ALEXIS NICOLETTE PENA

She's here! Our 9 months of waiting are finally over. Alexis arrived on Tuesday the 23rd at 11:08 in the morning after too many hours of on and off labor. She is such a pretty little girl, and so tiny. She weighed 5 pounds 11 ounces and was 18 inches long. I never thought I'd have such a teeny baby, but I love it. She is already such a good baby. She doesn't cry, and hardly even fusses (unless we change her clothes and she gets cold). It didn't even take a second for her to melt her dad's heart, and her brothers love her more than anything. They just want to hold her all day. Tyler has been singing her lullabys and Zach loves to hold her hand and tell her "it's alright" when she's getting changed. We are so thankful that she is here and a part of our little family.

I just like this picture because you can tell a little bit better how small she is.

A whole lot of catching up

FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN!




The big day finally came! Tyler is finally a big boy. The week before school started he got a little nervous and decided he wanted to stay home with me forever, even if he was "breaking the law!" But once the day came, he woke up somewhere around 6:00 in the morning just to make sure he wasn't late. It was great though because it gave me plenty of time to make him a special breakfast and get myself ready for the walk to school. He loves his teacher and his best friend is in his class so that made it even better. The next day he was excited until he realized we were walking again and not going on the bus "with all his friends." Needless to say, I wasn't his favorite person for a couple of days until we got him signed up and on the bus with everyone else. He thinks he is so big now. I guess I'm not much of a mushy mom either because it has really turned out nice for all of us so far. It amazes me how quiet things are around here while he is at school. Zach has really missed him, but it has given us a lot of time together, and they are even better friends when Tyler gets home.














MY THREE YEAR OLD IS A HILLBILLY!















I know the picture is kind of out of control, but this was the best one I could get of him smiling. A couple of weeks ago I took the kids to Rigby Lake. We all had a great time, but on the way home Zach started acting like he didn't feel very good. He took 2 naps that afternoon so I figured it was the real thing. When he woke up the 2nd time his whole upper lip was fat. He was crying and saying it hurt so we gave him some tylenol to take the pain away and hopefully make the swelling go down. I didn't think it was much of an emergency so I hoped it would go away during the night or we could wait it out to take him to the doctor the next morning. Well, he was up all night crying and miserable and when morning came it was a little worse. I took him to the doctor but he couldn't find anything more than we could. No bruise, bump, sore, cut...only a fat lip. He figured it was probably an allergic reaction to something he put in his mouth at the lake, sent me to the store for Benadryl and told me to keep an eye on it. Well, a half hour later, I was dishing up the medicine and took a look.....where nothing had been was now a sick looking purple and yellow bubble above his tooth! So I hauled him back to the doctor, he sent me to the dentist, they x-rayed him, wiggled his tooth, and gave me the look. I knew it was coming. I guess he bumped his mouth a few days before and knocked it loose enough that it got infected. So I had the choice of a root canal with a 50 % chance of losing it anyway, or letting them yank it right then and there. He was in a lot of pain, but was super brave and 5 minutes later we were on our way home with a bloody mouth, bawling boy and a tiny blue treasure chest filled with the longest baby tooth I've ever seen. He was upset, but ok until the next morning when the tooth fairy left him "five monies." That was great, until he realized the tooth was gone. He was so mad the tooth fairy took it away because he wanted to show it to his Uncle Spencer. So we made a phone call to the tooth fairy and she delivered it back to the house just for him. Good thing he is a cute kid because he's going to have that crazy little smile for a long time!
















FLAG FOOTBALL RULES!

Tyler started flag football last week and is having a blast. He is the youngest kid on the team and is pretty clueless on what is going on, but he loves it. He gets a funny little run that he has been practicing because it makes him super fast. They have 2 games a night so his attention lasted through about half of the first game. After that he was more interested in having a kicking war with another kid on the team, or randomly running to the sideline to give one of us a hug. At least we know he loves us and he was happy. Oh, and at the end of any place where one of his teammates would grab a flag he would give the "rock on" hand signs, or play his air guitar...in case you were wondering what he's trying to do in the last picture. He is such a funny kid and is so fun to watch. Zach loves going to the practices and kept trying to go and play with him during the game. He did score a touchdown right at the end on about a 1/2 yard run but it made his day. Summer was great, but it has been nice to get back into another busy routine over the last couple of weeks. I just don't think it has quite set in yet that this will be our lives for about the next 22 years...............

They're off!

So after two months of Zach begging me to take his training wheels off so he could "kick dust like his brother" I finally had Eli do it. Both of us were sure he'd be putting them right back on since he is only three, but to our surprise the little fart took right off. There was no fear! At least from him. We just watch him tear down the street and whip around like it was nobody's business, just waiting for him to wipe out on the turn. It took him a few minutes to figure out how to get on by himself but by the next afternoon he looked like he had been riding without the training wheels forever. He is such a fearless kid. Now the biggest problem we have is that he thinks everyday he is in the x games. He wiggles his bike back and forth and him and Tyler built a jump on our sidewalk out of a log and a piece of plywood. He just can't seem to get enough air. So they build it as high as it will go, and now he thinks it's a good idea to try and kick his legs out from behind him as soon as he's airborn. Somehow, he has managed to get them back down before he lands and hasn't crashed yet. I know it's coming...the gravel in the chin, the compound fracture to the forearm. He is just happy that he can do huge jumps and ride his bike in the empty lot across the street without getting high centered on his training wheels anymore...and oh yeah...now he can go super SPEED!

Signs of the times

It never ceases to amaze me the things that come out of our kids mouths, but today Tyler caught me off guard a little. I had just put all the little kids to bed and he was following me downstairs and I half heard him ask me what something was. I thought he had said "dragon" but knew that he already knew what a dragon was. So I asked him what he had said. This was what came next. "Mom...what is a dragqueen???" In a split seconds time, I had already thought to myself...WHAT???? You're five for crying out loud!!! I don't remember for sure how old I was when I realized what one was, but I'm pretty sure that I was somewhere close to getting out of high school. So I asked him where he had heard the word before. Of course, it was off just another one of the great DVD's we have in our home. This one came from the Bee movie. Before I could say anything else, he explained to me, what a dragqueen was and wouldn't you know it...he hit it right on the mark. Being smarter than his mom seemed to satisfy him and he went on his way. At least he didn't ask why any man would want to dress like a woman. Anyway, I thought I had been being pretty careful with his movie watching after the few weeks we had of taking the Lord's name in vain...thanks Monster House. That movie has been broken and half and thrown out with the trash and we've been watching a lot more of Toy Story. But it seems that more and more, no matter what we do to protect our kids, they find and hear things on their own. Anyway, other than that we haven't been up to much of anything exciting. I tried to load a slideshow from the 4th of July but my blog won't take slideshows, or videos...help!!! Anyone have any ideas for me? The most fun today happened when the fire department showed up across the street to check the hydrant.















Zach and Brylee were out riding their bikes and thought it was the coolest thing.
















All Zach could say was "that was a LOT of water!" Then he had to ride his bike in it for the next 20 minutes.

















This one's for you Amber. When Eli came home for lunch your kids were having a ball with him. Payson was laughing so hard. We took a couple of pictures but this one turned out the best. Brylee had just given him a big kiss on the forehead. (They were hiding from Eli under the piano).

Our Not-Camping trip

How hard can it be to camp in this place???? I have been wanting to take our family camping for over a month and we finally got things lined up to go last weekend. I packed 10 tons of crap into our Tahoe while Eli was at work. All the gear, hot dogs for dinner, all the stuff to dutch oven for breakfast, and about a million other things. As soon as Eli got home from work we took off. We had no idea where we were going but headed toward Ashton. We both decided that Cave Falls would be a good place to go and took off. We found one nice spot by a creek with a fire pit but the mosquitos were pretty bad already so we went farther down the road. We got to the Cave Falls campground and decided that running water and bathrooms were the way to go. We got everything unloaded. Eli went to work on the fire and I started on the tents. There were a few bugs, but that's camping...right??? Little by little there were more of them...and then more....and then about a million more. We had two tents set up, all the sleeping bags and blankets laid out, the fire raging and the hot dogs ready to put on the sticks and decided enough was enough. The mosquitos were SWARMING all over us. If we stood still there were so many on us that you couldn't see our clothes. They were up our nose, in our mouths and everywhere else bugs should never be. What took us about an hour to set up only took 10 minutes to get down and thrown back in the car. We hauled our butts back to Ashton and had dinner at Big Jud's. After that we ended up at home and sleeping in our own beds. It was so rediculous. How can camping go so wrong? On the way there the kids kept saying they just wanted to go to the hollow and make s'mores.....MAYBE WE SHOULD START LISTENING TO OUR KIDS!!!! I'm really starting to think they are smarter than me.

What a deceiving camping spot

Yes, I let my kids play in the fire

At least the kids were still happy

Spray Park Fun

Well, we finally bit the bullet and went to the spray park. I swore I wouldn't take the kids this year because I'd rather let them swim in a ditch than run around in the park's disease-infested water, but somehow I was convinced to give in by one of our friends. It was a short trip but the kids had a ball. Tyler would have stayed all day if I would have let him. Zach had fun but somehow kept getting cold, even though it was scorching hot outside. He would come and wrap up in his towel and curl up in the blanket I laid out. He was melting me, but still kept saying he was freezing. We went with the Walker kids and their mom had threatened them that if they opened their mouth and let the water get in, they would have diarrhea for weeks. Her little girl just kept walking around saying "poop." We'll see if we end up making any trips to the doctor. I still think I'm a bigger fan of my dad's pond water. You just have to wonder how some parents can let their kids run around and sit in a pool with a dirty diaper on and not think twice about it. Sick, sick, sick. I know I need to relax, but something about it just grosses me out! Next week, I call the sand bar or Rigby Lake. As long as the kids have sunshine and water, they'll be as happy as little clams.

Cuz that's what you do!!

Tyler had his first t-ball game yesterday and it was so much fun! He was so excited and has waited so long to play. It was the most fun thing I've been to in a long time. All of the kids were so cute and funny and clueless. Tyler was ready to go though and his team had first bats. Before anyone was ready he grabbed his bat and walked right up to the tee and swung away. I didn't even have the video camera going yet so I missed his first hit. He got a triple and was so excited. The highlight came at his next at bat though. He smacked it past first and all the little kids took off after it. He just kept running and running. When he got to third he looked to see where the ball was and all the kids were still chasing it down so he kept going. When he got there he Pete Rosed it into home plate! It was so awesome and we were all dying laughing so hard. I asked him later why he slid and he just looked at me and said "cuz that's what you do!" Maybe he's seen a few too many of his dad's and uncle's games. Our little homerun king was finally in baseball heaven. It was a day I had waited for long before I even had kids. I'm just glad our boys love sports as much as we do.