We Are Alive!

Due to a not-so-subtle email I received today (you know who you are!) I am attempting to update our blog. Part of the reason I haven't been posting is because our camera is broken, and I have spent the last several months using a go-phone that doesn't have a camera option. I do have a camera on my phone now, but we'll see if I do any better taking pictures. Haha.

So since last I posted, many things have changed for our little family.

#1 - Ben started working as a Project Coordinator for our bishop's construction company.
#2 - Due to the change in jobs we had to move. That might seem strange considering the fact that Ben is working for our bishop so we must be staying "in the area". The real reason for the move was our crazy landlords felt that a job in construction is too risky for their uber-OCD blood, so they said they wanted us to look elsewhere at the end of our lease. They were nuts anyway so it was good to move and now we live next door to one of the nicest people on the planet and we are very happy with the changes.
#3 - Two or three days after we found out we needed to move, we found out that Baby Pingel #4 was on the way. That was UNEXPECTED!!! But we are very happy about it. We found out yesterday that we are having a GIRL which was also unexpected. I even asked the ultrasound tech to tell me how confident he was in saying we were having a girl because we were so sure it was a boy. Go figure. So now we are back to debating about names (we had a boy name picked out since July) and we will see what happens. The due date is February 2, 2012...so stay tuned. Baby looks great so far, just measuring a little small but the doctor isn't "concerned" about the size, just saying it's a smaller baby so far.

What's new with the kiddos?

Well, Rachel started her first year of "real" preschool and has loved it so far. She always gets excited for preschool days. She is one smart little girl. She loves to color, is learning to write, and she is becoming quite a little helper around the house. She loves folding clothes. In fact today she was folding her blanket to lay on her bed and as she laid it down it shifted a little and she said "Ah! It needs to be perfect!" Silly goose.

Brandon is our little fireball. He loves things his way. His favorite things are "Wallace and Gromit" movies, cars, and trains. As I am writing this, he is standing in my room with his shirt covering his face...the mentality is if he can't see me, maybe I can't see him and he can stay up later. Sorry bud...back to bed.

Now Miss Elisabeth...oh what can I say about her. The world revolves around her. Just ask her. If ever she sees someone with something she wants she chants "ME ME ME ME" until our ears explode. It's so funny. She loves giving kisses and is a real sweetheart. She recently had her first urgent care visit. She got in a fight with a bookshelf...and lost. So she got four little stitches in her forehead. Hopefully she stays in one piece for a little while now.

And that's us in a nutshell. Hopefully soon I can get some pictures together and maybe just maybe I will start blogging more efficiently. Who knows?!?!?

Family Pictures

Last Saturday, we finally got some family pictures taken! We had to reschedule a few times due to all the rain up here. A girl in our ward took our pictures and she did a great job. She edited a few already, and we will have more in the very near future. She gave me permission to post the pictures here on our blog, but if you want to see more of her work, you can find it here.

All of the pictures were taken in downtown Coeur d'Alene. It was actually a pretty nice day. Rachel thought it was pretty cold though. Ellie was a complete nightmare. If we wanted her to sit, she would run off. If we wanted her to stand, she needed to be held. If we wanted to hold her, she squirmed and cried and made faces. It made for good times. And she HAD to have her binky...so she is still cute, but grumpy!



Here is my little Brandon. He was pretty pleased with himself at this point. I think he was just trying to cooperate to get more fruit snacks between pictures. :)

My pretty princess. I think she liked getting pictures all by herself. And she is just beautiful.

I really wonder how mortified Rachel is in this picture. I won't mention how many times we had to do this shot because Ellie kept running off. Ben liked it though...haha.


Ben gave the kids his iphone to watch a movie on while we took some "couple shots".


One day Ellie will cooperate right...?


Stay tuned for more picture fun. The rest will be done later this week, but we all know I can't post again for another couple months...gotta pace myself!

What a Difference a Year Makes

It's time for a tribute to my sweet baby girl: Elisabeth Michelle Pingel. I can't believe it's already been a year. I miss my little cuddle bug, but I absolutely love her independent spirit and adventurous nature. Ellie is the epitome of a sweet girl. She has one of those smiles that melts the hearts of friends and strangers alike. And baby girl has been sleeping in 12 hour blocks at night for quite some time. Ben and I don't know what to do with ourselves with this whole sleeping through the night thing! Looking at Ellie's newborn pictures almost makes me think we should have another baby in the house...almost. :)

So I thought I would just take a moment and post some pictures from the past year. She is a beautiful baby and we love her very very much. I might throw in some comments here and there, but just enjoy a look back at the first year of Ellie Baby's life. :)

Blowing kisses :)
Always our BEST sleeper. :)

Blessing Day for my little Angel.


Brandon and Rachel love Ellie. Sometimes a little too much.


Check out those arms! This was taken in August right as she was really taking off in the crawling phase, so her rolls have really gone down now.

Birthday Muffins!

This was her favorite present for her birthday. She got so MAD when we took it away so she could open the rest of her gifts. At least we know we picked a winner with the See and Say!

She "thinks" she can feed herself. She doesn't allow us to spoon-feed her. At all. So she gets lots of baths!

Here's to another great year with Princess Elisabeth! You might call this picture "The Princess and the Peas". Haha...I'm so lame...

Christmastime!

Hello Friends!

It has been a wonderful year! I thought I would follow the example of some friends and just post our Christmas letter on the ol' blog here. Yes we are too cheap and lazy to send cards out this year. Sorry. So here is a little update on our family this year:

Ben and Michelle: We are just trying to stay sane in our circus of children! We work together now so it's nice to have Ben at home more; we help people get out of debt, get proper life insurance, and invest for retirement and really love it. Ben is thinking about finishing his master's degree, and Michelle does a great job as always with the cooking, cleaning, and diapering!

Rachel: This little lady has been cracking us up all year. She says and does the silliest things. She is in LOVE with the missionaries. She always asks if they can come over for dinner. She also started a preschool group this year that she loved. We took December off and she came crying to me one day saying "I just wanna go to preschool!"

Brandon: This young man is growing up. He loves to watch "Horton Hears a Who" over and over and over. And he loves "Fwosty the Newman". Brandon is my clean child. He can't sleep in his room unless all his toys are put away. Love that!

Ellie: Big year for this girl. First of all, she was born. And she has filled our days with joy ever since. She is thinking about walking. She stands up for several seconds at a time now. She has four teeth. Her bottom front, and two top fangs. Silly girl.

We have much to be grateful for this year, especially those three beautiful faces in the picture above. We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas season!

Love,

The Pingels

Opinions Needed

Five months ago, I got the haircut of death. Honestly, I did. The first few days after the hacking, I couldn't walk past a mirror without crying. Ask Ben. There is no exaggeration involved here. I learned some valuable lessons from this experience.

#1 Never ever ever let the power of the haircut chair overcome your better judgment
#2 If you come in with pictures of what you want, don't let people talk you into going shorter "just for fun" and then when they give you a DIFFERENT style than on your picture, it's that much more drastic.
#3 Never color your hair. At least me. I will never again until I am covering gray.

That said, I am in a bit of a pickle. I dyed my hair back to its natural color and have seen some growth in the past few months. However, I still hate the cut. Everyone I have consulted in person says not to cut it, but to give it time to grow out and see what happens. The more it grows, the more it stays the same. I have some pictures to show what a weird cut this is. There is this bottom layer that just drives me insane. So my question is this:

Do I:

A) Cut to the point where the hair is growing at mostly the same length to get rid of the strange dangly look?
B) Keep growing it out til its really long before cutting the bottom layer off (Ben thinks the shortness will give me insecurities again)
C) Are there any other alternatives?


See the random pieces in the bottom? Ick.



Sorry the pictures are upside down, I can't get them to rotate. Any way, advice would be nice. Thanks!

Plate Spinning

Back in the good old BYUI days, I took a class in the general education department. The class focused on helping you become your best self in many areas of life. I wish I could remember what it was called. Anyway, at one point during the semester, my teacher brought up the subject of plate spinning. He said you could start spinning a plate and keep it going round and round even after you let go and added another plate to the stage. After awhile, however, you have to run up and down the stage to keep all your plates spinning, and if you add one too many, they all crash.

I have been thinking about this a lot lately as I have reflected on the way I live my life. I can spin one, maybe two plates really easily at the same time! I find that if I focus on keeping my house clean, I'm not exercising as frequently. Or if I focus on trying to research/cook super healthy meals, I'm not spending as much time in my scripture study. On and on and on.

So my question to anyone who might read this is how do you find your sense of balance? There are many good things I need to be doing. I guarantee one of my plates is NOT keeping up with current TV shows. Every plate I want to spin has merit. So how do I do all the things I want to do without crashing and burning?

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!

Six Months

Our sweet Ellie Baby turned six months on July 26. I can't believe it has been six months already. Our little princess is growing like a weed. She is a chubber. She has rolls in places you just wouldn't expect...like in her armpit. She has cankles, Relief Society arms - you name it, she's got it. But she is super cute in her roly poly-ness.


Ellie is the sweetest baby ever. She loves to play peek-a-boo with her brother and sister. Sometimes Rachel and Brandon are a little too rough with her, but she is learning to take it in stride.

She loves to eat, eat, eat. Her favorite food right now is pears. She can't get enough of them. She's not so crazy about her veggies, but she will learn one day, right?

Basically Ellie is the cutest baby on the planet (So I'm biased) and we love her to pieces!