Summer 2012

Summer 2012 will be an interesting one for the Pannell family. Scott's job has taken him to Louisiana for 4-6 months.Since the job hit over the summer, the boys and I are able to go with him.We will be living in Lafayette, which is a little bit smaller than Boise; population of 120,000 vs. 200,000. Lafayette is Louisiana's capital of Cajun culture, and also has more resturants per capita that any other city in the U.S.

Our itinerary includes New Orleans, the Gulf of Mexico, Sea World (San Antonio), Lizard hunting, eating, a few cajun festivals, a swamp tour, maybe a plantation tour, and trying not to die of the heat (we don't do well with heat). While Lafayette is mostly a caucasian city, I think that we will still stick out like a sore thumb.

Spencer can barely stand it, he's so excited. In this picture he is standing by our big map, with our route to Louisiana, and showing off his count-down links. We plan on leaving Sunday May 27, and the drive is 36 hours.

What have we been doing?

May 1, 2012 was Parker's second birthday.Scott left for Louisiana early that morning, so we had presents and cake the night before, and spent Parker's actual birthday at Jump Time.

This was the night before his birthday. We had an angry birds birthday party, and he is holding one of his favorite characters: Stitch (other fav is Mickey Mouse).

A week after Parker's birthday is my dad's birthday

yum - we love going out to eat :)

caught Spencer sneaking into our homemade frosting - he figured out how to go cross-eyed

the boys playing on the bridge at their great-grandma & grandpa Mortensen's house. The favorite activity right now, is tying boats to the bridge and letting them float in the creek, then pulling them back.

View from the bridge. This picture is for all of my Thomas cousins, who haven't made it to Grandma & Grandpa's for awhile. The creek beds have started to erode, so Grandpa added river rocks - it looks awesome.

This last weekend, the boys and I drove up to McCall for my niece, Kimberely's baptism. This is Spencer and Parker with a few of their Pannell cousins (Tyler, Gavin, Jackson) Some Misc. pictures:

Spencer is all about Skylanders right now.

The boys playing with dad before he left for Louisiana

Nobody can flip a fit like Parker can

1 O'clock church means that the nursary has turned into the napping house

The boys picking out their essentials for Louisiana:)

Happy Easter

Easter 2012:


Easter dinner, Easter egg hunt with Spencer, Parker, cousins: Alex, Natalie, Zeke, and Elliot. ALso Grandma and Grandpa Mortensen.

Other Activities that have taken place in March/April:
Spencer started his Learn to skate/Hockey class. He loves it, it's so funny to watch such little guys on the ice. The class only consists of 4 little boys, 3 of which are: Spencer, cousin Alex, and his friend Naki.
Swimming for Alex's 6th birthday party.

Quick trip to Twin Falls to a horse auction, with: Scott's parents, his brother Mike and Jaime, and brother Jason and Lisa.
Ice cream shop
Hike up Camels Back hill
Spencer loves to make paper costumes of Skylander characters, this one is Dinorang.

2 weekends, 2 road trips

Scott's work takes him out of town 7-8 months of the year, so when he's working close we try to go visit him.The last few weeks were spent between Salt Lake City UT, and Twin Falls ID. However, his next job took him straight to Texas, from Salt Lake. Since he wouldn't get a chance to come home between the jobs, we drove to Salt Lake over the weekend.
The following weekend, we also spent in Salt Lake. My sister's kids are both on a special needs cheer squad. Lindsey originally found the squad for Natalie, but eventually Alex joined as well. It was too hard for the poor kid to sit on the sidelines and just watch Natalie practice every week, and since he has a diagnosis, he joined.The cheer squad had a competition in Salt Lake, so we drove down with Lindsey to help out. It just happened to be St. Patrick's Day, and we love to be festive. The squad did awesome; at this competition they didn't rank the special needs squads. They all received participation awards..however, if you ask Alex, they won first place. They were the only special needs squad that performed some stunts.Aren't they awesome?!? Natalie, 9 Alex, 5 (6 in ten days)

update

I have tried really faithfully to keep my blog updated. I like to print them out, making sure that important events are recorded, while avoiding keeping a journal and scrap-booking. However, I have failed the last few months..I don't think I even put up any holiday pictures. So here is a much needed update into our world: Parker 1, Spencer 4
Spencer & Parker as Woody and Buzz - while playing with Woody and Buzz. Spencer likes Toy Story, but he has never been completely hooked on it like he is with cars and piratesHere are just a couple of misc. pictures. Scott works as a project manager for an asbestos abatement company, and is out of town most of the time. Therefore, I am taking pictures all day long to send him. Unfortunately, I don't have a smart phone or a camera that works, so my phone that apparently isn't smart, has to do. Spencer will be five the very end of August, just a few days before the Kindergarten deadline. After much debate, and research, I have decided to hold him back a year. He's already very small for his age, boys are less mature, socially I don't think he'd like to be the smallest and the youngest, etc etc etc. So I finally found a preschool in Boise he will attend in September. Plus he is signed up for a few classes this fall, so hopefully the extreme boredom phase he is going through will soon subside. Parker is a busy-body. He loves to jump and throw things. He intentionally climbs up onto things just so he can jump off of them. And I am literally spending my day trying to keep him from shattering everything in the house, because he throws anything in his reach. Having said that, balls are a favorite right now. As for myself, I am trying to build up my private studio. I have five flute students and one piano student. I have recently become a "Let's Play Music" certified piano teacher. So come May, when the next round of "Lets Play Music" kids graduate, I should be getting a slew of piano students. Since I studied flute in college, that's what I prefer teaching, but i'll take what I can get.Here is one of their Christmas presents from this year. They also got a loft bed that has a slide. They love both, but I am just waiting for my first broken bone. I think it is inevitable with boys.We decided to have a Mardi Gras party on Fat Tuesday this year. Spencer is all about haveing a party, so any excuse we have, we do so. Basically they dressed up, paraded around while Lindsey and I through fake coins at them, had a kingcake, and watched Princess and the FrogMyself and my nephew, AlexEveryone had their own kingcake. And instead of eating, they just dug for their prize. Everyone loved it, except Parker. He freaks if his hands are dirty. He just starred at it, then had a melt down when Lindsey shoved his hands in the cake. He started eating with a fork at a very young age.

tonsillectomy #2

Both of my boys are terrible sleepers.Both have (had) huge tonsils which were affecting their breathing while they slept. So now both have had tonsillectomies.

Spencer, 2 1/2 years old (December 2009) Parker, 1 1/2 years old (December 2011):