Family Pictures

My sister-in-law Miriam was so willing to take our family picture this year, I had had these outfits since the beginning of summer trying to get schedules to work out and things fell through but I am so glad now because the color of the grain was PERFECT for what I was going for AND it is our first picture on our farm! The weather was really cold to be wearing shorts and short sleeves so I'm grateful the children put up with my summer outfits turned fall family picture! These are the best ones out of the three different poses-our expressions in the last one are hilarious I can't remember what we were laughing at but it made for a memory anyway. I had these taken on Oct 10th and I am finally getting around to sorting through them so that tells you how busy I have been with our kitchen plans (I have been living in a paper world for a couple weeks designing). Thank you Miriam for taking these :)

Halloween

This year, the Penfold family presents Brittany as Thing 1, Alex as Thing 2 and Parker as The Cat in the Hat! What a fun trio we had this year. Abigail came down the runway as a princess and Savanna is the cow. We trick-or-treated in the rain but it was not below freezing so all was well and the children had a great time. Earlier in the day we went to a local store to have pictures taken and their costumes judged, then to the fire station for a tour, glow necklaces, blinking lights and cider. It was a fun family night!

P.S. I posted this yesterday but today we went in to the store where they had their costumes judged and they won 2nd place! It was perfect because 1st place won a bike, 2nd place won $30 and 3rd place won $20 so we were actually hoping for 2nd because they divided it up and each got $10. We were all thrilled! :)

A series of posts long overdue!

The First Day of School
Summer was extra short this year or so it seems. Thankfully everything we put on our special summer calendar the children and I make together and display in the stairway was accomplished and we had a great time but I was not ready to send them back. I guess knowing that the school system has them for 9 hours (2 of that is spent on the bus) and I only have them for 5 and one hour of that is in the morning getting ready for school so it doesn't seem to count; it's hard because they are my children and I don't even get to be around them the majority of the day! I like my family around me and I don't get that excited to send them away. I do however enjoy the time I get to spend with Parker and Savanna alone and getting projects done. But online schooling is ever on my mind!

Brittany is in Middle School this year in the 6th grade. Way too grown up for my liking but proud as ever since it's inevitable. She even wanted her hair done special!
Alex is as handsome as they come going into the 4th grade and the oldest at the Elementary school now that his big sister is gone. His diabetes bag is as much a part of him as the hair on his head.
Abigail is in the 2nd grade, can you tell she loves pink as much as I did at her age? I made this dress for her and 2 skirts also this year for school. I am loving having Savanna a little older so I can do fun things like this!

The following is a downpour of posts since I have neglected journaling these parts of our family for a while...oh did you know, this isn't for you who read it, it's a mini journal with photos for me that I share with you. Kind of handy since the majority of brothers and sisters and 1 set of parents don't live by us and the other set doesn't know what we do either so this works great! Enjoy :)

Fair

This was our first year doing animal 4H...what a huge learning curve we had. A big THANK YOU to Grandma Penfold, Brittany got to do horse 4H because of her and thanks to Wyatt (really his good friend who is the Ag agent in our county roped us into this one) we got into goat 4H Alex and Abigail both had an animal. Funny thing was (except it wasn't that funny to me) Wyatt had meetings in Pocatello during fair week so everything that happened up until Thursday morning I had to do. I wasn't prepared for this and it was difficult to take on the responsibility when I had written it off back when it all started. I told Wyatt I supported them doing it but that I wouldn't be involved. The culmination of everything you do IS the week of fair so this was a bitter pill to swallow for me. THANKFULLY he was there for the showing because if he hadn't, the animals would have been shown "as is." I could write a detailed essay of everything that happened this week that would make you laugh but I don't want to take that kind of time right now but it will end up in my journal, next time you're here you can read it then! I can laugh about it now but I was in tears at the time.
Alex showing "General Grievous" his male Boer Goat
Alex and Abigail in their animals pen. (We had to set all this up down to the last straw) I was at my 'last straw' by the end
Abigail talking to the judge showing her female goat "Genevieve"
Brittany looking fancy on "Fancy"
Here is Brittany ready for her day long debut. She did great and had a lot of fun.

Teardrop Lake

Thanks to my cousin, we were invited to go to this lake. Is is clear water, you can see the bottom even in the deep, so beautiful and secluded. Fun fishing and swimming and we made a fun day trip out of it (we were supposed to camp but farming and camping don't go hand in hand because of the water schedule). We had a yummy dinner and dutch oven cobbler and we will be going beck to this place again!
I just think this picture turned out so beautiful :) The reflection and the lighting are great.
Bathing beauty
I finally caught my dragonfly. I have wanted a real one in my kitchen for awhile now. Abigail and I spent time running around with this net my cousin had. I'm sure we looked pretty silly, lunging, running, missing and turning in circles but our time paid off when we netted the big kind! Abigail got several small ones. Did you know there are yellow, blue and green dragonflies? Beautiful insects for sure!

Amazing this little one even got in the water, as warm as it was for lake water, it was still cold and Savanna doesn't even love her warm bath yet. She enjoyed throwing rocks and splashing.

Camping

I HAD to go camping at least once this summer, we had a plan to go with a cousin and that fell through, I had begun to lose hope until the Friday afternoon before school started we were at our friend's pond and I was telling her my woe and we decided to just pack everything up and go up the canyon overnight. Her husband is also unavailable so we knew we could do it solo if we went together.
Here are the children ready to get in. Remember this is Teton Valley creek water that is COLD. Melted snow this stuff is!
Alex built a teepee, pretty impressive for just a pocket knife :)
Our camping site by the river. No toilets, no running water, no problem!!!
Parker enjoying our pancake and eggs breakfast. We even baked cookies for lunch because of this little oven. No one can say we were 'roughing it' The outdoors is the best!

Brittany's 12th birthday

Wow! How has time gone by so fast? Brittany is 12 which means she gets to go to Young Women's, weekly activities, Middle School, she gets to wear make-up now when she chooses. Wyatt and I look at each other and say I guess having a 12 year old means we're not newlyweds anymore...but seriously we don't feel too much older than when we had this beautiful girl! What do you mean over a decade has past? Oh yeah they do tell you if ya blink you'll miss their childhood. We couldn't have picked a better girl to be our oldest daughter, Brittany we love you.
Here is her swimming pool cake complete with a diving board, lap lanes and inner tubes!

A Goat in the Car

Alex and Abigail are doing Goat 4H this summer and their demonstrations were this morning. I really didn't want to drive a big trailer down there for one animal and I had to get everyone up, fed, dressed, practiced, ready and at the fair building by 9 am. So here is the goat all loaded in the car...you know it's just another member of our family now (or so it appears) people take their dogs with them all the time, is a goat different? Ha ha ha

A wonderful daughter and family

I have a wonderful daughter. Brittany did a wonderful job of making my birthday special this year. She had been planning this cake for quite some time and did a fantastic job. This is her first decorated cake. It's a recreation of Van Gogh's painting "Sunflowers"
I got three cookie jars for my soon to be new kitchen. I love this barn, I got "the old woman who lived in a shoe" and smokey the bear also. I will definitely fill them with yummy healthy cookies.
The children wanted to make us a restaurant dinner so they set up a table in our front entry; covered the entrance with a large sheet making it a private room, covered all the windows with dark sheets so we could eat by candlelight, set the table with the china, picked fresh roses from our wild rose bush and had us wear nice clothes.
They came in constantly filling our water and drink cups, making sure we didn't want for a thing, check out the details in the place setting...wow is all I could say, I was blown away.
Thank you family for all of it, you are something special and that is exactly how this day was!

Celebrity in Teton Valley!

Wyatt was asked by our neighbor who built this tractor to drive it in the parade to showcase it. He even got out his classic blue and white striped overalls and was sooo good looking, I'm proud that he's my man ;)
Huntsman Springs had their Grand Opening and invited Glenn Beck to speak. It was FREE to the public and we got to go. It was wonderful and I felt so privileged to be able to attend. As you can see the sunset was spectacular as were the fireworks that danced in the sky afterwards to music and short video clips in between. It was one of the best 4th of July evenings I've had.
Here we are listening to the BYU-I symphony orchestra play patriotic pieces before Glen Beck spoke. All of the Penfold's and part of the Pryor's were there.
Abigail and Jessica (my sister's oldest daughter) watching the flower fireworks. They thought the buzzing/whirring sounded like a power drill.
Alex, Wyatt and Luke (my brother Scott's oldest son) watching a flower. They were in boy heaven lighting these.

Parker is mesmerized by the sparkler. We spend so much time protecting our children and teaching them not to play with matches and that fire is hot and then we hand them a flame on a stick that shoots little sparks flying all around and they love it so it's all worth it!
Brittany on candid camera with her sparkler. I remember as a child dancing around and writing my name with my own special sparkler. It was a grand time!

Dance Recital

Brittany and Abigail had a year end recital today and had a great time performing for us.Enjoy the videos.

Abigail's Dance



Brittany's Dance

In LOVE!

We got ten new baby chicks to keep up my chicken rotation and Savanna is in LOVE. She literally squeals every time we show them to her.


Parker is in LOVE with these chicks too, we put them in this old sink in a counter so it would be too high for him to handle them, he can just look over the top...well he is such a climber and has strong arms so he pulls himself over the side and hangs there touching, poking, holding, and teasing them constantly. It is fun for him and I like how much he loves the creatures but they are still fragile and it is hard to keep him away. I don't have to watch constantly though, the chicks tell me when he's in there, they peep very loudly and incessantly so then I run to their rescue!
And oh yeah, by the way...we are in LOVE :)

The blond version...

Going blond is totally worth it (at least until the roots start coming in and then this do would be a maintenance nightmare) Nicole did a great job! Once we got the red out and I used a special shampoo from my FIL that takes out the brassy tone, I love it and am trying to see if blonds really do have more fun :)
Here is the blonde version of me! Parker LOVES it, he frequently says, "you're blond just like me!" Abigail loves that my color matches hers and Brittany and Alex are getting used to it, they didn't care for it much at first and Wyatt-well he LOVES it too, I'll post an update later when I have the darker blond woven into it when the roots grow.

Festival

Brittany and Alex just got their scores from festival this year and I am so proud of them. Brittany is intermediate and got 97 playing "Wild Honeysuckle Rag" and "Allegro" and Alex got a 98 playing "Simple Song" and "Boogie." We went to Rexburg first thing in the morning, they performed and then we went out to lunch together, it was just us three and it was a special morning.

Savanna's 1st Birthday!

Here is Savanna's first birthday cake. I made her an edible rainbow! It is an Angel Food Cake with half whole wheat, real whipped cream frosting and of course fruit :)

My baby is one year old, how does it happen so fast is my big question?

She made us proud making a mini mess of her cake, I wish she would have gotten even more messy though :)

Yellowstone, Easter and the Pinewood Derby!

Alex participated in his second Pinewood Derby this year, he had so much fun designing and creating his car with his Dad, here is his car coming in second place, he is watching his car, it's a blur because it was so fast!!!
For Spring Break, we went to Yellowstone and spent four nights there just for the fun of it, and just for a change of scenery. The children were out for a full week and since it is still snowy and cold outside here, I couldn't imagine being here for that long. Even though Wyatt couldn't come, we still had fun. My sister even decided to come so the cousins could have fun together, we had an awesome girls week out!
We went to the Bear and Wolf Discovery Center
We swam twice every day we were there, one session we even swam 3 1/2 hours and I finally told the children we were getting out and they still didn't want to! I think they could be part fish, but at any rate we still had fun.
Twins! (cousins that is) these two are the best of friends. Did I mention we swam? And swam and swam some more!!!

Here are all the colorful, artistic egg creations of the children this year, we had a great time.




We had a happy snowy Easter. (In the last week we have gotten several feet of snow, it snowed more consecutively this week than it ever did all winter-crazy huh? I guess that's Spring at 65oo ft.)