Kennedy is 5!!!!!

Lets pretend for a minute that it is September 24, 2009.

Happy Birthday Kennedy!!!

Kennedy is finally 5! She has had a countdown since the end of August when her cousin Kyler turned 5. IN the morning she got to open her presents, Mom made her a dress and she also go t a puzzle. (because Tori's birthday is in 4 days we will celebrate again in the middle, on Sunday, and they will both get another gift together)

Dad was not home for Kennedy's birthday (except in the morning) so she got to go to the hospital and eat lunch with Dad and all the other residents. That was pretty special for her, they treated her like royalty.
Do you like the jumper?Grammy came to Pocatello to spend time with both Kennedy and Tori for their birthdays. Where is that picture you wonder, well, I forgot, but this is Kennedy opening grammy's present.

We had a little party for the girls on Saturday where they got to each invite 3 friends, and we borrowed a bounce house from a friend. This is Kennedy testing out the bounce house the night before the party. They LOVED it!!

Today was a very busy day!! I cleaned and did some laundry in the early morning, then I took pictures, then it was lunch time. During Layton's afternoon nap Kennedy and I worked on Preschool. After that I started on the peaches that I had gotten this week (YUM).

This was Layton's music that I got to listen to for a LONG time during the canning process!

At least he was occupied and not climbing all over me. He did that later, and kept calling me dad!! I tried to correct him, he still calls me dad. When Austin got home, he started saying mom, so I can't feel too bad.

First Haircut

This is Layton's first haircut. I know, he is pretty old to have never had a haircut, right? He just doesn't have much hair, and it is blond, so it really looks like he has no hair, so we have never cut it. It was just getting a little too long though, so I made Austin do it for me. Layton would have never held still with just me there. He thought it was pretty funny at first, but after a while he would just move his head to get rid of the clippers. That is where I came in. I had to hold his head and his hands. Fun times. He did do pretty good, so did Austin.

(Please excuse the dirty mirror, it is bathroom cleaning day, and now they are clean.)

Now Layton is back to looking like he has no hair again. :) Oh well, he is still pretty handsome!

First Day of School

this was Tori's first day of 1st Grade!!! (I can't believe that she is old enough to be a 1st grader!) She was so excited to go to school. She helped me pick out all her school supplies, especially the Tinkerbell lunch box, that is all she really cared about anyway. She picked out her own outfit and laid it out the night before. She even went to sleep within minutes of getting in bed. Tori did wake up with a tummy ache (nerves) and didn't eat much breakfast. When we got to the school I told her we would come in with her to help her find her class again, she told me no she was fine. I insisted! She is not old enough remember? As we walked in Tori was clinging to me, Kennedy was crying, and Layton was trying to grab everyone and everything in sight! It took Tori a few minutes to finally let go, and I made a dash out before she started crying (or me). When I got outside a friend, who also has a son in the class, told me that Tori came up to her and gave her a great big hug, still nervous I guess! Thanks Ad! She came home from school so happy and excited to do it again! That night in Tori's prayer she said thank you three times that she had such a fun day, and please bless that tomorrow she would have fun too. And she did.

The whole gang. Well, all that were able to come. Which as you can see, was quite a few!

Gina

Mari

Giff

Damon

Dallas

Yesterday we got to go up to Lake Cleveland for a little mini family reunion for the Gillette family. It was so much fun. I have been in the Gillette family for 8 years now and just barely got to meet a few members of the family, original members. We had a lot of fun talking and eating. Some hiked into the lake, others drove there, like me. We cooked Salmon that Austin's Dad and Uncle caught. And man WAS IT GOOD!!!!! i LOVE SALMON!!!!!
and I LOVE a good Gillette fish fry!

Then we sat around the camp fire, then played and played and played and played some more on the big swing. We kinda acted like little kids.






Me (Rachel)

Kelsy

Kate

Faith

Chatting around the fire

All the cute kids.

Uncle Jerry cooking up the fish.

MMMM good!

Some of the cousins.

It was a blast! Thanks Aunt Nancy and Uncle Randy for organizing it! Until next year...

Island Park

Tori loves to pose for pictures.

Layton is trying to have fun while the other kids are fishing, mom is just mean and didn't let him leave the blanket to get into the dirt.

Kennedy wasn't really in the mood to fish, so she just pretended like she was fishing with this stick.

Uncle Dave helping Brenner catch some fish. Well...casting out the line HOPING to catch some fish.

Brenner

Terrill and Kyler fishing. I think that Terrill undid more snags than anything. He is pretty patient!

Layton's favorite activity at the cabin was racing across the room to climb up the very dangerous and scary (to mom) stairs. He would laugh as he was crawling across the room!

Tori, Kyler, Kennedy, Brenner

All five cousins

Uncle David took Tori and Kennedy on many four-wheeler rides. Thanks Dave!

Funny

So last night was a terrible night for Layton and I. I am not sure what was going on with him, teething, off schedule during the day, not feeling well maybe, not sure but he decided that one minute after mom crawled under the covers would be a great time to wake up crying, and then not stop for 4 hours. That is right he was awake from 11-3. Mostly. I tried to let him cry it out, he got louder. I tried to cuddle him, feed him a bottle, lay on the ground next to the crib and hold his hand through the bars, nothing. Finally at 2 I was so exhausted I pulled him out and laid him next to me on the floor. (Austin is on a very demanding rotation and Layton does not hold still in bed, so I choose the floor) It took about 40 minutes of moving and moaning (from Layton) before he was finally asleep, then I let him get into a deep sleep before I moved him back.
Needless to say, in the morning I was exhausted. I got everyone breakfast and then Layton was ready for a nap. YEAH! So I told the girls to play nicely, not to answer the door and DO NOT DISTURB ME! yeah right. That lasted about 20 minutes then they were yelling and hitting each other. I threatened them and they were quite for the last 20 minutes. When I woke up they were downstairs laughing and giggling with each other, then I found...
I found it quite FUNNY! I told them to work out their problems and if I needed to I would take care of things when I woke up. I guess this was Tori's way of taking care of things.

Layton is ONE!

My baby is ONE!!! It is so sad and exciting at the same time. I cannot believe how time has just flown by this last year. Layton is still just the happiest little guy, even when he is teething. I do not know how Austin and I got so lucky.

I was so excited to have a summer baby to celebrate with ice cream cake. All day long all Layton wanted to do was open his presents that were stacked on the cedar chest. We invited lots of family and friends over to celebrate with us. Layton seemed to love being sung to, but what he really wanted was the candle! Layton never did eat a bite of his cake. I tried and tried, so we just gave up and let him do what he really wanted, rip the paper off the presents. Oh how he loved that. The girls too, and Nash, his cousin.

Uncle John and Aunt Gina also celebrated their birthday's this past week so we were able to sing to them also. It was a fun filled day.

Can you tell what his favorite toy? Good thing there were two big balls, Nash and Layton were having some struggles, Layton was very possessive of his toys.

Dillon, MT

It is that time in Austin's residency experience where we get to start trying to find a "real job." It is a little fun and a little stressful. For us, we want to pick the perfect place because we want to stay wherever we go, little stressful. But at the same time we are having lots of fun considering places we never thought we would consider. Never dreamed that I would love Pocatello so much that I would not want to move, ever. Never thought Austin would want to move to Rexburg, and definitely never thought we would consider moving out of Idaho again. Even when the call from Dillon came I told Austin NO! Don't even think about it. Well, he did. And we went. And we liked. Sometimes I don't so much like being an adult who has to make hard decisions, but I am and I do. We really like all three possibilities, it is going to be one very, very tough decision. Pray for us!!

Layton's climb

These are not the greatest pictures, but I had to catch Layton doing his new thing... climbing over people who are in the way, or close to in the way, or not even in the way, just fun to go out of HIS way to climb over. Kennedy thinks it is HILARIOUS! So he does it over and over again.

He tried it on my niece Kaylee this weekend, she didn't seem to mind, so he continued to do it. Poor little Kaylee.

4th of July in Rupert!!

Rupert is where I grew up, and it is a great place to take my kids every year to witness great LOVE for Country and State, (and a small little town). The parade is WONDERFUL! There are always tons of great floats, horse back riders, cheerleaders and so much more. We always sit with my family and eat popcicles and yell to the kids to get more candy (there is a TON of candy thrown). This is just one of the amazing floats, they all seemed to have moving parts this year. I also hope you enjoy the tops of my siblings heads! :)

This is how Layton enjoyed the parade. It was an extremely hot day and it was nap time, and with that combination, Grandpa Fennell's lap was absolutely perfect. He didn't even budge when the fire trucks went by with their sirens blasting.

This little horse with the carriage, that I got an AMAZING picture of, hehe, is Grammy Gillette's horse, Tango. This is the horse the girls have been learning to ride on. It was fun to see her in the parade.
After this we all we out to Aunt Sherma's and had so Fried Chicken and saw our hearts out in the pool. Fun times.

Graduation

Sad to say, but yes, Tori has graduated from Kindergarten.

She was so excited. Austin had the day off, MIRACLE! And so we were all able to go and watch Tori's graduation. It was so cute. They sang lots of songs for us and then played a video of pictures from the year. Tori was so cute during the whole graduation.

She is a very smart little girl and loved going to school. I was a little nervous at first because she gets a little distracted when other friends are around, but she did good and paid attention to her teacher (most of the time). She improved through the year and can't wait to start 1st grade. She is LOVING summer break though.

I just spent the last 45 minutes long a video of Tori singing, and it didn't post it. I will try again later. A little mad right now!

Yellowstone

I have a ton to update... so here we go. My sister and her boys came out for a visit from Alabama and the main thing that she wanted to do while she was here was go to Yellowstone. We hoped to see some baby animals, and indeed we did... a bunch of baby bison. That is IT!!! A little disappointing, but fun none the less.

We had all the cousins together for the first time in a year and a half and they had a blast! Uncle John and Uncle David trying to be the tallest. Sorry John, Dave has you beet by a couple of inches. (He is about 6'10")

All the cousins, and the two uncles.

The whole Fennell family, well, all that could make it, waiting for Old Faithful to errupt. I have to say, this was much cooler when I was a kid. Still neat, just not as much as I remember.

My coupon experience

So I went couponing with my friend Julie today. I was totally amazed at how much I really could get for my money. These are all the items that I got at Albertson's today.


4- Gogurts
1- Bounty papers
4 Bertolli alfredo sauce
2 Sweet and Salty Nut bars
1 cake mix
1 Little drums ice cream cones
1 Breyers Ice cream
1 12 roll cottonelle
2 boxes of Cheerios
4 hot dogs

Isn't this awesome!

Total spending: $25.34
Total Savings: $59.75

I was really excited and can't wait to do it again!!

Fireproof

We signed up for Netflicks a couple of months ago, LOVE IT! Anyway, many, people have recommended the movie Fireproof to me as a movie that Austin and I watch. Since his schedule is crazy we just barely got it this week. Last night for our date night we watched it. It is SUCH a GOOD movie. The acting is a little cheesy at first, but I think once you get into the movie you just forget about the acting. Oh, this movie has such a good message. It is about working on your marriage and not being selfish and loving each other and doing kind things for each other, but oh, seriously, good movie. I think that it is a good movie for everyone, especially for every marriage, just be ready to cry. Well, I will just down off my little soapbox, but do rent the movie. :)

Oh, it stars Kirk Cameron.