Here are Mom and Dad with Jason Blakeslee taking the plunge and signing the papers on an offer to start building..... Avery was happy to be there amidst her lovely wound aka cat bite from Morris front and center on her forehead. With some antibiotics it has cleared up real quick but I wonder if she'll ever learn that when you corner a cat you'll never win....
Here's Mom with her grand kids...I wonder if she's prepared to live this close to them permanently? Ready or not, here they come!

Candace Messina Streep

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A Start At Updating....

Okay, I know I need to update so a start at that is at the bottom of the page. A funny site Candy sent my way which will guarantee a laugh if not at least a smile....
Starring: Grandma Annie, Uncle Chris, Britt, Avery and me:)

TGIJ....thank goodness it's january!

The holidays have passed in a flash and I have never been so grateful! Here's Avery's latest pictures and our recap of the last several months.....

First was Zachary's birthday and we women and kids went to Boondock's fun center to celebrate! If I could imagine the kids addicted to drugs this would be the closest I could compare it to as they dug in "my" pockets and at each other in a glaze of ecstasy for more tokens for the machines. We took a trip on the go karts which poor Zachary had to hear me squeal with delight as soon as I put my foot on the pedal. What a weird aunt huh. I made Candy go just so she could feel the same, but alas, she is a grandma driver and Nathan didn't feel the complete power of the go kart! What fun!

We celebrated Turkey day in style with Cam and his family braving the snowy weather to join us and Candy's family for a scrumptious meal. It is true that many hands make light work! We made a delicious turkey that we brined the night before and all the tasty dishes to go with! Avery got to have her first slumber party (cousins only!) and had a great time with so many girls in the house! We loved staying up late playing hand and foot which thanks to Brandy teaching us all how to play, is now a new Clement family tradition....along with the tasty cheesy cocktail weenies in BBQ sauce and garlic/jalapeno stuffed olives! YUM! And yes....that is Bryan in the photo. He does exist and we enjoyed him and his hospitality!

Next Candy and I scrambled with only a couple weeks notice to enter our first craft bazaar together. It was a hit with most of our stuff selling out in the first few moments of operation. Somehow the success was overshadowed with our neglected kids and angry husbands, and makes us wonder how we get ourselves into these things! We've been invited back to the spring bazaar and have been busy planning what to do!

During the middle of our craft madness Zachary was losing his second tooth and wiggled it constantly to my chagrin. I get squeamish over few things and this is one of them. He wiggled and pushed one night over at my house with Avery and Nathan in complete excitement and awe. It bled and bled but didn't come out. I think Candy eventually yanked it out....another thing I couldn't do.... It made things easier when about a week later Nathan and Avery crashed head on into each other. Avery's lips were split open and her front tooth bleeding, bruised purple and almost knocked out. You can imagine my biased attitude when it happened to be the exact front tooth I mysteriously lost under the watchful eye of my big brother Vaughn some 33 years ago..... Luckily she healed up with only a lovely gray bruised tooth with no nerve or root damage. Notice all pictures from here out, gray gray gray.:( Nathan had a huge bruise and the imprint of Avery's tooth on his forehead for more than a week. Notice Candy's family pictures.....

Grandma Thelma Smith celebrated her 90th birthday and we went up to Twin Falls for her party/mini Smith reunion. Here are some photos from that day of Avery with Grandma Thelma and Jana, Cal, Sean and Dillon Lindsay. Jana is Linda's baby sister and her and her family are saints we don't know how we'll ever repay their kindness to us. Jana made a wonderful video of her life and shared it with us and presented it to her during a ward celebration for her. We have just loved being close to them here and get together every Sunday night to watch The Amazing Race together.

Christmas crept up on us so quickly! Each year I seem to get more and more disgusted with the materialism of the holiday. It has made me all the more grateful for our family ornament exchange. I get so much joy out of decorating the tree and especially this year with Avery, being able to tell her who gave us each ornament. I hope this is a family tradition that is a permanent one. Avery was hilarious opening her gifts but was funnier to watch pick out presents for her cousins and then not be able to keep them a secret. As long as she gets more excited to give than receive I don't care.... She also became obsessed with nutcracker dolls and we found a girl version to make her happy.

Avery, Nathan and Zachary finally decorated their ginger bread houses a week after Christmas. Britt ripped the roof off to eat within hours and I didn't sound too convincing telling him we need to just enjoy looking at it until it gets stale, then you can eat it....

Britt and I celebrated our birthdays with store bought cakes from the yummiest pastry shop here in town. I think they tasted even better than usual because I hadn't slaved away in the kitchen making them. Britt took the day off for my birthday which he's never done before. It was such a great day with sweet phone calls and pure relaxation! I didn't even mind the 2 new gray hairs I found! Here we are on both days wearing "the Birthday hat" given to us a couple of years ago by Barney. It is pretty silly but hey if it makes you feel good on that special day.....

It's hard to believe that the month is almost over. We have been so busy with life that the last few months are a blur. While Britt is busy with work he is still getting ready for his upcoming scout hikes and dons his backpack stuffed to a 50lb weight and his hiking boots and hikes on the treadmill an hour a day. Trying to be social I signed us up for a dinner group in our ward and joined a home made card class. Candy and I have been busy searching for projects to do and get so easily excited and distracted with something new we want to try. I enjoy her so much! I have been so baby happy lately and I am so thankful she is close and I get to love little Andrew. He is so sweet a boy!

Avery is sprouting like a weed and I feel like I'm doing poorly with keeping up with her! She has become quite the artist and loves to dance. She also keeps sneaking into my makeup and doing herself up. I knew she was growing up fast when we were watching Harry Potter and she told me the white hair boy was soooooo handsome. Yuck Draco Malfoy? Well he was cute until he talked anyway.... She has been obsessed with going to Disneyland lately with all the advertising propaganda on TV so I asked her the other day which she would rather have.....Grandma and Grandpa moving to live close to us or going to Disneyland.... When I heard the beginning of her answer I was so pleased with her..... "I want Grandma and Grandpa to come move close to us......and.....they can come get me and take me to Disneyland and we can live there forever!" I couldn't agree more!;)

Memoirs of a Geisha....

Geisha? No, according to Avery she is a "China Girl". This morning she asked me to paint her hair black actually so she could be a real china girl. I told Britt the other day that if Avery remembers anything about her childhood, it would be that her Mother loved her enough to make sure she had a great costume on Halloween. And yes, the vain mother in me answers, she did indeed. Behold our little china girl....

Avery had to dress up for her Pre School Halloween party and then on Halloween day we headed over to Candy's ward Trunk-or-Treat, then to her neighbor's spook house which Avery really did not like, and finally with her ridiculous flip flops replaced by practical tennis shoes her and I ventured through our neighborhood begging for treats. Here are some pictures of Avery the China Girl, Nathan aka Bob the Builder, Zachary the Storm Trooper and Andrew the Puppy. What a cute bunch!

Saturday Avery turned the big #4! She demanded a Halloween bash which she got and we had a blast getting ready for it! She and I made her lovely graveyard cake....doesn't it look enticing? With purple insides, green coconut frosting, gummy severed limbs, eyeballs and tongue (which Candy couldn't stomach eating...) it was so much fun! She had her little primary class (all 3 of them) and her best buddy cousins come over to play with home made play dough, make fun masks, drink witch's brew, and be mummies. Our little girl is growing up so fast!!! We ended the day watching Avery's birth video which was the perfect ending to the day! We are so blessed and happy to have this little girl in our lives! We love you Avery!:)

Last week I headed up to Mom and Dad's to enjoy a fun week with my parents and convinced Chris to join me too. Chris and I visited the dermatologist's office and I believe the esthetian was at a loss of words when I asked her what I needed done..... So the skin regimen began and my face peels off about twice a day and I'm bright red like I've been sun burnt....but my skin is really soft. Next plan is to start our body for life program again. Britt signed up for his work's contest of the biggest loser. The winner at the end collects all the money for entry fees. Lucky for him he only needs to lose about 15 pounds to win since everyone else who joined is puny. Even so it's a good excuse to get back in shape.:)

I always talk Mom and Dad into crazy projects when I go home and this time we tackled the debacle of a counter top by the stove that was supposed to be fixed when the stove was replaced. I officially killed Dad's prized sander he has had my entire life, 90% killed my dremel and wasted a couple of days sanding and coating everything in the kitchen with dust. I probably should have left it alone, but at least I learned how hard oak is.

Mom and I also sewed Avery's costume. I will never believe another pattern when it says easy on the front. They are all liars!

So now the holidays are almost upon us. We are busy getting ready for Thanksgiving and hope to see some of you here! Friends and Family are always welcome! Hopefully I'll keep this site more current! We love you all!

Sweet Child O' Mine....

Yes, I am quoting a Guns N' Roses song, one of my favorites from youth. Avery my sweet child is growing up so fast. Britt got mad at me a few weeks ago for letting Avery wear sandals to church, (it was 50 degrees out) not knowing that she has out grown all her Sunday shoes. Not to worry, he gave me his blessing to go shopping and what girl doesn't like to shop for shoes?







To add to her growing independence, Avery decided she wanted to be Velma for Halloween. Yes, that's right, Velma from Scooby Doo. She has been obsessed watching Scooby Doo in the morning before Preschool and she just loves Velma. So Avery decided that to be Velma for Halloween meant she had to cut her own hair to look like Velma. So luckily it was just a big chunk off the side, which she swiftly hid down the furnace vent in her room. Mommy was in tears and had to cut 5 1/2 inches off to repair the damage. I know you don't notice in the pictures, but it was the perfect length for a braid!!!! And now of all things she has changed her mind once again regarding costumes and wants to be Sarafina, her prized stuffed kitty cat.....

When I was home visiting earlier this summer I stumbled upon a box of old forgotten stuffed animals. Inside were the 2 Snoopy puppies we received for Christmas one year over in Korea at a church party. These two toys were the most highly favored in our youth. I stuffed them in a walmart bag and brought them home and later presented them to Avery and Nathan. It was love at first site! Beloved Sarafina and "Puppy" were quickly forgotten. Although Sarafina has now been included with "Charly", Nathan has recycled Puppy, giving him to his younger brother Andrew, as Snoopy takes center stage to his heart. They have been taken everywhere now and I have to admit it is quite a sweet feeling to see your own child love your childhood toy as much as we did. Here is also a picture of Avery and Nathan busy making poo poo pie. Notice the adorable plumber butt. Never thought a plumber butt would be cute did ya? The other day as they were making another poo poo pie is just wasn't gooey or muddy enough.....so Nathan....the boy that he is.....decided to pee in it to make it muddier. It worked. Now they are not allowed to make poo poo pie......unless we turn our backs....:)

I had to laugh the other day since I should probably rename this site to the Cornaby/Palfreyman families website, since Candy's and my family seem to be one and the same here.:) We sure do enjoy our time together as shown here with the kids making our Spooky Halloween Houses! We couldn't resist the yummy black frosting that made us look like we were in serious need of a dentist!

Avery has officially gone on her first "field trip" with Preschool last week that Candy and I got to help as chauffeurs. They headed to our local Albertson's grocery store where they were given many treats, frosted their own cup cakes, petted the lobster and got to ring up their own cookies. It was pretty fun for all there!

Britt's parents, Barney and Linda came to visit for a couple of days! We always enjoy having family come to visit! We relaxed and watched conference, went up to Sun Valley for a day and ate too many treats! Their visit ended much to quickly for us! I was also most appreciative of Barney and Linda making an effort to stop by and see Mom and Dad. They are always so thoughtful in this way. We love you guys!