Jenna 2012...

Jenna, my Jenna.  She is so much fun, so feisty, so loving and so happy all at the same time. She is such a good big sister.  She loves to paint Lydia's fingernails and help Owen when I need it.  She LOVES to be crafty making cards, drawing pictures, coloring, painting, anything I will let her do basically.  She is always making 'cards' out of scrap paper and glitter glue.  Jenna has a huge desire to be older.  She was pretty excited to turn 5 and when she did and didn't get to go to an older class at church she was pretty upset by that.  She has loved school and loves that she gets to learn to read books.  She just loves to have her hair curly and asks me at least once a week to do her hair curly.  Jenna is always quick to smile and has really started to shine in front of other people.  She used to hate being up in front of people but now she does great when she is.  She did a wonderful job on her part for the primary program and was able to do it without even asking her teacher to help her, she was very proud of that.

Jenna, I love you. I am so glad you came to my family and are my little 'brownie'.  I am so glad when you are home and smile at me and are my little helper.  I pray for you daily that you can shine your happy light for all to feel your happy spirit .  I am thankful every day that you are in my home and that I am your mother.

I asked Jenna a few questions to catch a glimpse of her at age 5...

What is your favorite color?  Pink

 What is your favorite toy? Fingernail polish

 What is your favorite fruit? Banana

 What is your favorite movie?  Tangled

 What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? Ham or egg salad sandwich

What is your favorite animal?  Unicorn

What is your favorite thing to wear? Minnie Mouse shirt

  Who is your best friend? Chelsea Hansen

What is your favorite cereal?  Froot Loops

What is your favorite thing to do outside? Play on the toys

What is your favorite holiday? Halloween

What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? Waffles

 What do you want to be when you grow up? Repunzel or Ariel

Anthony 2012...

Anthony is a joy to have in our home.  He is almost always a great helper.  He obviously has his moments, but for the most part he is a great big brother.  He loves to have Owen with him and he and Jenna play really well together.  This year Anthony had several rough spots with friends and school, but he learned a lot and grew stronger and was able to learn how he wanted to treat people from the experiences.   He still loves to wrestle and was super excited for this season to start again.  Last week when he came home from practice he said "I love wrestling.  It is just awesome."  He enjoys having athletic outlets.  Since starting 2nd grade he has really gotten a love for math.  He loves when they learn new things and was super excited to tell me the trick they learned about adding 9s.  We are still trying to convince him that reading is fun, but he does good at it when we can get him to sit still long enough to read a book.  

Anthony loves to feel the spirit and give talks in church.  When we have talked about it the 2 places he says he has felt the spirit were in the temple and in class when his Dad taught his class.  I love that he can already recognize the spirit touching his heart.  I love you Anthony and I am super glad that you decided to be my son.  I pray for you every day that you can make good choices  and that you can be a happy person.  I am glad you are mine forever!

I asked him a few questions to remember a glimpse of him when he is 7 years old...here are his answers...

What is your favorite color?  Blue & yellow

 What is your favorite toy? Wii

 What is your favorite fruit? Apple

 What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? Pancakes

What is your favorite animal? Snow Leopard

  What is your favorite book? Nate the Great books

Who is your best friend? Brady (even though he moved away to Arkansas this year.)

What is your favorite cereal?  Trix

What is your favorite thing to do outside? Play football with Dad

What is your favorite holiday? Halloween

What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? Omelets 

 What do you want to be when you grow up? Wrestling coach

Little Helpers...

 I got some yummy corn for cheap so I decided to do some freezer corn for the year.  I certainly didn't want to shuck all that corn by myself and Jake was gone hunting so I enlisted some other little helpers.  They did a great job. They got quite a few corns husked before they got super bored and went off to find something else.  I was grateful for the little help I did get though ;)!

Texans Flag Football...

 Anthony has enjoyed 2 different teams this year and has gotten in a lot of football playing/practice.  We are proud of his dedication to his teams and for playing the hardest he can each and every time. 

Riding the old Alpine Hwy...

We went up by Indian Creek where the old Alpine Hwy is still there and rode our 4-wheelers and motorbikes.  I couldn't believe just how many motorbikes our 3 families had between all of us.  We had a great time!  We rode all the way into Alpine and took our lunches and played at the park with a giant slide.  It was a very fun relaxing day.  Anthony got to discover that he had 3 gears on his motorbike and even maxed out the 3rd gear :)...he thought it was great. He gained lots of confidence on his motorbike and it was the perfect ride for that.  Can't wait to go and do it again!

Yummy suckers...

 Jake and I must not be very fun to ride in the truck with.  We had to bride these 2 with suckers to stop crying because they couldn't ride with Jared/Laura or Grandpa/Grandma Williams on our way up 4-wheeling.  The bribe was a pretty good one though, it kept them quite almost the whole ride there!

Sun Valley...

 Oh how much fun we had at Sun Valley for Labor Day weekend.  Jeral got invited to take Ralphie the Camel over to the nonmotorized parade in Sun Valley.  We had SO much fun.  There was always something to do to entertain us and the kids, it was great.  It was fun being a part of Ralphie too.  Everybody was in awe of him and we constantly had people at the trailers petting him and asking questions.  The best were the people that saw him in the cut off trailer on the way in.  They would look once, turn around and look again it was so funny!  We even had someone look at Ralphie so long he didn't notice the rest of his party had stopped their bikes and ran right into them.  Hahaha!  So funny.  

The parade is the biggest non-motorized parade in the west and was very interesting to see.  There were all kinds of horses, big and small, donkeys, mules, camels and buffalo :).  It was amazing to see all the different carriages that were there too.  Can't wait until next year!

 We spent a lot of time on the bikes, it was a good thing these kids like to ride in the bide trailer!

 They had an old gun shoot-off that we went and watched, while the program was pretty boring, the part where the bad guy came out and said put your hands up this is a stick-up got the kids pretty excited.  They all had their hands straight up, Lydia was quite serious about it!  Not sure if she knew it was pretend or not :).

 Right across from our camping spot, these bareback riders had a mini performance.  They were truly amazing in riding their horses.  The girl pictured above was the princess of the bunch and her name was Jenna.  Our Jenna thought that was pretty cool!

Jenna's 'pinched' ears...

 Jenna has wanted her ears 'pinched' for a long time. I felt like she was finally ready so we decided to go ahead and do it for her birthday.  She did a great job.  There was a little girl that was before us and she DID not want to get them done so they asked if we wanted to go first and see if that would help this other little girl by seeing someone else do it.  Jenna just sat there and smiled the whole time.  Didn't even flinch when the did it.  The workers said she was so good they should record her and have all the scared little girls watch her so they won't be scared anymore.  Way to go Jenna!  She cannot wait until she can change them out and wear all her cute earrings she got for her birthday.

Preschool for Lydia...

 I am positive that Lydia was the most excited for school to start this year.  She was crushed that she didn't get to go until a whole week after the big kids went.  We kept telling her that she got to go 2 days after my birthday, but she just couldn't wait, she was SO excited to wear her new school shoes, clothes and backpack!  I love their excitement.  She is so happy to be a big girl and go to school. She just wishes it was every day like Jenna.  That will be here before we know it though!

Jenna turns 5...

 I have had kind of a hard time getting used to my 2nd child being 5.  For some reason, it has been harder to admit that she is growing up than it was for me with Anthony.  But she is growing up into quite a pretty little lady.  This year she wanted a jewelry party, oh I had fun with that one!  I didn't know what kind of cake went with that theme, so I decided to do a barbie cake for a surprise. I LOVED how it turned out and so did Jenna.  While she was at school, I decorated it and she came home to it looking beautiful!  Lydia was so excited she couldn't keep it a secret from Jenna on the ride home from school, but Jenna had no idea what she was talking about so it still worked out fine :).  Love it!  Later that afternoon, Jenna has a few of her friends over to make necklaces, play freeze dance and eat cupcakes.  It was a fun little party.  The girls went home with a little bucket of candy necklaces, a few blingy flower rings, a ring-pop, a few plastic bracelets and their own made necklaces (I love the target $1 bins)!  The party was a great success.  Jenna was smiling the whole time.

After Jake got home from work, Jenna chose to go to Subway for dinner, so we went and got Subway and took it to the park and let the kids play and Jenna opened her presents there.  She had a wonderful birthday and she already can't wait until she turns 6!