February 2019

Meet Hallie Ruth Purcell! 

We are so excited to welcome our 7th grand baby, Hallie to our family!

 Hallie made her appearance on Feb. 6th, weighing 7.4, 20 inches (just like her sister Molly). Jared and Nikelle are so happy to have her here safe! We love her to pieces.  Blake got to be the first one, besides her parents to meet her, because he was working at Mountain View Hospital that day.

Molly was so excited to meet her baby sister. She loves her so much and thinks Hallie is so cute.

There is nothing better than a new born baby. Such a sweet, tender experience to meet them on the day they "jumped from heaven". We love you, Hallie!

Now, for the rest of February!

Feb. 2, Molly's dance competition. Molly was so excited to dance on the big stage at the Civic Auditorium. The dance was so cute.  Her hair is so fancy, even without her hairpiece. 

Feb. 2. More basketball!  Brian had to coach Annie's team for Celia.  Kindergarteners are so funny to watch play sports! Maden is improving every game, his games really are becoming fun to watch.

Feb. 3. Super Bowl. These are the only pictures I got of our "Super Bowl Party". Annie and Molly had fun playing with play dough, and Clark likes watching programs on our bed.

Feb 6. Molly stayed overnight so her parents could go to the hospital early in the morning.  We did her Koala Crate all about pirates.  She got to go pick up Ryder from school, then the two of them played and watched, and played.  We took her to meet Hallie later in the afternoon.

Feb. 7.  Molly got to stay overnight again, we bought her own little baby to take care of.  Hallie got to go home! Such a cutie pie baby girl!

My Mother, Beth Chambers turned 80 on Saturday, Feb. 9th.  My sisters and brother and I had been planning a surprise party for her for several months.  It was a very hard task! The surprise was really that my three sisters that live far away were flying in to be here for the party.  We ended up telling mom that we were going to have lunch at Tommy Vaughn's at noon on her birthday.  She knew that me and my kids and my sister Lynne and some of her family would be there, and that my brother Randy and maybe some of his family too.  But, she didn't know that Shauna would be coming from Washington, or that Tricia was coming from Georgia, or that Suzanne and her son Branson were coming from South Carolina. Then as the day approached, the weather got bad, it was touch and go, especially for Shauna, but they all made it!  They all stayed at my house on Friday night.  Shauna even called mom on Saturday morning, making mom think  that she was snowed in at home.  It was very difficult not to tell mom or dad that they were coming, there were many near misses, but we did it! She was totally surprised when she came into the room at Tommy Vaughn's!!!  

We were all waiting in the room, with hats and noise makers ready to say "Surprise".  We worked it out so we were all waiting, and  Randy Purcell stood outside the closed door, then opened it for them.  You can see she was totally surprised!

Here's Suzanne, Tricia, Shauna and Branson giving her their birthday present. (They decided their gift was their presence!) Such a fun day!

We had a nice lunch in the private room at Tommy Vaughn's.  Then, we had cake and sang "Happy Birthday". Julie decorated the tables, and the room for the party.  It was so nice.

Back row, left to right Suzanne, Shauna, Tricia, Diana, Lynne

Front, Dad (Paul), Mom (Beth), Randy

It's been several years since we have all been together.  It was such fun, and so great that we were able to pull off the surprise of a lifetime.

Feb 11. I got to go spend a couple of days at Jared and Nikelle's house.  Randy, Courtney and Ryder came to meet Hallie.  Molly really does love her baby sister.

Feb. 12  Getting Hallie ready for her 1st Dr. appointment.  She is such a cutie, she seems to change every day.  Molly loves to supervise taking care of her sister.

Feb. 14.  Cutest Valentines!

Feb. 18.  Just some randomness.  Cutie pie Hallie, Molly reading her baby sister a book, and Ryder being an elephant.

Feb. 22. Jared, Nikelle, Molly and Hallie came for a sleepover! We had a fun night.  Molly and I made banana bread, she loved putting the bananas down the slide on the mixer.

Feb. 23.  The last basketball games of the season.  Annie really got into this game, and played like she might even know what was going on! Maden really improved over this season.  Clark is a great super watcher!

My niece, Michelle and her husband Adam and their two boys, Michael and James have moved to Idaho.  They are living with my parents in Blackfoot until they get their own housing.  Ryder gets to spend some time with James and Michael.  They are cute boys and had fun playing the Hungry Hippo game.

January 2019

Annie and Maden are playing in the Iona Basketball League.  This is Annie's first year, and her mom is the coach! It's really fun(ny) to watch.  Maden is playing with the same team and coach for the 3rd year.  They have improved so much and play together really  well as a team.  

January 6th, Nikelle's 27th Birthday! It snowed a lot during the night, so Blake had to plow before church.  We had dinner, cake and played some games, but the only picture of the games I got was of "Hungry, Hungry Hippo".

More basketball. Annie is becoming a little more aware of what she's supposed to be doing, and Maden is getting pretty good at being in the right place at the right time to get rebounds, make passes and baskets.

January 19th - Grandma Great, or Grandma Purcell, or Mom, or Helen's 93rd birthday! Molly loved singing with the rest of cousins.

More basketball games! Clark, Maden and Ryder had a fun time playing with cars during Annie's game.

Some random pictures from January.  Ryder found a huge bear at Jump In, Blake put a hazmat suit on when he stopped into Parkway, so he could go in the OR without changing clothes, Molly loves to "make" cookies or anything in the kitchen. Clark got to come and play with Ryder one afternoon.  Annie loves to take pictures at the ballgames, her friend took this one of her and Ryder, but she took the one of me.

 One cold Saturday, Blake and Randy went to help Jared do some electrical work. Jared got to go up in the bucket. Ryder loves to read stories, and sit in the "box" with the blankets. Randy and Ryder came to get in the hot tub one evening. Ryder loved that the lights changed colors.

December 2018

We celebrated Maden's 9th birthday on December 1st! He was thrilled that he got the candles all blown out in one breath! Such a cute boy. 

On December 5th, the actual birthday, he got to go to Pizza Pie Cafe and a movie with his family and two of his good friends. I still can't believe he's 9! Love you Maden.

These littles were so fun with the Christmas trees this year.  Clark was so excited that he made some ornaments for their tree, and Molly loved decorating her tree. She made some ornaments too, but I didn't get a picture. Such exciting things for 3 year olds.

Ryder got to make some ornaments too. Whenever we go to A&W, Ryder has to take a picture with the bear.  Annie got to go to an ISU Women's basketball game with her mom. She loved it, and even got a shirt.

We took a little drive over to Rupert to see my brother, Randy and sister-in-law Julie.  They are living in Nikelle's childhood home overseeing some repairs and projects to the house.  Jared was doing some work in the garage, or as we like to say, he was "lighting the world".  Molly was the only little one there, and she loved having Grandpa Chin Chopper read her some stories.

We celebrated Jared's 28th birthday on the 9th. (His real day is the 11th.) I can't believe my baby is 28! Annie and Molly love to be together, and always have a great time.

One day when I was tending Ryder, I had a dentist appointment, so Grandpa Chin Chopper (or my Dad, Paul Chambers) got to take care of Ryder for about an hour.  They both seemed to enjoy eating lunch and playing air hockey together.

This is what happened on Jared's real day, the first snowstorm of the year that Blake had to plow.

Jared and Nikelle were Mary and Joseph for their ward party.  Molly was a cute little shepherd girl.  So cute, all of them.

I added some snowflakes to my tree this year.  They are actually temples! I got one for each temple we have been inside! I love them!

And then there's this! My friend from High School, Renae Cramer Hill is an amazing artist, and had a drawing for a print of this amazing painting! And, I won!!!!! She was kind enough to bring it to me in person!!! I just feel bad that I didn't get a picture of her. I absolutely love it! It goes perfectly in this space with my other decorations.

Molly had her first real dance recital. She looked so darling and danced so well for a 3 year old.  It was so fun to go watch her. She had a lot of supporters there, she's very loved.

I love these pictures of Molly and Ryder with Santa.  Nikelle loved seeing Santa's reaction when Molly told him that she wanted a light switch and a ding dong (meaning doorbell) for her playhouse. Ryder was really brave and almost kind of liked sitting on his lap.

I love this picture of Annie reading a story to Molly.  Maden was very intrigued with the game Jared was playing.

I also love this picture! Such a sweet forever family.

Jared is pretty happy with his early Christmas present! Brian's family came down to stay for Christmas Eve. We had dinner, made a gingerbread house, and played games. 

One tradition we started a few years ago was having Monkey Bread on Christmas morning. I put the dough in the pans the night before and let it rise all night, then cook it on Christmas morning.  Ken heard about this and they decided to make their own.  So I call this Monkey Bread Wars.  Ours are on the left, Cindy and Ken's on the right.  I think we are all winners of this war!

I only got pictures of Randy and Maden eating the monkey bread, this is Maden's second helping, he loves it! Randy loves it too, Ken and Cindy loved it too, it's good stuff!

Molly is thrilled with her light switch! The kids love opening the presents they've been so curious about.

More present opening fun.  Maden, Annie and Clark made me some ceramic snowmen. I love them! And I love that they were so excited to give them to me, and that they worked so hard to make them beautiful. I'm just not very good about making sure to get good pictures.

Blake got everyone some cool, non glare sunglasses. Now everyone is cool!

Clark loves his truck and trailer, that's one of his favorite things to do, play with trucks that have trailers.  Christmas can tucker everyone out.  Ryder got a turn at playing the Hungry Hippo game, pretty fun.

I'm happy that Ryder likes the writing board thing we gave him. Grandma Purcell really liked the book that Cindy put together for her. It has pictures of everyone that visited her during the year.  It was a lot of work getting all the pictures from everyone and getting them sent in to be printed in the book.  Everyone really likes it and has look to see if they made the book.

There was plenty of rabbit hunting in December.  The new guns work really good. They went so much, that they didn't take pictures every time.  Sure has been a fun pastime this year.