Sad to say...

I am officially addicted to Facebook....I think it fits me better than the blogging...I will check in occasionally on this Im sure, but for the most part...If you want to find me..sign in to FB...and there I'll be :-)

So wrong!

But Oh so funny...So if you've been to my house, you know that we have a bar in our garage...Mike built it one Saturday afternoon with our neighbor Nick...Our house is "the house" that every Friday all the neighbors come hang out at...It also was a tribute to Mikes dad when we had his memorial party a few years back, not because he was always at one, but because he ran one years ago....
Anyways, a neighbor was cleaning out his garage the other day and found a "shot" game...He though it fit perfect for the bar...So he brought it over, before I could even check it out, all three of my kids had it taken out on the kitchen table and my oldest daughter was making OJ shots with whip cream on top for her brother an sister...I had to laugh and take a few pictures! Not that I'm proud of them for knowing what the heck it was all about, but because the drinks that Hailey ended making up for the other two to "shoot" were hysterical! OJ with lime juice, Ruby red with soy sauce, so gross...but they did it and had a great time...Now if I can keep them from never having the alcohol in their shots, it would be a perfect world!

Happy New Year!!!!!!

Goodbye 2008 and Hello 2009!!!!!! I sure the heck hope it gets better than it started!
We spent the 4 day weekend out in the desert as we have the last few years...It was quite an interesting trip though this time around...
As we tried to leave on Weds afternoon, Mike got a call that he had to head back to work for an emergency on the job site..He was just pulling in the driveway when it came...So back he left...
2 hours later he returned home, the kids and I anxious to get going as we were ready to go!!! About 30 miles till we are there, we blew a tire on the trailer! Mike and B jumped out, got it fixed and we were back on the road again! We got to camp and started setting up...Mikes cousin Brad who was driving in from Arizona to camp with us with his lovely wife Tara, called and said they just witnessed a head on collision and that they had swerved off the road because they were almost hit...They were fine, just shaken up...10 minutes later we get a text saying it was a fatal! Now we are freaking out! I call to make sure they are ok and if we can drive out and get them, as they are only about 5 miles from camp...they are fine but because they were almost hit by the driver, we now find out the drunk driver, they have to give a statement to CHP...They finally make it to camp about 2 hours later and tell us that the gal that hit the other car had died and the truck trailer that she hit are friends of Brad and Taras that were heading to Glamis! What are the chances of that...they too were ok, but all of their toys were destroyed!
Talk about feeling sick to your stomach after hearing all this, I just cant take it anymore so I head into my trailer, set up the beds and slip and fall of the top bunk bed and slide all the way down the trailer ladder! OUCH!!!! The entire back of my thigh is now black and blue! Thats it I say, Im going to bed...Happy Stinking New Year!
The next few days were enjoyable, spending time with friends and family and forgetting about every days ups and downs back at home....
We pack up and leave on Sunday and about 30 miles BACK out of camp we blow another trailer tire! OMG!!! Thank god Mikes brother had his spare for us to use! What a trip!
7 loads of laundry later, we are back to life....back to school and back to babysitting...I think Im going to enjoy it for a few days before I plan another trip!
Anyways, Happy New Year!!! :-)
Hope yours was better than mine!

How many of these???

Im curious as to how many of these Christmas presents wound up under the tree? How many of you now have a lovely rockband set up in your living room???? The looks on the faces of the kids are quite classic I must admit though...





And how many of you were lucky enough to get a face mask, pink goggles and pink riding gloves for Christmas too???? You know Im rocking it!!! Thank lovie...They were actually the BOMB out in the desert this last weekend!! My lipstick actaully stayed nice and smooth! lol....

Sleighbells ring are you listening?

As my Christmas card said...we're a beautiful site, we're happy tonight and walking in a winter wonderland!
Thought Id share a few of the great pictures my sister Sara took of my family for the holidays...
I just love them!



Wishing you and yours a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

A new do!

Just got the hair done...what do you think of the new "do"?
Picture of course captured by Sadie Olive yesterday when she was taking our family pictures! Looking forward to sharing those soon....

Go Panthers!

Im so excited for my son Brandon...he had his first wrestling match last night and won! My camera takes horrible pictures inside the auditoriums, so I really dont have any good ones to share, but he is a shot of him yesterday morning before he left for school..So not happy that I am making him take a picture at 7am, but he looked so handsome..They have to dress in dress shirts and ties on days of matches!
Brandon and all his buddies did great last night, Corona High taking the win for all 3 teams!!!

My love

I just love this picture that my sister in law Michelle took of Mike and I out in the desert this weekend...
Thought Id share!

Gobble Gobble Gobble

A belated Happy Thanksgiving to you all! Hope you had a wonderful holiday weekend! We celebrated in the desert and had a fabulous time with friends, family and lots of yummy foods! Look we even had a center piece on our table out in the middle of the dirt campground!

Our kids blew me away this trip, normally I have to stay back at camp for the night rides or pretty much all the rides cause I dont have a "toy" to ride..but this trip a friend of ours lent us his Rhino to take out...Oh my goodness..what a hoot it was! I so need to win the lotto so I can get one of these! But anyways, my two teenagers are amazing riders and my peanut is pretty darn good herself! Check out these hills they were riding on and just how cute my camping peanut is...

Miss Hailey

Brandon

Kenzie

I am blessed...

Just a note to say how overwhelmed I feel today with love for my family, friends and my life....I think with the fires last week it put things a bit more into perspective...But I am truly blessed with everything in my life...My kids are awesome, my husband is still the love of my life after 19 years together, my sisters are my best friends, my parents raised me to be the person who I am, my mother in law is amazing and I still have a beautiful little house to live in...Oh and I have the best neighbors and friends any girl could ask for!
xoxoxoxo
Happy Sunday!

A day of devastation...

What do you grab when you have minutes to grab an entire lifetime of memories...we were faced with that question on Saturday morning...With the smell of smoke in the air, Mike and I decideed to take a little ride around the community we live in...much to our amazement the outskirts of the houses were on fire...in minutes the fire was roaring through the community with burning embers and catching trees on fire, leading to clay tile roofs and peoples homes...We werent gone 10 minutes when we received a call from our son saying the house on the corner of us (3 houses down) was on fire!
We FLEW back to our house, grabbed our babies, the dog, and the bird and secured them in the car...Our 9 year old banging on the windows crying and telling us to hurry and get out..We ran back in got a day of clothes, the loan documents for our home, the cell phone chargers and left immediatly when the fireman came up to me and said you need to leave NOW...
Mike came back after getting myself and the kids out to grab a few more things that we of course thought of after the fact, and thank god he did, the palm tree in our backyard had caught fire and the neighbor acorss the street, her slope in her yard was on fire..Mike got both of them out and then stayed to keep our eaves and trees wet..Now learning that the police were telling him to get out or he would be arrested!
The kids and I watched outside our neighborhood with all of our neighbors as our community burned...We have friends that have lost everything, we have friends that have lost just bedrooms, we lost nothing thank god other than some sleep...I feel so blessed and know that my guardian angel was watching over us...My thoughts and prayers go out to the people in my community who have lost so much, tonight we hold a meeting to find out what we can do....
Here are a few pictures of what we have been dealing with...

Pretty pretty roses...

As the homes keep popping up in foreclosure its sad to see the yards just go to waste...So I thought being that the house right next door to us has just fallen victim, Id try and keep it looking somewhat nice..Im home all day long and seeing the houses with yucky yards and overgrown flower beds, makes me sad...I went over today and clipped a bunch of roses to maintain the bushes a little bit and tomorrow Im going to mow the yard when I do mine...yes, me..I love to mow it and make it look pretty!
At least I can pretend I have new neighbors that keep their yard looking nice, right?
Just thought Id share some of the pretty pretty roses...might as well fill some vases around my house right?

Sweets and Treats

After two years of searching for the Green M & M Halloween costume..we finally found it on ebay! I couldnt believe it would be that hard to find! It was actually more trying to find it in my peanuts size! But we did and here she is....


So worth the 46 pages of Halloween costumes I searched through to find it...


Miss Hailey wasnt sure what she was going to be until the very last minute...She did her face like Kat Von D, a famous tattoo artist who has the show LA Ink...I think she did a pretty darn good job considering she only used eyeliner!




And then there was my lovely TEENAGE son Brandon and all his TEENAGE friends...they decided to dress up as "Gay Stippers" but also throwing the "NO ON PROP 8" in with it...Being real funny, they visited the houses that had the YES on 8 signs in their lawns first...TERDS! But they were the talk of the neighborhood! All in fun..all in fun....

Brandon is the one in the yellow...little did I know, once the "sport" shorts came off, they were all wearing cut off jean shorts! AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Hope you all had a great evening...Ours was a blast!

Oh and did I mention it was also Momos (my mother in law) birthday on Halloween? So a very happy birthday to her as well...she was there to join in all the fun!

New Friends

This last weekend I was lucky enough to attend a Parisian Soiree put on by Heather Bullard...It was so much fun..I was asked to go with my sister and mother inlaw...We had such a great time making some really cute little crafts, doing a little bit of shopping, winning some beautiful door prizes, and most of all dipping whatever our little hearts desired in to a fountain of chocolate! But seriously, I think the most fun was learning about blogging and meeting some new friends!
Kacey and Jeanne you two were so much fun to sit with!
I cant wait to start visiting some of their blogs as well as their little shops they run online and getting to know them more!
Thanks Sara for asking me to go with you..It was fun to have a sneak peek into your little world of blogging...

Silly Girls

Halloween is coming, can you feel it in the air? I dont know about you all , but my girls have a case of the sillies because of it! Hailey just got home from a week away with Momo and Aunt Shannon and she came home with a whole new look! Oh to be young again! Her little sister jumped right in on the fun too!

Sammie Soda!

How cute is this little face! This is Samantha...she the little one I take care of during my days and evenings while her mommy and daddy work! Ive been blessed to have her as a little mini addition to our family! She is one of the most happiest babies Ive been around and everyone just loves having her here! Thanks to her Mommy and Daddy for allowing me to watch her!!!

WOW

Is this not the prettiest teen you've ever seen? I so dread the dating years! Hailey and her BFF's had a little phot shoot with Aunt Sara too...Once again, we are in so much trouble, but so very blessed!!!!

UFC here we come!

Ha Ha Ha!! Our oldest has joined the high school Wrestling team! Go Panthers! I cant wait to see him wrestle his litte bootie off! Hopefully this will get him to keep his grades up! What a struggle! Now I know what my poor parents went through when I was in school! Season starts in November! Im thinking this is going to be a pretty exciting month fo us!

Playing catch up!

Its been a month or more since Ive updated my blog, so Im trying to post a few of the things that have been going on in life here at the Pannell home...

Makenzie my peanut received an award at school for her expertise in SCIENCE! Of all the subjects, she least likes this one and received an award in it! She and I both laughed when she got it! Later that day I had my parent teacher conference and got to chat with her teacher...she said she could have given her an award in every subject! She is doing so good in school! She received all "O"s with is the primary way of getting all "A"s!!!! Im so proud of her!! Here she is with two of her best friends that received awards that day too!

Top Model

So trying to come up with a birthday party for a little girl is always such fun, trying to figure out one that no one has done makes it all the more challenging!

My little one turned 9 this last month and we had a "Who is Americas Next Top Model Party"! What fun it was, I asked all my sisters and my sister-in-law to come help me with the day...we invited 12 little girls over, did their nails, hair and makeup as we served them "sparkling cider" champagne...Once they were all glamed up, my sister Sara of Sadie Olive Photography took all of their head shots! My other sister Lindsey was in charge of getting them set up with different kinds of props and poses and she did an amazing job! The girls had such a good time! For their thank you cards, we did a group photo and then sent them all a print of their best shot! Sara posted them on her photography website for all the parents to see and set the photos to music! Here are the invitations...How cute are they! Check out Sara's website to view all the girls pictures....www.sadieolivephotography.com and click on the featured section!