sleeping alone

maybe it's because i hate to sleep alone but i love that my kids love to sleep by each other(except kaden-he loves his own bed) i love to see them all squished up and snuggled together-it makes me just want to jump in next to them!

anger

so i hate when i get mad and it's usually over something so small and usually to one of the people i love most! i was cutting kents hair today and to say the least got very irritated with his instructions and i threw the scissors(not at him) and stormed off. well i felt terrible all day especially since he was leaving for his job for a week. i did say sorry but i still hate when i act this way. later as i was reading scriptures with the kids there was a quote at the bottom that caught my eye: "anger is not an expression of strength. it is an idication of one's inability to control his thoughts, words, or emotions...when the weakness of anger takes over, the strength of reason leaves."-Pres. Gordon B. Hinkley
hopefully i can do better at keeping my cool!

january in review

well i better get january done before february is over too! we went to Blackfoot at the start of the month, my parents were down for my nephew tyrel's priesthood ordination-i'm so glad that we have cousins who are such good examples and that my kids love to hang out with! my sister Christy has a huge pond that turns into an ice skating rink in the winter...my kids loved trying skating and i loved hanging out in the warm house and finishing a puzzle that had been started.
my dad was so nice and helped brooke, who got pretty good as i found out later when we went skating at the rexburg rink.

kent and i took brooke and koy out to lunch at wingers and they even sat still the whole time-it was really fun and koy keeps asking when we are going to go to "yummy chicken wings" again to eat.

we went to the rexburg skating rink a couple times this month-all the kids loved it except koy, it hurt his ankles, but he was fine to just slide around in his snow boots...i decided to try and all my kids are better than me-i had fun having brooke and koy pull me around!

kelsi is really pretty good and i wish we could go as often as she wants-she is very athletic in alot of areas and just picks things up naturally.

but she had her fair share of crashes also!

meg decided on a new and fun activity for play group-called flood the bathroom:) as kent would say where were all the moms when this happened? i love this picture because she looks so guilty-

koy inherited kadens old gameboy when he got a DS for Christmas and he can actually play the thing quite well-maybe a little too well, he loves it and wants to play all the time...even on Sunday when he's not supposed to, this is where kent found him: hiding under his bed being so sneaky!

we had our space derby for scouts this month-in kaden's words "that was the best pack night ever, everyone was happy!" we really did have a fun night and it wasn't competitive, all the boys were such good sports and would cheer everyone on no matter how far their rocket went. have i ever mentioned that i love scouts?

we have enjoyed some fun play days with kents sister diane and her family, they have moved to idaho falls now and it's so fun to have more family around...carter was baptised and we glad to be able to be there: this is Carter trying to put the sneak on me and get me with a snowball. a word of warning to anyone wanting to get in a snowball fight or water fight with the pingels-they're good;)

well i was sick again for a couple of weeks (irritating) and i wasn't feeling up to going to the annual snowfest in rexburg, so you will have to get pictures from the year before...i love the snowfest, it's so fun to live in a small enough community that they do FREE stuff like this-they have all kinds of fun snow games: snow bowling, snow sculpting, sleigh rides, FREE hot chocolate, snow ball targets, treasure hunting in the snow(one of my kids favorite), big sledding hills and the polar bear swim...brrrrr! kelsi and kaden were wanting to do it again and we were going to be more prepared than last year but maybe next year.

this is kelsi and kaden waiting their turn to jump in-because we didn't arrive at registration early enough they were one of the last ones to jump and had to wait out in the snow along time and i didn't even think to bring a robe or blanket.

when the kids got on the lift they kept dancing around and i thought that maybe kaden had to go to the bathroom but they said the metal was so cold it stung your feet really bad, so they actually wanted to jump in to relieve their feet. kelsi was nice and let kaden go first.

they're faces showed that it was cold.

then they got to warm up in a hot tub, that neither wanted to get out of to get dressed.

and for that they got a cute polar bear swim hat, we love FREE stuff! and we can't wait for more january snow fun next year!

koy's class

koy has quite the primary class-only 4 little boys: joshua, braxton, connor and himself and one little girl, halle who never comes...but boy are they a handfull to say the least. i am so glad they had two great teachers, sarah young(who i visit teach and who is now in scouts with me) and her husband J.O. young(otherwise known as the man teacher in our house, i'll have to tell that story later!) sarah was so sweet to still allow me to come into her home every month after putting up with koy every Sunday. she was amazing and actually said she was really going to miss them-she said they were always cracking her up...a funny story she told me: in the middle of December, she was trying to explain to the boys that in a couple of weeks she wasn't going to be their teacher anymore and koy pipes up-"yes! now i can be bad and jump around!"

joseph smith

i have just loved learning about Joseph Smith in our classes, especially now that we are studying the Doctrine and Covenants too...what an amazing man-i am constantly in awe at his strength and testimony. i came across this quote from Joseph Smith when i was reading our lesson for the week: "As great as the power of evil might be, it must always withdraw with the appearance of righteousness." i just loved that!

a job!

yay! kent got a job
BOO-he is gone for 7 days at a time.

december in review

december is always one of those months that go by way too fast but is always a ton of fun-except for the fact that i was sick for 2 weeks with some weird dizzy headache disease. i could do little more that sit around all day and that even wore me out. so i started reading the Harry Potter series...i finished the first four books in this time and then i was hooked and finished up the series by the end of the month. i loved them, my favorite i think was #4 just because it was so different in alot of parts than the movie-of course the books are way better than the movies. we also got a ton of snow early this year so my kids have been loving playing outside. brooke had her Christmas concert at the start of the month and there's nothing like a bunch of sweet kids singing Christmas songs to get you into the season.

brooke was the cutest little lambchops ever, well actually she was a sheep-i love that we live in an area where the program can still be on the nativity. we went to see santa at the carousel this year, they had free rides and treats-my kids loved it-except kelsi, she decided she was too old to sit on santa's lap.

koy asked for a flying airplane, a bakugan, and his own little house(santa never figured this one out)

brooke asked for a blue Tonka truck-this sorta surprised santa and i shook my head yes at him

kaden asked for a red nintendo DS and pokemon rangers game

it was not very busy so the guy let them ride the carousel over and over and over, i don't think brooke would have ever stopped-about the 6th time i had to finally say it was enough...i was getting dizzy just watching!

this is what kaden and koy thought of that many turns!

my kids invented a game called kick the booty-they played it on the trampoline all summer and now they play it inside, which is a little wild but i just love when one of them asks the other "wanna play kick the booty" and the other one replies "yeah, let me get my booty!" they crack me up!

we made some gingerbread houses for family home evening...i think you can tell by the picture whose house kept falling apart-kaden was not happy:(

we also did the nativity(a family tradition from my family, it's alot easier with more people)...brooke was so cute as Mary with her round little belly and kaden was so excited to wear his Harry Potter robes as Joseph...Koy wanted to be baby Jesus but settled on a wise sheep holder, as he called it and we're just happy kelsi still likes to cooperate.

kent worked really hard and finished our computer table by Christmas morning-it was a surprise, he put a tarp over it...it is really nice-you have to come see it in person to really appreciate it...it is also good to have the computer out of kelsi and brooke's room.

Christmas morning was fantastic-the kids slept in until 8:30. santa must of thought that they were all very good last year-they were all very happy!

then that evening we had a birthday party for kelsi-she turned 12! we were happy that we had so many of our family show up even though the weather was horrible.

this is kelsi at 6 months-she was just too cute! we didn't find out what we were having so when my water broke at 6 in the morning on Christmas we wanted to keep it a surprise...so we didn't tell anyone. i started to do a 1000 piece puzzle and waited for contractions, by about 5 we decided to call the doctor, he told me to get to the hospital and i don't know why but i just sat back down and kept doing my puzzle. i think this is when i realized that i was terrified to have babies, i can't believe i lied though. so at about 6 the hospital calls and kent answers and they are all like "where are you?" kent just shook his head at me! we got to the hospital around 7 and they said they needed to start pitosin to get the contractions going and just asked if i wanted my epidural at the same time-it was nice...i never felt one contraction with kelsi. they said that i wasn't going to to have the baby until the next morning so about 9:30 kent went to find some food-it took him along time, he couldn't find anywhere open-we forgot it was Christmas. while he was gone the nurse came in and i asked her if it was normal to have lots of pressure in your back, she checked me and said "oh, your ready to have this baby" it was about 10:30. she called the doctor on call and started wheeling in all kinds of stuff, kent finally got back at about 10:45 and asked what was going on...the doctor got there shortly after and we had kelsi at 11:11pm. when she came out kent said "it's a boy!' and i can still remember the strange look the doctor gave him and i was thinking whats wrong with my baby and then the doctor said "no, it's a girl!" i didn't have the slighteast idea about what to do with babies, we stopped on the way home from the hospital at ToysRUs to get things like a binky, a swaddling blanket, and baby wash. i can still remember the shock on the checkout ladys face when she asked how old kelsi was and i said "2 days". oh, the things i didn't know! my mom was busy with my younger sister, kara who was also having a baby-so kents mom suggested we come stay with her for a little while, i'm so thankful:) well i did finally read a book about babies and then i kind of went crazy and had kelsi on a rediculous schedule, poor girl! kelsi did demand alot of attention though and i can remember a conversation with my mom that it was just not what i had imagined it would be and my mom said "are you making it harder that it should be?" and i decided then to just have more fun and let the house be a little messy, and her toys didn't need disinfected every day, and if the blocks ended up in the wrong bin it was okay, and her hair didn't have to be done everyday. it was the best advice ever because being a mom is always going to be hard work so you should always take time to enjoy it too! i love being a mom, kelsi is such a good help to me now too...i really don't know what i would do without her.