Grandpa and Grandma Fennell

This cute couple is my grandparents. They are such wonderful people I just wanted to let people know. They have always been so supportive of me and my family. My grandparents helped watch my little brother and sister when my Mom decided to go back to school. My grandma even made us birthday cakes during that time so that my mom could get other things accomplished. She always remembers everyones birthdays, anniversaries and such and sends cards. My Grandpa is a quite fellow, but has a great sense of humor and a wonderful smile, you just don't ever see that on film. Being on a girls basketball team in High school you don't attract a huge crowd, but I always knew that if I looked up into the stands, I would see my Grandpa there supporting me.
They are both such wonderful people and I lve them very much.

Thanksgiving in Rupert

Growing up we always had Thanksgiving with my Dad's side of the family. It was always so fun to see all the cousin's. This year was much the same. On Thanksgiving Day we had a wonderful dinner with Austin's family. All were there, but Damon who is serving in Florida on a mission. Unfortunately I was a bit sick, so I could not enjoy the food as much as I would have liked, but what I did try was delicious!
On Friday we got together with my family. We went out to my Aunt and Uncle's home. Tons of cousins were there, and many had children of thier own for my kids to play with. We ate, then the boys wanted to go hunting and shooting of clay pigeons.
The top picture is a row of clay pigeon shooters and those in line to shoot, and some just watching.

This is my Grandpa Fennell entertaining two of his Great-Grandchildren, Layton and Abby.
This is a close up shot of Layton and Abby. Layton is one month older and more than a head longer! When my brother, who is 24, was a baby my mom took a picture of he and another cousin, and it looked much the same.

This beauty is my Mother. She takes every opportunity to hold and cuddle with Layton. Thats what Gramdma's are for!

This is a picture of the hunters. We brought Howie and my brother brought his pup Max, but he didn't want to be photographed.
They had a little luck and shot one pheasant, and then Max chopped on it and wouldn't let go. What can you say, he is a puppy after all. This was one of his training days. My brother David, the tallest one, loves that cute little pup and takes him almost everywhere.

Layton is Rolling

Layton has learned to roll over. I think that he learned it a little backwards. He was on his back and rolled to his tummy the first few times. Today he got from his tummy to his back. In fact, he rolled tummy to back to tummy to back! I was quite amazed since he just started yesterday.

He is so cute when he rolls, he usually always gives a big smile, like he knows that he is accomplishing something great.

I love this time with a baby, when they are learning new things. It is so fun. And he is such a good and happy baby. We LOVE having him in our family.

Country Girls Stitchin'

My sister Michelle and I decided to put our creativity and free time, ha-ha, to good use. We both LOVE to do crafty things, and I had found all these cute embroidery patterns, so we decided to make some and sell them. So here we are. We are just getting a website up ad running, and have already sold quite a few pictures. We are loving it.

Michelle and I embroider all the pictures, tea-dye them, then meet with our Dad and make all the pictures frames. I think that he loves this opportunity to spend lots of time with us, and in the shop, two things he loves.

Anyway, please check out our website, but remember that it still needs a lot of work, we are just starting.

And remember to tell all your family and friends.

Holiday Stamp a stack

This Saturday, November 15th, I am holding a Holiday stamp a stack. I am posting the cards that we are going to be making. There are five cards and we will make two of each. The cost is $10. Come anytime between 11-3 on Saturday.

I will also have extra supplies to make cards for the soildiers. So come and have some fun.

Scrapbooking this month

These were little treats we made for Tori and Kennedy's school classes. They loved them.

Just a fun thank you card I came I made.

These are the cutest Mummy cards. I loved them. I am in a card club and these are the ones that I made. I thought they turned out cute.

October Kids

Okay, so this totally put my pictures in backwards, and it takes to long to upload them, that I am not redoing it. So start at the bottom and work you way up.

This is a picture of the kids today. They are growing up so much, so fast. Tori is LOVING kindergarten, but when I ask what she did at school when she gets home, all I learn is whether of not she had recess, what the snack was and who she sat by on the bus. Hope there is more going on than that!!!

Kennedy is just such a cutie! She loves to play games and dress up while Tori is at school. She is also getting a little more imaginitive in her playing.

Layton is changing all the time. He is smiling at everyone now. He really loves to "talk" to Tori. She will lay on the floor next to him and he will just chat away. He really loves his big sisters.

He has also started to grab at toys and bring them towards his face. He is such a GOOD and HAPPY baby.

Another big plus with Mom is he is sleeping between 11-12 hours at night! Loving it!

This was taken about 3 weeks ago. I thought I would take a picture in his Aunt shirt before it got too small and I forgot. The Aunt will remain unnamed, so the others with think it is them! :)

And yes, this is Idaho in October!! Still want to come Annie?!? It was around October the 10th!!! And we recieved 4 inches on day and 6 the next. It melted inbetween. My parents house and hour away got 27 inches!!!!! And the week before it was in the 80's! After the snow melted it went back to the high 70's and has stayed warm since. This Idaho weather!

Cowgirls

This has become Tori and Kennedy's favorite thing to do when we go to Grammy Gillette's home. They quickly put on their PINK cowgirl boots and run out to the corral to feed TANGO.

Doesn't Tori do such a good job of riding by herself. Both of the girls are getting so good at riding Tango. They sure do have a lot more confidence than I would. I am proud of them. One day maybe we will get them a horse of their own.

Narayan

Narayan was a roommate of Austin's the year before we were married. Narayan was from Fiji and was one of the best people you would ever meet. We all got along so good. Narayan and I would spend a lot of time together while Austin was in his room studying. He loved to watch the Texas Ranger show with Chuck Norris. So I would lay on the couch (because I worked from 4:30 am to 1:30) and he would sit on the floor and we would watch it together. Then he and Austin and I would have dinner together. He was such a fun roommate for both of us. ( I did practically spend all of my time there)
So this is Austin with Narayan. And the bottom picture is of both of our beautiful familes this summer in our back yard. Narayan got married and moved to Canada. He and his family were in Utah visiting his adopted Mom and Dad and stopped to see us for a few hours. It was so wonderful to meet his beautiful wife and children.
I only had a couple of weeks left of pregnancy in this picture. Thank goodness that is over! :)

Tori, Kennedy, Layton

Tori has always been so PHOTOGENIC and she loves to have her picture taken. So I don't think that Adrianne had a hard time getting good pictures of her. (http://www.capturedbyadrianne.blogspot.com/)
Tori and Kennedy really are BEST FRIENDS!!
This is LAYTON at three weeks. He was such a good baby during our session.
I think that this is my favorite picture of Kennedy...ever! She looks so naturally beautiful. She was fun to watch during the pictures.

Layton Gillette is Here!!

Layton Perry Gillette arrived on July 26, 2008 at 12:02 am. He weighed in at 7 lbs. 7 oz. And was 20 3/4" long. He is a very long and skinny little boy. His arms, legs, fingers and toes are all very long. He has blue eyes, like the rest of the family, and light brown hair. We think that it will be blond like his big sister Tori.Tori and Kennedy were so excited to get to meet him. When they got to the hospital they couldn't keep their eyes and hands off of him. Kennedy loved to point out all the little things about him to Austin and I, to make sure that we knew everything about him. The cutest was when she said, "He has knees Mom!" They are going to be great big sisters.
This is just a close up of Layton in his little going home outfit. He and I were both very ready to get out of there by that second day.


My Mom and sister Mary came and stayed the night with the girls will we were in the hospital having Layton. The next morning before coming to see us Aunt Mary helped the girls draw a welcome home picture. It says:
"Welcome Home Mom and Layton"
Then they drew a house and a picture of all the members of our family. Then there is a huge picture of Layton that Tori drew. It was very cute. I loved it.

Words for the pictures. . .

So I added some pictures of Tori and Kennedy after they graduated from Preschool. It was a little bit of a rough day for me because it meant that Tori was actually going to be starting Kindergarten. They were so cute though.
Some of the other pictures are of the various camping trips that we have taken this summer. We found a place that is not too far called Chesterfield that we really like, the girls really like to catch minnows and splash in the water. Austin and I caught quite a few fish, mostly Austin.
The others are from our annual Residency Retreat at Island Park. We go up there for a weekend with all the residents, new and old. I was in charge of the craft for the kids while the residents had a meeting. We gathered nature and arranged it on shirts then I sprayed them with bleach. They really turned out cute and all the kids really liked them.
After that we went fishing at Henry's Lake. The girls once again tried to catch minnows while Austin fished and I took pictures. Island Park is always fun. I even talked Austin into taking his Dad's camper instead of the tent. It was hard to convince him that I was 34 weeks pregnant and the ground would not be so comfy, but he finally gave in, and I think that he liked it!!!

Check out my Slide Show!

So Annie has many times informed me at how horrible I am at this, but I have two very active girls, I am very pregnant, while watching a little 4 month old baby boy, and I am not a computer person! So please forgive me. I will at least add something today for you.

Snow is Falling ALL around . . .

on the rooftops on the ground.
On my head and hands and toes!!

That's right! We woke up to 5" of snow, and yes you did read that right 5"!!!!!!!
This is crazy, it is May 1st, we should be having May flowers, not May snow showers.
Anyway, I am tired of this crazy not spring weather. Two days ago we had a 75 degree day, then it dropped 30 degrees over night. I guess that is Idaho for you.


I don't think that Howie enjoys this weather either. We had to coax him out of his house this morning to eat! I just wonder where the global warming people are now. Definitely not in Idaho!
So anyway, while we have been having crazy weather I have loaded up with a few projects. I decided to make curtains for all of the rooms in my house. This is one set (they will actually match the room once I get it painted). Sorry that the picture isn't great, the lighting was bad and patience is not always one of my virtues. I also finished another for the baby's room. We moved the girls out of their room, and I have started to paint the pictured room that will so be the Master room. I am also working on a baby quilt. So I shouldn't complain too much about the weather since I have plenty to keep me busy inside.

Sunday Hike

We really like to take Sunday drives, especially now that we are in a new place and the weather is nice. This Sunday we had Stake Conference and so we had a little more time in the afternoon than we usually do so we decided to take a little walk in the mountains. The girls were so excited to be in nature that they were practically running up the mountain.

Kennedy soon found out that running up a mountian is hard work, so she opted to ride for a while. It was a beautiful walk. We saw lots of butterflies, birds and even spooked a few deer. The girls were running at one point, and not 20 yards in front of them four deer jumped up and ran up the mountain. They thought that was so cool. Kennedy wanted to chase them up the mountain and catch them.

Tori has a pair of Austin's old binoculars. They aren't the greatest, but she loves them. While we were walking we saw tons of deer tracks and every time that she saw one she would stop and point it out to Austin then pull up her binos and scan the mountain. She would then inform us that the deer wasn't there anymore and keep on walking. It was so cute, I couldn't stop smiling. And she did this dozens of times. She really looks up to her Daddy and tries so hard to impress him. I think it is adorable.

Sidewalk chalk

Right now Austin is working the night shift. So he leaves the house around 6:30 p.m. The girls just love being able to wave goodbye to him and so lately we have been going outside when he leaves. Then they want to stay outside because we are finally having nice weather. Tori is content just riding her bike, but Kennedy likes to change things up. Lately she is really into drawing on the sidewalk.
The only thing is, #1 I have to be involved, okay, that is fine, but #2 the whole sidewalk and driveway have to be covered in chalk before it is okay for us to go inside. This takes a lot of time and creativity. She doesn't want us to draw the same thing over and over again, in fact, she doesn't even like me to draw the same things two days in a row. I am really running out of ideas. It has been really fun though. We have come up with some fun pictures.
Last night I wrote everyone's names (REALLY BIG to take up space) and Kennedy decided to copy me. She already knows how to write her name and Tori's name, but she also added Dad and Mom. It is really light in this picture, but I thought she did a GREAT job.
(and the little thing she is drawing does not have a name, she just thought it looked COOL!)

No Training Wheels

One day Tori came home from preschool and announced to Austin that she was going to ride her bike without training wheels and he needed to take them off right then. This came as quite a surprise, because Tori is a bit a a chicken in things of this nature. He told her that this might require to to fall on the pavement and get a little scrapped up, but she was determined.

She did surprisingly well the very first time. Since then she has been out on the bike whenever Dad is home (and awake at a normal time) and the weather is nice. So only a few times. But she is getting so much better every time down the street. Yesterday Austin said that it may only be a couple of weeks until she can do it on her own. I think that for most kids it wouldn't take that long, but I just don't think that my pregnant self could go running up and down the street with her right now. Wouldn't be pretty.

Kennedy is also loving the bike riding. She wants to ride right alongside Tori, although Tori's legs allow her to go a little faster. Kennedy may soon be riding without training wheels too.

Baby News

Just wanted to update that Austin has done a couple more Ultrasounds on me, and it is definitely a BOY!! We are excited.

Tori has really taken a big leap in her reading. We started to find really good books that not only interested her but were at her reading level. Now when she is not outside playing she is walking around the house with her nose stuck in a book. I love it. She really is enjoying reading now that the stories make sense.

This is Kennedy's idea of listening to Tori read. Actually, I think that Tori was making a game out of not letting her see the pictures because they ended up on the floor wrestling and giggling.

I am so sorry that I am so bad at this. I really do try to be good and keep things up to date, but it is hopeless!! Last time I made it really cute, only to realize a few days, maybe weeks later, that all my fellow bloggers had been removed and LOST!!! It makes me so mad. I was just trying to make it look nice, now I lost all my friends blog sites!

Rachel's Pregnant!!

So, as you can see, I am expecting baby #3. I am about 20 weeks along, due August 3. We are all really excited, the girls especially. The first part of the pregnancy was pretty rough, a complete opposite from the girls, but we are out of that now and feeling much better. We are so happy to have a Doctor in the family because you get free little ultrasound peeks at the baby whenever he has time. So before the first one we asked Tori and Kennedy separately what they thought the baby was. Both replied "BOY!" We told them not to be disappointed if it was a girl. We soon found out that they are wanting a boy so that they can have a wrestling buddy, I guess they are not good enough for each other.
After a couple of tries, our baby finally uncrossed its' legs and we thought we saw a boy, then the umbilical cord moved. Dang!
I had an ultrasound with a tech today thinking we would find out for sure, but she was a little wish-washy at first. But in the end she declared the baby to be a BOY.
I guess we will see if she and Austin were right.

Baby Ticker - The Baby Countdown Pregnancy Ticker

Check out my Slide Show!

Howie

Austin and I returned from a trip to New Orleans to find our dog Howie hurt. His back paw was big a swollen, almost the size of a baseball. We are not sure what happened, but we know that he somehow cut his foot and it got really infected during the few days we were gone. We took him to the vet to find out the he had a high fever and would need to go under some anesthetic so they could drain and stitch his paw. Now he has to wear this orange soft cast for a few days and sleep inside. The poor thing just acted to sick all day long, which is very unlike our hyper Howie that we know and love.

Sleeping Beauty

Tori is a funny sleeper. She is constantly moving and getting in weird positions. Some night she will be on the very edge of the bed and I will move her over and she will immediately move back. She NEVER sleeps with covers. If I put them on her in the middle of the night her feet instantly go straight up and kick them off. I still always try.
This night I thought she looked like Superman. I wish that I had other funny postitions, but this will have to do for now!