Dear Kids,
      Nora’s at the hospital right now having her baby. I’m tending the kids. Ben is watching “Trucks and Big Machines,” and Addie is eating her lunch. She just described to me, in great detail, what the baby will be wearing when she comes home from the hospital, including the “jammies” and little socks. We’re waiting with great excitement and hoping everything goes OK.
      And of course, speaking of babies, we’ve also learned that Heather and Sharon are expecting, January 28th and February 14th. Congratulations! When all the babies are born and weddings take place, we’ll have 37 people in our family.
      Grandma Allen is doing a lot better. When I wrote last week, I thought she was doing fine, but she wasn’t. Her surgery went OK, but afterwards, somebody was lifting her onto an X-ray table, and they scraped the fronts of her legs against the bar. She bleeds really easily, and her skin is really thin, so she bled until she could get a nurse to come, and later on they needed a surgeon to work on her legs. It’s been terribly painful for her, sort of like how they treat severe burns, by scraping the exposed area. She was in so much pain she couldn’t get up for several days, so she got pneumonia. When Dad and I visited her last Saturday, her face was really gray, and she could hardly breathe. But now she’s doing better. Our prayers are being answered. In a couple of days, they might transfer her to Orchard Care Center, where Justin can watch over her.
      Bonnie said I needed to come and get Grandma’s cat, because he was suffering from loneliness and biting out chunks of his fur, but Grandpa said he’s OK. I think he keeps Grandpa company when he’s home alone at night. Normally grandpa likes to get rid of cats, so he must really like this one. They call him Henry.
      Jasmine is keeping her food storage (dead mice and birds) under the deck. It’s starting to smell. Yesterday I hauled out a fat decomposing mouse, and threw him over the fence. But most of them are farther in, and I can’t get them. Rat Cat and Xena are loving it, though, and I hardly ever have to put out cat food for them. Jasmine provides for everybody.
      Our ward had its Youth Conference last weekend, and they stayed at our cabin Friday night. There were 40 people, counting the leaders, but it worked out fine! It was really hot when they first got there, so they played water games out in back. Then, when it got dark and cooled off, they had a bonfire. They pitched tents in the very back for the boys, and the girls slept in the greenhouse, on camping mattresses. The leaders got the bedrooms. It was midnight before everybody went to bed, and Dad and I were sleeping out. I thought it would be pretty quiet, but the girls kept sneaking out of the greenhouse and pulling down the boys’ tents. At 6:30 in the morning Steve Jester stomped into the greenhouse and shouted at all the girls to get up. He made them fix the tents, even though they were just going to take them down again. The kids needed to do a service project, so I had them work on the sledding hill. It always needs work! Between the deer and the spring runoff, it’s always hashed. But they got it smoothed out, and they chopped away all the weeds. They cleaned the cabin, too, and left behind lots of their food, so Dad and I had no complaints.
      Last night Donna and I went to visit Grandma again, and she told us that Emily Allen is engaged to a boy named Hank, who’s from a family of 14 or 15 kids. Grandma said to Donna, “Her wedding date is the same as yours.” Donna said, “When’s that?” Grandma said “September 23rd.” That was news to Donna. We’ve heard rumors about December, but nothing about September. We all decided it must be somebody else in the family getting married on September 23rd, but we racked our brains and couldn’t come up with anything. Do any of you know about any other weddings coming up?
      I’ve gotta go. I love you all! Mom