Pingel Family Film Festival!

So it has been awhile since we have updated our blog. We have been busy little bees around here! Since it has been such a long time, we have many funny movies to share. You'll laugh, you'll cry, your life will never be the same! Okay so that is a little extreme...but anyway, prepare yourself for some fun Pingel family adventures!

First up on the list of movie memories, we have bathtime with Rachel and Brandon. Brandon is learning to splash, and he kept splashing Rachel in the eyes, so she would say "Hey" and rub her eyes which would make him laugh and she would join in. After awhile, I grabbed Ben's phone and caught some of the moment for your viewing pleasure:




Next up we see the sensitive sides of Rachel Brooke. Her Aunt Darcy gave her a new dolly recently, and Rachel loves it. She calls it her baby and she loves to feed it the bottle (and pretend to drink it herself). So this is the motherly side of Rachel.



Along the same lines, Rachel loves to pray. She almost always folds her arms and bows her head when we pray, and recently she started jabbering during prayers so that she could have her say in the prayers. Well, we were at Grandma and Grandpa's and Rachel randomly started praying as she walked around the room. Of course, we only caught her on camera at the end of the show, but you get the idea. She is precious.




Ben's brother's have this little robot that Rachel loves. One day, she started imitating everything it did and she absolutely had a blast. This is my favorite clip of her playing with the robot. I think she is going to be a tap dancer someday!



And something random...Ben is teething...after all this time, he finally decided to get some wisdom teeth. Good thing we are poor students with no money or dental insurance. haha. We just found out last night that a couple of top wisdom teeth are on the way. Talk about random.

I hope you enjoyed our mini film festival! I will try to break them down into smaller posts in the future!

Precious Moments

We have had a lot of cute moments lately. These will be kind of random...but they all share one common theme--precious!

First we have a movie called "Rachel's New Discovery". This girl is absolutely hiliarious.



Next up, "Rachel Learns to Dance". Rachel got a lot more into shaking her head before Ben brought his phone out, but you get the idea.


Which brings us to "Daddy and Brandon Play Peekaboo".


Going along with this, Rachel and Brandon were staring at each other yesterday and both randomly broke out into laughter. They have their own secret world already.


This is a picture of us a few weeks ago when Rachel was really sick. Ben left to go get some Motrin for her and came back to find us asleep on the recliner...I woke up when he started taking pictures, hence the smile. Talk about mommy heaven!

After a busy day, Brandon and I crashed on the floor, which amused Ben.


Lastly a little mushy story about why I love Ben. Ben knows I hate folding laundry. It really annoys me. So we started a tradition where after the kids are asleep we turn on an episode of "I Love Lucy" and fold the laundry together. It may seem silly, but it is so much fun. I actually look forward to laundry folding instead of dreading it. What a great husband I have!

Fun Family Weekend

For the first time in a long time, my side of the family got together for a little reunion of sorts. The trip down could potentially have been terrible were it not for one technological miracle called the portable dvd player. Though Rachel watched more episodes of Blue's Clues than I care to say, we were saved from tantrums and crying! Except Brandon is following his big sister's footsteps and gets car sick now...

The weekend was great. I was able to go to a friend's wedding reception as a surprise. We ate lots of junk and had a great time playing water balloon volleyball. I think Ben and I won...we were the best!! I even went on a walk/jog. It felt great to jog again since I haven't done it since my accident.

Grandma and Grandpa Thomson even came on Saturday to see the great-grandkids. The kids stole the show of course.

Rachel and Hyrum seemed to like each other and chased each other around a little bit. They had tons of fun playing in the water fountain too.


They also enjoyed the teeter-totter together. They seemed to be good pals most of the time.



Brandon can sit up for short periods now. What a big boy! And so cute too right?


Hyrum is learning to walk and it is kind of amusing sometimes...


As always we attempted family pictures. However, it was very windy and it started to rain which made for some unflattering shots! Ben took the pictures for one round, then Mike took over. We will join the whole family through Photoshop later!

We had a lot of fun and can't wait til Christmas to do it all again! (Minus the water balloons!)

Manito Park

About a week ago, before the whole family was sick and dying of various illnesses, we went to Manito Park in Spokane, Washington. We had a lot of fun. It was a little rough because the temperature was over 100 degrees but we chose to overlook that fact and have some good family time.

Rachel loved everything. She was so excited to see something new and explore the area. This is a good picture of her "pondering" the beauty of the area.


This was one of Brandon's first experiences walking around in a kangaroo pouch as I call them...and he loved it! Check out this cute little face!


The park is quite large. One part consists of a nature park with lots of ducks, geese, and various birds. Rachel loved seeing them. The downside--there was more poop on the ground than room to dodge it. So yes, she had stinky shoes. People commented on how the geese were taller than Rachel, but she still loved to be around them. Rachel literally chased this poor bird up and down the hill. She never caught it of course, but the thrill of the chase was enough for her!


We also went to the Japanese garden. The water was actually red. I don't know what they did to it. There weren't any fish because someone had brought in a foreign goldfish or something into the pool and it infected the pool with some virus...yikes. So we just saw a bunch of red water, but it was still beautiful in a weird kind of way.


Next we went to the rose garden. We were so hot and tired by this time that we didn't enjoy it as we should. I loved it though. It was so pretty and the grass was unbelievably soft. It smelled heavenly and there weren't even that many bees even though there were so many flowers.


I can't remember the name of this spot, but it was a crowd pleaser. Something about a garden is so calming and serene. I love it.


While we were loading up in the car, we saw this beastly monstrosity. I can't believe such things are allowed to be created. Starving children in third world countries and people actually drive around in this??? Makes me sick!


Brandon loved to chew on his "kangaroo pouch". If anything is near his mouth he has to try it out!


We even attempted a family picture even though Brandon's head was facing the wrong way.


It was a great outing. If anyone is in the Spokane area, I would highly recommend a visit to this fun and FREE location!

Memories!

I found this on EVERYONE'S blog and thought I would give it a try. Read below to play. You can leave any kind of comment.

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you. If you don't want to play on your blog, or if you don't have a blog, I'll leave my memory of you in my comments.EVERYBODY PLAY! I want to see what memories are out there!

Back to the Drawing Board

So Ben and I decided this sleeping at night thing is overrated. Lately our family has been rebelling against the whole idea. I had a really really bad sinus infection last week which has left me with a strange cough. I wake up at least twice a night having coughing fits like an old man. I'd be embarrassed if there was anyone around to hear, but luckily the walls here aren't quite as thin as our old apartment! Lately Rachel has forgotten that sleeping through the night is a skill she mastered months ago. And because she cries so much at night, Brandon doesn't want to be left out. It's exhausting! So Ben put the portable crib in Rachel's room and said no more big girl bed until she puts herself back to sleep on her own. Otherwise, she likes to get out and play with her books instead of sleeping. It's been exciting around here.

Sunday was my first day teaching CTR 7. It went well I think. I asked the kids what they learned the week before and one little boy said, "I don't know. All I know is the teacher didn't bring candy". And I'm thinking....I didn't bring any either. He is going to hate me. Oh well, we got to role play the story of the Good Samaritan, so he forgot about his sugar tooth. I think this will be a good experience. I haven't gone to primary since I was in it myself, but I think it will be fun. At least none of the kids licked my arm or punched me, which is more than I can say for my poor sister-in-law (darn Sunbeams).



Rachel and I are spending our days learning about the parts of the body. So this week we focused on her nose until she could point to it herself. So now I say "Where is Rachel's nose?" And she pushes on it and taps it. I wanted to make a video, but our camcorder was dead. Sorry. Anyway at one point we played "Got Your Nose". So I make the motions and say "Rachel I got your nose!" She just looks up at me, and at my hand that has her nose, and says "Uh-oh!"


Brandon had his first experience with rice cereal this week. He liked it. I forgot how messy that first feeding is though. But he needs it. Otherwise he might start going through a can of formula every day! Okay that is an exaggeration, but you get the idea.

Ben has been working at Thrifty being a counter agent for the car rentals. He gets to drive cars to and from the airport...which he loves. But it has been bad for his "addiction" to new cars. He took the job as just a temporary position until he could find something more related to his major, and is really enjoying it now that he knows how it works. We're hoping he'll be able to work up to a management position soon (they get company cars and free gas, as well as better pay and hours!). He's done really well so far and has mastered in two weeks what usually takes over a month- what else would we expect from him?!

Just For Fun: A Trip Down Memory Lane

As many of you know, I love to say that Ben and I have been married for YEARS. It's true...technically. Two years is plural after all. Our lives have changed so much since we got married. Two kids, relocation to Northern Idaho, ten cars....we have been busy people! Anyway, I thought it would be kind of fun to show some pictures of the "early days" for those of you who weren't around for our pre-baby days.



This is one of our favorite engagement pictures. Somehow at the time of choosing what to print on our announcements, this one slipped through the cracks even though we are quite fond of it now.



Ben and I were married April 28, 2006 in the Bountiful Utah Temple. I like to joke with him about being late to our wedding. I am very much an "early bird" so I got there probably fifteen minutes early, and he was about five minutes late because of traffic. The cute little old lady that was helping me just kept patting me and saying "He'll be here honey. They can't start without him". Good times, good times.


We picked a beautiful spring day to get married with lots of pretty flowers and sunshine.


This is us in Yellowstone for our honeymoon. Ben had never been to Yellowstone and was very disappointed in Old Faithful. He had heard about its glorious reputation for years, and when the moment arrived, all he could say was "That's IT?" Funny guy. Well, I hope you have enjoyed this little blast from the past that seems so long ago even though it really wasn't.