Last night Judy Lynn decided to invite Les, Josh and "Boys" over for dinner so that Leslie wouldn't have to cook.  Of course, Heather, Jay & Gwen are here for dinner most of the time, so our FHE consisted of a "Family Home Evening".  Judy Lynn cooked meatballs with some sort of sauce that you put over them and rice (Waikiki Meatballs... or something like that).  After dinner we just sat around and visited and took turns taking care of (holding) little Finn.  While we were visiting, Sawyer was busy with his antics and sometimes Gwen was involved because Gwen loves Sawyer and always works her way towards him no matter what Sawyer is doing (sometimes to Sawyer's chagrin).

Sawyer goes into the main bathroom and gets the cloths hamper,
brings it to the family room and calls it his "Space Ship"
(Gwen, Sawyer and Heather)

We were trying to get Sawyer to "share" his space ship with Gwen, finally he agreed

Sawyer always closes the lid, but with Gwen there, couldn't. 
Gwen only liked it for a few seconds!

Sawyer holding Gwen

"HELP... I want out!"

Gwen and cousin Finn
Is Finn Smiling?

Gwen was "stuck" trying to crawl over her large stuffed animal

Les, Jay and Josh "hanging out"

I FINALLY got my turn.  Finn and his Grandpa

Well, it is final.  Little "No-Name" Ricker finally has a name.  It will be Finn Campbell Ricker.  I don't know where the "Finn" came from, maybe "Huckleberry Finn" (Since his brother is named after Tom "Sawyer")(JOKING!).  Campbell is a family name in Judy Lynn's family.  I think they could not make up their mind until the last minute.  My vote was on Max, but Finn will do fine.

And yes Brent, we had another party last night to celebrate the "Coming Home" of little Finn.  I had to leave to go to my chorus practice and took a few pictures before I left, but no one took any after, so the pictures I post now are few, but you get the idea... yep, party central, but this time the party was at Josh and Leslie's!

Left:  Heather and Todd
Right: Chase (sitting), [Rickers: Ashley (holding Gwen), Ang, Tracy, Jade], Leslie,
Judy Lynn's back and Teri Lynn


Left:  Leslie (talking to Judy Lynn hiding behind Teri Lynn who is seating Gwen
Right:  Chummy (Ricker) holding Finn, Cort and Chase


Todd, Jacki, Teri Lynn & Randy

Welcome Home Finn Campbell

Judy Lynn went over to the hospital and spent quite a bit of time last night.  Everything is in order for Leslie and the baby to go home today.  We are all excited to finally be able to see the baby without having a window between us.  Judy Lynn took a few more pictures and I will post them here without much dialog.  Both Leslie and Josh have posted a lot of pictures on their Facebook, so if you have a Facebook account, you can go there and take a look at them (leslie.ricker and/or josh.ricker).

Proud Mamma and Grandma

On a not-so-happy note, Tuesday we were saddened when we got word that a good friend of ours had passed away.  He was over in Hawaii on vacation and was scuba diving and something went wrong and when they found him he was gone.  They do not know if he drowned or had a heart attack or something else.  They were supposed to do an autopsy yesterday to try to figure out what happened, but we have not heard.

Keith Hansen was a special person to Judy Lynn and me.  He was our bishop when we first moved into the “Gresham” Ward way back in 1969.  His Bishopric were the ones that fasted with us and then came over and gave Judy Lynn a blessing when we were having trouble having kids, and then look what happened!  He told us that the blessing had “opened the flood gate”.  Some time after we had our 8th child, I met President Hansen in the hallway of our old church and asked him if there was any way that he could "suspend" the blessing that he gave Judy Lynn years earlier... that we thought that we had enough kids.  He laughed so hard and later used the above story several times in talks that he gave.

After being our Bishop, he was put in our Stake Presidency, was a mission president,  and more recently was the patriarch in our Stake. He gave Heather's Jay his Patriarchal Blessings.  He was our dentist for years until he retired and went to Florida as Mission President.  About 3-1/2 years ago (or so) his wife died of lung cancer.  He has remarried, so now he leaves a wife his six kids and lots of grandchildren.  His oldest son, Dick, is our current Stake President and another son, Scott,  lives in our ward and is in the Stake High Council and Scott's wife is our current Relief Society President.  Or love and prayers go out to the Hansen Family and we will always treasure the memories of the part that this man has played in our lives.

Judy Lynn did not take many pictures this evening, but here are a few of the ones she did take.

I was outside looking through the window and Josh was holding the baby up for me to see.

Yesterday was another nice clear day, so I decided to take advantage of the day and work some more out in the yard.  I sprayed some weeds in the garden that I do not want to grow through the winter (a funny weed that grows like ground cover and not the kind of weeds you can pull easily).  I mowed the back lawn that I had not done on Saturday which not only mowed the grass but also picked up all the leaves.  Over the weekend a whole new batch of leaves had fallen from the neighbor's tree and had left my front lawn covered again, so I mowed the front lawn again but this time mainly just to pick up the leaves.  While I was out working, the kids came out to (help?) play and we took some pictures.

Sawyer in the tree with Quinn looking on.
Note the leaves are gone from the lawn, but look at the tree to the right of Quinn.
Tons of leaves left to come down, so I will be repeating the process again,
probably many times over the next few weeks


Sawyer is a Ricker, happy to be "up the tree"!


Quinn reluctantly joined him


And of course we cannot leave Gwen out of the fun


Gwen loves it outside too

More pictures as we take them.

Well, I can finally do this blog that I have been waiting all day to complete.  Leslie has been in the hospital since last night, and she really gave it a good try to have her little baby naturally, but it just couldn't happen.  The baby just would not fall into place to help with the process.  Finally at around 6:00 this afternoon the doctor could tell that progress was not good enough and decided to take the baby cesarean.  We got a call here at home and was told that Judy Lynn could go over and be in the operating room with Leslie and Josh, so she rushed right over with our camera and got some great pictures.  She took enough that after I loaded them on to the computer, I could follow the operation and see the moment that the little guy entered this world.  Mom and baby are doing fine.  They have not decided on a name yet, thus the title of this blog.  He was 7 pounds 10 ounces and 21 inches long.  Here are some of the pictures that were taken.

 
First Pictures (Not too happy to be out???)

 



Blue feet?  Proud Pappa Josh


Quite a face.


Proud Leslie and her new little boy.


Just a couple of pictures to end this blog

Congratulations Leslie and Josh.  We love you and are proud of you.  Get a good night's rest after your big day.
Welcome to this world... whatever your name is going to be...

Update tomorrow
Goodnight

It is 3:00 PM and no baby so far.  The baby is sitting really high and won't seem to drop to help with the natural birth process.  Their last text says that if things don't change soon, they will go ahead and take this one cesarean.  Remember that Sawyer was a cesarean birth, but Leslie wanted to try VBAC and so that is what she is doing.  The only reason I want her to have the birth "natural" is because I know that is what she wanted.  Judy Lynn had all of ours cesarean and because the scar tissue got rid of some of the nerve endings, recovery after each one got easier and easier (easy for me to say).  And it was so easy to just schedule the baby in advance, go in and it was done.  (Again... easy for me to say.)  I will keep you posted.

Below are just a bunch of pictures that we took of the kids this Halloween weekend.  Jacki does a much better job of posting, so you might want to go look at her last post at <http://jackitodd.xanga.com/>.  But here goes with my pictures.

Sawyer was Buz Lightyear


Todd and Jacki's Quinn was a Fairy Princess (She called herself "Flower Princess)



Heather & Jay's Gwen was "Squirt" a turtle from Finding Nemo






Gwen looking at herself in the mirror


I took these pictures of Chase and Cort before they left for Disneyland last week
Chase is supposed to be "Slash" from a band "Guns N' Roses"
Cort was a wizard


While Teri Lynn, Randy & boys are at Disneyland, we are taking care of their little dog Gracie
Sawyer thought it would be fun to get in the kennel

And of course, Quinn had to follow.
(It is too bad we cannot keep them in there permanently... just kidding!)

More updates about Les as we get them from the hospital

I was going to post some pictures that we have taken of the grand kids in their Halloween costumes, but we have had a change in priority.  To get a first-hand of what caused the change of plans, go to Les' web site at <http://lesarnell.xanga.com/>.  For those of you who have been following her blog (or mine), her little baby was due on November 8th.  She went to the doctor on Friday and the whole time-table changes.

So, this evening the Rickers came over and we gave Leslie a blessing

Left:  John Ricker (Josh and Jay's Dad), Josh and Leslie (Heather and Gwen hiding behind Josh)
Right:  John, Josh, Leslie, Jay, Jade (Heather is still hiding behind Josh)

After the blessing, the kids went over to the Rickers for a while (remember that the Rickers live just a few blocks away from us) for their traditional Fast-Sunday Breakfast Burritos.  Then Les and Josh brought Sawyer over to stay with Grandma and Grandpa while they went to the hospital.  Josh is going to stay right there in the room with Les.  Things have surely changed since Judy Lynn and I were having our babies!

This is a picture that Les send over her cell phone

So, things should start to happen in the morning.  While I wait here at home (because of the H1N1 flue, only two people are allowed in the hospital, Josh will be one and I think that Judy Lynn will be the other) I should have time to post some pictures of the kids and their costumes.

Exciting times!
Enuf for today

I told you in my last blog update that Judy Lynn's birthday was coming up.  It was yesterday and I hope she had a good day.  As planned, late in the afternoon I took her to the Red Lobster where we had "Never Ending Shrimp".  The kids had given me a gift card for there on my birthday and we had not used it.  Well, we had tried to use it before we left on vacation.  The kids also gave me a gift card for Home Depot for my birthday and when Judy Lynn went in to get the gift card the last time we ate at Red Lobster, she grabbed the Home Depot one instead.  When it came time to pay for our last meal, they did not like the Home Depot gift card very well, so that meant that we HAD to go again to use the right one... which is what we did last night.  So we were celebrating my birthday on her birthday also.  Worked pretty good for me.

After dinner we came home and Leslie had gone to Marie Calendars and got some pies (Rasselberry (low sugar), Apple, and Banana Cream).  I would rather eat pie than cake and Judy Lynn cannot eat much cake, so that worked out also.  (Todd and Jackie's) Quinn had a fever over the weekend, so they did not dare to come to the party and expose us all to whatever she had.  We think she is over it now, but they did not want to take a chance.  But everyone else was here.

Here are some pictures that I took while the family was here:

Pizza First (Didn't even sound good to Judy Lynn and I... and we LOVE pizza... too full of shrimp!)
Left:  Josh cutting the pizza, Leslie, Cort and Heather
Right: Josh, Leslie (due date November 8th) and Sawyer

Chase, Jay & Chad watching the Blazer BB game on Big-Screen while waiting for FOOD
Judy Lynn watching something else

Jay with little Gwen.  Gwen has had a cold for a couple of days and has been very miserable.

Judy Lynn getting ready to open gifts

Plenty of help (Just like his mother when she was his age!)
Left:  Sawyer, Judy Lynn, Heather & Leslie

Pie and Ice Cream after the opening of the gifts
Judy Lynn (she will kill me for posting this one!, Back of Heather's head, Leslie & (Teri & Randy's) Chase

Happy Birthday Judy Lynn!!!

The kids gave Judy Lynn a very nice (warm) robe.  She also got a gift cards to Micheal's, DQ, Red Lobster (here we go again, YUM!) and a Regal (Movie).  All of the cards except the one to Micheal's we can enjoy together, so future celebrations are coming.

(Doug & Garna's) Kelly is here today and we are looking to upgrade him to a nicer motorhome.  May show some pictures later.
That's enuf for today

Three days back and already I am getting a hankering to take off again.  I got a lot done this weekend, but still have some more to do though before we can leave again.  In church today, I had several long-time members of our ward come up and jokingly introduce themselves to me.  We only actually missed three Sundays up here because the first weekend we were gone was Stake Conference and then General Conference was the first of October, so there was some exaggeration there, but I guess I should be flattered that we were missed.  But as I said in my last blog update, things just went right on without us and seem to be very much in order.

I ran into a long-time friend at church today and I was asked to be in a small chorus (16 or so of us I think).  We are going to perform at the Grotto here in Portland  “The Grotto” is the popular name of The National Sanctuary of Our Sorrowful Mother.  It is a non-profit (Catholic) organization supported solely by the proceeds of it’s events at The Grotto.  At Christmas time they go all out decorating their whole place (somewhat like Temple Square) for the holidays only they charge admission for folks to come in and stroll around.  It is a very popular attraction.  I have driven school bus and have taken school choirs down there to perform in previous years.  We will be practicing every Thursday evening and I don’t know much more than that.  The Director is a member of our ward, on the Stake High Counsel, and in charge of the music in our stake.  I love singing with/for him because he really knows what he is doing.  I think that my daughter Teri Lynn is going to be singing in it too, so that should be fun to go to practices together.  When we had the open-house for our new Stake Center in June of 2006, this fellow put a Stake Choir together and we put on a recital one evening and invited everyone in our Stake (specifically geared for non-members).  We took some non-member friends and they were sitting in the audience with Judy Lynn and they had tears in their eyes.  (I almost did too just hearing ourselves.)  So, I was thrilled to be “chosen” to sing with this group.  I will bet that since we are good friend with the music director in our ward that we will be asked to sing in our ward, and perhaps more than just our ward at Christmas time.  In Choir practice this morning we were practicing songs we will be singing at Christmas time in Sacrament meeting.  It is hard to believe that Christmas is that close that we are starting to practice songs.

This coming Tuesday is Judy Lynn's 39th birthday... well... maybe her 24th anniversary of her 39th birthday.  I plan to take her to The Red Lobster for Never Ending Shrimp.  We will go to dinner early and the I think the family will come over for cake and ice cream.

Teri Lynn and Randy have moved into their rental home and are back in our ward.  They attended their old ward today for their Primary Program and that was Teri Lynn's last who-raw.  Teri Lynn has been in the Primary Presidency of her old ward for quite some time and moving out of that position has been hard for her.  She is hoping that our ward will call her to work in the Primary and there is a good chance that will happen.  Our Bishop is our home teacher (trying hard to keep Judy Lynn and me in line... well... at least me) and he and his companion came this evening and while they were here Teri Lynn and the kids came for a visit since they have not seen us much since we got back.  Then in front of the Bishop she made some comments about how she loves Primary, so that should pretty well cinch a position there.  We are so glad to have them back in the ward with us.

Well, that should be enuf for today.  I took some pictures since we got back, so will post some of them.

Gwen in her little walker getting all over the place

Sawyer and Quinn watching something on TV

Closer pictures of Gwen in her walker

Quinn and Sawyer sharing Grandpa's Chair

One last picture of the MH before we took it out to Todd's to park.

Jay helped me clean the WHOLE thing, including the top, getting it all cleaned up for winter.