woops..

I forgot to mention Halloween! Joel III had his 2nd Halloween and went trick-or-treating for the first time. He was a dragon and he LOVED his costume. He literally did not want to take it off. Here is a pic of all of us on a hayride at Northwest Bible's Harvest celebration.
Joel was quite confused when it came to the actual trick-or-treating. He was very scared to go up to people's houses and also did not want to walk from house to house. We tried to toughen him up - We passed some 1 year olds that were younger than Joel and like half his size and were walking! Eventually, to put him in a better mood we took him in the stroller. (after all, we did say that we were going to go on an exciting 'walk' where we would make lots of stops to get candy.. so why would he think differently?) Here's a video of him attempting to trick-or-treat.

November recap..

Life is great. We have two healthy cute boys and my husband is at home to help me take care of them!


Ministry life is slowing down in the way of traveling and speaking, however, now we have entered into a different kind of busy. Book #1 has hit the shelves (well, some of them) and more importantly - Amazon! Check it out here (we will be mailing copies out to some of our supporters very soon!) -

http://www.amazon.com/Stand-Your-Ground-Joel-Penton/dp/0615403484/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1291319724&sr=8-1

We are beginning to work on book #2 and would like for it to be complete by March 2011! (this one will be Jesus-centered) We are also working on various marketing and support projects. Also - and this is super exciting - Ryan is working on his debut album as I type this! He has had a CD with select cover songs for a while now, but we all decided that, for the good of the ministry, it was time to take the next step in his musical career and we cannot wait to hear the new material! If you get a chance please pray for him and his prego wife Emily.. they will be apart for a few weeks as he works hard up in Michigan on the new album.

November was pretty busy, beginning with a week long trip to Texas for Joel and Ryan. During that week Joel had 14 speaking engagements in 7 days. Add to that a ton of driving (apparently, everything in Texas is like really far apart!) and very little sleep and you get one very sick and tired Daddy. He had 1 day to recuperate though. ha. I had an awesome week in Cincy.. I got to sleep in every day until 10:30 while my dad took care of Joel III. It was like a vacation. It was great.

We have bad news to report about Joel's First Christmas Tree that I wrote about last Christmas. At some point it died this summer starting from the top down. I guess it's just like everything else that Joel touches.. he either breaks it or it dies. Guess I shouldn't let him touch Judah now that I think about it. Here's a pic of Joel with his rake and the special tree in the background. Sad.


We had an awesome Thanksgiving in Van Wert and Cincy. We had fun stuffing our faces, watching football and the Macy's parade, and catching up with our families. It was so great for Joel III to see his cousins and play with them. He espeically enjoys playing with 'Ray Ray' (Rachel Spath) on the Penton side and "Sis-ee" (Sydney Groskopf) on the Groskopf side. He likes the ladies already I guess. Here's a video of Joel and Sydney playing in Cincy.


We ordered a double running stroller (side note for moms who are interested - after extensive research and even purchasing a different one online and sending it back we settled on the instep safari, we are pleased with it for the most part, especially the price - originally $250 and got it for $150, one of the best features is the independent reclining of the separate seats, which you can see in the pic) and took the boys out for one last jog just recently.. it was freezing. Judah seemed comfortable but occasionally let out a high pitched squeak in response to the cold wind. Joel loved it as always.
Joel and I had a fun time raking leaves and then messing up all the piles one night.. looks like it's midnight but it was really only 6pm.


Joel III is learning at an insane pace. Seriously, every day we are shocked by something new that he knows. Just recently we taught him to count to 5, see the video here:


now he already knows how to count to 10! He is finally speaking in short sentences and has learned how to control adults by grabbing their finger and saying "peese pay" to get them to play with him which is super cute. But also super manipulative. Here is another video of something impressive Joel can do now!



Judah has been a pleasure. He slept through the night at 5 weeks, but then would sleep through 3 nights in a row then be up at 4am the next night, so he wasn't consistently sleeping through the night until around 7 or 8 weeks. However, he tends to wake up more in the middle of the night if he is just a tad bit off schedule, so that is something to keep in mind. He's extremely easy to get smiling and very cuddly (both are different traits than Joel at this age). I have noticed that as long as I stay on top of his zantac schedule (supposed to be 3x/day) he will only cry when he is due to nurse. Wow, go figure! Here is a pic of him in his typical spot in the bassinet and boppy sitting by the window.