Author: rachel

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i heart felt too

Felt. Felt. Felt. That is what I am up to these days. I don’t have a cool picture of felt like Jaime, but I did buy 28 yards of it. At half off, I walked out of the store only spending $60. Why felt you ask? We are making felt playhouses for Christmas. See Here

I don’t sew, but my girlfriends do. They are determined to teach me. So far, I have kept myself busy with cutting, stuffing, and pinning the pieces. Jaime and Jena have helped me with the sewing. Adam also sews so we borrowed a machine from a wonderfully generous someone. We are excited to finish the project together for the kids.

My kids are a little too big, and our space is a little too small, to make use of our kitchen table. So I came up with the idea of making panels that will hook onto the kids’ bunkbeds. Two for the girls and two for the boys. My panel themes are: Cupcakery, Grocery Store, Stargate, and Buried Treasure. The ninos are great at imaginative play, and playing together in general. So this is the perfect gift. They can pretend to walk through the stargate–ready to conquer another world one day, and then go shopping pastries and tea at the cupcakery the next. So Cool. I am planning a beauty parlor for Nikki’s birthday in February. So many ideas. So little time. I will definitely post pictures of the finished project.

The best part about this project is that I have been super productive while spending wonderfully abnormal amounts of time with my girlfriends the past few weeks. We could quite possibly never stop crafting for that reason alone.

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more rappeling

The three oldest are really getting the “hang” of it. Danny and Ezzy can go over the edge and down the wall on their own now. Nikki is just two steps behind. Juan has yet to step over the edge. He pumps himself up, and then chickens out. We are going to a find a place where the edge isn’t so high for him.

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Thanks, Unlce Dave, for always being willing to go out and help.

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halloween 2009

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This Halloween was soooooooooo much better than our first. What a difference a year makes! No meltdowns over the food. No confusion over people dressing in strange costumes. The kids knew what I meant when I asked what they would like to be for Halloween. They knew how to say trick-or-treat. They didn’t freak when I took their candy at bedtime. It was AWESOME!!!!

Just for the record, I made both tutus. Ezzy wanted to be a bee and Nikki wanted to be a fairy princess (go figure). I even broke out my scrapbooking glue dots to adhere the antennas to the head band–genius! Thanks, Jena and Jaime, for helping with the tutus and the “bee wing” crisis.

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The boys were good sports to go as superheros. Danny wanted to be Harry Potter, but I refused to pay $40 when all said and done to get everything I would need. Wompy wanted to be a chocolate chip cookie–so that people could eat him. But that didn’t work out so well. He became Superman at the last minute. Actually, the costume fit him much better than it did Danny last year. Oh yeah, I also made Danny’s shirt. Well, I bought a plain red t-shirt and sharpied the design.

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We trick-or-treated at grandma’s. Took pictures with the Demarco’s. Won first place in our church’s chili cook-off!!! And brought home more great candy than any one family needs for the year. Seriously! It was a great Halloween.

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four little pumpkins

72797282If you live in Vegas, or anywhere similar temperature wise, then you know not to carve your pumpkins until the week of Halloween. We broke the cardinal rule this year since Grandma and Grandpa Penning were here for the baptism. It was worth having to “deep-freeze” the pumpkins so that grandpa could help carve. We also dipped carameled apples and made Squished Witches with Grandma McCracken.

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The next Saturday, we had the McCracken clan over to paint pumpkins and decorate Halloween cookies. Yeah, the kids have been celebrating for two weeks now. :) The ninos had a blast with their cousins.

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Check out more pictures here and here. The amount of candy that was piled on top of the sugar cookies is totally kid ridiculous. Don’t you think? And yet, they ate the whole cookie. :)

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baptism de ezzy

Ezzy–we participated in your baptism this month. We are so proud of you for making the decision to follow Jesus. Lately, you are consistently the first one to remind the other kids when they have forgotten a prayer at the table. You are maturing before our eyes, physically and mentally, and we are so pleased with what we see. Your face glows with happiness and love. You take your responsibility as the oldest girl very seriously. You are almost always the first to offer assistance and to help me and the other children. We are privileged to have you in our home.

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Ezzy wore my baptism dress. A splish of Oxyclean and a splash of vinegar later….a perfectly white dress that fit her perfectly. It brought me great joy to pull the dress out of my hope chest–like a dream that I never thought would be realized.

I remember standing in my grandmother’s bedroom as she and my mom dressed me for my own baptism some 25 years ago. It was my eighth birthday, and I had just gotten a perm and pierced ears as presents from grandma. Mom worked so hard to sew my dress and to have it ready for me. She also crafted a small box for my new earings. It had a rainbow design across with a blue piece of yarn that secured the box in place. I remember it as though it were yesterday–wishing desperately that Ezzy’s great-grandma was still here. The picture of Grandma Penning doing Ezzy’s hair is that much sweeter to me because of my memories.

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Thank you to everyone who took the time to attend and support this special event in our daughter’s life. It is a day that will stay with her for the rest of her life, as mine has with me. These are the things that matter most to us, and we are so grateful to have such a broad circle of influence around our family.

Thanks for flying, Grandma and Grandpa Penning!

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flyin’ by

Ezzy’s eighth year is going so fast. She started attending Activity Days. One of her first activities was a Daddy Daughter Dinner. How cool is it that she has a daddy to take her?

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October always bring Fall Conference to our home. It is one of only two times a year that we intentionally stay home for church–glorious internet. The kids did awesome. They sat through all four sessions of conference while coloring ties and pictures of the speakers, and writing down the main themes of each talk. What a difference a year makes when it comes to communication, right?

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I started exercising again today. Yeah, it was only a mile walk. But I also went out and walked with the kids later in the day too. Maybe my motivation is slowly returning. It would be really good for it to hit around the holidays. Perhaps it will stave off extreme amounts of weight gain due to even more extreme amounts of consumed peanut brittle and sugar cookies. :)

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space cadets

74917512Daniel raced in his first “space derby” and received his first Cub Scout award all in one night this past September. Danny received his rocket on Sunday, and had to race it on Thursday…September 24th, 2009. Needless to say, Adam and Daniel spent the three evenings in-between frantically sanding, shaping, glossing, and tweaking the shiny red and black vehicle. After the race, Daniel received his Bobcat and his Wolf allowing him to advance into Bears. He also earned two arrows.

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Our nine year old son could not be any more excited than he already is about scouting. He dances around the house chanting, “I’m going to Scouts!” every single Thursday. He is an oldest child in every sense of the word. It drives me insane sometimes because I see my own oldest child tendencies manifesting themselves in him. So when he is too nervous about unimportant things, or when he gets frustrated because he didn’t do something exactly right the first time, it is like looking into a very sharply focused mirror. I suppose you do not have to be related by blood or race, or even speak the same language to be so much alike after all! :)

The super-supportive siblings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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a little bit of london

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HELLO ENGLAND!!!!

Adam and I were able to take a trip across the pond in September. We spent most of our time in the English countryside at a very fancy resort. You know, the kind of place where the food is way too expensive and the staff is impeccably polite. Adam worked most of the time we were at the hotel (the reason we went), which meant I got a lot of down time–all to myself. After a summer of single mom-hood, it was a welcome relief.

From our hotel window:

74337437Being a literature buff, I was drooling over the footpaths, the lakes, the rolling hills. It was everything Jane Austen. We just wish we had more time and mobility to explore more of the countryside. There was a little lake that we walked to every evening. It rained a lot, which was heaven to me. I also had lots of time to prepare my homeschool materials for the year.

And then to London for a couple of days:

74407452We did the touristy stuff, which was fun. This was my second time in London–much more fun with Adam along! :) We took the train into the city, and had a blast just picking our way through the winding streets of the very large city.

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On our last day, we headed out to the London Temple. We thought it was the perfect time to go since our children were already with babysitters at home. After a $50 taxi ride, this is what we saw:

74737479At least we tried. We get points for this, right?

All in all, we had a fantastic time. We have said it a hundred time since we’ve been back, but THANK YOU again to grandma and all the tias for helping tend the children while we were gone. More pics here.

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master of the library

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Adam’s mom, Grandma McCracken, earned a Master of Library Science degree this year. We came home from our summer vacation to specifically celebrate this momentous occasion. We would not have missed it for the world. Debbi has worked so hard over the past two years to accomplish this rigorous degree. She has a great love for books, and for learning. What an example she is to our children, as we try to teach them that one is never too young, or too old, to accomplish the things he or she desires.

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Congratulations, Grandma McCracken. We are sooooo proud of you!