Around the house.

When you are the 4th and you and mom are home alone, you get to lick all the big spoons…

Before the donation….

After…Locks of Love in honor of Maddie!

Explanation: My tall husband was putting lotion our very own Marster (aka Kari-Mari) while she stood on the bathroom counter. She, of course, managed to schmear up the mirror with her share of the lotion (top blurry part). Aforementioned husband would’ve cleaned it up (and avoided wrath of wife) except that the toddler bent over and in doing so put a lotioned-butt print on the mirror (blurry part near bottom–pun intended!). Husband deemed it too hilarious to clean and needed to show wife. Now we generously share with you!

Last Pictures of 2011

Lately I’m consumed by the remodel project. Things are going well, they are just busy! Of course, it’s
not like the rest of life takes a vacation while remodels happen, so we are running to basketball and tennis
and piano. We even managed to have a real grown-up date over Christmas break (yay! for dates!). Kari
has a cold and Jeremiah and I are trying to start the new year with some healthy habits (which explains why
I can fall asleep while blogging…those early morning workouts make 1pm seem quite sleepy!).
Anyways, I haven’t blogged in a while and here is a monster blog of pictures. Hope to have some more
remodel pictures to show soon!

My little sweetie.

Jeremiah was thrilled with his Christmas present, which we all fondly refer to as “The Shirt” now.

So cute!

Relaxing in the swing (IN DECEMBER and NOT THAT COLD!)

Big kids got skates for Christmas, so we are learning how to ice skate–a skill all from ND should have!

We even have some hand-me-down sticks to play hockey with!

Aunt Tennille was here!

Josiah’s present: a monster lego/star wars project.

Kari

Micah– apologies for lighting issues in the next few pictures. I know it’s terrible.

Somebody snuck in on Jo’s picture.

Signe

Charity with her nieces and nephews.

Tennille with the crew.

Penn version of awkward family photos…

More like the true Penn’s in this picture. Sorry about the light again.

The Penn family–between the light and the kids’ squirreliness, this was the best we could do…

Tennille again treated Signe, Kari and I to our own mani/pedis! Thanks, Teal!

December 2011 week 3

What happened to our kitchen????

And the walls between the living and dining room???

The tile in the living room was a giant mess, but I really appreciate my contractor. He is doing such good work and very careful.

Kari at the Sunday School Christmas program. She was “that girl”….the girl who flipped her dress over her head and showed off her skivvies!

Micah with piano teacher Debbie after the Christmas recital.

Josiah (showing us that Harding County roots run deep??)

Signe (and the boys) LOVE Debbie for a piano teacher. We are so thrilled to have found her.

Signe at her orchestra concert. You might ask what is more fun to listen to, beginning band or beginning orchestra….tough call.

December so far.

First snow of the year! We spent it outside moving logs into a huge roll off dumpster.

The dumpster was FULL!

Christmas card picture reject.

Also, NOT going on the Christmas card….

Didn’t make the cut.

Umm, cute…but quite right…

Does he even look sleepy?

One more that didn’t make it…

Kari has been battling the stomach bug for a couple days, but perked up today. She got a visit from “Mana” (Gramma Sue), whom she adores!

Signe and I were rear-ended on Saturday. I still have a sore neck, will see PT tomorrow. How did we make it through a year in SoCal with no fender benders, but here in Bismarck???!!!

Signe is the gingerbread with white buttons, back left.

Ginger dancing for the recital! (back left)

My little dancer!

I thought she was absolutely beautiful (btw, no flash photography and lighting was tricky…)

Signe and her friend Lizzie, who also goes to our church and happens to be related to us! ! Small world! Lizzie’s grandpa and Signe’s grandpa are first cousins.

November 2011

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

When the boys went hunting, the girls had friends over for crafts, pizza and ANNIE.

Here is the deer, before processing…

Kari at the zoo.

Vikings vs Raiders

At the game with Uncle Scott.

Daddy and Kari reading a favorite book.

Halloween

The bee costume appears again!

If your parents won’t let you get a cat, at least you can dress up as one!

Some sort of power ranger police guy. All we know is lots of kicking and fighting comes from whoever wears the suit.

Last week he went to a Halloween party and looked more like a boxer — due to a swollen & cut lip (courtesy of his brother, an accident of course).

All four trick or treaters!

Kari and the neighbor boy rode around in style, eating whatever candy they could open!

At the end of the night, this is what the neighbor boy looked like….hmmmm….too much sugar?

october

Kari “practicing” piano. She even sings for us sometimes!

Girls on a non-school morning, cuddled up and reading.

A feeble attempt of mine to let the kids craft a bit.

They enjoyed it at least.

Girls watching Daddy chainsaw-ing. They watched him fell a giant tree and since then Kari says, “Daddy boom! Daddy boom!”

This weekend alone he went through 3 chainsaw blades and cut up two large cottonwoods. Now hopefully people wanting free firewood will come haul most of it away!

In the foreground, the base of the smaller tree felled. In the back left is the bigger tree laying down. Things are looking better.

Josiah loved the pumpkin guts.

Signe did too!

Micah was less enthralled.

They worked really hard and did 90% of the project independently.

Including design and clean up!

Kari didn’t get to carve one (maybe next year?) but was excited to see them!

busy girls

Signe at her 5th grade music program, “School Days.”

Signe with her Sunday School class at Papa’s Pumpkin Patch.

Unfortunately someone started the haybales on fire while we were at PPP. Made for quite an adventurous S.S. outing!

Signe is back far left, getting ready to perform her dance after mini-dance camp at BHS.

Tennille, is this enough floss?

And you don’t think I encourage flossing enough….

Fall at the Penn house. (pun intended…trees are falling…)

Some pictures of our days.

Josiah’s creativity.

“I yike foofall”

Friends at Papa’s Pumpkin Patch

Sisters at PPP

More friends!

Penn’s at the Patch.

Everyone is trying to get Kari to look at the camera….

PPP is in a new location due to flooding, but it worked quite well!

Picked her own pumpkin! And was proud!

Working at the house…time for supper…delivery pizza on the step.

What a treat — gatorade for drinks (no milk!)!

A neighbor took this picture of Micah a couple Saturdays ago. He was not excited about being there to help Jeremiah with trees and yardwork. It was published today in the Bismarck Tribune, on the 5th page. I love it!