Layton

My baby boy turned 4 yesterday!  It is so hard to believe.  He is growing up so fast.  He had a fun day playing with his sisters, opening presents, helping Mom make a basketball cake and finishing his baseball pinata.  Today he got to go fishing with Dad after work.  Grandpa Fennell got to spend the day with him too.  All in all he had a very happy birthday!

Baby...

Well, we found out (a couple weeks ago) that we are going to be having another baby GIRL!  We are all pretty excited about that.  The girls wanted to have a girl, Layton wanted a boy and was a bit on the disappointed side, but all is good and happy now in the Gillette house.  I have gotten right to work on getting ready for baby #4.

Catch-up... again

Here is a little catch-up for the last few months...

In February we decided that we would like to get some laying chickens.  There are a lot of people in this area that raise chickens and have fresh eggs everyday.  We have been able to get some from some good neighbors and they are HUGE eggs.  So we decided to try it for ourselves.  We bought 6 baby chicks, knowing that some would not survive the animals that like to come in our yard (among them is our dog).  One did not survive being in our house, sad.

This is the first day that we took them outside.  It was a nice evening and we wanted them to get used to the outside, and Howie (our dog) to get used to them and figure out that they were off limits.  Layton loves the chicks!

This is how big they are now.  They are about 4 months old.  They love being outside, and try to eat our garden.  So we are constantly chasing them out.  Howie has still not figured out that they are not his dinner, but he can't get to them.  There have been a few times when the chickens have wandered over to where he is and we have to run out and chase them away.  Soon we will be eating fresh eggs from our own chickens.

Austin, 2 of his brothers, a cousin, my brother, and 2 friends all played in a basketball tournament in American Falls.  They did very well.  They beat out the team that we all thought would win the tourney.  They played 3 games back to back to back.  All three went into over time, and all 3 were really good games.  They lost the championship game in over time.  They played very good for a bunch of old men.  :)

Sadly, it is no longer the year of the Bird.  Austin turned 34 this year.  He had a good 33 year though. (He is a huge Larry Bird fan #33)

Kennedy practicing her golfing out in the yard so she is ready to go when we hit the course.

Layton and his cousin Brooklyn.  She loved him and he loved her.  He is so cute with babies!

Tori and Kennedy have been playing softball this spring.  Tori is one of the pitchers on her team.  She is doing pretty good for a first time pitcher.  And she really enjoys it.  We are teaching Kennedy to pitch also so next year when she is in that league she can pitch.

Our good friends the Tarbets adopted a little baby girl, Keagan.  She was sealed to them this past week.  It was a really special day.

And last, but certainly not least... We are having a baby.  I am 16 weeks now.  Due November 21.  We are all really excited.  I am starting to feel so much better, thankfully.  This one was a pretty rough start, but things are shaping up now.  

Tori and her basketball

Tori has been so excited to play basketball since last years season ended.  She and Kennedy are on the same team this year.  Kristy Bradshaw is the coach again this year, and we are so happy.  She is a great coach.
Tori has improved so much since last year.  I am just so amazed at how much better she has gotten.  Her dribbling skills are much better and she has WAY miore confidence.  Tori and Camry are the team leaders, and are great with the younger girls on the team.  I am excited to see how much Tori will improve by the end of this year. 

Kennedy's 1st yr in BBall

Kennedy has been looking forward to playing basketball since Tori started last year.  Then when Tori brought home the flier for basketball signups 1st graders were not invited.  She was so disappointed.  I decided that since she is old for her grade I would call and see if we could ign her up anyway.  They agreed and Kennedy was exstactic!  Thankfully she and Tori were able to be on the same team. 
Kennedy is doing good for her first year.  She is still a little confused by the rules, and exactly what defence means, and how to get open.  But she is a quick learner and does well listening to her Dad and her coach. 
She is loving playing ball, and wears her jersey around all the time.  I think so she can tell people she plays basketball! 

Trains

 Layton is very much into trains right now.  He has a Lego train set, which he sets up every single day, and an electric train set.  The electric set takes up a lot of space and we have to be much more careful with it, so it is a treat.  Last week I decided that I would set up the electric set for him.  He was so excited!  I kept it on the kitchen table for him for a week.  Layton played with that thing all day long.  It was great.  I would say, "Hurry and eat your breakfast so you can play with your train."  He would be done 2 minutes later (which is AMAZING for him).  "Go and get dressed so you can play with your train" he would race to his room.  I love this train!!!  Layton loves it too, just for different reasons.  He would play with it for at least an hour at a time.  Making it go fast and so slow it hardly moves.  Each train car had a different purpose, and he would tell me all about them as he watched it go around and around.  We can't wait until we set it up again.

HALLOWEEN

We had a fun Halloween this year. I started out with a Witches party on Thursday night, then Friday night we carved our pumpkins. And Austin and I both agree that this years pumpkins beat all the other years, hands down. They were just great choices for the carvings. I did a scary face (that Layton will not look at when it is lit), Tori did a devilish flying cat/bat (we are not sure), Kennedy chose a witch stirring a brew, and Layton chose the Grim Reaper, but he thinks it is a dog!

on Saturday night our ward had our trunk or treat, which is a HUGE event here. Everyone in our Plano community shows up, brings all their extended family, and then we have a party. First the kids trick or treat, then we have a big dinner, then there is a little carnival for the kids. We invited John and his family. The kids had a lot of fun!

Tori's stitches

So a couple of months ago I noticed Tori had this little bump above her lip, almost like a pimple, but not exactly. I kept an eye on it and it just kept getting bigger. It seemed to have a clear liquid in it, but didn't hurt. After a month it was the size of a pencil eraser and Austin decided she needed to see a dermatologist. He was pretty sure it was a sist (I don't even know how to spell that!) and he didn't want to take one off of the face (would have been a heck of a lot cheaper!!)

The Dr. determined it was most likely a sist with a fancy name and we scheduled a day to have it removed. Tori was great with it until she realized she would have to have a shot to start the whole process.

Backtrack just a little.... Tori has had a few trips to the dentist this year to have teeth removed, and when I say teeth, I mean multiple teeth at a time, like 4-5. And each time it has started with one shot (which hurts like CRAZY!) and continued until she had 7 shots in her mouth ... EACH TIME. Needless to say, she is not fond of things starting with a shot.

Tori was so scared to get that shot, she did not care that he was going to be cutting her and stitching her. After the shot, which was a bit dramatic, she did great. She just listened to the Ipod and held mom's hand. She even wanted to go to school afterwards. That did not last too long because she started bleeding.

Austin decided that he would take her stitches out, so Wednesday night (6 days later) he took her stitches out. She was a bit nervous, but we held hands again and she did great. So did Austin. ;)

A couple of Moose made a visit...

Yesterday afternoon I look out the window to see where the tractor is so I can tell Layton (because this is very important to him), and what do you know, I see these two BIG bull moose watching the tractor too. They both have huge antlers and one is missing a side.

I have been so sad this year because we have not been seeing very many moose, yes, I still get excited seeing moose. I think I only saw 5 this whole summer/fall. So to have these two sitting just on the other side of our property, I was pretty excited. Think I took about 30 pictures, and all they did was sit there and stare. A bit overboard, I know!