2009 Lenseigne Family Letter

We didn’t send any cards out this year but we wanted to let you all know that we love you and are thinking of you during this Christmas time. We decided to stay in Indiana for the Holidays this year (and are hoping for a white Christmas) We will enjoy our friends here, but we will miss distant family and friends so very much…

For those who'd like a little update on what we've been up to in 2009~

Well, for starters, in April we got our new little baby, Preston! He is a very happy, sweet little guy, and I guess I might brag here a little to tell you that he started walking at 6 ½ months! He is only 8 months old now and he is walking all over the place like a pro! Funny, he doesn’t seem to think it’s a big deal though. We are so happy to have him in our family and we cannot imagine life without him.

Faith turned 5 years old this month so she is really looking forward to starting Kindergarten and going to school with her brothers! She is such a smart little girl and she keeps busy helping Mommy with so many things, including taking good care of her baby brother. She also loves spending as much time as possible making fun little crafts and recipes.

Wes is 7 and in first grade. His teacher raves about how smart and nice he is. He's testing at 4th and 5th grade reading levels, he's so interested in learning about many things. He's also a great friend to all his schoolmates, never wanting anyone to feel left out. He helps us all feel cheerful at home, he often hums happily as he goes about his business.

Jacob turned 8 last month and was baptized, which was a very special thing for him. I have noticed he has been more deliberate in trying to choose the right ever since he was baptized. He was already an awesome kid, but I can tell he has been trying extra hard to be his very best self. Like his brother, Jacob is also doing extremely well at school.

We feel very blessed in so many ways, and we know that all our blessings come from above. We have enjoyed good health and a safe home and many happy memories in 2009.

May you feel the Spirit of Christ in your hearts this Christmas and throughout the coming new year.


With much Love,
Matt, Glenda, Jacob, Wes, Faith & Preston

HAPPY FALL to all!

I think the last leaf has fallen off of our little trees. Jacob suggested we go to the park and bring the rake to make big piles to jump in... good idea!

WALKING ALREADY...Preston has set the record....

Starting this week, he is actually taking steps all by himself without holding onto anyone or anything!

At only 6 1/2 months old!!!

Wow Preston, you are one determined little baby, or I guess I could call you a toddler now. But I don't want to, you are defineatly still a little baby!

It just AMAZES me~

Here is a video for proof! He takes about 4 steps at the beginning of the video but the rest of the time he is just crawling or standing. (I don't know how to edit video yet to only show the little part where he is walking, so you don't need to watch the whole thing) And yes, I need to sweep my floor, because he is like a little vacuum!

What's been going on in Faith's mouth...

Faith lost her very first tooth!

Believe me, this was a VERY BIG DEAL to her!

She had been waiting patiently for a long time for her little wiggly tooth to fall out...everyday she would talk about it excitedly.

She has been talking since then about how she needs to eat lots of vegetables and healthy foods to take care of her new tooth. Not that she didn't do a good job with her teeth already, she has never had any cavities. (I can't say the same for her brothers)

Also, (GROSS WARNING) the last time she was at the dentist, she got a ring from the vending machine with her token she earned there. Well just a little later after we came home, I went up to feed the baby and Jacob and WesLee burst in suddenly saying Faith had swallowed her ring. I was really worried because it was a C-shaped adjustable ring, and I didn't know if it might get hooked somewhere inside her and stuck. I didn't know if I should try to induce vomiting or even how to. After calling a toll-free nurse line and after the on-call family doctor called us back, the only thing to do by that time was wait and see if it came out. I had Faith use the little training potty we have so that I could check her poop easier for the ring. We were SO glad that it came out only 18 hours after she swallowed it, thanks to her extra effort in eating lots of salad and veggies which I had told her would help her. Gross, I know, but it really did help!

On a more pleasant note~ Preston got his first tooth the day before Faith's tooth fell out! Just a couple days later he got another one, and that whole time,he never once was fussy, I would never have guessed that he was teething, he was such a good, happy baby.

Busy~ness

Ah, I finally find a little time for some blogging. It's been awhile! Life is busy, I wish I was faster at computers, typing, etc, so I could blog about everything we get busy with, but I'll at least blog about some of it. For now I mostly just have photos saved on the hard drive and little dates scrawled here and there on pieces of paper when something happens that I want to remember.

Time seems to go by faster and faster each year for me, I wish it didn't seem so fast... it did not seem this fast when I was a kid. I feel like I blink and my kids are bigger. I don't want them to grow up so fast.

Preston is 6 months old! I know he's happy to be growing, learning and doing new things, but I'm sad because I know he won't be a baby for long, and I miss all my kids as babies. He has been crawling fast all over the house for some time. He learned how sit up by himself at 4 1/2 months, he learned to pull himself up at less than 5 months, and then to stand without holding onto anything soon after that. I know it won't be long before he is walking. Sigh..

Here's a funny quick little video, if your volume is up, you can hear how giddy he is about trying out the walker:



I think he is going to break the record among our kids for being the earliest to walk... we'll see!

This is all the time I have for now, I really want to find time to blog about my other wonderful children soon! I love my little family! Wait, we aren't little anymore, are we? I love my big family!

Beautiful blue eyes...

Preston is getting up to crawl on his knees now!
(at less than 4 months, too soon for me!)

And I tried to get a close up so you can see his beautiful eyes better. He is my only blue-eyed child!!!

An old friend...

Matt was reunited with an 'old friend' recently - one that he had missed very much and talked about quite often in hopes of one day being together again, ha ha!

This is the Subaru he bought way back when we were pregnant with Jacob, we actually brought our baby Jacob home from the hospital in this car!! (sweet memories)

Happy Independence Day!

We had a great day celebrating our nation's birthday today! Faith thought we should have a birthday cake for our country's birthday, but we didn't have time for that due to other activities! Maybe next time.

This was the first year that we bought sparklers for the kids, and they had fun holding them, but I was a little nervous that someone might get hurt. Thankfully no one did!







It is so fun living in Indiana since fireworks are legal here. We just stay home and for at least a couple hours people all over the neighborhood shoot off hundreds of fireworks that we can see from our yard:














Everyone stayed out way past bedtime, the kids had fun riding up and down the street to get a closer look when neighbors would lauch fireworks from their driveways. Matt thought he'd join them riding one of the tiny kid-size bikes for awhile, he looked so silly!



GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!!

Oh What to do in the Summertime?

Catch fireflies...



and play pooh sticks, of course!

Big Boy!

Preston is getting too big too fast for me! Why do kids have to grow so fast? He has advanced to the kitchen sink for his baths now. He's about 12 lbs now, just too big for the bathroom sink anymore!



Here he is in his bumbo seat, I love this thing, and so does he!



And now for some big news....he is creeping and rolling! He actually first rolled over on his 2 month mark, and now he has been doing it all the time. And he is getting too good at creeping, he can go a few feet before getting tired of it. What a tough kid!



I was actually kind of hoping that he wouldn't be mobile so soon. All my kids have walked between 7 1/2 -9 months, so I thought it would be kinda nice to have this baby walk around the average 12 months or so, but, it doesn't seem likely. I'm still holding out hope though, but I am just very thankful that he is strong and healthy!

Snakes and Toads

Toads have been hopping up from the ditch in our backyard lately. I remember the day we moved into this house, WesLee found a teeny tiny little one who was a lucky little toad and got to take a swim in our brand new 'garden tub' even before we did!

This was a very interesting ugly fellow that Jacob found...






At the library the other day we went to see a "Snakes Alive" program, where Snakehead Ed brought dozens of snakes to teach all the kids about. They thought it was pretty cool!

Happy Father's Day to the father of my children...

Thank-you for all you do for our family each and every day. Thank you for playing with our children and loving them and reading to them and tucking them in at night. Thankyou for when you show them wrong from right. I love you so much.

And so do all our babies!

Delicious!

Matt did this for me the other day, I don't know if any of you have ever tried it, because I had never heard of doing this before, but it is SO delicious! He dipped strawberries into 'hard-shell' chocolate coating and put them on wax paper in the fridge for a few minutes, and voila: mess-free chocolate covered strawberries!



Yes we had dipped strawberries into chocolate before, but it gets quite messy that way (fondue). With this, it is so easy to eat without anything dripping! I think it could be done with lots of different kinds of fruits, I hope to try some other ones soon.

You should try it!

What will I find next time?

While sorting laundry, I often find very funny things in the kids' pockets, as I'm sure lots of moms do.

CONTENTS:

*the butt of a pencil after the eraser was gone
*a popsicle stick
*a tiny green ball
*a bag of crushed snack crackers(Wes started saving these from school lunches to share with me when I had morning sickness, how cute, huh?)
*a piece of a brown crayon
*an almost flat rock (I think he was saving this to try to skip it the next time we go to the river)
*a dried up weed, with root intact! (When the kids were helping me weed a little garden spot, I told them to try to get the root out, and they kept saying "Oh darn, I missed that root!" So maybe he saved this in his pocket so he could show me that he got the root that time.

I thought I'd take a picture to remember the silliness of it!

Expressions!

I can almost hear his sweet sounds in my mind
just from looking at these pictures!

Good Times

We had the pleasure of having Matt's parents come to visit us, and to meet Preston. It was great to be with them. The kids had a blast, Meme and Pepe sure bring out the fun and silliness in them!

They read, colored, did crafts, baked cupcakes, planted seeds, rode bikes, played a ton, even had a water fight in the backyard with the kids. They took Jacob, WesLee and Faith to a movie, and also got to see the boys play soccer and go to Faith's dance class. Faith was a bit out of practice because she had missed a couple weeks but it is still always fun to go watch. Also, they got to come to WesLee's kindergarten graduation, which I wanted to post pictures of, but unfortunetly those pictures are stuck on the cell phone for now. Way to go Wes and Jacob! They both had awesome report cards throughout the entire year.

We went to the zoo, this picture was taken before the Dolphin Show-


Faith convinced Pepe to sit in the Splash Zone with her while Matt and I sat with Preston out of range of any water and Meme sat with Jacob and WesLee at the very, very top of the stadium, per WesLee's request. Matt said he didn't remember his dad ever being willing to sit in splash areas with Matt and his sister, so I thought that was pretty cute that he was willing to do that for Faith!


One of the guys who sometimes narrates the Dolphin Show offered to take our picture with Preston, so this is our picture of Preston's first time at a zoo, sleeping at that moment:)


Some of the highlights for the kids at the zoo were-
Getting to show Meme her favorite animal in the whole world, penguins:


Riding the horses-


The Butterfly Garden, very cool place, even though there weren't as many butterflies out as usual. This is the case where the butterlies emerge from their cocoons-


I had to sneak a picture at the park when Meme and Pepe got on the teeter-totter with Faith!


They bought Preston a swing, when they heard we haven't been able to find all the parts for our other baby swing. He really likes it!



The kids are hoping, hoping, hoping that Meme and Pepe will come back and visit again in the winter when it snows!

A Mess in the Kitchen...

We got this play kitchen for free a couple weeks ago from someone who didn't need it anymore and it has been outside waiting for me to hose off and scrub down. Well as you can see, a little cook has found it to be useful for her mud pies as well as some other original recipes.

Here she is with even her face and arms all covered in 'flour' from being so busy in her kitchen.



A makeshift stirrer in a makeshift mixing bowl:



I'm sure all the cooking practice will pay off in the long run!

Green Dragons

We signed Jacob and WesLee up for soccer this year! This is their first year, and Matt volunteered to be the assistant to the coach. The team named themselves the 'Green Dragons'! For the most part, they've enjoyed it, they feel good when they do their best. The team was SO happy when they played the second game against the Blackhawks, a team that is considered the best in their league, and the Green Dragons won! They went to Dairy Queen to celebrate afterwards!

Here's some pictures of the boys in uniform:

I thought I'd include this funny picture down below- this is Matt's VERY OLD soccer ball, which he just can't bring himself to throw away, even though it gets flat after it's pumped up everytime. He played soccer for many years and he's had this ball since he was a teenager! Makes me laugh!