It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!!

Wishing you the gift of "presence" with your family in this Christmas Season.

 Jesse, Allie & Jed Penner, Darlene & Eric, Lauren Hanson

 We had so much fun taking these pictures!!  Lauren's boyfriend Dalton got in on a little of the action!

 Jesse, Allie and Jed

Dalton and Lauren

 Dalton and Lauren made this little jacket for Jed.

Love it!!

Can you believe this little guy!!  Sort of want to take a little nibble out of him!!

Little Man is ONE!!!!

Little Jed turned ONE last week!  It truly seems as if time has flown since that little boy was born!!  Grandma and Grandpa can remember holding that little 6 lb. 12 oz. boy and wondering what would he look like as a little boy, what would his personality be and would he love to be at grandma and grandpa's house?

Well, we are beginning to see how his little personality is developing . . . 

Jed loves:

light switches

wheels

saying "wats dat?"

water water everywhere "wawa"

opening and closing anything - boxes, doors, cupboards

outside

noises

his mommy and daddy

grandma and grandpa

food 

dogs and kitty's . . . 

Jesse thanking everyone at the party for coming and for their involvement is Jed's life.  

Mommy is pointing to Jed's first candle!!

Jed learned how to raise ONE finger to say

I'm ONE!!

Grandpa and Grandma helping out little man with his cake eating skills

Oma and Opa helping out a little bit too . . .

Time to wash that face with Auntie Lauren helping . . . for the record Jed does not like his face washed too much!!

My Auntie Lauren is the best!!

Instead of gifts, our family and friends brought shoes for the children in the little village we work in every year in Northern Thailand.

Happy Birthday little man Jed!!

It's a Puppy!!

Grandma had so much fun playing with a little puppy on Halloween!  

He did not seem to mind his little puppy costume, but what he did mind was watching the door open and close, yet he could not go out and stay out.  

He absolutely loves being outside!  

He also loves looking up at things and saying "Ohhh, wats dat?"

Love.Love.Love.Love this little man! 

It's Fall In The Air!!

What's Fall without a couple of trips to the Pumpkin Patch?  

The first of these pictures was taken at Bella Frutta owned by some dear friends of ours!  

Jed loves to take trips to Bella Frutta to see Vinci and all the wonderful fruit and nuts and yummy stuff in the fruit stand/store.

Jed just had to taste the straw - with a little help from grandma!  Farmers are always chewing on a piece of straw right??

 I feel trapped by the pumpkins!  But I guess I'll grin and bear it for these crazy people with black objects stuck to the front of their face while trying to make me smile!!

 This apple is more my size!!

These last three pictures are from a Pumpkin Patch south of Fresno.  Mr. Jed sure enjoyed having pumpkins and a tractor his size!!

 Jesse, Allie, & Jed Penner - such a precious family!!

 Hop on!  I'm sure I can drive this thing!!

Hope everyone is enjoying the lovely fall weather!!

ONE YEAR CELEBRATION!!

Eric and I had the privilege of driving down to celebrate Lauren's one year sober birthday!!

We had an awesome weekend and on the last day grabbed some photos!!

 Dalton (sober 2 years - we celebrated his "birthday" too!), Lauren, Eric and me.

 Our treasure!

 No day goes by without a few practice swings!!

 Lauren and Dalton

 Lauren and her daddy!!

Lunch at an amazing Thai place in Malibu with some of Lauren's dear friends!!

We are so proud of Lauren's day to day walk and we are amazed and humbled by the friends that sit at this table in support of her and each other.  Love you all!

One Day With Mr. Jed

My favorite place to play is in grandma's kitchen.

She has a few cupboards that I can dig in!

 First I need to get these bowls out.  They make lots of noise when they hit the floor!

 After a while I figure out I can't get them all out at once.

 Uh oh!  Found a glass one.  Grandma snatched that one up quickly!

 Success at last!  I love to push them on the floor and listen to the noise they make.  I also love to clank them together!!

 On to play with my red wagon.  I love to push it all over the place!

 Oh!!!  I hear the garage door opening!!

Yea!!  Grandpa is home . . . I got a hug before you did grandma!!!

Ahhh . . . the sweetness of a grandson!

Crazy Little Scrunchy Face!

Mr. Scrunchy face loves to laugh and smile!  He loves to make this funny little face where he scrunches his nose and squints his eyes!  I just love this little boy!!  Bye the way, his mom used to make the funniest faces . . . maybe that will be my next post!!

Baby boy's sweet smile!

This is the best!!  I love riding on my daddy's shoulders!

Everything makes me laugh!!

Random Pics

A couple of random pictures!  

Jed visiting Grandpa at work and Allie and Jesse in Monterey this summer.

Little Man, Grandpa and Football!

Little man and grandpa spent a little of the morning (I say little because an almost 10 month old's attention span is well . . . little) watching football.  Grandpa has dreamed of this day since Jed was born, not to mention dreaming of football from the closing play of the Superbowl until it starts again in the fall.  The picture is from my iPhone - so its not perfect, but I could not resist.  My heart melted when I looked over and saw this.  Enjoy!!

Mr. Bulldog

You might know that we are Bulldog Fans and help with the medical needs of the school's athletes.  Our grandson will grow up going to Bulldog games and hopefully being a fan of the various teams.  Who knows, maybe one day he will even go to school and become a bulldog like his mommy and daddy!

His parents found this little costume for him to wear his first Halloween . . . he makes a pretty cute "dog" don't you think?  Sometimes I just want to take a little "doggy bite" out of him he is so cute!!

Memories

Recently I have been looking through old pictures!  So much fun.  Here are a few pics that bring back so many memories!!

 

Lauren and Allie enjoying some Ice Cream.  They are about 4 and 2 in this picture!  This is from when Eric was in residency and we lived in Loma Linda in Southern California.  We had so many backyard picnics on this table!  I loved the table cloth because you could just wipe it clean!  I remember this being a time when the girls wanted to dress themselves.  They also loved to make homemade ice cream and eat it out of cones.  What a mess!!!  I would love to have some of these moments back!!

Hanging out in Hawaii at my parents house one summer.

At the Clovis Balloon Festival - this picture was taken about 5:30 AM.  After the balloons launched, we rushed home in time to see them land in the field next to the house near Woodward Park.

On a family hike in Carmel when the girls were in High School

This is one of our Christmas card pictures.  The girls were in high school - Lauren was a junior and Allie was a sophomore.  Not to sure what's up with my hair - but oh well!!!

Last of the Tomatoes & Eggplants - Bring on the Oranges!

I love love love growing things and now that I don't have kids at home and I am done with the crazy rat-race of trucking kids around, I have more time to enjoy my garden.  I'm getting old and its hard to bend over, so I had some raised (very raised I might add) garden boxes built.  

Can't wait for my grandson to be old enough to dig around with me!!

Here are some pics from the yesterday.

Well, there may be a few more tomatoes, but this is some of the last ones!  

Summer is quickly passing and soon it will be time to plant some winter yummies!

My eggplants struggled this year, only got a couple for some reason.

This one is a beauty and I cannot wait to put it on the grill in a few days!!

The great news is that as summer turns to fall, the oranges will slowly grow and begin to ripen!

What does this mean?

ORANGE JUICE FOR CHRISTMAS!!