Fall Fun

Fall is Birthday time in our family!

We have not 1...

not 2...

not 3...

not 4...

but 5 birthdays

between Oct 1st and Nov 2nd...

and...

if you count friends we have 8 because three of my friends, Diana, Judie and Bettie have birthdays in October ...

and...

if you count Sept. as fall we have 10 because two of my grandsons-- Jordan and Johnny have birthdays in Sept.

and even more if you count my friends who have Sept. birthdays...

So...even if I only have one small piece of birthday cake with each them....you can see why Fall is not a good "go on a diet" time for me. ..


but ... I digress...

This is my precious Mindy

(She was my Melinda until 7th grade when the nick name took over)

Mindy and Ernie outside their home

Today is her birthday.

You do not know her well because she does not blog like Lynell and Erin do.

Somehow she thinks with being a mother of three, working part time as a speech therapist and driving Claire back and forth to LA for modeling auditions and jobs she doesn't have time to blog...

I can't imagine why???

But...

Here is a little info about Mindy.

She got her degrees from Cal State Fullerton. She is my only child that did not go to BYU which worked out good for me since all three of my other children that went to BYU ending up living in Utah or out of state.

She went to Fullerton because she got a great music scholarship to go there. Mindy is an accomplished flute player.

Her first degree was in music education. ... but after one year of teaching elementary band and one year of teaching middle school band... and being married to a high school band director... she decided that she had had enough of music education.

She went back to school and got another BA and then MA in Speech Therapy.

She loves being a speech therapist and does very well at it.

Even though you don't know much about my Mindy let me assure you that she is a wonderful daughter and person.

It is such a joy to live only 30 min. (with no traffic) away from Mindy.

We have dinner with her family every Sunday...it is the highlight of our week.

Sharing in the lives of her children brings great joy to our lives.

Happy Birthday Mindy

and... here are our fall birthday grandkids...

Gracee's birthday is on Oct 1st

Gracee girl is a little fireball.... She is adorable...

...but she is a full of life little character

Her mom says it is a good thing she is so cute.

EJ's birthday is Oct. 24

How we love our sweet EJ ,which is short for Ernest John. Mindy had to wait 9 years to get EJ. After years of trying to have a baby the infertility specialists gave up on Mindy and told her she would probably never conceive. Nothing they tried had worked....not even trying to adopt. Mindy tearfully gave up ... and then.... a month later.... without doing anything...well they did something ...but not with doctors involved... Mindy got pregnant.

She had EJ shortly before their 9 anniversary. Now she has 3 precious children...EJ, Claire and Austin. There are all worth the wait... It taught us to never give up... and ...God's timing is not the same as ours. (However, on a side note....Erin says that she had to wait 10 years to find a husband so she hopes she won't have to wait as long as Mindy did to get a baby!)

(My photographer daughter, Lynell took these pictures of Claire and EJ. I think she did a great job...of course I admit I may be a wee bit biased.)

Claire's Birthday in Oct. 31st

Yes, Claire is our little Halloween gal. In fact Mindy went into labor during our church Trunk or Treat party. Claire was due in Nov. but decided to make her entrance on Halloween night. (You know what a little ham and actress Claire is.) We had to stop all of the children who were trick or treating in our church parking lot so Ernie could drive out of the lot to take Mindy to the hospital. What a Halloween..... we got both tricked and treated when our Claire Bear arrived.

Emma's birthday is Nov. 2nd

Actually Marla went into labor with Emma on Halloween, but I guess our Emma did not want to make a spooky entrance... she is a perfect little lady after all. Emma is a marvelous little girl.... she is almost too good to be true. I introduced Emma to you in my last post. I will tell you all about our trip to visit her when we get back from Kentucky after her birthday.


So Happy Birthday Dear Ones.

You are all a great gift to me.

You all bring much joy into my life

and

I thank my Heavenly Father for each one of you.