Happy Birthday Winston!

So Winston had a fun birthday. I took my castle bunt cake pan that my Aunt Wendy gave me for Christmas and made Winston's cake. I thought it would make a great haunted house that the kids could help decorate.Everything was pretty random. I just wanted to make sure Winston got a birthday cake, otherwise I think it would have been a better looking cake. So the kids are adding lots of candy to the cake.The more the better, right!I think he liked it!

I think Shaelyn enjoyed it too. Of course she wanted to pose for a picture.
Here is the finished cake, well sort of. There are two towers missing. It almost looks like the cake has lava coming out, that wasn't my intent, but it is kind of funny!


Here is a lovely video that has footage of me decorating the cake. I am not in love with this video at all, because I am in it. Enough of my whining. I hope you enjoy it more than I do. :)

This video is us singing Happy Birthday. Nice and simple! Enjoy!!

PBS Mania

So here are some more photos from the fair. I had to put this in a different post because we took so many pictures in one spot. The kids just flipped when we stopped in on the PBS kids area. The ran to each cut out of all the characters and were not shy to do a little posing. This picture is Shaelyn and Winston with The Man in the Yellow hat and Curious George. Here is Clifford, Shaelyn is convinced that when we get a dog, its name is going to be Clifford. We will see.

Here is Shaelyn and Princess Pea. One of her favorites!

Here she is again with Wonder Red.

This is inside the PBS tent. Winston wanted to drive . . . .

And so did Shaelyn.

Here is Winston and Super Why. This is probably the kids favorite show.

I am not really sure who this cat is but Shaelyn was convinced it was Marie from Aristocats. Shaelyn has also named our cat if we ever get one, can you guess what she came up with? Yep, it is Marie. In the picture she is so excited. I think we should have got it on video.

This is Winston and Reader Roo.

Here is Winston with Alpha Pig, the last of the Super Why crew.

This last one is of Shaelyn and Cassie from Dragon Tales.

I can't believe I knew who most of these characters were. I guess it comes with the territory when you have kids, or maybe my kids are obsessed, or I am just crazy. Or maybe it is a little bit of all of them :)

Fair Fun!

So we arrived at the North Carolina State fair at 8:30 am, bright, early and cold, to celebrate Winston's 3rd Birthday, Yeah! As you can see William is frozen solid. We were having the kids try on hats and mitten at home to make sure they fit, and Will would constantly be pulling his hat off. Let me just say that when we got there he was more than happy to keep it on. He is thrilled the be at the fair, obviously, lol.

So we have a tradition of buying kettle corn when we go to the fair.

1- It is a huge bag that can be shared with the whole family.

2- The cost is fairly reasonable for Fair food.

3- It is super yummy, especially the pieces that have a lot of the sugar on them.Here is Shaelyn showing off how big the bag is. I think William wants some. Another tradition we have added to the Schenck Fair Event is the pony rides! The kids absolutely love the ponies and it is so much cooler than the carousel. Shaelyn rode the largest pony and his name is Ike.

Here is Winston riding his pony, Mickey. His pony kind of went a little crazy and Winston Loved it! Here are my little pumpkins sitting in front of the State Fair winning pumpkin. It was over 600 pounds! Wow! You can also see the straw that Shaelyn is holding, these are called honey sticks. 5 for a $1. The kids loved them too. Surprise surprise! Give them sugar and they are happy. So is mommy :)
We also hung out by a music group, that has some noise toys for the kids to play with, while Walter went and got a deep fried milky way, Yumm! I was good and only took one bite, yeah for me. Anyway, the kids and I rocked out! Enjoy!

Pickle Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

This was mostly Shaelyn's creation. She wanted to have a pickle and cheese sandwich, because it is good to try new things. I asked her if she was sure, and she was. I thought that it might be too dry if it was just pickles and cheese, so I thought about grilling it. She was so excited to have it grilled too! So this is a picture of the cheese and pickle sandwich on our griddle. I hope I don't disgust too many people.Here it the completed creation. I have to say that it wasn't half bad. I think I would probably try it again. If I was pregnant I would probably crave something strange like this so I will have to keep this idea stashed away for the next one. Speaking of pregnancy, my sister Ashley just had her baby on October 22! Yeah! I would post pictures but my nephew is too cute to be posted with a sandwich, he deserves his own post!

Pumpkin Fun!

We just went to our neighborhood pumpkin patch. The kids were so excited to pick out their own pumpkins, though the picture may say differently. Winston wasn't excited to take a picture but he and Shaelyn were sure happy to get 2 pumpkins each! Whoa! A little one and a littler one. They were so excited to get some my-size pumpkins. Walter did catch a good picture of both kids smiling, William was plugged so who knows if he was! If we get around to carving out pumpkins (good FHE activity) I will post the results! Happy Fall Ya'll from good old North Carolina!

Shawntel has been Tagged

Okay so I have been tagged by Ashley and Rachel so I guess I have to do it! This is going to be fun!

8 things I am passionate about
1.My Husband Walter Schenck (The most wonderful man in the world, to me)
2.My Children (Shaelyn, Winston, and William, I should put them all in there own number, he he)
3. My Family (I have the best family ever, they ROCK)
4.The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (It's true, simply said)
5. Stamping (Stampin' Up! Baby)
6. Movies and TV (just ask Walter)
7. Teaching (not in a public school but in my home)
8. Physical Fitness (I love to work out and I love the way it makes me feel . . . I just need to find the time to do it while juggling the 3 kids . . . hmm)

8 words or phrases I say often
1. I love you (to my husband and my children)
2. Stop jumping/wrestling/playing/etc on your brother/sister, I know it is fun now but someone is going to get hurt. (to the kids obviously)
3. Close the fridge/closet/door/cupboard/etc. (there are a lot of things to open and close at my house)
4. No Worries (I picked this up from an Aussie that was in our singles ward)
5. Shhh . . . your brother/son is sleeping (to Winston, Shaelyn, and sometimes Walter)
6. Oh WOW that is really cool (directed toward the kids when they find something or create a project)
7. Very Cool (this could be an answer to anything i.e. . . . "we just crashed our car" response from me "very cool, I mean not cool, you know what I mean")
8. Sweet (Everything is Sweet I got to keep some of my CA heritage =)

8 things I want to accomplish in the coming year
***As in 2009?!?!?***
1. Get my Husband graduated (hopefully by summer 2009)
2. Move back to California (if we are meant to be somewhere else, I am okay with that too, all in all I would like to live closer to my extended family)
3. Become a better Wife (there are always thing that I can improve on)
4. Become a better Mother (see response above)
5. Get my body to to better shape (just need to find the time, or a free babysitter would be nice)
6. Study the Book of Mormon (I've read it many times and still get something new out of it every time)
7. Get some scrap booking done for my own family (all the scrap booking I do seems to be for someone else)
8. Do some traveling with Walter, I will go just about anywhere with him

8 places I would love to go or visit
1. Anywhere a Cruse goes (I want to go on one so bad)
2. Disneyland, Disney World, Disney Cruise, etc. (I think you get the point)
3. Tahiti is always nice (been there once but I was pregnant at the time and it was hot and muggy, not a very good combination)
4. France (now I have my own translator and maybe we could go to Disneyland Paris =)
5. Australia/ New Zealand (they have some great beaches and the wildlife is awesome)
6. South Africa (I would like to see were my brother went on his mission)
7. Egypt (I would like to see some cool pyramids)
8.Argentina (see response 6)

8 things I need or want
1. A kiss, a hug, and an "I love you" from Walter and each kid (everyone needs to feel loved)
2. A Strong Family (I want my family to be very close, and know how important it is)
3. A "real" job for my Husband and no more school (it will be nice to live somewhere and know we will be there for quite a while)
4. A Healthy Body ( this is kind of a reoccurring topic )
5. More Stamps! =) (big surprise)
6. A bigger home (we have filled this one out nicely and if we have another kid, it may explode)
7. More Knowledge (The more I know, the more crazy kid questions I will be able answer)
8. An Eternal Family (Don't we all want this)

People I tag: Sarah Gilreath, Kathryn Palmer, Janese Hockman, Tamme Mathews

William Wonders and other Kid sightings

My sister was making a request that I update this blog more often, so here you go! Love ya! Here is some more video of our crazy son. I can't believe he is doing as much as he does at 8 months. If I remember right, my other children were still rollie pollies on the floor at this age. William is just in a hurry to keep up with his older siblings. The following video is William waving, he has been doing this for about 3 weeks now. Shaelyn wanted to be a star too, so you will see some snippets of her too, and a brief sighting of Winston.

Here is some video of Will doing a little bit of furniture walking. Not very much but some none the less. He does a lot more during the day, I just caught him at a bad time and he wasn't in the mood.

This video is of little Will doing some more crawling and waving.

Enjoy!