Happy Birthday, Joel!

Like this picture, you always try to stay in the background, but we still notice your gentle kindness anyway. You care about family and family traditions, you care about the gospel, you are kind to your fellow man, and you will go above and beyond to make sure no one goes wanting.

We especially appreciate you last year for your calming spirit. You were there as great grandma was making her earthly transition. You took time off when there was no vacation left to sit with her and soothe her aches by touching her forehead. She said she needed your calming spirit, and you were there. Hour after hour. We can't tell you how much that was appreciated. Thank you is all we can think to say.

We appreciate how gentle you are with all your children, your nieces and nephews, and your friends' children. They love being around Uncle Jell-o.

Thanks for helping us move when you were working so much overtime. We appreciate all that you do. It's usually done in secret, and you are usually in the background, but we appreciate your quiet support.

Happy Birthday, and this saying is a family tradition, "You are very old."

Happy 8th Birthday, Sam!

Dear Sam:

We love you very much. We hope you have a wonderful 8th birthday!

We like that you love your remote controls. We've seen them in your hand since you were six months old! The great thing about those remotes is that you knew how to use them from close to the age you were in this picture! You have been a computer genius almost since you were born!

We love that you are a very kind, loving young man with a very tender heart. We love how much you care about things. We love that you love your family very much. We love your smart brain and your good looks!

You were our family's miracle baby, and we are so glad you are here. We love you more than anything we can think of. Have the best birthday ever!

Love,
Gramps and Grammie





Happy 31st Birthday, Jonathan!

One of the things we like about you is your kindness to children. This picture is of you and Camryn around 2002. This picture shows your countenance as we see it. We like that you never met a stranger, like your maternal great-great-grandfather, Hoken, and your paternal great grandfather, Basil. You can meet friends wherever you go. We like that you are confident, kind, caring, and cute. An alliteration, since alliterations are sounds, not letters according to Wiki. We like how you are so helpful to others, fixing things for people, going the second mile for them (the neighbors, and old ladies, and old neighbor ladies, and people with English language questions where you make their cell phones work, and your installing things and fixing of things).

Good luck with your studies, we are rooting for you! We hope you like the snow right now.

We love you.

Happy 30th Birthday, Jonathan!

Dear Jonathan:

Happy 30th Birthday! Wow, we can't believe you're 30 already. The above picture is how we have been remembering you lately. You were a sweet baby and a very pretty baby. You have a gentle spirit and you have a laid back personality. We loved watching you turn into a little engineer as you grew. You loved to study objects and take them apart and put them back together. We enjoyed your scientific projects, like the hover craft you built with dad, and then later we loved watching as you got better and better at all things mechanical (we especially remember how great you were/are at tweaking stereo speakers). We're proud of your mechanical abilities.

A memory we have of you is how you were such a good sport when we found any excuse to punish you--your punishment was scrubbing the tubs. So if you were five minutes late, even though you were helping a friend with a broken down car, you chuckled good humoredly and said all right, you would scrub the tubs for us. We guess you figured out it wasn't really a punishment, but a service you were giving us. Thanks for recognizing that even though we said we were kidding and you didn't have to, you did anyway. That kind of observation of people and of their spirits and what they need and what they mean is another quality of yours. Thanks for caring about people and friends and your primary class and your wife and your family, but especially us.

We love you. Happy 30th. Love, mom and dad.

Happy Birthday, Joel

Dear Joel:

We hope your birthday was a happy one.

We admire your calm personality. We love that you are kind and helpful to anyone needing help. We think those kindness traits are something we would like to strive for and we appreciate your example. We admire that you work hard in your ward as the Elder's Quorum President and we admire that you work so hard to make sure that everyone feels they are important in the Lord's church.

A story we have of you is how you willingly jumped out of bed late one evening to come give great grandma a blessing. She felt your spirit and your kindness and wanted us to make sure you knew how special that was to her. She also thinks the world of you and your gentle, kind personality. Thanks for sharing it with us.

We're very proud of you. Happy Birthday. Love, mom and dad Clift

Happy Birthday, Great Grandpa John!

Dear Great Grandpa John:

We hope you had a great 84th birthday!

We admire your kindness to people. We think a trait you inherited from your mother is that you "never met a stranger." We like that you are always nice to people and you always want to make sure that everyone feels they are welcome around you and that you are their friend. You have a great jovial personality and you make sure people feel comfortable. We admire your friendliness and your sense of humor, too. People don't feel shy around you long, you have them laughing in minutes.

Thanks for all the years of caring. We knew you wanted the best for us, we knew you loved us, and we know how hard you worked to keep us safe and comfortable. Thanks for all that effort, and happy birthday.  Oh, and--Go Bears!

Love, Marty and Peggy

Happy Birthday, our Angel Baby!

Dear Kerry Bear-y: Happy Birthday! We love you and think you are still our angel baby. We love that you were and are still our sweet one. We remember that you had a content and curious personality. You had a smile on your face constantly. You came to us a genius baby and we think you are still a genius. Congratulations on your diploma. We love that you research questions about life and spiritual love. We benefit from that research. We love how well you show love to your children as you raise them. We love that you have always been a hard worker.

A memory we have of your childhood was how much you loved to read at such a young age. We remember you were so engrossed in your book one day that you took a step right off the stairs of our third story apartment. Luckily dad realized what you were going to do and was a step ahead and was able to catch you. We thought at the time that books were going to be your friend and we think that has very much become a reality in this day and time.

We hope that this next year brings love and contentment and happiness and great health to you and your family.

We love you.

Happy Birthday, Kristin!

Dear Kristin:

Happy 23rd birthday! Here is a picture of you:

This is a picture of you and dad at Jon's baptism. You were always glad to be near us. As long as you could be around your parents, you were happy. A story about you that we like (although we pretended not to) was how you would come into our room at bedtime and get in between us in our bed, making like you were going to be there all night and that was that. Sometimes it took us hours to convince you to go to sleep (you were never a good sleeper--sorry about that genetic mess-up!). When you were a baby you were easy to love because you would cuddle up close around our necks and just dwell there.

You are good to your friends and a good listener. You are a sweet person. We are very proud of you for getting your education. You wanted to be an archaeologist since you were very small and you got your degree!

We hope your birthday is a great one. We will be thinking about you all day. We love you.

Love, mom and dad

Happy Birthday, Kathy!

Dear Kathy:

Happy xxth Birthday. As my mom would say, I was there when you were born. I could say that I was only one of four (you, me, dad and the doctor), but that was not true. We were at a teaching hospital in Houston and something was going wrong during your birth, so 20 students ran into the room to watch as they asked me to stop your birth (kind of like stopping the tide). You were half-way here. As we paused to fix the problem, you decided to put your thumb in your mouth for comfort. It stayed there for the next eight years. But thanks to Dr. Bosler, your teeth are beautiful, so no harm, no foul (as many of the relatives say).

Some things we like about you: How hard you try to take good care of your family, how craft-y you are, how you are good at decorating, playing the piano, cooking, running, planning fun adventures, and how good you are taking care of children from all over.

We hope you have a great birthday year.
We love you.

Happy Birthday, Ben!

Dear Benjamin:
Happy Birthday! Here is a picture of you that we like:

This is the railroad museum we visited when we went on our long car ride. You got to ride on a hand car with grandpa. It was his first hand car ride, and yours, too. We love that you are happy, and that you are working so hard on learning. You're doing a great job on your alphabet and alphabet sounds, and you have a great singing voice. You're right on key. We love you!

Happy Birthday, Katelyn!

Dear Katelyn:
Happy Birthday! Here is a picture of you that we like:

We're so proud of your horseback riding skills, and your piano playing and your crocheting and your singing. We think you are a very great person, who tries so hard to be helpful and kind.

We love you!

Happy Birthday, Mr. Alexander K!

Dear Alex:
Happy Birthday! Some of the things we like about you are your smile, your kindness and your happy spirit. We like how you care about others. We like how you want to be a cub scout, and we like how you are anxious to be baptized. We're glad to be your grandparents and we love you.
Love,
Grandma and Grandpa Clift

Happy Birthday, great grandma!

Dear great grandma Lorraine:

We hope you had a great birthday and that you will have a wonderful year. Here is a picture or two of you.

Love, Marty and Peggy

Happy Birthday, Lily!

Dear Lily:

We hope you had a very wonderful birthday. Four years old is very grown up! We love you and we hope your year is full of fun things to do, love and happiness.

Love, grandma Peggy and papa Marty

Happy Birthday Steve

May 27th Steve Spencer turned 34.  Steve is a wonderful father, supportive husband and apparently is very good at what he does at Comcast.

Steve and Kerry engaged, 2000.

Steve and Kerry married, September 2, 2000

Steve and Kerry Christmas 2001.

Steve showing off his sympathy belly in December 2003.

















Steve and Sam June 2004.


















Steve and Lily May 2007













 Steve, circa 2008 and....

Steve, Lily and Sam and his new iPad on this birthday.

Steve, hope you had a wonderful birthday!

Love Peggy and Marty, aka other ones grandma and grandpa.

Sam--Happy Sixth Birthday

Sam turned six years old on March 7.  Here are a few pictures of Sam.

Sam we love you because you are energetic, happy, very smart, loving, fun and good looking too!
Happy birthday, love,
Grandma and Grandpa Clift

Happy Birthday, Jonathan!

Dear Jonathan:
We hope you have a wonderful 29th birthday. Here are a few pictures of you we like. We love you.

March 1981, League City, Texas

Marty and Jon 1981

The carrots you grew.

First Day of Kindergarten. You were supposed to wear brown but you didn't have any so mom made you a brown cloud with "brown" embroidered on it.
















Jon and Peepers.

Your baptism day.

Teenage years.

At the MTC.

Your wedding day.

We hope you have a great birthday, we love you, dad and mom.