Remembering Mom

Sunday the 7th was my mother's birthday.... she would have been 67 years old. Of course, it is nearly 4 years since she passed away.



On Monday night, we got all the family in town together at Nathan's house to celebrate her birthday. I made a Pineapple Cheesecake that she used to make - I rarely make it because my family doesn't care for it, but I always liked it. I do know that it is a recipe that her mom used to make as well. I couldn't find the original recipe in my recipe books or box, but I found a similar one online that worked out pretty well.



Pineapple No Bake cheese cake


1 lg. lemon Jello
1 c. boiling water
8 ounce. cream cheese
1 lg. can crushed pineapple, liquid removed
1 can Pet lowfat milk, chilled (I added Whipped Topping instead)
Graham cracker crust
1/2 c. sugar
Directions
Mix Jello and boiling water till dissolved. Chill. Then beat.
Beat cream cheese and sugar till creamy. Add in beaten Jello to cream cheese. Beat Pet lowfat milk to thick, mix in cream cheese. Add in liquid removed pineapple. Put graham cracker crust in 9"x13" pan. Pour mix in chill.

It really needs probably overnight to set up well enough - I didn't give it quite long enough so it was a bit soupy.



I asked my children to write any memories that they had of her, to share that night.



Mallory's is as follows.. (with her spelling)



Grandma Nancy

What I loved about Grandma was she would always read to me Pickles to Pitsburgh. I also loved when she gave us orange creamcicles. I remember sitting on the swing when we got out of the pool. And I remember sometimes going to there house and getting babysat. I do love being with her because she was always kind and loving to everyone. I loved her very much. She was pretty fun to be with. I remember going into a room holding her hand while she was gone. (when she passed away) . Those are things I remeber.



Pretty good spelling for a nearly nine year old. Mallory is a great reader - she tries to hurry a little too fast sometimes.



Jessica wrote a poem - lets see if I can find it.

Well.. havent' managed to get it from her, but wanted to get this posted anyway....

She wanted short.. she got short...

Mallory has been asking for a hair cut for a little while..

Our usual stylist is recovering from Carpal Tunnel surgery, so

we ventured across the street to our neighbor Carli,

wife of The Biggest Loser's Dane!!

Quite a bit of summer swim damaged hair came off..

Carli did some cute styling with the blow dryer...

And lo and behold... a little more grown up girl she is!

Whether I'll be able to get it styled decently with

a blow dryer remains to be seen...

A night out.. with my baby...

Who taught this kid manners?

A few weeks ago, we found ourselves alone with Mallory on a Friday night.
We tried to find a place for dinner that wouldn't have a long wait...

it had been a long week, and we were hungry.

Suddenly it dawned on us to go to The Landmark !

We hadn't been there in quite sometime!.

It is an old two story churchbuilding in Mesa, West of downtown. Our first apartment was only a few hundred yards away from it, but way back then, we in no way could afford to eat there! They have a salad ROOM, not a salad bar.. but a salad ROOM! All kinds of thinks like quail eggs and pickled stuff...It's kind of a fun place.

It has beautiful wall paper, wooden divider type things that have old china pieces on display. Probably the best part of the meal is that they give you SORBET , a small scoop, between courses to "cleanse your palate". Yum! The lemon sorbet is the best, but we had raspberry this night.

Mallory was being her usual fruitcake self.. it was fun to hear her talk- without any competition for attention from her siblings. She was getting goofy putting her pinky up in the air... She absolutely LOVED the chocolate mousse for dessert - we split one- yum!

I suppose I shoulda made myself a little more presentable..

Finally... Miss Mallory!

While we were in computer Limbo... my Miss Mallory had a birthday!!

Eight years ago she came to join our family!

We were all prepared to have her come, when a couple of days before her due date,

we went to the hospital to do the "become familiar with us" tour. Actually, it was

Dr Linnerson reviewing things for the not first time parents, but had been awhile,

or something like that. We left the Banner Desert, pulled out onto Dobson Road to get on the

freeway. While we were waiting, a big ole boat of a car rear ended us. The poor lady felt

so bad.. her mom or grandma or someone was in the hospital, and she was stressed, and

wasn't paying attention.

Of course, with me 9 months pregnant, the firefighters wanted me to get checked out.

I said I was fine, and we went home. I sat in my glider-rocker with my feet up, when

all of a sudden - the baby was doing somersaults! Huge ones! That is not something that

should be happening that late! Needless to say, she turned head up.. not good.

We went to the hospital two days later, and Dr Linnerson was on call for the weekend, so he

tried to do a Version - which involves turning the baby. Grease up the belly, and try to turn

her like a wingnut- crazy! She did turn around to head down, but she never engaged, and the

next day, Feb 24th, I had a c-section, my first. Not very fun.. but it did bring our Mallory.

Her name was not because of anyone, but one that we liked, and because it fit the pattern that

we'd inadvertently started with the other two. It has two consonants in the middle, and is seven letters long. Weird, but it just turned out. Don't know what we'd do without her!

We kind of had a splurge out on her Birthday dinner, we as a family had finished reading the Book of Mormon, between stake conferences, a challenge by our Stake President. We also had Grandpa Michael in town, so we went to Ah-So for Tepanyaki style Japanese dinner! That was YUMMY! Here are a few pictures documenting her day - from waking up - to going to bed