dentist trip...2nd time around

ok...so now we're pretty much up to speed i can update the last month or so of our lives. about a week after lex went to teh dentist the first time i took him again. for the real experience. the other dentist we went to didn't do anything and i was very disappointed. so i took him to a pediatric dentist. lex LOVED it!!! when you first walk in there's a big train painted on the wall. lex was in heaven. then there was a really big fish tank and a game room and a wall you can write on with chalk. when the dentist came to get him he didn't want to leave the waiting room. i didnt know what they were goign to do but i wanted x-rays and at least a cleaning to happen. lex was soooo good! he did it all! x-rays, cleaning, gum test, everything. he loved it! he thought it was so neat that they had a tv he could watch in the ceiling and listen to with headphones. afterwards they give every kid a token so they can go get a prize out of a machine. very cool. they were so cute with him. i was very impressed. it was great! so here's some pictures of that...

lex showing his great smile after the dentist.

showing his train bag with his prize and new tooth brush and toothpaste. he loved it. :)

a rockin new years party!!

well cory was out flying new years eve so we decided to keep the party low key. we stayed home. i put up some decorations even though i didn't feel like having new years. but i wanted the kids to have a good time. so up went the decorations and out come the food and on went the party hats and on went laina's party dress (her halloween costume).




so we had a good time watching tv. and playing games and hanging out....

we had a countdown for the kids at 10pm. and by that time elaina was begging me to go to sleep. so we had a toast and kisses for everyone...

after i had elaina in bed i asked if lex wanted to go too. he decided he wanted to see how long he could stay awake and he wanted to sleep on the couch. so...i was like...whatever..it's news years. have at it. well he lasted for about a 1/2 hour and then he was out. i even put on his pj's and he was still out. so i took him up to bed.

after lex was in bed i watched tv with my parents. somewhere around 11:20pm my mom took this picture... as you can tell 2008 went out with a bang. it was a lovely time had by all. :)

christmas had come!

well...we finally made it to the big day. the night before after we got home from the cousin's house we put out the cookies that we made and milk for santa. we went outside and put carrots on the ground (i was thinking just through them all over the place....but lex decided it needed to be in a nice little pile... he's so clean and neat.). the carrots were for the reindeer. then we put the kids to bed and went to work. :) the next morning lex came in to wake us up and we woke up elaina and grandma and grandpa. lex found the plate of cookies. he was so excited that santa came to his house...but he was pretty upset that he didn't get to see him. i relized i didn't explain the part where he had to be asleep for santa to come, very well. in his mind i think he was thinking that santa would come and hand him his presents. poor guy. :( it was alright as soon as he saw what he got though. :)

after that it was onto the stockings while grandma and grandpa came downstairs.

after the stockings it was time for the presents. they had a great time opening them. and then the celebration after each one was opened. it was great. :) they loved everything they got and to this day still play with everything. it was a great morning. thanks to everyone for sending us presents. i never say thank you. but do know that we really do appericate everything you guys do for us.
this was a present from santa... the big one. elaina also got her baby she wanted. she was so excited to finally have a baby doll. and lex got another peice to his geo trax train set. this time he got an airport. it's pretty cool.

elaina loves her pretties. she was very excited to get hair peices.

elaina loved this bambi outfit. she's grown out of it now but she always wanted to wear it. she would smile and point at bambi. it was cute.

a bear she got with some cute clothes.

the cat had a great time being the devil she is. hiding then attacking everything.

the picture elaina is looking at is a picture of grandpa mccullum. she smiled at him and just loved looking at him.

lex opening presents. he was excited about the home depot apron. very cool to go with the tools he got.

another baby for elaina. :) in the middle of the night while she sleeps with her glowworm i hear her playing with it. she loves to play in her bed. she goes to bed at 7pm and wakes up around 11pm and just plays the songs and falls back to sleep again. it's cute.

christmas eve 2008

every year on christmas eve we get together as a family and eat clam soup and act out the christmas story. my dad always reads it and the kids are the actors. this year we did pretty well. ethan was joseph and elaina got to be mary. jordon, cam, and bradon were the wisemen and lex was the shepard (with no pants on). it was fun to do.

seeing santa!!

ok so this year i've been trying to teach lex about santa. the more movies he saw and the more books he read he finally figured out that santa is a good guy. still wasn't sure what he did though. but our ward had it's christmas party like they do every year and i was hoping that last year's santa ordeal wasn't even in lex's memory (he screamed and cried when he saw santa). so this year all morning i told lex santa was coming and he needed to sit on his lap and tell him what he wanted for christmas. we went over and over what he was going to ask santa for. lex decided all he wanted for christmas was "num nums". which is candy. so when breakfast was over and santa came lex was very excited!!! elaina wasnt so sure... she was happy to see him but didn't want to get close to him. so we waited in line. and waited...and waited... til finally we were at the front of the line. so we went over again what he was going to ask santa for. "num nums". he's gotten it down this time. so we got up there.. elaina didn't want anything to do with santa. thank goodness she didn't scream and cry. :) now lex didn't want to sit on santa's lap. but finally gave in once he saw the candy cane he had for him. so santa asked the golden question..."what do you want for christmas?" and i waited for lex... finally....very softly and mumbling he said "num nums". Hurray!!!! he did it!! i was so excited he did it!! so we took a picture with elaina not wanting to have anything to do with him still and then santa gave out the num nums. well lex was excited because he got what he wanted and elaina warmed up to him right away and smiled at hima nd said goodbye as we left. it was a good first encounter with santa. they saw santa 2 more times after that. and of course i didn't have a camera. but it pretty much went the same way the 2nd time we saw him at holiday lights. i took the kids and my parents and went to willard to drive through to see some lights. the kids and i saw santa and santa's reindeer were there too. by that time lex really got the idea of santa and he loved seeing the reindeer. we also got to take a wagon ride pulled by horses. the kids LOVED that. it was a good night. the 3rd time we saw santa lex was sick of seeing him. he wasn't interested anymore. but he still got some num nums. it was more like..sit..."num nums"...walk away. didn't even wait for santa to say anything. lol so anyways here's the picture we took at the breakfast.

penner family reuion 2008

every other year we get together for my family's reuion. just my parents, brothers and sister and their families get together. this year we went down to my brother kevin's house in san deigo ca. cory had to work so the kids, my parents, and i all drove down in my car. we just bought a mazada cx-9 in october. our volkswagon had seen better days. we went down the end of november for thanksgiving. we all camped at a KOA campground about 1/2 hour away from kevin's house. i was the only one sleeping in a tent. everyone else had cabin's they rented. too spendy for us. :) the kids loved to sleep in a tent though. i didn't get hardly any sleep. but it was still a good time had by all. we had thanksgiving dinner ata church by kevin's house. my sister cherie and i had all the kids at the church and played games and did activities with them all day while everyone else cooked. it was a lot of fun. then we had dinner at the church.

after dinner we had a play done by all the little kids. it was very cute


we decided to make a trip to old town san deigo. we walked around looking at a musuem and then we walked around the square. after that we went to get some lunch at a really good resturant we always stop at.

while we were out we went to a park. it was a reallllly big park. it was really neat. there was a lot to do there. we walked for awhile and we took a picture on this dragon thing we found there..

after that it was the best of times...it was the worst of times... that's all i can say. lol we didn't really have a plan so it was kinda spur of the moment we decided to go take a tour on a bus that ended up not being a tour at all. we waited alomst a 1/2 hour for a bus that could fit us all on. when we finally got on...well.. camille's face says it all in this picture. we got off soon thereafter. then we went to a playground and went back to the campground.

so meanwhile.... back at the campground... :) hanging out at the campground was great. the kids got to run around on the grass and go in each other's cabins. it was a lot of fun. but it rained a lot of the time we were there. one day cherie, ken, todd, and kevin decided to rent bikes for everyone to have a ride on. they took rides all around the camp. lex and elaina loved it.

one of the days we were there we went to the beach. this is what i was looking forward to all weekend. since going to florida i was missing the beach a lot. but the beach in florida and the beach in san deigo in november is night and day. lol my kids were very excited about going to the beach again...but they were thinking it was florida beach. everyday before we got to the beach lex would ask when we were going. so when we finally got there he was very excited. he walked out to the water and put his feet in. he was like...."COLD!!!!!" but he still wanted to go swimming. well i wasn't about to get into the water. and elaina wasn't having all of it either. so uncle kevin took him out.

i would say within 5 mins lex was crying. :( he was really cold and a wave went over his head. after that my kids were done being in the water. lol so we took tot he beach instead. elaina was much happier there playing in the sand. so i figured if we were goign to be there for awhile i would build a sand castle. all the kids would come over and ask.."can we knock it down????!!!!" the saying for that day was.... "not until i get a freakin picture!!" sooo..they waited...the little vulchers. just hovering until i was done....

i didn't get a picture of the final desent upon my beauitful castle. it's just better not to see such things.

back at the campground.... we had a great time here's some pictures of us hanging out. most of the time we hung out i never had my camera with me. :( so no movie night pictures...no dinner pictures.... no sitting by the fire talking pictures. none of that. :(

lex had begged me to take him to the big playground by the entrance to the KOA campground. so i finally did it the day before we went home. that's the day that todd and kirsten's baby nate was blessed and also bradon was baptized. i didn't bring my camera so i didn't get any of those pictures either. :( or...maybe it was on saturday night... i can't remember now :( anyways i missed the pictures. but here's the playground.. :)

lex was so scared to go down this slide. so cousin jordan took him downt eh first time. and this is him going down by himself. he was so proud of himself and so was i. :) lex is more cautious about things like that. elaina just goes for it...so was on her way up by herself but i told her she was little bit too young for that still.

this was elaina's first time swinging by herself in a big swing. she was so excited. i took this picture and turned away to see what lex was doing and elaina started screaming. she fell off face first into the sand. it was so sad.

well guess what i found??? picture of a campfire! this was our last night together so i took some pictures.

well it was time to go home. and for me i was really glad. this trip was a hard one for me to go on. i just wanted to be home. i missed cory and i was having just a hard time throughout the trip. so here's my mom packed away with the kids in the back of the car. we were PACKED!! we couldn't fit anything else even if we wanted to.