This is the current look to our stairwell, rails, etc. Slow coming as is typical for recon work. Some day this'll all be done. Dad/Kenn

I have a few minutes during lunch at work right now, so I'll check in here. Life is busy, as it is for us all but I feel especially busy right now. Luckily all that I am doing I find interesting and, usually, fun - there is just a lot to do!

Last weekend I got to go up to WA to visit all who were there. It was a relaxing trip and I am glad Mom & Dad brought me up there. I spent most of the weekend with the D&A kids, who are awesome - love them, and got to go to dinner with Mom, Dad, Brent, Buffy and Pnoah (the P is silent) on Saturday night at Salty's, which was delicious. I even got to see Adina for about 5 minutes on Friday! I also got to try out kayaking which is really fun and I hope to do it a lot more in the future. It was fun to visit and I am excited to see most everyone for Christmas.

Tomorrow and Saturday I am going to Disneyland and hanging out with friends in the LA area. It should be a lot of fun and I am very excited. I love the Halloween time at Disneyland - almost as much as Christmas at Disneyland! I'll be sure to get some pictures so I can post them here.

School is going well. I had two of my four midterms last week and got an A on both. Because of curving I think I may even get over 100% on one of them, which is fine by me. :) I have the other two midterms next week and I'm a little stressed on the studying for those because of the D-land trip but I am sure I'll be fine. On one of my midterms - Econ - we can bring in WHATEVER we want to class for the test - laptops, internet, calculators, books, notes...just not a friend. Too bad for that last part - I was gonna have Brent as my lifeline! I'll be glad when midterms are over but then I just have to get into studying for the finals, final projects and papers...it never ends! But at least I'll get a break in December and I really am loving it.

I'm making some good friends at school as well. A couple of us are going to see Wicked in LA next weekend because one of the girls is friends with the girl who plays Elphaba in the LA production and will be playing her in the new SF production. Her friend could get us 1/2 price tickets so I had to jump on that. Plus I'll be able to see my friend Adam who is the understudy for Fiyero. Small world!

Oh and Adina - I remembered what costume I thought of for you guys - Peter Pan! You could be Wendy, Morgan as Tinkerbell, Isaac as Captain Hook, Taylor as John and Parker as Michael and, last but not least, Dave as Peter! Get ready for those tights Dave! :)

Anyway, I have a lot of work to get done in two hours so I'll have to wrap this up. Thanks to all for the birthday wishes! It has been a fun one!

Hey All,
Sorry I haven't posted while Brent was away but he took the laptop with him and I never went upstairs to our office during the day due to leg issues. Well, Noah is now 6 weeks old and is a total joy. I have learned a lot in the past few weeks about motherhood and will obviously never stop learning from here on out. Right now he has a cold which breaks my heart since he is so young. I feel like I am on top of it though with the humidifier, saline drops and little nose sucker... poor guy.
At this point I am greatful I bought those baby advice books cause they have helped for different things (Babywise and Happiest Baby On the Block). I think I have the routine thing good for right now making sure he gets enough sleep to be a happy baby and tricks on how to sooth him but now I need reccommendations on a sleep book. Right now he does need our help to get to sleep and we are working on getting him to sleep in his moses basket instead of on or next to us. Then we will get to the crib by 4 months I hope. I am also sttruggling with what to do with feeding as I am going back to work. He currently eats every 2.5 hours and takes 30 to 40 minures each time... formula is sounding real good right now.
Again for local family we are doing a Halloween party this year at our house. Space is limited here so it pretty much keeps our group small but we have a blast anyway. We all do a fantastic job bringing food and treats and this year I am asking each family to prepare a game or activity so less work for me. All I have to do is decorate which I love to do and provide drinks and my food and game contribution. I can't wait till more family move here to make our anual party even more fun... yes this is going to be a tradition that won't die if I can help it. :)
As for my leg I am now in a walking boot which is nice but pain does remind me to not overdo it. I will have it for 5 weeks which still means no driving ahh! I will be starting PT next week because I cannot mobilize my own ankle, using the gym will be nice and designating the time will help too. I think I am also going to try using a stationary bike at the gym if I can get there.
Well, I better go. Typing one handed is quite hard with Noah in the other.
Love you all!
Buffy

Happy Birthday and We hope you had a good one. Sorry we are late...I am so busy with volleyball right now I lost track of it. Such a cutie! We can't wait to see you in person!

Love, Anne Peter Andrew and Beck!

He loves to put any shoes he can find on both his hands and walk around with them. Luckily my slippers are nice and clean. Yes, I did say walk. The boy is amazing. He's walking about 80% of the time now. He took a few first steps before we went to see Mike but kept going with the six or seven at a time thing until the day before we left. Then he got serious, now he's a real walkin' man.

So my visit with Mike was wonderful. We've both agreed that it has made our next six weeks absolutely torturous. Sawyer loved his daddy, warmed up to him almost immediately. He would reach for him all the time. Also, as you can see by the picture, you Stinchfield men would be proud. Sawyer would pck up the controller and look at the monitor and reach for Mike. It was so cute that I didn't even mind letting them play a little bit each day (I got to read, I don't do that too often right now).

The girls had an absolutely fabulous time with Grandma Barb. Thank you so much, Barb, I can't tell you what that means to both of us. It is such a great feeling knowing we are leaving our kids (yes, leaving the kids is a great feeling) in such capable, loving hands.

Marnie and Adina, I hope you both had great birthdays. You are two of the greatest women I know and I love you both. Well it is time to get my little yahoos to bed. Love to all.

I meant to put the one where Melia isn't crying! Sorry! And an extra of McKenzie in her blessing dress!

Well like the title says... only 6 more weeks of student teaching. I am definitely wanting it to be done, but I am loving it at the same time. I only have two more evaluation which the next one is on the 21st. I had some very frustrating problems with one of my cooperating teachers, but it has been resolved and it is becoming a better situation. I am more relaxed and able to do my own style of teaching. I know the next 6 weeks are going to fly!
McKenzie is a monster and she is smiling all the time. We have an appointment for her on Tuesday so we will see how big she actually is! She is a lot taller than Melia was. Her eyes are dark and look like they will be like Treven's (of course). She still has plenty of dark hair. We will see if it sticks around. Melia is a crazy soon-to-be 2 year old. The terrible twos is already starting... she got to the couch with blue highlighter. The cushions are now turned so you can't see it. We were planning on getting our couches cleaned so I guess she just wanted to make them dirtier. We also got a Twin size bed for Melia. Now the bedroom has both girls in it. We switched to having McKenzie in the crib because it is warmer in their room than the master bedroom. McKenzie has to be extremely warm in order to sleep well. So pictures below show her new bed and what their bedroom looks like.
McKenzie was blessed today and we had three close friends in the circle with us. It was a great small gathering and we had dinner with everybody this afternoon... Chicken and broccoli (requested by our friends). Pictures added on!
Treven and I were able to go on a date on Friday night with Matt and Kate. We went to dinner and a movie. It was nice to be out for a night with just Treven. Speaking of which, the picture below is of Melia and her friend Rylee. Our friends Linzi and Sam watched the girls when we went out. Linzi was giving Rylee a bath and Melia was watching. Well McKenzie started crying so Linzi went to go get her. When she came back, Melia had jumped in with Rylee fully clothed. It is so something Melia would do.
Treven registers for classes in about a month and is hoping to get into 4 psychology classes that would work perfectly with his schedule and give him the credits he needs. He would only have 2 classes a day. Pepsi is going well, but it is still busy. It has not slowed down like it usually does in the fall. He thinks it is because the college accepted about 600 more students then they have in the past. Who knows?!
Oh yeah.. It snowed this weekend. It didn't stick, but still! Not looking forward to snow coming. It is so cold outside.
We are looking into moving again... I know, I know. AGAIN! BUT! We need a bigger living room with having two children. Our friends Matt and Kate live at a place called Stone book and it is about 15 dollars more than we would be paying here. It is a 840 sq ft apartment and the living room is very open and big. It comes with a washer and dryer so we are going to just store the ones we have for later. This all depends on if we get into them. They start taking names for the waiting list for January on November 1st so hopefully we do get it!
We ARE COMING HOME!!! (thanks to Mom :)! THANK YOU!) We will be coming on December 13th. Unfortunately, Treven can only come until the 18th, but he wants the girls and I to be there for Christmas so that we actually have a Christmas. He is such a great husband! The girls and I will be staying until the 29th of December then heading back to Rexburg.
We are starting to think about the Christmas gifts so we need ideas for Beck and Ellyn, Mike and Buffy! Please let us know!

We know your birthday has passed and we talked to you on iChat but we just wanted to send out this little blog tribute. We hope you had a great birthday and that after sitting around studying you at least went to dinner or something!! Our time with you in San Diego was so fantastic and we wish we were still there. It was so fun getting to spend all that time with you and playing games, improving our hollywood knowledge and just hanging out. The best part was the way that Danica would talk to you and talk about you all the time when she would give everyone else in the world a stone face. She loved to call "her Marnie" on the toy phone and constantly asked where you were. We will forever be in debt to you for finding us such a great house in the best neighborhood and for watching the kids when Alyssa was born and countless other times! Thank you again! Happy Birthday Marnie, you deserve to have a great one!

We love you!

Tom, Tracey, Hayden, Danica and Alyssa

Well the title refers to the half marathon I am running in on October 25th. Hopefully it will go well. I will admit my training hasn't been the best these past 2 weeks but I still feel good when I do run so we'll see how the race turns out. I have been having some knee pain but I talked to the sports trainer at the high school I coach at and he says it is just from the constant pounding. But it isn't bad at all really, I can still run comfortably, it just hurts after.

Volleyball has been a little stressful and drama-filled but things have improved greatly. Our last home game is tonight and we only have one more match after today before the District Tournament. From then on we will see how far we get. We are 2-10 which doesn't sound good but that is better than last year. So we have improved and hopefully we can end with 2 more wins under our belts. We did play in a varsity tournament this last weekend and we ended 11th out of 36 teams which was really good.

Club Volleyball starts up on the 3rd of November with tryouts so I don't get much of a break but I am super excited for club this year as we will have a really good group of girls.

The boys are doing great. Andrew is on an Aladdin watching kick right now and wants to watch it like 4-5 times a day. I have had to regulate that. Actually I just had to get up to turn it off because he just came and told me it was over. He is saying more and more stuff everyday and it is weird to see how much he is comprehending and remembering. He definitely is soaking things up like a sponge. Beck is beginning to cruise along furniture, much to Andrew's dismay. He is chasing Andrew constantly trying to play with Andrew's books and toys that he has brought up to the couch. He has 2 teeth already and 2 more that will break thru any day now. It is crazy how much faster he is doing everything.

Peter had to head out of town this week for a project with work up in Moscow, ID. He is going to head to Spokane for the weekend after being in Moscow so that he can see our nephew be blessed and visit with his family. He is loving work and even though it is stressful and busy at times, he still enjoys it.

Well hopefully I will update more frequently but we will see. I love you all and love to hear about your lives. I will second the want for more pics of Noah, I want to see this cute baby and how much he has grown.

-Anne