I'm an Aunt again!

Asia and Ben had their sweet baby today!
Miss Aurora Fay Lowe entered the world around 10:30 this morning.
She weighed 5 lb 15.25 oz and was 18.25 inches long.
Congratulations Asia and Ben!

Pictures:

Ben and Aurora--

Aurora--

Christmas Dinner

We spent the afternoon/evening with the Turpin family. We enjoyed shrimp, oysters, and a cheese ball as appetizers. Sandi and Angie prepared a wonderful dinner of turkey and ham, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, corn, cranberry sauce and relish, and rolls. We enjoyed pumpkin pie for dessert!

The kids loved swimming with their cousins. (Lizzy about froze! :) )
We will miss our traditional Turpin gathering when Grandma and Grandpa move to Iowa next month. We love you guys!

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Christmas Morning

Our morning began at 6AM. This was a great Christmas. We are so grateful!

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Nativty Greetings!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

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Our Christmas Eve Celebrations

THere is so much to share with you all. We had a wonderful evening with my family.
We ate wonderful food, we shared our musical talents, and opened presents!
It was a wonderful time to be together at the "most wonderful time of the year!"

(I just used the word wonderful 4 times! :) )

The first one is the entire family and the second focuses more on my family.
Enjoy!

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Christmas Finery

Here is the Turpin Girls in all their Christmas Finery!!!

And of course our little Joy.

Fifteen Years

Fifteen years ago today, Jason and I were married for time and all eternity in the Salt Lake City Temple! Fifteen years have past - incredible.
We were thinking in another 15 years, Shelly will be 49 and Jason will be 52. Wow!

Becca and the Temple

Becca was able to go to the temple for the first time tonight. Jason and I were there as well as Jason's parents. As we were leaving we ran into my sister, Kathie.

What a blessing to have a daughter who is worthy to go to the temple.
It was a joyful night!

The Turpin Spa (a.k.a. Becca's 12th Birthday Party)

For Becca's birthday party, we had a lot of fun with Becca's friends. We soaked in Grandma's hot tub, curled our hair, did facials, as well as treatments for our hands and feet.
The girls spent the night and had a blast!

Christmas Greetings!

Merry Christmas Y'all!

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Sea Turtle Facility

We are studying sea turtles in science. We went down to the Sea Turtle Facility run by NOAA in Galveston. It was so cool!

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Thanksgiving

On Thanksgiving Day we enjoyed being with Shelly's family at the farm.
We ate well and enjoyed the day tremendously.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

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Decorating for Christmas

It is our family's tradition to put up our Christmas decorations on Thanksgiving morning. Becca made this scrapbook to show off all the pictures.
Enjoy!

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Sammi's Piano Recital

Sammi had her second piano recital and decided to play Ode to Joy. :)

Sammi News

The girls pretending they are Sea Turtles.

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Jessi's Birthday Party

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Ward Halloween Party

Our Ward held a Halloween Party! We all went and had a wonderful time!

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Texas Renaissance Festival

Jason took the day off of work and we went to the Texas Renaissance Festival with Grandpa Turpin. We had a lot of fun - check it out!

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The Perfect Poem

Becca found this poem in The New Era. It's perfect for our house, so I thought I would include it today.

IMAGINE
by Adrianne Thomas Erickson

...where fingers and sticks are people.
...where five-year-olds are radiant queens,
or lovely homemakers with bright red lips
and dozens of babies.
...where tea parties are held daily.
...where important-looking books
can be read upside down.
...where all endings are happy.
...where all may rest from cares and woes.
Imagine...a little child's world.

Grandma's Cake

Sandi Turpin's birthday is Saturday. Lizzy was helping me to get ready for a dinner we are having for Sandi by making the birthday cake. Here is a video that Lizzy wanted me to make. She has entitled it, "Elizabeth Making a Cake." Enjoy!

Amateur Radio Operator

Our church has requested that those interested in becoming HAM radio operators to take a free class that they were offering.  It is something I have always been interested in so I went ahead and took the classes.

HAM radio operators have three levels of classification; Technician, General, and Extra. 

The class covered the Technician level and prepared us for the exam. 

The Exam was this morning and I passed the Technician and General levels.  In about two weeks my new call sign will be granted and posted and I can start using my license as an Amateur Radio Operator at the General class level.

This also allows me to get involved with some of the Emergency services, (both civil and independent).

I am excited to be able to use it and play with the capabilities this license gives to me.  And thanks to my family for letting me have a night each week for the past month so I could go to the class.

Liquid Nitrogen

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Shelly's Birthday

I had a wonderful birthday. Family and friends called and dropped by. I truly felt loved!!!
My Mom had asked me what I wanted for my birthday and all I could say was for a planner with daily pages - my week at a glance just doesn't cut it anymore! :)
So Kathie and my Mom got together and got me a planner. Sandi got me some money. So I will be off to the Franklin Covey store today to fill up that binder. (There is a funny story about that binder, but I'll save it for another day.)
The girls gave me the pumpkin pins I was wearing, as well as their obedience. That is what I asked for - loosely based on John 14:15 "If ye love me, keep my commandments." Not to worry, we talked about only doing what people ask you to do when it's a good thing.
Anyway, we had a nice dinner of stroganoff and salad followed by Chocolate Cake made by my husband, Becca, and Jessi! :)

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Beginning of September in Pictures

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School has started. We are so busy trying to educate these cute girls!
We had fun at the Back to School Pool party with Deseret Home Schoolers.
We enjoyed Labor Day at Grandma's Farm with sausage and corn cooked on the grill - yum!
Lizzy is active as ever, just having fun as a four year old!
Enjoy the pictures!

Painting Outside

On Friday, Shelly and I spent the afternoon painting the exterior of the House.  We are painting the trim on the garage and the back of the House.  We got all the back windows.  both ground level and 2nd story.  I have never liked climbing that high to paint and do things.  The trim looks good so now we will have to paint the main sections and get a fresh coat on the rest of the house.

The painting along with helping a friend move, and trying to straighten the house has worn us out.  Hopefully we can recoup and be ready for the following week.

Our Pets

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The Insane Month of September!!!!!

And I thought that August was busy.

We have had something going on every night this month and it just has not let up. 

We had fun participating in the Road Show for our church.  The theme was old TV shows and we did the Andy Griffith Show.  We all had so much fun with that.

I am taking classes to get my amateur radio license or HAM license.  The test is next month.  The classes are free and the test will cost $14.  This is something that I have always wanted to do and will finally accomplish it.

We finally sold our old van on Monday night.  That is a relief and the money will go to offset the money spent on the new van.

Our little Joy continues to grow.  She is starting to talk to us and really spends time watching us.  She sleeps through the night which is a God send as all the other girls took 11 months before they did that.

We are in the last week of September and I don't know where it has gone. 

It has been so busy.

New Van

About two weeks ago we bought a new van for the Turpin Family!

it is a Chevrolet Express and is really nice.  

Now we just have to sell the old van and get through to the end of the year.

The Sweet Girls

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Life can get busy

It is amazing how life can become so busy, so fast.

In June we found out that we were going to be parents again. (adoptive parents)
We made our trip to California and brought home our Joy! She will be 13 weeks old this coming Friday and time just seems to slip by so fast.

Joy is doing great. She is growing and interacting more each day. We are trying hard to complete all of the adoption requirements so that we can be sure to finalize in the December time frame.

Hopefully with a long Holiday weekend coming up we can post some backfilled blog entries to catch back up.

Los Angeles Temple

For today's journey we drove to the Los Angeles Temple. Talk about an experience of contrasts! We drove through N. Western Rd and Sunset Blvd to Santa Monica to get to the temple. We passed through West Hollywood and Beverly Hills to get here. Everything is crowded and loud. There are people and billboards everywhere! And then you pull into the temple grounds.............and peace. It's so wonderful. It's beautiful, calm, and tranquil. There are hymns softly playing from speakers in the landscaping. It was heaven in the midst of this telestial world. What a wonderful blessing to be able to go.

We would have gone inside, but yours truly left her recommend at home - argh! Oh well, walking around was so restorative to my soul.

Outside the visitor's center is a display called "Tribute to Women." (something like that, I can't remember exactly) It is great! We have pictures below.

Driving back to the hotel (11 miles) took an hour and a half at 7 o'clock at night! whew!

I am so grateful for temples - little patches of heaven on Earth!



The LA Temple - it's huge!


Us!


A cool tree, we have loved the trees here in LA


The family - notice the FIVE children :)


Eternal Courtship


A Mother playing with her children


Seek Learning


The Compassionate Woman


Talents


This one was about teaching


Grandmother and charity


Walking in the foot step of her mother
(Reminded me of my family right now)



Virtuous Woman


Praying Woman
(something I've been doing a lot of lately!)


Emma and Joseph and the organization
of the Relief Society


First Steps


Preparing Her Son