Gertrude Eva Smith-Wilkins May 10,1925 to Oct. 11, 2016

Early this morning my family said goodbye to a special person in our lives. My grandma Eve has been a great influence in my life. We were fortunate to live close to her while growing up. This allowed us to spend time with her and really get to know her. She loved to travel. She has probably been around the world a couple of times. I always looked forward to the post cards and letters she would send from the various places she would travel to. She didn’t always have an easy life. She was one of 12 children and grew up in Ohio. When she was 20 years old her father passed away leaving many younger siblings at home. The state of Ohio placed many of her younger sisters into state custody because they didn’t believe that her mother could raise all those children. My grandma took in her little sister, Great Aunt Kay. Aunt Kay lived with her for many years. She married my grandpa Tiffany in 1943. After having two children they divorced when my dad was a kid. She remarried to John Stubstad and had my Aunt. She later divorced and married 2 more times. I thought I was lucky because I had 4 grandpas. I now realize these were probably very trying times in her life. I remember spending time with her in her home. We often would get to spend a couple of weeks with her during the summer. On one of these visits I remember her tucking me into bed and asking me if I had said my prayers. I was pretty young at the time and was a little confused. I knew we said prayer at meal time and as a family before we went to bed but I had never said my own prayer before bed. She took the time to teach me a very important lesson about personal prayer. I will always be so grateful for the faith of this woman. I loved going to grandmas. She kept an immaculate home. I felt at peace while I visited her. We would spend Thanksgiving and Christmas at her home. She would make a huge feast. We all loved her homemade rolls. After dinner she loved playing games. The most recent one I remember playing with her was dominos. Although I think her favorite was scrabble but because of the competitive nature of the game it was banned from our family functions. While I was a student at BYU I took a family history class. One of my assignments was to talk to a grandparent about their history. Every chance I could I asked my grandma about her life. One day she handed me something that I will always cherish. She gave me a copy of her testimony and her conversion story along with a few of her favorite scriptures. It wasn’t long after that that she started to lose her memory. I’m grateful that I was able to learn more about her before it was too late to ask those questions. The last 10 years has been a struggle. She slowly lost her memory until she no longer recognized who we were. I still enjoyed my visits with her even though I knew she would not remember them. She was an amazing person and I’m lucky that I got to call her grandma. She passed with my dad and mom by her side along with most of my siblings. I didn’t get to be there with her for her last moments but am grateful for being able to see her this past summer. I’m comforted to know that through the gospel of Christ I will get to see her again. The next time I see her I know she’ll recognize me and I know it will be a joyous meeting.

My visit with grandma in March this year. I Didn’t know my husband was taking pictures.I didn’t get any pictures with her when I was there in August.

I was debating whether I should post this or not. I’ve decided to compromise. I usually share this on facebook but this time I’m just posting this here. I don’t believe I have too many who actively visit this site so probably only a few will see this. I hope that I don’t offend anyone because my intention is to try and inspire someone.

I had the opportunity to participate in a school activity with my middle child. At the beginning of the day he looks at me and tells me “mom the real reason I wanted you to be here is because I don’t have any friends”. I kind of laughed it off thinking yeah right this is my social butterfly child he has friends he’s just being overly dramatic. As the day progressed to my horror I realized he was right. I was so worried about my first kid having issues with making friends that I missed out on helping my middle child. I watched as other kids excluded him in playing game after game. It broke my heart to see. This sweet little boy who is so welcoming to everyone not even given the chance to play. However, Among this heart ache I did witness how caring he is. One girl from his class was sitting alone on a bench and had a sad/angry face on. He sat down with her and started talking to her listening to what she had to say. She eventually got up and walked away happy. What an awesome example of friendship. Later that day I picked my son up from scouts. He gets in my car and immediately started crying. This isn’t the first time it has happened after scouts and usually I brushed it off as being overly dramatic. This time I listened, really listened to what he had to say. He was crying because the boys played a few games at scouts and he was left out. Since I witnessed this happening time and time again earlier in the day it broke my heart to hear that it’s not only happening at school but at scouts too. I just took him in my arms and held him while we cried together.

When I was in 4th grade I had a friend who spread some rumors about me. This resulted in almost all of my friends dropping me. My 5th grade year I had no one to play with. Many school recesses were spent in the the library helping the librarian. My old friends didn’t say mean things to me or do anything bad to me they just stopped including me. They stopped talking to me. This was one of the hardest years of my life. For 6th grade we were combined with other elementary schools into middle school. I had one friend who went to a different elementary school. Because of her I had instant friends going into 6th grade. Now I can look back on that experience and be grateful. I’m better prepared to empathize with my 10 year old. I can tell him with confidence that it may be hard right now but he will find friends. He is a good person and because of who he is he will someday have more friends than he knows what to do with.

Friends are good to have and in many ways we let that define who we are. When I was a junior in High school my family moved. I had to start over making friends which terrified me to the core. It brought back memories of 5th grade all over again. The one difference was I knew I had a bunch of friends already. They just lived farther away now. I knew that it didn’t matter what other people thought of me but who I thought I was. I felt like I could better choose who I wanted to be around. I think I went through 3 groups of friends before I found a wonderful bunch of girls that took me for who I was. This is what I want to help my son realize. He is an awesome person. He has friends right now but they just happen to live farther away. He can better choose who he wants to hang out with. As long as he treats others with kindness the friendship will come.

Now this is a warning for other mom’s. I saw this happen with my son but I also see why it happens. We as mom’s set the example. We get so comfortable with the people we know that we don’t take the time to reach out to people we don’t know. This will result in others feeling left out or like they don’t fit in. Our children will learn from us. I’ve had this happen to me a couple of times since moving but I’ve also had the opposite happen where someone will take the time to try and find out more about me. I appreciate these people. I’m a shy person until you get to know me. I have a really hard time approaching someone I don’t know very well. If our kids see us including those who are on the outskirts of our little groups than maybe they will want to do the same. Let’s make it a point to seek out those who are new. Let’s not just talk to them but get to know them. Let’s do our best to teach our kids to do the same.

You may be wondering why there’s a new name for my blog.  When I started this blog I named it Karin’s blog with the intent that I would change it later. After a few years I’ve finally come up with a name that I think fits.  It only took me 3 years but hey better late than never.  Since the purpose of this blog is to keep family and friends informed about our life “In A Nutshell” seems to fit (also we are all a little nutty here). Along with a new name I’ve decided it was time for a new look.  So I hope I haven’t confused you too much.

I’ve noticed that a lot of blogs I’ve been keeping up with are taking a vacation of sorts.  I’m hoping that with the holidays past things have settled down enough for them to start again.  I have also been taking a little break and I hope to keep you informed of our new adventures for the new year soon.

Levi decided that he wanted to be on a T-ball team this year.  After the first couple of practices it was like pulling teeth to get him to go.  He said that practice was so boring.  Finally he had a game.  This made all the difference.  If you know Levi you know he is a high energetic boy.  To keep his interest he needs to go, go, go.  So the game was perfect for him.  He got to play different positions and run around the bases.  His last game is next week on July 26th.  He has been going since mid June playing a game every Tuesday and Thursday mornings.  I’m sure this will be one he wants to do next year.

Getting ready to run from first.

Touching home!

On the pitchers mound

Yep it’s been ten years.  We got married 10 years ago today.  Corey was on call so we couldn’t go to a fancy dinner out or anything like that.  So we made the best of it and fed the kids Mac n Cheese before and then sent them downstairs to watch a movie while we enjoyed a quiet dinner at home.  The food was as good as any we would have gotten at a restaurant.  We had steak, sour cream mashed potatoes and chives, and a yummy salad.  We plan on going on an over night hike when the weather warms up.  That will be our big hurah for our anniversary.  I just want to say that I’m a very lucky woman to find such a great guy.  Corey is the love of my life and I don’t know what I would do with out him.  I love you sweetie your the best!