Snowball Fight!!!

We had this pretty wild snowball fight the other day. You'll have to admit that Jack is pretty agile when it comes to dodging snowballs. And to think that he was just learning to crawl last week.

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And of course for all of those out there who like to celebrate Hanukkah, check this video out.

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Christmas time

Christmas time and the holiday season has hit our home with full force. The kids are excited for Christmas and are enjoying the snow on the ground. Between family Christmas parties, birthday parties, and tithing settlement, we've been keeping pretty busy. Check out the link below to see the latest set of pictures. Isaac's 4th birthday is next Tuesday, so I'm sure I'll enter something then. If you ask the kids what they want for Christmas, they will both say they want Transformers. Brooklyn wants the Bumblebee Transformer and Isaac is thinking he'll inherit my old school Optimus Prime that I still have when I was a kid. Although he doesn't know that I know, he's getting me the new Optimus Prime. It's crazy how all the excitement for Transformers has been rekindled inside since the new movie came out.

Christmas time

Black Friday 2007

I figured some of you might want to know about my annual Black Friday shenanigans. Well, it was relatively successful this year. There was not a lot of high priced electronics that I was going for this year. Mainly stuff for the kids. The excitement of receiving the infamous Thanksgiving newspaper chock full of ads has diminished quite a bit over the last few years with all the ads being available online almost a week before. Still, perusing the ads and wishing is always fun to do.

Anyway, I didn't get to bed Thanksgiving night until after midnight. The alarm went off at 4:10 am. With all my warm clothes set out the night before in preparation for the upper teens overnight low that was fore casted I rolled out of bed, got dressed, and ate a quick bowl of Mini Wheats to give me the sustenance I would need to sprint, push and shove. My first stop was Toys R Us, which I think was pretty much everyones' first stop. I arrived at about 4:45 and got in the back of a line about 1/10th of a mile long (thank you Google Earth). Needless to say, when the doors opened at 5am, I didn't actually walk into the store until 5:10ish, which was way too late for the wireless guitar I wanted to snag for the PS2 Guitar Hero games. I left pretty quickly and headed to Best Buy for a 100-pack DVD spindle. The trash left on the sidewalks leading up to the store was about as bad as what you see left on the bleachers after a football game. Best Buy was a joke and of course the DVD's were gone. I left there feeling a little discouraged, but Target didn't let me down.

It was only about 5:25 when I arrived at Target and relaxed and caught my breath in line while watching an episode of Heroes on my Blackberry. I think it had warmed up to the mid 20s by now, which actually felt good. The doors opened and it was a mad dash to the back of the store. I was running pretty quick (I had my running shoes on!). I snagged the toys that I needed to get and was actually out of the store by 6:15! Next stop was Ace Hardware to get a red wagon for Jack and some other items. Ace didn't open until 7, so I had plenty of time and was 5th in line, which gave me time to finish my episode of Heroes. When Ace opened, I was in and out and with some extra time on my hands, I headed to Recreation Outlet (a camping store in American Fork) that had some pretty good deals. I needed to get down to a furniture store in Provo by 8am to try to get a leather recliner for $99, but when I realized it was 7:45 and there were still about 20 people in front of me, I stashed my basket of items under some sleeping bags in the corner and raced down to Provo.

I got to the furniture store and found out that everyone had been given "vouchers" to buy the hot items and that those vouchers had been handed out at 11:00 pm the night before. That made me mad. So I jumped back into the car and headed back to American Fork where I found my stash and waited for about 1/2 hour in line to check out. This time I watched an episode of the Amazing Race. Portable video players are pretty cool, especially when waiting in long lines. Home was the next stop after that. So, yes I saved some money, but it's always the experience that is the best part of the morning.

More than meets the eye . . .

Transformers fever has officially hit our house. It all started late this summer when I came across all of the cartoons for the series back in the 80s that I used to watch as a kid. The original Generation 1 Transformers cartoon series ran a little more than 3 seasons with roughly 95 episodes. The kids have watched about 75 of them. Brooklyn can name the Autobot leaders by heart. I have shown them a couple of my old transformers that I have saved from childhood, but they don't know I have Optimus Prime yet. We'll save that for another day. Looks like we may need to get some for Isaac for his birthday this year from the new movie. Heck. I wouldn't mind getting this one.

For those who want to go back and reminisce about the days of Autobots and Decepticons, take a look at either transformerland.com or seibertron.com

And of course it's not to early for Jack to enjoy the shows too. I snapped this picture of Isaac and Jack watching an episode this morning.

Learning to Dance

We've been hard at work learning some new moves. Take a look at the videos below:



Even though Brooklyn and Isaac didn't grow up in the 70s, that's not stopping them from learning how to dance.

Halloween 2007

We all made it through one more Halloween alive. It was definitely a busy day. Now comes the fun part of rationing candy to the kids over the next month. We all had a great time and the kids enjoyed the festivities at my work as well as costume parades and carnivals at Brooklyn's school. We didn't get a ton of traffic at our house. Probably a total of about 10-15 groups of people is all. We had candy left over afterwards. Aside from the teenagers that were way too old to be going door to door, the kids really enjoyed handing out the candy at the door.

Now that Halloween is behind us we can focus on the wonderful holidays coming up. However, one holiday at a time. None of this Christmas decorating the day after Halloween for us. What ever happened to Thanksgiving? It seems to have morphed into the kind of forgotten holiday in between Halloween and Christmas. Some radio stations around here start playing Christmas music the day after Halloween. Oh well. Take a look at the pictures below by clicking on the pirate ship...

Halloween 2007

P.S. Had a good run today. 4 miles with an average of about 7:45 per mile. I had a slow 2nd mile because someone stopped me to ask for directions. Otherwise it would have been closer to 7:30.

Running Around

I have to apologize to those that frequently check this blog to see if anything has been added. Seems so easy to just post pictures and link them. We'll see how ambitious I get in keeping this up. I guess people are usually more interested in photos than text anyway.

Halloween is rapidly approaching and we have been literally running around to all sorts of parties between family and school and work. No doubt the kids will get their fair share of candy this year. They've already been to the Casaday Halloween party last night at Tami's parents and then went to a neighborhood party on Saturday. Isaac had his pre-school party today and Brooklyn has a Halloween parade at her school tomorrow. Then it's off to Novell to go around to the offices here in the building (where if you consider there are 8 floors in the building and around 100 offices on each floor, that's a lot of potential). Then we have the normal trick-or-treating around our neighborhood and now Brian, Tami's brother would like us to come to his apartment later in the evening. The poor kids will need a sugar high just to keep walking.

Speaking of running around, I have embarked on a journey I never thought I'd do. I have committed to run a marathon next year with Tami. Not may couples can say they ran a marathon together. It all started with purchasing a decent pair of running shoes, loading my iPod shuffle with 80's rock music and "borrowing" Tami's running GPS watch. The goal is to run a half marathon in January down in St. George. Then the Ogden Marathon (same one that Tami ran) in May. I run 3 times a week and have recently started running here at work during my lunch break. Novell has a nice workout facility with showers and lockers that makes it very easy to take an hour break and run. I typically have been running 3-4 miles at a time with a longer run once a week (I did 6 miles last Friday). After about a month and a half of this, it feels good to be in better shape. I frequently take the stairs each morning to my office on the 7th floor and I don't get nearly as winded as I used to. I ran my fastest mile yesterday during my workout (7:11). My second mile was (7:13) and I was on course to get a sub 7:30 3rd mile until I got caught for trespassing on a dirt road that is not very well marked at all. The guy chewed me out for a good minute, which destroyed my pace. The funny thing about this whole running a marathon thing is that Tami and I never work out together because of the kids. Time to get another running stroller so that we can all go out together.

I also found this cool website that tracks your runs. You just upload the GPS data to the website and it gives you all sorts of interesting data. Check out my 6 mile run by clicking HERE. Well, gotta run!

School Pictures

Hope you like these school pictures. We decided to do Isaac and Jack even though it was mainly for Brooklyn. It was a good deal. They all turned out pretty cute though.

Isaac's Gymnastics Class

Isaac has really been having fun in his gymnastics class. He has the class once a week for an hour. I ran over from work to take some video clips of him. I couldn't get really close, so videos showed up better than still photos. He is our own resident monkey.

Isaac's Gymnastics Class

It's Fall

Well, time to update the old blog. It so much easier to share pictures via Picasa that I forget to write anything here. It has been a busy Fall with both Brooklyn and Isaac starting school and with Brooklyn's ice skating lessons and Isaac's gymnastics class. Isaac has gymnastics once a week and loves bounding, tumbling, jumping, and hanging. He must have been a monkey in a previous life. We need to constantly tell him to not jump off the arm of the couch at home. Jack is growing like a weed and will be crawling pretty soon. He'll be 6 mos. old this week. I am keeping pretty busy in the Bishopric, but luckily things are slowing down and now we're having a good time getting to know ward members better and actually ministering. Tami is also enjoying her relaxed Primary Pianist position in the ward. Here is a link to some recent pictures and video clips that hopefully you'll enjoy.

Fall Activities

Memorial Day at the Cabin

This past weekend we went up to the cabin to celebrate Memorial Day. It was Jack's first time to the cabin and he seemed to love it. Interpreting his blank stares is sometimes a little hard, but we all had a good time. Click the picture below to link to some pictures we took while up there.

Memorial Day at the Cabin

Been a long time

Sorry everyone that occasionally looks at this blog. I've found it easier sometimes to just post new pictures to my Picasa web album. So, here's a quick update and a link to those web albums for those who haven't already seen them. Be sure to look for comments on each of the pictures. Most of them do have a short blurb. These are actually links to photo albums, so make sure you click the picture, which will take you to the album.

Of course our little boy Jack Raymond Fenn was born March 27th. He's doing very well and seems to be getting bigger daily. Here's some pics of the first few days.

Jack Raymond Fenn

We then blessed him on Easter Sunday when he was only 11 days old. My parents came into town and we had a nice get together at the home after church. Included are also some pictures of the Easter festivities the day before.

Easter and Blessing

We all went to the Tulip Festival on April 14th as a Christmas present from Tami and I to the family. The flowers were very beautiful.

Tulip Festival

And the highlight of the last few months was our trip to Disneyland where Brooklyn one the Grand Prize for the day . . . A night in the Mickey Mouse Penthouse Suite in the Disneyland Hotel and the being the Grand Marshall in the parade along with a slew of other fun prizes. Definitely the Disney vacation to remember.

Disneyland Trip

And finally some miscellaneous pictures of the kids.

Cute Kids

Two Kids and Box

Who cares about expensive toys to play with when you can just use an old box from work. We had this box left over from the move and the kids decided to have a little fun with it.
Here's another video clip that really doesn't fit with the first one, but thought it was funny how Brooklyn was laughing at Isaac.

Happy Birthday Brooklyn

Brooklyn turned 5 years old this past Sunday and boy did she enjoy all of the birthday festivities. It all started on Thursday, the 1st where she had her entire preschool class along with other family and neighbors over for a party. There were 19 kids total at the house. She made out pretty nicely with all the gifts. Then on Sunday we went up to Mike and Marinda's for their daughter Abby's baby blessing. We were able to sing to her then as well. She loves it when people sing happy birthday to her as you can hopefully tell in the video clips below. We can't believe how quickly she is growing up. She just had her pre-kindergarten doctor's appointment. I can't believe she'll be going to kindergarten this fall. Hope you all enjoy the pictures and video clips. This one is of all the friends that came to the party along with a picture of Brooklyn in her new little birthday outfit. And of course her Birthday stash of birthday gifts she received and an explanation of those gifts in a video clip. Kaley had a group of kids down in the basement where she was letting them run around and burn off some of the energy. This game was an animal game where they had to act like a certain animal while the music played and then fall down on the floor when it stopped. I think they're supposed to be tigers or lions on this one. Brooklyn isn't in the clip, but Isaac is in the orange shirt. And finally we have the kids singing Happy Birthday to her. The clip after it is when we sang to her at Mike and Marinda's (the guy sitting on the couch at Mike and Marinda's is Mike's brother Tim). Granted she really didn't need any more gifts for her birthday, Tami and I had to get her something. So we got her a bike. She wasn't the most thrilled with it and is a little scared of the falling over on the bike even though it has training wheels. However I think that once it gets warm again and we can go outside, she'll get used to it pretty quickly. Whew! Tami assured me that we would not have big birthday parties like this every year. It really wasn't that bad.

Potty time!

So, Isaac has been doing very well lately with using the "big boy" toilet. Although he wasn't nearly as fast to potty train as Brooklyn, he now will go for 4-5 days without an accident, and when it is an accident, it usually is a small one. One of the things we've bribed him with is that if he poops, he can go to Carl's Jr. and play on the toys there. He loves the slide as you can see (and hear) in the video clip. He's a funny kid.

Down right COLD!!!

I don't know about you, but it's bee pretty chilly here in Spanish Fork the last week. It all began last Saturday. Since then, lows have been below 0 and highs around 10. I've gotten up several times this week and the thermometer on the computer has registered Spanish Fork at -6 and as low as -8! However, the cold didn't stop Brooklyn, Isaac and I from playing outside last Saturday. Tami was up in Salt Lake all day attending a friends bridal shower and the rest of us bundled up for the sub 10 degree weather for a little snow fun. It's been so cold that the roads within the neighborhood are snowpacked and so I knew it was time to get the snowmobile out and play. We got some interesting looks as we drove around the neighborhood, but the kids had a really good time both riding as well as getting pulled in the sled behind the snowmobile. Below are some video clips and pictures that we hope you enjoy.

Isaac and Brooklyn were pretty proud of their snow angels.And finally here's a little clip of the kids being pulled behind the snowmobile. It was a little tricky recording and driving at the same time, but the kids still had fun.

Happy New Year!!!!

Happy New Year everyone! We all had a wonderful weekend at the cabin with family. We went up midday on Friday with the snowmobiles in tow with our new vehicle, which pulled them up the canyon very nicely. We ended up staying through Monday afternoon (New Years Day). The weekend was filled with sledding, snowmobiling and playing games with family. Tami's parents came up as well as all of Tami's siblings and spouses at some point during the weekend. Even baby Abby, Brooklyn's new little cousin came up. Here's some cute pictures as well as some fun video clips.



My new digital camera takes pretty decent video clips with audio. Here's a clip of Brooklyn holding her baby cousin Abby at the cabin.

Next is a clip of Isaac riding down the driveway at the cabin on a snow scooter with Tami.

And this year at the cabin we were able to send both Brooklyn and Isaac down on sleds all by themselves. Once they realized how much fun it was, we couldn't keep them off the sleds. You can tell by Brooklyn's reaction to the sledding experience how much she enjoyed it. Isaac had a little encounter with the snow at the bottom of his run, but it didn't seem to phase him much.