The past 5 months in one blog...

Crumb.  I have been a bad blogger.  Now let's see if I can cram it all in one and get caught up!

APRIL

Easter morning!

We got all spiffed up Easter morning and went to church to celebrate the reason for the season.

Afterwards we stopped by to visit papal and grandma. They are always so happy to see us. (and by us, I mean Arlen - ha!)

Then we left there and went to a family get together and did an Easter egg hunt!

The night before Easter, Oma and Opa came over and we decorated eggs.

I made these cupcakes for Arlen's MDO class.

And he also did an egg hunt at MDO!

The week before Easter, our playgroup met and did an egg hunt too.

  

Arlen and his best bud Casen.  They are in the same class at MDO and in playgroup together.  Arlen just loves his "Case"!  :)

I was blessed to go on my first Falls Creek Ladie's Retreat.  I had such a blast and learned so much. Can't wait for the next one!

What a great group of ladies!

MAY

We participated in March of Dime's walk this year, called March for Babies.  It was a great experience and our team raised over $600 for the cause!

We did a bake sale one day during mother's day out.

 

My parents joined us for the walk

Arlen was carried most of the mile...

My little preemie baby is such a big boy!

The whole Team Arlen team!  We have some awesome family and friends that are such a blessing to us.  :)

Memorial Day we went over to Hollie and Zack's for a cookout.  It was a great time with friends and where we committed to starting a women's ministry at our church! 

I'm so glad God put these two girls in my life!  Very very blessed.

My lovely flag creation.  Memorial Day can't be celebrated without a flag food.  ;)

Ice cream cupcakes!  Very easy, but I had a smallish meltdown when transporting them...  Hot sun and icing does NOT mix.

And Arlen got to play with Gage!

In May, we also went to visit April, Ryan, and Cooper in Chicago.  We had so much fun and ate way too much!  We went to the Shedd Aquarium, a huge indoor waterpark, shopped, and ate some great Chicago food. 

We drove, and it wasn't terrible, but let's just say I won't be doing that again for a long, long time!  Arlen did ok (the phone and ipad helped a lot!), but during the night he was so tired and couldn't sleep sitting up, so we stopped at 4 in the morning and got a hotel room.  We slept for a few hours then got back on the road.  On the way back home we drove straight through but it was all during the day, which was much better.  :)

JUNE

Not a whole lot happened in June, except for our big Alaska trip at the end of June, but that's going to be a whole other post or this one will be the longest one in history.

I did make these cute Sonic cupcakes for my mom's work...

 And Arlen got a new slide

We also went to the Chisholm Trail Festival in Yukon.  My parents went with us and Arlen got to ride a train and pet a camel and see/hear a canon go off.... which he did not like.  =(  

JULY

We celebrated my great aunt's 90th birthday, which is my grandma's twin sister.  I really miss my grandma a lot, I wish she could have seen me "grow up" and meet Arlen, but I know we will be together again and for eternity too!  :)  I love being able to be around Aunt Nelma though, she is so much like my grandma, it comforts me a bit.

I didn't get many pictures because we were in the pool most of the time.  Arlen discovered jumping in and loves it!

July also was Ashlee's baby's 1st birthday!  It was a super cute Hawaiian party and we had to dress up.  I went to Goodwill and found all 3 of our outfits, under $10 for everything!

Dallas and Arlen got Hawaiian shirts and I am wearing a Hawaiian print skirt (which you can't see in this picture...)  Arlen would not cooperate so this is the best family picture we got!

Arlen playing with the birthday boy, Brooks!

My little Hawaiian boy and the ukulele.  (I also got these Gymboree hawaiian swim shorts at Goodwill for a $1!) 

We also went to Yukon's annual touch a truck.  Arlen just loves it, plus this year we went with Casen -his best bud.

 He loves the "big trucks". (Last year we called them "we-o we-o's"...)

This was fun!

Plus, there was a train there.. so Arlen pretty much was in heaven.  ;)

He and Casen rode by themselves like that... I was super nervous, because they went pretty far away, but they did great.  Can you tell Arlen was excited?!

Touch a Truck is such a great experience for him, he gets to climb all through different kinds of trucks and emergency vehicles, and this year the Schwans truck was there handing out free ice cream, and the Lays truck was there giving out free chips and drinks!  Love me some free stuff!  :)

AUGUST

Whew!  Finally in August, where not too much has happened.  We had summer break from MDO which meant... potty training!  UGH.  It's been a rough couple weeks, but I know it takes time.  We made a potty chart (train of course) and he is in big boy undies!  Lots of accidents but we are getting there.

We got back from Alaska the first part of August, then Lindsay and her kids were here for a few weeks, then we had April, Ryan, and Cooper stay with us for a week.  It was almost of a month of getting to spend lots of time with my family, and I just loved it.

Arlen also "moved" into his big boy bed a few days ago and that's going really well.  He stays in bed at nighttime, but nap time is not too great. For the past month he has just not wanted to take a nap.  He plays in his bed and completely takes off all his clothes... which is not great since he's not potty trained.  But I have recently started something different at nap time, instead of making him try to sleep, we just have a "rest time".  He can read books or even lay down in the dark guestroom and watch a movie.  Anything to where he is laying down and resting.  It has been working so far, he lays there for a couple hours and gets some quiet time (and so do I!).  :)  I'm hoping he will fall asleep but it hasn't happened yet.

He loves his big boy bed!

 

Arlen playing with Kylie and Korbin

Playing in the mud with Cooper

This is after Cooper dumped mud on Arlen's head... haha!

We also celebrated Papal Arlen's 75th birthday!

 4 generations of Tennyson men.  3 Arlens and a Dallas  :)

Arlen and Shirley with the awesome cake Lindsay made. It's a mattress and Arlen absolutely loved it! - Papal Arlen, my Arlen just wanted to lay down on it. :)

In August, we had our kick-off event for our new women's ministry, Ladies of Love.  Hollie, Whitney and I have started this ministry and so far it's going great!  We have several women who want to be a part in serving in different areas of the ministry so I am super pumped.  With God on our side, I know it will be a huge success! 
Our first big event was Mugs and Muffins, and thankfully, Whitney keeps a blog going for the ministry so here ya go....  http://fbcywomensministry.blogspot.com/2011/08/mugs-muffins-2011.html

Oh yeah, and our house has still not sold... I'm sure we will end up taking it off the market and moving on... by not moving.  ha, oh well!  Maybe next summer.

Alright that's done!  Now hopefully I can keep up with this blogging thing a little better.  And I still have to post about Alaska...  Oh boy.... 

Til next time!  ;)

From Nemo to New Years

Well, I guess one of my New Year's resolutions will be to be a better blogger!  I started this blog to record "important" type events in my life, like holidays and things...  well a lot of holidays have happened in the past few months!  I need to stay on top of it, or it's not going to happen.

We pretty much had a Halloween "season" instead of just a one night thing.  We took Arlen (Nemo) to Lake Arcadia for their Storybook Forest Trick or Treat Trail a few days before Halloween.

 Waiting to go in!  My parent's came with us, which helped a lot.

                                                    

Walking into the trail... which turned out to be a disaster.

That's a fit, and yes I took a picture of it...

He wanted to run around (and into the "forest) instead of staying with me and the trail.  He wasn't very happy with that.

He sure is a cutie though!  ;)

Since we were so close, we decided to eat at Pops. First time!

Our next fall adventure was the Orr Family Farm.  We were privileged to have Dallas' grandparents come with us.  =)

Arlen just loves his Papa and Grandma!

 He loved the train ride!  =)

There was so much to do, he had a blast!

Rode a horse for the first time!

Petting zoo.

Making memories...  =)

Arlen loved finding a pumpkin at the pumpkin patch.  I was amazed he knew what to do!  He is such a big boy.

Hay ride was fun, I love my family!

The next day was our church's Trunk or Treat...

Lots of fun,

and games,

and CANDY!

We went back home and passed out candy, which Arlen LOVED.

He'd say bye bye to all the trick or treaters!

The next day (the actual Halloween day), we went to Dallas' Aunt Sheila's church.  They had a huge Trunk or Treat with lots of games, and fun, and of course, candy.

Playing games with daddy.

Papa Arlen came too!

Thanks Aunt Sheila for inviting us, we love you!

I love this picture.  He has pretty great (great) grandparents!  ;)

Whew!  Halloween is OVER.  (Too bad the 50 pounds of candy we accumulated is STILL around...)  

Next: Thanksgiving with a Christmas twist.

My sister and her family came to Oklahoma for Thanksgiving and got to stay about a week, before they moved to Alaska. =(  And Dallas' sister and family were also coming from Illinois.  Since we wouldn't see any of them at Christmas, we just celebrated it at Thanksgiving.  

Arlen had a blast with his cousins!

Opening Christmas presents.

Oden family.  =)

The day after Thanksgiving we went to Papa and Grandma's house.

It's always fun with Papa!

That weekend we left for Arkansas to visit Dallas' mom.  I can't believe we hadn't seen her in a year!

We had a great time!

Dallas got to go hunting,

and Arlen got to play with his cousin.  =)

This Thanksgiving I was truly grateful for my wonderful family and friends, but most importantly my merciful Savior.  Without Him, nothing would matter.  His blood washed my sins away, and that is something to be thankful for!  I love my God!

CHRISTMAS!  (The real one)

With most presents and cooking and Christmas "stuff" taken care of at Thanksgiving, this Christmas was a wonderfully relaxing and (mostly) stress free time.

Cookies for Arlen's MDO class.  (I had to take a picture, since this consumed 18 hours of my life...)

 Arlen "helping"  =)

Having fun at the Tennyson family Christmas

 Always the entertainer!

 This year he figured out how to open presents!

He became an expert at present opening, but we learned we had to space out his presents because he would open one and want to play with it forever!

We got to hang out with Oma and Opa all Christmas weekend!

He loves his Oma!

I love playing games!

Arlen and his choo choo on Christmas morning.

 Christmas morning breakfast at IHOP.  I love my parents, so glad we got to spend so much time with them!

 We visited Grandma Oden in her new home.

And Grandpa Ike came to visit us!

Ending Christmas Day with a fun bubble bath!

(Oh yeah, we also saw Santa again...)  =P

New Year's Eve we went out to eat with our friends Ashlee and Chad, then hung out downtown OKC for a while.  We were home by 10:00 pm... party animals!  ;)

Me and my best friend Ashlee

 The enormous chocolate cake that looked better than it tasted...

New Years Day, Papa and Grandma came to visit.  We didn't get to see them at Christmas because they were sick.  So Arlen was very excited they came!

Happy New Year to everybody!  And if you made it through this humongous post, God bless you!  =)