They're Growing Up (sniff, sniff)

So, we lost our camera and can't find it ANYWHERE! I am now resorting to using my phone, and thanks to my wonderful brother in law (thank you Mike), I have a way to transfer the pics/videos to the computer. So you'll have to forgive the 2mp pictures that are to follow, but they are better than none at all, I'd say.

Anyway, onto the title of my story today. Brayden is now 5, for those of you who didn't know. I would've posted birthday pictures, but I lost the camera a couple of days later. This week, he learned how to ride his bike without the training wheels! He was really scared at first, but his training wheel fell off and I told him that we weren't putting it back on. He cried and we put the bike away to go run errands. When we got home, he said, "Mom, I'm ready to try my bike now." So, we did and he got the hang of it in about 5 mins. Now, I can't get him off the bike and he keeps saying, "Thanks for letting me ride my bike without the training wheels!"

Now, McKenzie has also been suprising me. She has been begging for a bike since Brayden started riding his and then I remembered: Brayden got his (with trainging wheels) when he was three. Ohmygosh -- she's almost THREE?! Where did the time go? Of course, when I was taking video of Brayden, McKenzie also wanted a video, so here she is singing her ABC's.

Missionary Work and Modern Times

I was on LDS.org when I found the coolest thing: The Church now has a You Tube Channel! There is supposed to be a new message each week promoting the basic beliefs of the Church. Here it is:

So true...

I got this email the other day and it was so true (minus the coffee part, but you can make it hot chocolate for me).... I just had to share.

AAADD- KNOW THE SYMPTOMS....

Thank goodness there ' s a name for this disorder.
Somehow I feel better, even though I have it!!
Recently, I was diagnosed with A.A.A.D.D. -
Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder.
This is how it manifests :

I decide to water my garden.
As I turn on the hose in the driveway,
I look over at my car and decide it needs washing.

As I start toward the garage,
I notice mail on the porch table that
I brought up from the mail box earlier.
I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car.

I lay my car keys on the table,
Put the junk mail in the garbage can under the table,
And notice that the can is full.

So, I decide to put the bills back
On the table and take out the garbage first.

But then I think,
Since I'm going to be near the mailbox
When I take out the garbage anyway,
I may as well pay the bills first.

I take my check book off the table,
And see that there is only one check left.
My extra checks are in my desk in the study,
So I go inside the house to my desk where
I find the cup of coffee I ' d been drinking.

I ' m going to look for my checks,
But first I need to push the Coffee aside
So that I don't accidentally knock it over.
The Coffee is getting cold,
And I decide to make another cup.

As I head toward the kitchen with the cold coffee,
A vase of flowers on the counter
Catches my eye--they need water..

I put the Coffee on the counter and
Discover my reading glasses that
I ' ve been searching for all morning.

I decide I better put them back on my desk,
But first I ' m going to water the flowers.

I set the glasses back down on the counter,
Fill a container with water and suddenly spot the TV remote.
Someone left it on the kitchen table.

I realize that tonight when we go to watch TV,
I ' ll be looking for the remote,
But I won ' t remember that it ' s on the kitchen table,
So I decide to put it back in the den where it belongs,
But first I ' ll water the flowers.

I pour some water in the flowers,
But quite a bit of it spills on the floor.

So, I set the remote back on the table,
Get some towels and wipe up the spill.

Then, I head down the hall trying to
Remember what I was planning to do.

At the end of the day :

The car isn ' t washed
The bills aren ' t paid
There is a cold cup of coffee sitting on the counter
The flowers don ' t have enough water,
There is still only 1 check in my check book,
I can ' t find the remote,
I can ' t find my glasses,
And I don ' t remember what I did with the car keys.

Then, when I try to figure out why nothing got done today,
I ' m really baffled because I know I was busy all day,
And I ' m really tired.

A Straight Jacket?!

When I picked up the kids the yesterday from the babysitter, I was informed that McKenzie didn't have a jacket. She was wearing long sleeves and jeans, and we were going to the car and home, so no big deal... Well, when we got home, McKenzie tells me, "Mommy I did have a jacket a Sasha's house."

So I asked her, "What jacket did you have? What kind of jacket?"

And she said, "Um...A straight one!"

I haven't laughed that hard in a while.

Our December Vacation

This year I took a vacation from work in December and for the first time, we didn't drive anywhere! We went to Big Bear with Mike, Melissa and Family and just kind of "hung out." We also went to Sea World and Knott's Berry Farm. I think it was the best vacation I've had in a long time...almost stress free! Here's some of my favorite pics:

Christmas 2008

OK, OK so I'm a little behind... We had a wonderful Christmas. The kids all performed a living nativity:



They all wanted to sleep under the Chrismas tree, but of course there wasn't enough room for all 6 kids under the tree. So, they all slept in the family room after opening one gift (which was just some sweet treats):



I tried to get a picture of both kids, but it was still so early in the morning that the lighting was just bad in that room.... McKenzie's "big" gift this year was an American Girl doll (really one half of a Bitty Twins set) that she has named Halle (like every other baby in her small collection). I really wanted to get her a nice doll with hair, but I can't bring myself to spend the money on an American Girl for my 2 year old. So, my friend and I each paid for half of a set of Bitty Twins. She took one, I the other.



And last, but not least is a small glimpse of the chaos that happened in our house of 10 people (Stengel Family plus ours) Christmas morning. I have to say that as bad as this looks, in the few hours that I was at work, they had it ALL cleaned up!

Great Quote:

I was reading the First Presidency message by Henry B. Eyring today and came across an excellent quote about missionary work. I am the first to admit that I'm not the greatest when it comes to missionary work, but this really hit home for me:

"[A]t some moment in the world to come, everyone you met in this life will know what you know now. They will know that the only way to live forever in association with our families and in the presence of our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, is to choose to enter into the gate by baptism at the hands of those with authority from God. They will know that the only way families can be together forever is to accept and keep sacred covenants offered in the temples of God on this earth. They will know that you knew. And they will remember whether you offered them what someone had offered you."

"Tiny Bubbles....."

So here I am sitting with Katelyn and watching a movie when Myles walks in to tell me, "I don't know what's wrong with Brayden, but he's in the bathroom crying and there's bubbles coming out of his nose."

The impression that I got was that he wasn't responding because Myles said that Brayden wouldn't talk to him -- he was just crying. Now I'm concerned: I'm not hearing him cry and there's some kind of bubbles coming out of my son's nose.

So, I rushed to the bathroom and now I'm hearing Brayden start to scream. Sure enough, there he is standing in front of the toilet with his pants down and bubbles coming out of his nose.

I took him to the kitchen where I could see better and tried to calm him down. He was finally able to point to Myles indicating that the bubbles came from him. Finally, I asked Myles, "What happened? How did Brayden get bubbles in his nose and why was there a bottle of baby shampoo on the bathroom floor?"

Well, come to find out Brayden (for who knows what reason) ASKED Myles to put the shampoo in his nose! What?! Why?! I tried to ask, but all I could get out of Brayden was, "I didn't think it would hurt."

Boys will be boys....What's next?

Quote of the Day

I can tell McKenzie has been hanging around her cousins when:

She's in the bathroom the other day with me and she whispers, "I can't go out the door...there's bad guys out there."

I asked her, "Who're the bad guys?" thinking that she would say Brayden or one of her cousins.

Instead she said, "Um....Clones."

Now, she has never seen Star Wars, but she has seen the boys playing the games on XBox, so I thought that was pretty funny.

Don't ya love 2 year olds?!

"This is Halloween, This is Halloween...."

Well, our camera broke and we just recently had it replaced (courtesy of Sears), so there are NO pictures from September, but here are the kids getting ready for Halloween. We had a great time at Trunk or Treat!