santa came!!

this morning we were asked to clean the church. so i got the kids to go with me because we were cleaning so "santa could come". they cleaned for an hour washing windows and emptying the garbages. ouor ward had a christmas breakfast and they were so excited to have santa come! for weeks now i've been trying to drill them on what to do when they see santa. so when it was lex's turn to sit on santa's lap he run up to him and blurted out "i wanta phyco car that's mean and mean eyes!!!" (a remote control car that looks big and tough.) and elaina was so shy. she just said very softly "baby". it was cute to see them. :)

lex's christmas preformance!

lex is in 2 preschools this year so his "joy school" did their christmas program last thursday. we went to a nursing home. here's a clip of lex's part. since i was the "helping mom" for this program i was the narrator and elaina got to be in the play also. they were the shepards. lex went right on cue but elaina wasn't paying attention. lol you'll see in this video. :)



after the program they were supposed to all stand up and sing their 3 songs. well... it kinda happened. we didn't practice the standing part enough i guess. this is the 1st song. lex is sitting on the floor and elaina is behide the lady's head. you can see elaina's greenish towel she has on her head. :)




the 2nd song didn't go over very well. the little kid you hear singing is a little boy named isaac. the other kids (if they were singing) were very quite. we needed more practice but here it is anyways. :)



the 3rd song was jingle bells. they each had bells they could ring and they all loved that.



i was so glad lex even did the preformance because before when his class has done these types of things he wouldn't do it. now he'll even try to sing. after they sang the 3rd song they gave out christmas cards. lex loved that part because he got to give his the all the "grandpa's". he searched for them. it was cute. :)

turkey day :)

thanksgiving day we spent just hanging around our house watching the macy's thanksgiving parade. then we feasted on cory's cooking. :) he smoked the turkey again this year. i hope i never have normal turkey again. it's one of the best things i've ever had.

lex and his hat. he made it in his speech class. and of course he doesn't have any pants on. he doesn't like wearing clothes. he rather be naked with a blanket around him.

the master cook. he's so great :)

elaina, grandpa penner and grandma penner enjoying the yummy food.

after we were done eating she sensed it. she jumped right up and helped herself. usually we get after her but hey.... it's thanksgiving for all of us. she feasted also.

awwww yeah!!!!! my mom was there so we got her orange rolls once again. ohhhhh....sooo good. i ate about 10 or more of them.

later on we went over to my brother todd's house and ate pies. mmmmmmm. i made the pies again and this year i made a lemon sour cream pie. whoa.. it was good. let me know if you want the recipe. :)

the grizzlies!! thanks army!!

ok.. so we got free tickets to a hockey game a couple weeks ago. it was army apperication night and they had a ton of tickets left over. The little boy i watch during the week (Abbott) his grandmother works for the army. she's the one that hires me to do the daycare for the marriage retreats for the army. anyways.. she got us free tickets. it was so fun!!




my brother's family came with us along with my parents. this is braden and jordan my nephews.



elaina and lex were totally into the game. it was so much fun watching them :)

my brother todd took this picture. elaina, lex and my nephew colby were playing right by the glass for some of the game. it just so happened right when todd took the picture the guys slammed against the wall. freaking the kids out but great timing! :)

fight fight!!! there was a ton of fights in this game. i missed the fight on this one though :(

halloween 2009!!

for the past couple of years we've grown pumpkins in our garden just so i can carve them at halloween. i love it!! this year i did a disneyland theme since we went to disneyland.

this is our disneyland pumpkin and our castle pumpkin.


this is tinkerbell for elaina. :)

there's snow white next to elaina's because she was show white for halloween. then lex's pumpkin. and i always do a flindt pumpkin.

then next to lex is lex's mickey mouse because he was mickey mouse this year for halloween.

this was our lightening mcqueen. it was sooooo hard to carve!! never again.

there's lex and elaina in the stoller trick or treating. this year they were dragging me on instead of me dragging them. it was so much fun.

after we got back lex said "we can dump out our candy and go again!" but i think bedtime hit him by the time we got home. he was done and so was laina. next to elaina was our nemo pumpkin. that one was really hard too :P its fun to have them at the ages they are now. lex understands now about holidays and that gets elaina excited too. i love it :)

miss mary's trunk or treat!

lex's preschool had a trunk or treat for halloween so i decided to film it. not very exciting but lex was into it. :)

adventures with little lamb

since lex had little lamb we decided to do cool stuff while the lamb was at our house for a visit.

so we went to see the workers dig a big hole by our house.


we made slime. (lamb had to wear protective clothes for this one.)

we dyed pasta noodles

and we made pop corn. i had an army retreat i was setting up for so lamb and lex helped me. thanks guys :) btw...amry retreat went very well. thanks army!!

lex's 4th b-day!!

the morning of lex's brithday we sat his presents out because he wakes up at 5:30 almost every morning. all he wanted for his birthday this year was his tiger car, decorations, and the cousins.

so here's his tiger car i got for him. he loves tony the tiger. i know...kinda weird..but it's one of the few foods he'll eat.



we also sent out a ton of food he likes to eat. he gets up and has to scrounge around for something to eat. so instead of him digging through the cupboards we got all the foods out. he was so excited!! but the nice thing about it was that he woke up at 8:00am so i could watch him. :) the sheep int eh picture is "little lamb" at preschool his teacher is named "miss mary" so little lamb gets to follow each child home from school. so cute. lex got his turn during his birthday.

lex and little lamb at lex's speech therpy class the day of his birthday.

lex was supposed to have his birthday party the sunday after his birthday. so the cousin's came over but right when they got there lex threw up. so they took some cake home and they came back the next weekend for the party after lex was done being sick. so here's his b-day party. :)



it was the day after halloween when he had the party. so we made slime and lex wanted to do the "boom-booms" (snaps from 4th of july.)

opening up his gun. :)

his birthday cupcake.

arrow of lights!!

i've been in webelos for about a year and a half now. i'm happy to say that out of all the boys i've gone through (10) 7 have gotten their arrow of light award. i have 4 boys now and i expect one of them to get his in february. i love being in scouts. so here's some of their arrow of light ceromonies.

this is parker. :) he just got his a couple months ago. the day of his 11th b-day we got him his arrow of light.

this is steven and andrew's arrow of light ceramony

kyler's in the middle. he was the first one that we got to arrow of light. barely made this one. lol

when they earn their arrow of light they get to have their name burned into the bridge.

this is ethan and jadon. they got theirs on the same night. they're awesome!

we also got devan's arrow of light. i was out of town so i didn't get his picture. but it's been awesome to see so many of them get their awards. hopefully they'll be a ton more. :) cub scouts rocks!! "we be awesome scouts!! weboss!"

aloha!!

our stake put on a laua. it was soooo cool! it was at a park and they hired ppl to do a real laua dinner and they had dancers too. it was so neat for the kids.

mmmmmmmm...yummmy food. it was sooo good. they roasted the pig underground over night. mmmmmmmmm. i can't even tell you how good it was.

the kids had a great time playing while the sun went down. they're so cute :)

i was checking on the kids and this lady desided to sit down right in front of me... not on the ground...but in a freakin chair!!!! maybe forgiveness will come later. i mean...come on!!!!!

so i moved over so i can least see. these are some of the dancers.

more dancers.

this guy was sooooo good! at the end of the show we found out he was in a fire dance compatition in hawaii and out of the entire group he was up against he won first place. so it was a real treat watching him. he was amazing!!!

he would put it on his feet and on his toungue. and he was so fast!!! it was so awesome!

my little hawaiian girl :) she had a flower in her hair too but it kept falling out.

"i got one mom!!"

lex earned a fishing trip. so i took elaina and him to a trout farm. i went there when i was in preschool and we had a great time!

feeding the fish. there were thousands of fish in the ponds they had. they put their hands in and the fish would bite them. they would laugh and laugh. :)

getting ready to go fishing.

lex got one!!! he was so excited about that fish.!! i through fish food in right where the line and hook was so we had a fish caught within 2 mins.

after lex caught his fish i told him he couldn't stand by elaina so she would have a chance to get her own. so she went fishing. after 2 cups of fish food elaina still didn't get anything. so i got a 3rd cup. at the very last of the fish food lex runs over and puts his line in and gets one right away. lol. poor elaina. that was our #2 fish...you can't throw them back at this pond.

the 2 fish "we" caught.

so i got them off the line (yuck) and we paid to have them cleaned and fillet. i didn't even think about warning the kids about the death of the fish. well we walked up to have them killed and i was telling them we're going to have them killed and cut up so we can have them for dinner. lex was like.. "yeah!!! they're going to die!!!" and elaina was like "kill them?!?!" poor elaina she just stood there and watched them die. she wanted to so i let her. so while lex was saying... "yeah!! hit him again! and again! ohh...blood! we killed him! they're died!!!" elaina just stood there in silence trying to understand why. lol

that night we went home and cooked them. i was telling lex he had to eat the fish because we don't just kill animals for fun. we kill them for food. well.. he didn't eat any of it. elaina did though.

up up and down again....

we went to a balloon festival they have every year out on antelope island. we got up realllly early to get there on time. it was really neat watching them being blown up. but as soon as they went up they took them back down again because the weather had changed. oh well. i heard they didn't even blow them up the year before. at least we got to see that.

elaina having breakfast waiting for the balloons.

mom and dad came with us. there was a lot of just sitting around waiting.

there were 4-6 balloons going up all at the same time. it was really fun for the kids to watch.

after the hotair balloons we waited for the kites to start flying. so while we waited we took the kids on a train ride.

then the sky divers came and the kids really liked that. after they landed they got to go up to them and watch them put away the paracutes and talk to them. it was cool.

watching the sky divers.




this is one of the kites they had there. it was as big as a car. but the wind dyed and so none of the other kites got up. so we were done by then. but it was still really neat to see everything we did.